Bill's Notes

[Industrialblog, March 23, 2004]
Change of Pace: Help Bill remember a B-Movie title
OK, a break for the moment from our normal high-minded seriousness here at IndustrialBlog, such as whether the Cubs last season executed the worse choke in human history, or was it the French at Agincourt?

Anyway, the movie I'm forgetting ... It was dumb, like any good B-movie. The plot centered around a killer who stalks the set of a B-movie, killing one character after another ... anyone have a clue?

I'm drawing a total blank. It seemed to me that the movie-inside-the-movie was a toxic-avenger kind of thing, but I may have forgotten that. I can't remember the name of any actors in it, so I can't use IMDB.

Any help would be appreciated.

UDDATE: OK, I caught a break. I went to IMDB and clicked on the director who did The Toxic Avenger. And I found the movie. It's Terror Firmer. It's about a movie crew making the next Toxic Avenger movie when a killer stalks the set and starts killing folks. It's a remarkably demented movie.

Thanks to Harry and Chris for jogging my memory.

ctl (mail) (www):
Oh, that was Scream 2.
3.23.2004 10:50pm
ctl (mail) (www):
Oops, Scream 2 was a college campus. Scream 3 was the movie set.
3.23.2004 10:50pm
ctl (mail) (www):
And toxic avenger wasn't movie-in-a-movie, it was just absurd and not very serious.
3.23.2004 10:50pm
Bill:
Thanks, but it wasn't Scream 2. It was actually a B movie, that is, low budget thing, not a big studio production. In the film I'm trying to think of, the characters are shooting a movie that's either a toxic avenger or cheesy superhero kind of thing.



3.23.2004 10:50pm
Harry (mail):
I'm reminded of a movie that involved a claustrophobic star and a vampire movie-within-a-movie. I hope that wasn't "Body Double", or I'll feel dumb. But since I can't remember the name of that movie either, this is less than helpful. (It IS "Body Double"! I just looked it up at www.imdb.com.) A plot search for "b-movie serial killer" isn't that helpful, but I'll see what I can find.
3.23.2004 10:50pm
IB Bill:
It's not Body Double, harry. That's a porn-movie within a thriller. This is about a serial killer ... there's a bunch of murders. And it's campy. Oh well.

Thanks.
3.23.2004 10:50pm
Harry (mail):
How about "Return To Horror High"?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093854/plotsummary

Plot Summary for
Return to Horror High (1987)

A few years ago, a mysterious serial-killer caused panic on Crippen High School. The killer was never caught. A movie company, Cosmic Pictures, has decided to make a feature movie about these events - on location, at the now abandoned school. Since members of cast and crew disappear without a trace, it seems as if history is repeating itself...
3.23.2004 10:50pm
ctl (mail) (www):
ooh, that sounds like fun!
3.23.2004 10:50pm
ctl (mail) (www):
And Bill, are you sure that it wasn't scream 3? While scream 3 had a budget, they certainly didn't apply any of it to the script, which I believe someone found on the bottom of his shoe one day.

And God! Was that series awful.
3.23.2004 10:50pm
Bill:
Harry: That sounds good and I may rent it, but it wasn't it.

CTL: It's not Scream 3.

I know I've been vague.
I'll try to see if I can be more specific.

3.23.2004 10:50pm
Harry (mail):
Ah, so the magic combination of plot search terms was "killer film crew". I kept searching on combinations containing the word "movie", which doesn't appear anywhere in the plot summary. Dang.
3.23.2004 10:50pm
Bill:
Thanks for your efforts. You got me thinking more systematically, and then I caught a break when it turned out the movie was done by the same guy as Toxic Avenger.

Have you seen the movie?
3.23.2004 10:50pm
Harry (mail):
I think I saw the first 15 minutes of Toxic Aveger on USA once, but then I got distracted.
3.23.2004 10:50pm
Bill:
Oh, Terror Firmer wouldn't last long on USA. They'd have to cut it down to 30 minutes!

I never saw Toxic Avenger.
3.23.2004 10:50pm

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