Dead at the Box Office, 2005 - ★½

Dead at the Box Office, 2005 - ★½

REVIEWED

..::Dissociative December - A Cold Month Of Mind Control::..

“What shit, you think our friendly government isn't hiding stuff from us?” - Janitor Curtis (Isaiah Robinson)

For fear of getting sentenced as a war criminal, Nazi scientist Dr. Hans Eisner fled post war 40's Germany to live in America, under the new assumed identity of a cinema projectionist. Eisner still with his urge to pursue his Third Reich agenda, continued to create an hypnotic mind control technique involving projecting images to his cinemas patrons. Only a gang of Jewish war criminal hunters finally catch up to the crazy doctor and kill him. Cut to present day and employees of the cinema find one of Eisners reels and foolishly decide it'd be fun to play before a midnight screening of George A. Romero's seminal 'Night of the Living Dead', bad move because it hypnotizes the horror fans into thinking they're flesh craving zombies.

Theres no denying 'Dead at the Box Office' is inanely atrocious, even for a zero budget zombie film it truly is a turkey. But its one of those movies that looks like everyone involved had a fun time making, especially during the semi naked 'We're doing the black hole' musical scene for the mock b-movie/'Rocky Horror Picture Show' pastiche. So its an hard film to totally hate on. Way too talky and lacking in real action, its kinda fun mostly because they managed to make the film in a real cinema. And Troma's Lloyd Kaufman pops in as 'Kaufman the Minion' in the mock film 'Transvestites Beyond Uranus'.

[Personal Reasons For OBEYING]

Agreeably not the most overtly mind control themed movie I'm gonna see over the next few weeks, its still features in a few key scenes.

[x] Dr. Hans Eisner mind control reel features a rotating spiral and repetitive audio chimes to hypnotize those viewing.

[x] Theres a backflash to Eisner during the 50s of him perfecting his technique, very A Clockwork Orange Alex like it involves him tying a patient down and forcing him to watch his films.

Originally taken from Letterboxd