Horror Blog Of The Month: MONDO BIZARRO

Yes, the time has come to present you another awesome horror blog.

This month I choose:

MONDO BIZARRO, one of the funniest and most entertaining horror-themed blogs I've seen so far.

Creator Alec, a nice guy from St. Petersburg, Florida,

is a passionate admirer of weird b-movies and silly cheesefests who watches and writes about tons of obscure flicks like "Mr. Halloween", "Hologram Man", "Robot Holocaust" or "Necromania".

If you enjoy good bad movies or just plain bad movies, this is THE blog for you!

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Maynard:

Hi Alec!  Who are you and why do you blog?

Alec:

My name is Alec  NAME REDACTED and I blog purely out of love.  Love of watching ridiculous movies and of helping people avoid the worst ones out there. 
Asylum films with goofy titles- I watch them.  Full Moon films with goofy everything- I watch them.  Films about killer beds, turkey-headed drug addicts and hologram men- I watch them.  I consider it my civic duty to mock terrible movies and to save others from being tricked by deceptive posters, cleverly-edited trailers and 'can't lose' premises.

Which movie made you a horror fan (and why)?

My love for horror is about a simple thing- escapism.  Reality can be cold, bleak and depressing.  I find that horror movies are *usually* full of a couple moments that make me laugh, scream or just react in some other way.  I grew up in a house of a Hammer film lover and was espoused to about their glorious nature.

The cementing for me as a horror fan, however, is due to one man- Vincent Price.  I love a lot of horror actors/directors, but he's my favorite.  'The Abominable Dr. Phibes' showed me that horror films can feature death, organ solos and hot, British models.  The Set Direction alone makes that a classic.  My goal now is to find films that inspire me the same way that 'Phibes' did.

Who is your favorite horror director (and why)?

That's a hard question to answer properly, since the man who made my favorite film of all-time (Robert Fuest- see above) has a mixed record.  He made two great films (the 'Phibes' films), a decent thriller ('...And Soon The Darkness') and one bad one ('The Devil's Rain').

Since I must choose someone else, I'll go with Dario Argento.  People may not always like his plots (myself included- albeit rarely), but you can't detract from his sense of style.  The man has made tracking shots look good!

What are your alltime horror movie favorites?

'The Abominable Dr. Phibes,' 'Dr. Phibes Rises Again,' 'Theatre of Blood' (all are arguably the same movie to a certain extent),
'Suspiria,' 'Return of the Evil Dead,' Dario Argento's 'Phenomena,' 'The Howling' and 'Tokyo Gore Police.'

What is the worst horror movie you've seen so far?

I'll go a little more in-depth here and give you two.  

Older horror film- Blood Freak.  The movie is actually a Christian propaganda film that tells you that doing drugs is bad.  It's silly premise is ruined by the bad execution (i.e. the film is dull and the monster shows up nearly an hour in).  

Newer horror film- Hobgoblins 2.  What can I say?  The film is a sequel, except that it's also a remake and the characters don't remember what the monsters are.  It makes you yearn for the original film...until you regain your sanity and choose anything else.

Most of my friends don't like horror movies and stuff. How about your friends?

It's kind of a toss-up.  Two of them will watch them with me, but prefer other genres generally.  A third will watch them more willingly, but is a bit like the others.  Now, if you count my father, then I do have at least one.

Choose: Michael? Freddy? Leatherface? Jason? The Tall Man? Other?

I've honestly never been a fan of the 'emotionless, killing machine' horror heavy like Jason, Michael aka The Shape and Leatherface.  As far as Freddy goes, I think the hype is a bit too much.  I was not a huge fan of the 'Phantasm' series, especially since I never got a good reason for The Tall Man to do any of his actions.  The orb things are cool though.

While he's not considered a true horror character, I'd still go with Godzilla.  Look at it closely: he's a killing-machine, he has a silly back-story, his motivations are never quite clear and his body count puts all others to shame!  If the idea of a giant, atomic-breath-shooting monster is not considered scary, then I don't know what is!

P.S. It's totally not Chucky either.  Feh.

Choose: US Horror? Euro horror? Asian horror? Other?

Hmm...interesting one.  U.S. horror is generally reliable and the worst complaint I tend to have is that they're generic.  European Horror can be hit or miss for me, as a lot of the '70s films have questionable ideas in regards to pacing.  Honestly, I'm not a big fan of J-Horror and K-Horror films, especially the latter.  There are good films amongst them, but there are also a lot of slow-paced, non-event films.

Oh right, Argento is from Europe.  I guess it's them then.

You prefer watching horror at home or at the theater?

It's a hard call, honestly.  The joy of watching films like that in a theater is to get the reactions of other people around you.  This enhances your own.  Movies like 'Piranha 3-D' really work in that way.  On the other hand, some moviegoers are idiots (no offense) and will 'shriek' at every 'jump scare.'

That said, I watch 85% of the movies I see at home.  That's due to a lot of them not being released in theaters (i.e. the direct-to-DVD sequels) or just not released here (i.e. stuff like 'The Third Mother').  I'd love to see an audience squirm while watching something like 'Hobgoblins 2'- until they walk out, anyways.

What music do you like?

I was raised on liking classic rock like The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC.

However, in the last few years, I've gotten really into a lot of foreign music.  Stuff like Finland's Lordi, Sweden's Hammerfall and Japan's Maximum the Hormone. It's all weird stuff, but I love it.  Check it out, Internet people.

What do you read?

Words, mostly.

Seriously though, I haven't read a lot lately.  The last book I read was Chris Jericho's 'A Lion's Tale.'  It's a great read and I can't wait to read the follow-up.  I do have a bunch of books about horror films, including one that was actually made before I was born.  I figured it out when the book didn't list stuff like 'The Howling,' 'An American Werewolf in London' or 'Day of the Dead.'  I decided to check the copyright date and discovered that it was written in 1974!

Tell me the first 3 things that come to your mind when you think about Austria?

A. Hungary.  

B. I'm hungry.  

C. When's lunch?

Anything else you wanna tell us?

Stay in school, eat your vitamins and watch Bollywood action films.

Thank you Alec! I go and watch 'Hobgoblins 2' now. :-)

http://mondobizarrocinema.blogspot.com/

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