Competition

I'm afraid that another woman has been competing for my affection....
Yes, friends -- Little Debbie has been my main love for years now, and although I'll always keep her in my heart, I must admit that a certain Mrs. Freshley has been catching my attention as of late.


Oh Mrs. Freshley, how you tempt me with what are essentially the same products as those offered by the noble Little Debbie, only for less money. Yes, I can find your nutty bars, oatmeal cream cookies, and honey buns at the Dollar Tree for (you guessed it!) one dollar a box, whereas the Little Debbie equivalents are around 30 to 70 cents more at the regular grocery store. Mrs Freshley, how do you manage to be so darn CHEAP?

Lately, I've been purchasing Mrs. Freshley-brand snacks over my usual Little Debbies. I know, I know -- it's darned WRONG...but I can't help myself. This stuff is just so charmingly inexpensive! Even the boxes that Mrs Freshley's come in are of a lower quality than Debbie's. That kind of thing draws me in.

As for the quality of the SNACKS THEMSELVES? Well...it's really about that same. I mean, to be sure, Mrs Freshley's snack cakes obviously include ingredients of a lower grade than their Little Debbie counterparts, but let's face it -- when you're getting down to bargain basement baked goods, do things like ingredients really matter?


I like Mrs. Freshley's brownies the best. They're quite chewy, and have chocolate chips on them. Other decent Freshley's items include the nutty bars (which are actually a slight step up from Debbie's), and the Swiss cake rolls. And, really, that almost covers all of the things Freshley has to offer.

See -- that's the problem. Little Debbie, overall, still beats Mrs Freshley because Debbie has a much wider variety of products. Like, how could I pass up the wonderful seasonal snacks the company puts out every few months? And how about the items NOT being ripped off by the competition, such as Zebra Cakes and banana muffins??? I've got no choice but to return to Little Debbie when I want any of those things.

Still, until I get sick of them, I'll be saving a dollar here and there by going with Mrs Freshley's snack cakes from this point forward.


Whatever, Little Debbie. I'll come back to you when the time is right. At this moment, however, I declare everything by Mrs Freshley's to be the Snack of the Month! Oh, and speaking of good eats, here's a zombie movie.

Shock Waves (1977)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076704/


Netflix description:
In the dark days of World War II, the Nazi High Command ordered its scientists to create the Death Corps, a top secret race of indestructible zombie storm troopers -- unliving, unfeeling, unstoppable monstrosities able to kill with their bare hands. No member of this horrific SS unit was ever captured by the Allied forces -- and somewhere off the coast of Florida, it appears they have survived.…

This is the second film about Nazi zombies that I have reviewed for this blog. I'm just sayin'.

Today's entry comes from the late 1970s, the golden age of campy, bad horror flicks. Shock Waves tells the story of five or six vacationers whose chartered boat gets lost somewhere off the coast of Florida and runs into a squad of...well...Nazi zombies. Yeah, these bad boys have for some reason been lurking near a cluster of resort islands in the Gulf of Mexico for, like 50 years. I guess they pass the time by killing people whenever they accidentally drift within the vicinity.

The Nazi zombies in this movie can usually be found hanging out underwater. Being dead and all, they don't really need to breathe, so it makes sense for them to linger on the ocean floor by their wrecked submarine. But when some hapless tourists come near, WATCH OUT! The Nazi undead will emerge (slowly and creepily) from the sea and attack with a cool precision. These guys don't mess around.

So, after a run-in with a ghost ship, our heroes get stranded on a mysterious island with a mad German scientist who seems to know a thing or two about these darn zombies hanging around just off the coast. He urges the tourists to flee immediately in a crappy little rowboat that he keeps out behind the shed, but of course, they insist on waiting there until some kind of rescue crew comes along. Bad idea.

The zombies come ashore and begin killing everyone off. A bunch of stuff happens after that...everyone tries to escape...and it all ends with the "final girl" (look it up) getting away on a dingy. The end.

You know, Shock Waves was actually a lot better than I was expecting it to be. In fact, I must admit that I downright LIKED this picture. It was a lot of fun, and charmingly simple. Given the obviously-limited resources of the filmmakers here, I'm impressed with how spooky parts of the experience managed to be. Those Nazi zombies are FREAKY, man!

They slowly emerge from the water like crocodiles lurking along the surface of some lake, and then...KA-PLOW! Off with your head. These Nazis are like well-oiled (or, in this case, watered) machines -- they don't even use weapons, instead relying on good old-fashioned strangle kills.

And that reminds me -- this movie actually has no gore. I realized that maybe two thirds of the way through. I was sitting there, minding my Ps and Qs, when I suddenly slapped myself on the forehead and yelled, "HEY! I haven't seen a drop of blood in this entire film!!!" It's kind of odd when you think about it because, you know, this IS a zombie movie and all. I'm a little impressed that they managed to produce a full 90-minute feature film about friggin' zombies without needing any graphic special effects. Furthermore, Shock Waves has no nudity (although there are multiple bikini babes). It's almost like the movie is trying to be something sort of innocent; a family-friendly tribute to the campy and crappy scarefests of the golden days. Of course, the problem here is that Shock Waves WAS made in the golden days, so it can't really be tipping its hat to them...or, can it?


What should have been a Mystery Science Theater-caliber production ended up being a blast. Yes, Shock Waves is obviously stupid; but who cares? Stupid can indeed be fun, and this motion picture right here proves it. It gets in and out, giving us simple entertainment with an efficiency that rivals that of its Nazi antagonists. By the book and by the numbers, classic 1970s horror cinema right here. Oh, and the score is 100 percent pure awesome.

I say check out Shock Waves. It'll make you smile.

4 out of 5.

b.