Film Review: Weedwolf (2011)

 

In the small Texas town of Normal a rampaging werewolf with a nose for the devil's lettuce is slaughtering stoners. 

That's basically it.

I bet you thought the same thing I did "Wow, somebody tried to make their own version of Cocaine Bear except with  different combination of drug + animal" 

So I was a bit surprised to find out that Weedwolf  came out in 2011 but to be fair, this whole movie is a long cavalcade of baffling. 

Let me try and quickly pigeonhole Weedwolf.  It's a Stoner-Grindhouse-Guerilla-Horror-Comedy that also throws out random boobs to add some exploitation titiliation in there. 

Seriously. The opening credits are about 50% boobs and the film-makers will literally throw a pair of bare boobs on screen  at odd moments. 

There are other strange film-making choices. To give it that vintage, lost VHS look, the director decided to film everything with a potato and then run the whole thing through the grungiest filters they could find.  This film hurt my eyes in a way that 4th generation VHS anime fansubs never managed. 

The humour is low-brow. If it's not about racism, it's about bodily functions or the sheriff's intellectually-challenged son.  In yet another strange film-making choice, some "gags" have a random, intercut reaction shot. You know, like you might get from a standup comedy show - except this is a film.  I think they were trying to be clever here. 

The special effects are...not.  A Walmart werewolf mask and some ketchup. 

The actors are...not. The entire thing is put together with random people who were available at the time.

And last but not least there's the story.

I'm not entirely convinced there was a script at any point.  Weedwolf  lurches from scene to scene without any kind of flow and the whole thing looks made up on the spot. Even by low-low-budget standards this film looks rickety.

Having said all that, Weedwolf is definitely a viewing experience. I spent the whole film wondering "What the bloody hell am I watching" so if they got nothing else right - and believe me, they didn't -  the people involved managed to make something memorable. 

If you reeeeeally like ultra-low budget oddities,  or hate your eyes, then check out Weedwolf. 

Book Review: Steve Dilks - Gunthar: Warrior Of The Lost World

 Genre; Bronzed Barbarian Sword & Sorcery

"In a world of science and sorcery, shadowed crypts and jewelled towers, a mighty swordsman from the wild plains of Tatukura storms his way through four fantastic adventures"

If you like the sort of mighty-thewed barbarian stories starring big, fierce men with short, fierce names then this might be up your alley.  There's definitely a lot of Conan to be found here, plus more than a little bit of Thongor.  Truthfully, this book could have been written in 1968 rather than 2019. 

   I mean, you can tell just by the cover that there's going to be more skull-crushing than backroom politicking. Wworks for me. 

 While I can't really say this is wildly original  this was entertaining. Gunthar keeps things ticking along nicely and has plenty of action.  Sometimes that's all I want from a book.  

Visiting The Wight Military Heritage Museum

 I love a good museum, me.

  I'm particularly keen on military or aviation museums and after doing most of the ones in Portsmouth and Southampton, I fancied doing something a bit further afield.  

  Then I found out about the Wight Military & Heritage Museum just outside Cowes and promptly put it on my list of places to see. 

Well, after several years, this weekend I finally got around to it.  Naturally I managed to pick a day when it was frigging raining.

  You don't need to know about how I got to the museum but I will say that the most awkward part of the journey wasn't getting to the island, it was finding the damn bus-stop in Cowes.

  I also managed to miss the stop for the museum so had to do some trudging back down the road.  Damp trudging, because as mentioned earlier, it was raining. 

Anyway, I finally got there and the first thing I saw made it all worthwhile because sat outside was this:

 A Conqueror heavy tank

 I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the Conqueror. It was supposed to be some extra firepower to help the Centurions deal with oncoming Soviet armour. Luckily it never came to that. 

  Also, my dad drove one of these as a target tank. He told me once that they had a card table set up inside.  Make of that what you will.

 

The entrance and just next to it, a shed with books in it. 

 And why not?

 Once past reception and inevitable gift shop I moved on to a display of weapons: cases with assorted rifles, machineguns and other small arms.

Next up: a chicken. 

 Well it did say this was a military & heritage museum.

After another display of WW2 home front stuff set up as shop-fronts I got into the good stuff. 

 A French truck/ambulance from the Indo-China war. 

An absolute behemoth of a truck. A WW2 Scammell.

According to the volunteer I got chatting to, after the war a lot of these ended up working for fairgrounds. It also took a lot of time, effort and money to get this one back into working conditions.

 An Abbot Self-propelled gun.

 

 There was an option to sit in the drivers seat after a small donation but after climbing on-board I quickly realised that there was  no way I was going to fit into the driver's compartment and even assuming I managed it, I sure as hell wasn't getting back out again without a crowbar, a gallon of grease and some personal injury.  I settled for sitting on top of it which is still cool enough. 

After that we get something rare:

 

 This is an experimental mounting for four Polsten 20mm cannon which was tested on the island but never went into production. 

  See that door behind it? That's where we are going next.  

The next room had a collection of cool stuff including an ongoing rebuild on a Britten-Norman Islander

Plus a Saracen APC

They had some other AFVs and guns but the pictures didn't come out that well so here's a squaddie tea set.

 The British Army has always understood the value of a good cuppa. 

Hmm, I thought I wonder if there's anything outside. 

Yes, there was.  A Centurion AVRE for starters. Which my dad also drove. 

That's a big gun isn't it?

There was also a Centurion Recovery vehicle.

 

And something rare, if a bit knocked about. A prototype Centurion SP Gun.  According to the volunteer, they fitted it with a 5 inch gun but unfortunately the recoil was too strong and it kept breaking itself.

Now while I was poking about outside , I couldn't help noticing some other vehicles a little further away.  Or wrecks, rather.

 I'm not sure if I was supposed to go take a closer look but in lieu of any big red signs reading "No" I wandered over.

Jackpot. hat I found were he remains of two Conqueror recovery tanks and a conqueror gun tank, looking very forlorn but still striking.

All of which did leave me feeling a bit sad that the poor things were in such a state but at least I got to see them.

 Finally I set off back to West Cowes but did pause long enough for a selfie!

And that was the Wight Military & Heritage museum. Did I get wet? Yes.  Did I have to put a bit of effort in to get there? Yes.  

Was it worth it? Oh very much yes.

I didn't post all the pics I took so there's more to see than what I showed you.

A big thanks to the staff at the museum who were very pleasant indeed.

That's all folks.