What Could Have Been: The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock

The final Missed the Bloody Cut of this October (and this year), enjoy these three out-there horror movies that didn’t make the grade, but deserve to be recognized for a number of reasons anyway. Happy Halloween everyone!

After the resounding success of Part 1, here is my second set of Missed the Bloody Cut reviews for 2020. . . featuring three more eccentric horror films that didn’t make the grade, but deserve to be recognized for a number of reasons anyway. Enjoy!

A tradition every October here on Filmizon.com, I’ve decided that I would highlight some of the horror movies that did not meet my strict criteria (a rating of 7.0 or higher). . . as I realized that they are still entertaining films (horror fanatics may enjoy) that do not deserve to be locked away in an attic, never to be seen again – and that they are definitely worth a watch (just maybe not several re-watches).

A very Indie film that feeds off of both the buddy film craze of the time and the concluding notes of the Vietnam war, 1975's Best Friends, written by Arnold Somkin and directed by Noel Nosseck, is exactly as it sounds, that is, until it isn’t. Jesse (Richard Hatch) and Pat (Doug Chapin) have been best friends for years. Frick to the other’s Frack, they spend all of their time together. . . going as far as heading off to war when they are of age. Now returning from Vietnam, Jesse has set up a special surprise for his bestie – having both of their fiancées join them for an RV road trip all the way to California.

Eighteen years before Scary Movie ruthlessly parodied countless horror tropes (leading to four sequels that varied from hilarious to unwatchable), there was an original spoof film that prodded at the intricacies of the horror genre, 1982's Wacko, directed by Greydon Clark. In a way comparable to Mel Brooks’ High Anxiety (I know what you’re thinking – how?), Brooks and his team fell into the trap of spending more time trying to honour and satirize Alfred Hitchcock’s motion pictures instead of forming a workably entertaining story. Similarly, the most fun you’ll have watching this disjointed effort is looking for the references to other horror movies – and less so the product as a whole.

Opening in a way only a Buster Keaton short film seems to be able to, an accidental confrontation between a mailman and the main character (leading to a letter, by chance, falling into the hands of the man, as well as a broken pane of glass as a result of the postal worker’s anger), followed by another clash between the always in the wrong place protagonist and a bullish woman – who assumes the diminutive man must have done the damage to the window. . . then throw in a Polish priest (who doesn’t speak English) making his own assumptions, and somehow, Keaton becomes Husband, and this woman, played by Kate Price, becomes Wife, in 1922's My Wife’s Relations, written and directed by both Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline.