This week on the B movie docket is VFW     

 

Hello good people. And welcome to 50 B Movies: The Sequel. It’s bigger, better, and badder.  The original 50 b Movies covered a wide range of B Movies. There was everything from Thankskilling 3 to The Void. Some films were funny. Some were unintentionally funny. And some were mainstream with far-out concepts like zombie tigers. All in all, it was a hell of a list.

Why make a sequel? Because narrowing down a list of 50 B Movies To See Before You Die was arduous. With so many movies to watch, one can never really know if the movie is good. Sure sometimes 5 minutes in, you know it is a real stinker. Other times it might take a half an hour before one realizes they will never get that half hour back to their life. Poof. Gone. But all in all there are many great B Movies that didn’t make the original list.

So welcome back if you are a LRM reader and welcome if it’s your first time here. Be forewarned we will be treading deep into the bush to pull these B Movies. We aren’t rehashing anyone’s previous 50 or 100 or 1000 B Movies list. Nope. So, prepare yourself for 50 B Movies To See Before You Die: The Sequel. Bigger. Better. Badder. Oooh yeah.

WEEK 12 – VFW (2019)

VFW straddles the line between a great B Movie and a great action-drama. In fact, if you minus out the over-the-top action it could be compared to the more mainstream effort from auteur director David Lynch’s adaptation of the comic-book A History of Violence. That’s right, if VFW weren’t full of well-placed shotgun blasts to the heads of drug-addled fiends, it would be to high brow for the 50 B Movies list. Thankfully the sheer amount of graphic body mutilation on display places this one in the B movie category.

Synopsis

A typical night for veterans at a VFW turns into an all-out battle for survival when a desperate teen runs into the bar with a bag of stolen drugs. When a gang of violent punks come looking for her, the vets use every weapon at their disposal to protect the girl and themselves from an unrelenting attack.

That was the synopsis I found online. I cannot argue. I will however emphasize that vets use every weapon at their disposal against the unrelenting attack. There are moments you’d swear these vets were preparing to battle a horde of zombies. I mean there’s all manner of DIY weaponry being cobbled together at the VFW workshop. This group of geriatric bada&&& would easily wipe the floor with Rick and his survivors.

Druggies

I haven’t seen the word druggies written in some time. It used to be all the rage. But I digress. VFW is full of drug addled monsters that literally swarm the VFW like flies to poop. They’re all hyped out of their minds on a fictional drug called hype. The users are referred to as hypers throughout the movie’s runtime. And we learn early on that hype is probably worse than crack cocaine. There is a scene early on where one of the drug dealers tosses a pouch of hype over a railing. And moments later, a hype head leaps over the railing in pursuit of the hype and chases it right into the pavement. Splat.

Stephen Lang

Why isn’t Stephen Lang playing as Cable already in some bad### post-apocalyptic setting wasting an army of Nimrod sentinels? I know Josh Brolin has that role covered. But with something like Marvel’s multiverse in place it’d be a shame if we don’t someday get Lang to fill the Wildman from Borneo’s boots. Seriously how many silver foxes out there that can bring that Clint Eastwood gravitas to his roles?

Rant completed. Lang leads this bad**** group of vets to their death at the VFW. And it is glorious, just like one of those epic fights worthy of entry to Valhalla. Lang leads this crack team of retired war vets, as the film tells us similar to troops during his five tours of duty. Here Lang runs the VFW, initially no longer in command of soldiers on the battlefield. Instead, here Lang serves drinks as the bar commander.

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He’s a man stuck on the battlefield of his mind, despite serving up cocktails to vets. Did I mention this last stand goes down on his birthday? Normally something like being hunted down by zombified drug addicts would be bad news. But honestly, for Lang’s character Fred this is a gift from God. Because during his birthday night, Fred gets to step foot once more on the battlefield. And the blood flows like spice on Arrakis.

Gore

Jeezus. Within the first five minutes of the film’s runtime, the gore gets rolling. There’s one moment where an ax parts the skull of a hype head like the fricking Red Sea. Seriously there are biblical levels of violence on display. There is a litany of ways that the vets come up with to defend themselves.

The bar is transformed and becomes WWIII. VFW feels like a cross between Swat and Assault on Precinct 13. The savages are coming to retrieve the girl known as Lizard. She has squirreled away to the VFW with her dealer’s last bit of hype. And there is no heinous gory act that won’t go down in the pursuit and recovery of the drugs.

Cheese

VFW takes itself seriously. In this case, it fits the vibe of the film. I mean war is serious business. And here we have a VFW full of American warriors. The lack of levity adds to the tone of the film and makes the ravenous hype heads seem all that more threatening. The VFW boys take the threat seriously and so does the viewer.

Why?

Watch it to ease someone that is not too fond of B movies into the genre. The acting is top-notch. So, when characters bite the dust, it’s bittersweet. I mean boy do they go out with a bang. But it’s sad since you know you genuinely liked the character on screen. There are no caricatures here. Just a hardened war vet trying to low-key enjoy his birthday with his buddies, and end then night at a t**** bar.

Watch it where?

I was able to nab the DVD for the sum of one dollar nearby. So there could be possibly more copies to be had for one dollar. That is if you’re into physical media. If not I’m sure it’s streaming somewhere like everything else these days.

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