Christmassacre

Silent Night, Deadly Night - 1984A KFG classic, SNDN shows what happens when the mind of a precious child is warped by christmas mayhem. All grown up and still scarred by the wounds of the past Billy snaps the only way he knows how, Santa Style.
Elves - 1989Grizzly Adams white knights his way through the night in this charming holiday gem. An evil elf/troll is unknowingly summoned by a ditsy Anti-Christmas ritual in Colorado and he's looking for a virgin to create the elf master race. Blood is spilled, guns are fired and puppets awkwardly walk. This film was buried with the death of VHS and is not to be missed. 

No Thanksgiving

Bounty is always subject to a measure of quality, and this year we're celebrating the season of plenty with the lower end of the spectrum:

6:00pm - Awful Hour - Searching for the finest only leads to rejects which we cannot help but share...

7:00 - Garbage Pail Kids - The name says more than they could have hoped! Perhaps one of the most misguided films of all time, GPK is  live-action visual nausea of the purest pedigree. Like the Super Mario Bros. movie only barfier! We can do ANYTHING while working with each other!

8:30 - To The Limit - The late great Anna Nicole Smith's legacy of lunacy will probably soon be forgotten, but not if we can help it! To the Limit is but one of the three or so feature films she did and boy is it a stinker. Ninja secret agent Nicole battles disgruntled 'Nam vets for posession of a shiny CD-ROM disc in this incredible explosion of talent!




This November 18, come on down to the Sunset and say "No-Thanks!" to quality cinema while you enjoy some of the choiciest offerings from the bottom of the pail.
See ya there!...
And go LIKE us on that one website, we post fun pictures there.

Unseen Horror

Yes it's true, after a year of waiting (or only a month if you count last month's show) we're back in action for another mind boggling extravaganza of extravagant proportions. We had so much fun (and apparently you did too) with our unseen horror event last year, we had to do it again which means this:
1.) We went to Scarecrow Video and picked three movies we'd never seen before simply based on the boxes.

2.) We worked very hard at not watching them in the meantime so that we could see 'em for the first time with you on the Sunset big screen on October 28th...

The delectable selections for this event include....

6pm - Attack of the Beast Creatures: The box art was horrible, but the pictures promise nothing short of hilarity as small red doll monsters brutally dispatch the actors.
7:30 - Roller Blade: Not truly a horror film, but the promise of post-apocalyptic roller-skating was too much to resist. Yes I said "skate" because this was made before the days of "blades," but thankfully not before the days of sharp metal instruments of violence.

9:00 - Rat Man: The box art was a murky photograph that didn't tell us much, but the tagline, "The Critter from the Shitter" sold it instantly. A small hideous man who lives in the sewers is clearly up to no good...

Which means you'd better be there for the action at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard on Monday, October 28th. The first film starts at 6pm, so get there early for a good seat, this is gonna be special.

Fantasy Killer Mission Workout Force

This September is all fired up to be about as shocking as they come. With a couple of feature films cranking the crazy up to 11, we open the evening with an appetizer of:

6:00pm – The Awful Hour, in which the title pretty much says it all. Phill dredges up the muck from a stagnant cesspool of VHS culture…

At 7:00 pm - To heavily paraphrase the immortal words of Bill Hicks; If you don’t think drugs have done anything good for our culture, you’re mistaken. He was talking mostly about music of course, but Mi ni te gong dui, or Fantasy Mission Force if you prefer, is a cinematic case-in-point. Regarded by many of it’s lucky witnesses, as among the most nonsensical, downright insane kung-fu movies ever made. We’ve heard that before here at Kung Fu Grindhouse, but with Abraham Lincoln, zombies, Nazis, Cannibals and Jackie Chan this is sure to be a strong contender for the head-slap awards.

Then at 8:30 - The connection seems at first tenuous, but pornography and fitness videos both indulge the evangelical tradition in a way that would do Jimmy Swaggart proud. Without the sin, there could be no weeping (or sweating as it were,) flagellating repentance. Without beauty there could be no ugly. It is entirely fitting that this irrational contradiction would be taken to its psychosexual apex in a straight-to-video horror flick from the 80’s. If you thought Death Spa was good, wait until you see Killer Workout. (AKA Aerobicide) This is gonna hurt.

We'll see you at The Sunset on September 16th, with bells on.

Invincible Super Chan

Yes it's true, after a nearly five week absence from our lives, the Grindhouse is back to soothe battered nerves. On Monday August 19th this divine reprieve will grace the screen with three delightful anodynes, beginning with:

Awful Hour @ 6: Scrounged from the depths of obsolete media storage formats comes an hour of the finest and perhaps funniest of video sado-masochism. we're going to mix it up a bit this month in the hopes that more of you videophiles will come out and enjoy these sixty unique minutes of video carnage. You'll never get them back.

Stone Cold @ 7: Seattleites have a long memory for sports failures, but few have been as sorely recalled as that of the BOZ. In spite of his largely risible tenure with the 'Hawks however, his cinema career has been, well, largely risible. Although slated to appear in The Expendables 3, Brian Bosworth's acting debut was in 1991 undercover mullet-cop goes rogue-biker flick Stone Cold. The final judgement, at least as far as we're concerned, rests in your hands...

Invincible Super Chan @ 8:30: Set aside all your woes however and travel back twenty years before Boz to find yourself in a world unlike any before or since. Is there any point at all in trying to make sense of the violence and absurdity that is Super Chan? No good edits or prints of this exist in the US market, so we'll content ourselves with this ride through the time stream of absurdity the best we can; with a drinking game! An unhinged and wacky trip through magical flight, decapitations and giant edible boulders. But don't take my word for it, come see this silly business for yourself on August 19th at The Sunset BIG SCREEN.
Kung Fu Grindhouse is the truth, and the truth never got more important than this people.

Gymkata

Time flies when you're trying to come up with clever ways to describe bad movies.
This July 15th is a mixed bag of sorts beginning of course at 6pm with the ever popular Awful Hour wherein we pick at the mouldering carcass of the VHS age.

Then at 7pm, to honor the late Lau Kar-leung who died this last June, we're screening one of our favorite films from his veritable pantheon of greats. We'll be treating you (and ourselves) to the turbo-speed action of Mad Monkey Kung Fu. I wish I could say there was more to this film's plot than simple revenge, but anyway, it's a good sort of revenge and executed very satisfyingly by the masterful Kar-leung and his co-star Hsaio-Ho in one of our favorite (did I say that already?) wu-xia films EVER.

Finally, we're bringing it back down a few dozen notches with the perennial favorite atrocity known simply as Gymkata. If you're not familiar with the premise in which an Olympic gymnast goes all Surviving the Game somewhere in eastern Europe, then nothing I can say will prepare you for what will assail your see-holes on JULY 15th.

See you at the Sunset.

Future Force

Running full tilt with scissors into June we quickly found ourselves face to face with the FUTURE, and boy does it look pretty. Opening the night as usual at 6pm with some VHS cinema salvage for Awful Hour, Monday June 24 quickly gets down to the business of low-budget lawless dystopian nightmares with:

Mutant Hunt, 1987 -  Making good his temporary departure from gay-porn, director Tim Kincaid helms this doozy of a yarn concerning drugs, evil robots and barely clad beefcake; the 80's never saw better! Produced and scored by the Band Brothers (of Full Moon Pictures infamy) Mutant Hunt makes modern day New Jersey look like a walk in the park.

Future Force, 1988 - Subsequently we feast our see-holes upon the late David Carradine in what is assuredly not his finest role in a second dystopian future known as Future Force, a late-80’s straight to video gem with all the charisma of a carbuncle. After pulling society back from the brink of collapse, Tucker (Carradine) and the C.O.P.S. commence to infighting, backstabbing and blowing each other away, just like any good group of law enforcement officers. But Tuck has an ace up his sleeve, and a wheelchair, and a flying laser arm. Yup.

So come won't you, and join us in memorializing the finest in cinematic masochism on the biggish screen at the Sunset, where the beer is always beery and the movies are always of dubious quality.

Sakura Killers

Leaping feet first into our ninth year, we've concocted a selection of oddball cinema sure to make your eyeballs water for one reason or another.

First up at 6pm is the ubiquitous Awful Hour in which we present some of the finest in rescued video tapes from the trash-heap of history. It's looking Christian and instructional if my VHS compass is at all accurate...

Then at 7pm we will witness the siren sounds of Japanese Kaiju gone thoroughly absurd with Frankenstein Conquers the World. Nazi's set the tone before the plot moves to Japan where science struggles to save the day under the onslaught of giant radioactive lizards...

At 8:30pm we're rounding things off with a hearty helping of Gaijin-ninja activities in the form of low-rent American Ninja ripoff Sakura Killers. The political climate of the 80's garnishes an already rich sauce of ninja movie cliche's when the Soviets, eager to destroy the worlds food supply, snatch a top-secret video tape. Hired to retrieve said VHS cassette are Sonny and Dennis, two secret agent types. But before recovering the tape, they must first cruise the bars of Hong Kong (?) and learn ninja skills. This bone-headed classic has been lost to the ages, but we're bringing it back to the big(ish) screen just for your enjoyment!

Join us won't you on May 20th when we will gather together to remember some of the finest cinema ever to be forgotten.

8th Anniversary!

Although it is a fundamental aspect of our program to look through the past, it's not often that we revisit our own. However, it is appropriate when acknowledging another anniversary to sometimes look at how far you've come, and it has been a long journey to get here.
Through thick and thin, up and down, we've brought you:

For Your Height Only: In which a small Filipino Interpol agent foils the nefarious plans of a narcotics kingpin. Hearts will be broken, bases will be raided, discos will be danced and the jetpacks will be smokin' hot in this perennial favorite from the South Pacific. Viva Weng!

Challenge of the Lady Ninja: A Chinese woman trained in the secret skills of Japanese Yi Ho Ninja returns home to defend the fatherland. Training her own team, these lady ninjas will take on the entire Japanese army with just a few fashionable bathing outfits and steely determination. First time back at the Sunset for nearly 6 years!


Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky: A classic of unmeasurable proportions, Riki-Oh concerns a beefy young man unjustly imprisoned in a hyperbolically harsh maximum hilarity institution. Fighting back against a mob of viciously immoral caricatures, Ricky will smash faces, sever limbs, perforate bowels, gargle with razor blades and grind mountains of quivering muscle into hamburger meat in a literal industrial strength shower of bloody grue right before your weeping eyes. Riki-Oh is good, but in a crowd of fellow revelers, it's truly great.

All this and more at The Sunset, Monday April 15th. Show starts at 6pm sharp!

Hamburger Toast

Sounds delicious doesn't it?

Sleazy Samurai Sunday

In 1970's Japan, the samurai genre had undergone a transition from pure swordplay to gory exploitation. Still, only one director was combining the  genre with even more bizarre and graphic grindhouse staples from the supernatural to the skin flick: Teruo Ishii.

This coming Sunday, March 31st, we're hosting a special showing of two of Ishii's bizarre swordplay tales beginning at 7:00pm with

Blind Woman's Curse (1970): Despite killing a rival gang leader and serving a long prison term, Akemi is released to an ongoing street war in this bloody Yakuza/samurai tale. As the members of her gang are cut down (and flayed) she soon begins to suspect something more evil is at work.

Bohachi Bushido (1973): A wandering and despondent ronin is hired to eliminate the rivals of Yakuza brothel The Forgotten Eight. The women who work in the brothel are also trained swordswomen, and more than willing to participate in the graphic elimination of their opponents.

Be warned, both feature graphic swordplay (which means mutilation and blood) and the latter has some strong sexual content (which means rape and breasts) and both are Japanese language with subtitles. Unless you looked for them, these films would likely never hit you radar screen, but they will be on The Sunset big screen on March 31st for this special Kung Fu Grindhouse event.

Go poke it with a stick at FaceBook... 

Hamburger: The Motion Picture

Greetings and salutations my fellow gourmets. Once again it's time to refract popular USAmerican culture through the lens of trashy cinema. This March 18th the magic of historical memory brings us two amazing doses of endorphin soaked celluloid;

From the fevered brain responsible for The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Movie comes this 90's distillation of 80's Buddy-Cop god Axel Foley, Cop And a Half. After he inadvertently witnesses a crime, the mob targets 8 year old Devon Butler for elimination. It will be up to hard-boiled grumpy cop Burt Reynolds and his moustache to resurrect a career, save a kid and learn to giggle again in this heartwarming tale directed by Happy Days own Fonz. If you were lucky enough to be "of age" you might have been one of the stalwart few who got to witness this siege on the senses in an honest-to-dog theater. If not, well, that's why we're here.

The 80's being a time of frantic commodity fetishization, the very "food" we ate took on iconic status, even at times its own personality. Following the smashing success of his script for Hot Dog the Movie (1984,) screenwriter Mike Marvin decided to break out on his own as a director with 1986's surefire hit Hamburger: The Motion Picture. Who doesn't like a hamburger, they're an American passtime, or so claims the catchy theme song of this forgotten classic. Starring the questionable talents of nobody you'd recognize except perhaps Dick Butkus, Hamburger is a smorgasbord of visual and verbal atrocities so great and nefarious that it was denied entry in to the world of digital media.

From our hearts to your eye-holes, Kung Fu Grindhouse delivers only the "finest" in media entertainment on March 18th at The Sunset in glorious downtown Ballard, Washington.
Show starts at 6pm
FREE
21 and over.
Poke us with a stick over at FaceBook for obnoxious updates.

Band of the Man from the Hong Kong Hand Toast

Rad show folks, mostly anyway, sorry! We'll see you on March 18 for a fresh round of rotten cinema!

The Band of the Man From the Hong Kong Hand

It's not often that the rumor of something good turns out to be altogether true, but when it does it's a heady feeling.

This February 18th at the Sunset we're bringing you two amazing movies that were waaaayyyy better then we could have hoped.

First at 6pm Phill brings you Awful Hour: the latest discoveries from the VHS morgue of history. I've had a peek at the offerings and I'm excited to take a trip down the memory alley...

Next, at 7pm we take a trip down to south Florida where a Vietnam Vet rehabilitates last-ditch juvenile delinquents with a crash-survival-course in the Everglades. 1986's Band of the Hand was a project conceived by the same brains that brought us the Miami Vice so it's no surprise that brash fashion in pastel colors will play a crucial part in the boys eventual victory over Laurence Fishburne.

Finally, clocking in at 9:00pm is Man From Hong Kong a coproduced Australian/Hong-Kong martial arts-espionage extravaganza from 1975. Legendary director  Brian-Trenchard Smith mashes Bond-esque intrigue with the kung-fu stylings of the equally iconic Jimmy Wang Yu as a kung fu cop out to bring down the drug empire of George Lazenby (an actual former Bond). One of our favorites from among the all-too-brief Ozsploitation pantheon.

Billy Jack Attack!

Our first show in February comes on Monday the 4th when we'll be screening the first two films in the iconic Billy Jack series.

7:00pm - The Born Losers (1967) In his first screen appearance, Billy Jack takes on a nasty biker gang who has been terrorizing a small beach town. Despite kidnapping and violating several young women, the townfolk are too frightened to do anything and Billy Jack must take matters into his own hands.

9:00pm - Billy Jack (1971) After nearly dying in the first film, Billy Jack is back, this time with his trademark "Indian hat" and headband. While still just as racist and bigoted as before, these bad guys aren't bikers, just nasty rednecks out to shut down the "Freedom School." They'll have a tough time of it though, as Billy Jack's peace and love schtick apparently doesn't apply the use of violence against rednecks.

Just a Few Billy Jack Facts:

 - As a Special Forces Vietnam Veteran, Billy represents possibly the first appearance of the vengeful 'Nam vet archetype that would flood 1980's cinema. Unlike those later vets who were all white and often fought against criminal minorities street gangs etc., Billy, a half-Navajo, kicks ass on behalf of hippies and Native Americans.

- A few years before the United States was introduced to Bruce Lee, there was Billy Jack. Choreographed by Bong Soo Han, who also body doubled for Tom Loughlin in some of the fight scenes, these films represent one of the earliest popular appearances of martial arts, in this case Hapkido, in popular American Cinema. Of course, Hapkido was also the style that Bruce Lee originally learned...

-Director Tom Loughlin, who also wrote and produced all four Billy Jack films also stars as Billy Jack. Loughlin has run for president three times, most recently in 2008.

-While the 60's were rife with biker films, The Born Losers predates Easy Rider, the film that 'blew-up' the counterculture movie heroes and outsider filmmaking.

-At the time that Billy Jack was first released in 1971 (somewhat unsuccessfully) the American Indian Movement was in full swing. Its re-release in May of '73 came just a month after the Incident at Wounded Knee, an event which in some ways paralleled Billy Jacks political themes and climax, perhaps helping make the film's "second coming" a tremendous success that led to two more films.

Come join us for this FREE special event at the Sunset and witness for Billy Jack for yourself! Crowd participation is encouraged and all attendees will receive a useless commemorative trinket!

Our second February show will be on the 18th. Until then, we'll see you on the 4th.
Don't forget to LIKE us on Facebook while you're waiting for the next show!

Challenge of the Tiger

Welcome back to Kung Fu Grindhouse this January 21st, 2013 for a special night of lunacy.

At 6pm Phill brings you the latest from the VHS trash heap.

At 7pm we have Skatetown USA. Among the elite, but very small clique of late 70's and early 80's disco themed extravaganzas there was only one that featured the up and coming talents of Scott Baio and Patrick Swayze. Noxious comedy and roller-rivalry abound in this rare gem of cultural offal.

And finally at 8:30 it's Challenge of the Tiger in which two secret(ish) agents battle Communists for possession of a formula that just might sterilize the male population. Bruce Le and Richard Harrison may seem an unlikely duo, but their combined techniques will prove devastating to the Axis of Idiocy, and to your sense of taste.

We'll see you at The Sunset on January 21st for a new year's Kung Fu Grindhouse opener!

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