“A lone Chicken McNugget from the new Super Happy Meals plots it’s unholy revenge.”

Saturday afternoons were always about some great television. After a morning of cartoons and a serving of Soul Train, you knew to prepare yourself for some great edited-for-TV B-movie goodness. One afternoon feature that I remember vividly was “The Bubble”, also known as ”Fantastic Invasion of the Planet Earth.”  Sounding more like an ad for a giant household cleanser, it was actually a pretty good sci-fi film from 1966. It was also the first film to employ a new polarized 3D effect from a single strip/one projector method, and was a heavily guarded secret by the director. While the effects were impressive for the time, at 112 minutes long, audiences didn’t have the patience to wait for the eventual cut scenes of a rake being thrust at them, or a floating tray of bottles. After initial poor returns, they cut the length down to 90 minutes for a re-release in 1976, and then down to 75 minutes for subsequent releases. Putting it on a sort of sci-fi diet, the result was a pretty good extended Twilight Zone episode.
long, The story revolves around a young pregnant couple, Michael and Deborah (she’s the pregnant one), who for some reason decide to take a late night plane ride right before the birth of their child, thus leaving their poor cigarettes and martinis all alone at home. They encounter a freak storm and are forced to land on a makeshift runway.  Johnny, their air-preggo pilot extraordinaire, hails a taxi cab for a quick ride into town for an emergency baby delivery. The streets  are eerily deserted that night, but the very next day they discover them filled with dazed townsfolk, as if emerging from an all night C-SPAN marathon. Touring around town with a new baby in tow they find the town is also filled with props, statues, and other strange cultural memorabilia, as if it was a movie studio backlot. The strange residences walking about the streets just  keep repeating the same things over and over again, seemingly unaware of their presence as they go about their routine. Effectively creeped-out by this, they decide to get out of town but find that their plane has disappeared from the landing spot. Johnny, emotionally distraught over the love lost for his plane, goes on a drinking binge at a western saloon, complete with its own catatonic bartender, mute show girl, and booze-serving ghost. Whether he hallucinates that last one is up for debate, but he sobers up pretty quickly when he and Michael find a strange alien structure in the center of town. It’s the biggest paper machee project known to man that people can walk in and out of like it’s their own personal Walmart supercenter. No price-cutting sales here though, only alien brainwashing and yummy bio nourishment for the townsfolk. Like many dimwitted B-movie characters, they have to investigate it, and discover a lone barco-lounger chair inside. Johnny decides that’s as good a place as any to take a load off, but instead of getting a nice back massage from its magic fingers, the chair zaps his brain with a hallucination of cheap Halloween masks. It’s a Lazyboy of evil! When will people learn not to sit in alien chairs?

Johnny seems to get a sort of psychedelic high off the chair zapper and drives them all out of town in an Army convoy truck, ignoring the chair’s warning label not to operate heavy machinery after use. About 20 miles out of town they encounter a giant reflective barrier wall. It’s the biggest gold fish bowl ever, trapping them like animals in a zoo. The only logical course of action when faced with a giant impenetrable wall is to try to drive through it, so Johnny and his new catatonic girlfriend from the saloon attempt to ram it at full speed. The truck explodes into a firey ball of death and gets levitated into the air just as Johnny safely leaps out, thus ending the longest relationship Johnny has ever had. Why must everything Johnny loves be destroyed? Johnny takes off running into the woods a little goofed-up from his brain shock therapy and the trauma from blowing up his girlfriend.

Deborah and Michael find an old mill where they and their baby can stay hidden away from the alien watchers that pass overhead in a solar eclipse. Michael tries digging under the wall in hopes of escape andDeborah starts up an arts and crafts class while going a little nutty. The final portion of this movie was mostly scenes of  Michael digging…and digging, but Johnny does eventually reappear just long enough to avoid fixing a flat tire and to get pulled up into the sky by the alien abductors. I doubt AAA Roadside Service covers that.

I saw this movie when I was 9 years old and it scared the bejeebers out of me. However, on a recent viewing it definitely didn’t have the same type of “shock” value it once had. If you can get past some of the awkward dialogue and occasional William Shatner-ish style of acting, you’ll find a fun, creepy sci-fi film. There’s also an interesting social/theological commentary of whether these aliens are actually a representation of God and how we are the mindless masses of this town being watched within this glass container, all stuck in our own repetitive daily routines. You’ll never look at your goldfish in the same way, I guarantee.

There’s more below the surface of this film, and it is definitely worth tracking down the Rhino DVD release. Retroman says to check it out, but bring a shovel. There’s a lot of digging to be done…lots and lots of digging.

Keep an eye out for…

- Halloween mask shock therapy
- extreme digging
- 1 booze serving ghost
- 1 Army truck explosion
- catatonic townsfolk
- 1 giant paper machee rock-cave
- obsessive-compulsive digging
- fly-by solar eclipses
- malfunctioning alien lounge chairs
- gratuitous thrusting of 3D objects at viewers

rated 8.3 out of 10 for the movie

The Bubble, now with 30% more cleaning power.

Check out this teaser trailer from The Bubble

“The new Head and Shoulder’s shampoo commercial went a bit over the top. But look no dandruff!”

I’m sure many of you are aware of my continuing quest to find the Greatest/worst movie ever put on film. Like Indiana Jones searching for the Lost Ark, I’m seeking that which cannot be viewed. I’m convinced that looking directly at the movie may cause my face to melt off. A weapon such as this cannot fall into Nazi hands or those of a big movie studio, as a remake would surely bring about the end of the world. I’ve only just discovered that I’m digging in the right spot when I unearthed little treasures like “Gymkata”, “Starcrash”, and recently “Troll 2.” “Troll 2” set the bar pretty low, and I thought no other filmmaker would dare match its level of awfulness. It’s like a late 70’s bloated Elvis of bad movies: tacky and greasy, yet still highly entertaining. Well, Elvis, put down that side of ham because here come the Beatles…in the form of a little piece of cinema excrement called “Hard Rock Zombies”, the most vile, horrible excuse for a film to be burned into my retinas. It’s just the sort of movie you want to take a shower after watching from the greasy stain it leaves on your soul. It’s the devil’s armpit of filmmaking for which no wipe-on deodorant could ever mask its vile odor, and yet it’s one of the most entertaining bad films I’ve ever seen.

The film revolves around an un-named rock band, which is preparing for stardom. They have a plan and a van, and that’s all any hard rockin’ musicians with big hair ever really need. After a hard rockin’ night at their big concert, to which maybe a total of 10 people showed, including the trashy groupies, they head to the small, hick town of Grand Guignol. They plan to have another fan-lite concert, despite the warnings of a bushy-eyebrowed under-age girl who has a crush on the lead singer. Along the way they encounter a somewhat limber and very trashy hitchhiker, who just recently offed some guys in a Firebird (deservingly so, just for being “those guys in a Firebird”). She convinces the band into staying at her family mansion near the edge of town instead of a hotel, making the killing that much more convenient. Sort of like Chili’s Car-side to go…of death.

The inhabitants consist of mutant dwarfs, a snuff photographer in a leisure suit, a crazy grandfather who is actually Hitler in disguise, and a werewolf grandma in a wheelchair. By today’s standards, a pretty normal suburban family. The townsfolk aren’t as upset with the Manson family living down the street as they are with having a big hair band in their quiet town, especially one that rides skateboards and do the rope mime act. These are acts punishable by  up to a whole day in a makeshift barn jail, according to town law. After making “bale”– which was probably paid in bottle returns–the rockers are killed-off one-by-one and buried in shallow graves in the backyard of the mansion. Cassie, the bushy-eyebrowed jailbait mourns their loss and plays a recording of one of their songs next to their graves. The side-effect is its power to bring them back from the dead. I’ve known songs by Wham that could slowly and painfully kill people, but not resurrect them.

The zombified band, now looking like the members of Kiss, goes on a revenge spree at the mansion, killing all the residents in various horrific ways and still finding time to put on a concert later that night. The victims then return from the dead as blood-thirsty zombies and proceed to attack the nearby townsfolk. It’s the standard Amway pyramid scheme of zombification. Some of the survivors in town decide the best defense is to hide behind giant cut-outs of famous people like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis, while sneaking through the zombie-infested streets. Not surprisingly, the Union picket line fails and they’re eaten alive. Great plan, people. The back-up plan is much better, which is to offer up Cassie as a virgin sacrifice to the undead on a nearby mountain. Ron, the one surviving member of the band, convinces his zombified friends to help rescue Cassie, and lures them into a Nazi-approved gas chamber via some of their hard-rocking Gregorian hits. Portable amps and long extension cords must be a-plenty in this town.

Definitely a must-see for you bad B-movie fans out there. The only film to include both Hitler and a werewolf grandma in a wheelchair. Now that’s something you won’t see on the History Channel.

Keep an eye out for...

- homocidal swimming lessons
- grandma werewolves in wheelchairs
- Nazi weed-wacking
- Amish barn prisons
- Resurrected flies and spiders 
- Zombie music auditions 
- Das Fuhrer of the undead
- Self eating mutant Nazi dwarfs
- Extreme eyebrows
- Record smashin’
- Multiple neck chompings

“Raise the dead for what?” “Probably to mop your floors and paint your house.”

Thanks to badmovies.org for some of the photos check out their great review as well. 

rated 9.4 out of 10 for the movie

Check out the trailer for Hard Rock Zombies

I wonder if Tina could use her “mind powers” to get my copy of Microsoft Vista to work?

After he told us a cautionary tale about the dangers of cartooning with “Cellar Dweller”, and before we went off to college with the Ghoulies in “Ghoulies 3″, director and special-effects-magician, John Carl Buechler, gave fans one of the best entries in the Friday the 13th franchise with “Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood.”

When the opening credits begin to appear on the screen, composer Fred Mollin (”Friday the 13th the TV Series” and “Forever Knight”) immediately sets the mood with an unsettling, atmospheric, synth-score that fits this movie like a glove. A nice touch was having Walt Gorney (known for the role of “Crazy Ralph’ from “Friday the 13th Parts 1 & 2″) come back and narrate over the video clip medley from past films that gets us caught-up on everything Jason.

The story begins with a flashback of a young girl named Tina who takes throwing temper tantrums to another level by unleashing a telekinetic beat-down on her abusive father that ends with him being a barnacle buffet at the bottom of Crystal Lake. Maybe Dad should’ve thought twice before using his wife (Mom) as a party piñata. As an adult, Tina is still an emotional wreck, tormented by the horrific visions of seeing her father die, and worst of all, knowing she was responsible for his death. Her psychiatrist, Dr. Crews (Terry Kiser), convinces Tina and her mom to get away for the weekend at a quiet lakeside cabin while Tina’s hospital room is being painted a cheerful shade of lobotomy grey. This mini-vacation sounded like a wonderful idea until I saw the Crystal Lake sign (cue creepy music) and found out the cabin by the lake is the same one where Dad was turned into fish food years earlier.

The dastardly doctor uses this trip to conduct his lab-rat-like experiments away from the prying eyes of the mental institution. During an intense cram session for the upcoming TAT (Telekinetic Ability Test) there is a mishap involving some matches, and Tina rushes out of the house like she started a fire. While standing on the dock her mind starts to fill with warm memories of dear ol’ Dad, such as his drunken swagger, glassy-eyed stare, and the late-night heave-fests in the bathroom. Her unexpected stroll down Daddy Lane causes a psychic episode, and she casts out a telepathic fishing line in hopes of reuniting with him, but instead hooks big trouble, catching the undead Mr. Voorhees. He was apparently going for a personal best underwater effort, after having broken the world record with a time of several years, making endurance artist, David Blaine’s, time of 17 minutes seem like mere child’s play.

Jason emerges back on land, pissed-off at his failed record attempt and wastes no time getting to work using a variety of home and garden tools against his prey in such a way that would earn him a Home Depot endorsement. This installment contains your usual mix of under-cooked, walking horror cliches. Eddie, a sci-fi writer nerd with a PhD in rejection, couldn’t get laid if he was holding a million dollars in a locked room full of horny hookers. Melissa will remind you of the snobby diva from high school who was voted “Most Likely to Steal Your Boyfriend.” Nick is the resident nice guy from a broken home who is trying to get his life back on track. When he isn’t attending night school, or kicking himself over botched “ice-breakers” involving the opposite sex, he likes to show his sensitive side by doing women’s laundry. Maddy the “nottie” friend of “hottie” Robin is so homely-looking that Medusa would give her beauty tips. David, Head Conductor of the Pothead Express, earns some extra cash on the weekends performing his beer shotgunning extravaganza at college frat parties. Dr. Crews wears “sleazy” like a well-tailored suit, and only wants to profit from Tina’s pain and misfortune. The rest of the cast isn’t worth mentioning, since they only show up on screen long enough to talk about how cold it is, something about wallet sizes, and needing firewood…until Jason arrives, doing his best impression of a Cusinart food processor.

From the brutal kill sequences to the inspired makeup design, this film is all about seeing the masked maniac in action. Buechler shows a fan’s eye for detail, including all of the battle damage, such as the propeller carnage, gunshot to the head, machete slash, axe wound, and missing eye that the Crystal Lake dweller has sustained from previous movie installments, to create the ultimate Jason in all of his gruesome glory. Kane Hodder’s first appearance as Jason (a role he’d reprise in four consecutive movies) is the best portrayal of the character since Ted White became the lakeside slasher in “Friday the 13th Part 4: The Final Chapter.” Proving that he isn’t just another crash test dummy behind a mask, Hodder expresses an array of believable emotions through a latex suit (which isn’t an easy task) without saying a word of dialogue–unless you count groaning. By using a combination of heavy breathing and subtle movements, he carves out a new version of the character that is all his own.

I would definitely recommend this sequel, even in its neutered state (courtesy of the fascist MPAA), as it still has several creative death scenes, some brief, but quality T-n-A, and just enough of the red stuff to keep fans happy, along with a few surprises like solid acting by the lead actors, a telekinetic subplot, and supernatural Jason twist to give this standard slasher formula some new blood.

Keep an eye out for…

- Tree roots gone wild
- Deadly use of a party horn
- Jason’s gross-out face reveal
- Boobtastic melon display that would make a seasoned farmer blush
- Flower pot headbutt
- Wham-bam sleeping bag death slam
- Extreme-makeover
- Self destructing pearl necklace
- Deluxe penis enlarger
- Debut of the Voorhees Death Vise
- Explosive finale
- Super-sleepic love van
- The Battle of the Gargantuan Throngar
- Exclusive Star Mummy preview
- Carol Anne from Poltergeist hairstyle
- Scare Corpse lawn decorations

Rated 9.2 out of 10 for the movie

Watch the trailer for Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood.

“These late night cosmic bowling parties have gotten way out of hand. Frank’s use of a severed head for league play was proof of that even if it did improve his score average.”

Thirty-four years old and I still hate going to the doctor’s office. First there’s the endless wait in the “waiting room”, but then they call you back to a smaller room that’s yet another waiting room…like it’s some sort of bad horror movie “Waiting Room 2.The Day the Doctor Never Came.” Sure, they say he’ll be in momentarily, but doctor time is on the canine time scale where minutes equal hours. “Soon” actually means “whenever he gets back from lunch.” There are only so many times I can read through the fascinating articles in Golf Digest and Home Pottery Magazine before I resort to the ever-popular games of “Ceiling Tile Counting” or seeing how long I can sleep while sitting up. So finally the doctor magically teleports in and runs through a series of questions the nurse had asked just hours before. “Do you have body aches?” “Yes.”  “Do you have a stuffy head?” “Yes.  Congrats, doc–you’ve just diagnosed that I am not feeling well. Then the prescription is for some over-the-counter medicine that he scribbles on a scrap of paper in cryptic ancient Celtic symbols, along with the advice of, “Get some rest and drink plenty of fluids.” I get charged $30 for the doctor’s visit; my insurance gets charged $3,000; and I go home and crawl back into bed. I should have gone to medical school instead of learning how to paint baskets of fruit.

Doctor Carl Hill in the cult classic “Re-animator” doesn’t really help me with my fear of doctors. He’s the “head” neurosurgeon at the Miskatonic Medical School, where he enjoys peeling cadavers’ heads like oranges in his neurosurgery class, and practices suggestive hypnosis at his dinner parties in the evenings. Our hero Dan Cain, played by Bruce Abbott, is a student there, along with his girlfriend, Megan (Barbara Crampton), and are having some nookie while playing hooky off school grounds. All is happy until Herbert West suddenly appears from a stint in Sweden and insists of being Dan’s new roommate but apparently didn’t read the fine print of no deposit returns in case of blood stains in the apartment lease. West wants to use the basement to perform his continuing studies on re-animating dead flesh, create the ultimate glo-stick, and defy God’s will–typical medical school stuff. Instead of picking the obvious test subjects of a Larry King or John McCain, he uses a dead pet cat, causing the feline to turn into a raging, vicious hell-beast that tries to rip them apart. In other words, your average cat.

Learning from his continuing failures, Herbert is ready to test his re-animation serum on some real stiffs in the morgue. Could this be the ultimate energy drink? He and Dr. Hill sneak in past another dimwitted, made-for-film security guard and inject the serum into a recent accident victim, resulting in a spastic reaction similar to the cat. Then the Dean of the school stumbles in on them, so they shoot him up with some of dead juice, too. Is there a help group for people like this?  Perhaps some sort of DRA (Dead Revivers Anonymous)?

Doc Hill arrives at Herbert’s basement un-announced and plans to take the secrets of the serum and claim it as his own invention. Herbert hits him upside the head with a shovel, and proceeds to remove the doc’s head from his body and re-animate it. Now, that’s how you solve a copyright (an intellectual property?) dispute! But the headless doc outsmarts Herbert, kidnaps Megan, and sneaks into the morgue to perform some group lobotomies. Being decapitated really improves one’s productivity.

Dan and Herbert soon confront the doctor, who is trying to get busy with Megan on an examination table (Can we say, “Sexual harassment lawsuit?”), and then they have to take on a legion of walking dead, exploding chests, and frisky intestine tentacles. Actually med school doesn’t sound very appealing now.

This film is on my Amazon’s Listmania as one of the essential must see cult/b-movies from the 1980’s. It redefines the genre of zombie/mad scientist/dark gore comedies. Well It’s actually the only one in that genre, but it does redefine it. Stuart Gordon directed this classic based loosely on a H.P. Lovercraft short story, as well as another great film, “The Beyond.” Though it did spawn several lackluster sequels, this one is definitely the crown jewel. Also we need to give an honorable mention for Jeffery Combs for creating one of the best horror movie characters in cinematic history, Herbert West. He makes over-acting a work of art. He’s in the same league as Bruce Campbell as Ash for his pure awesome-ness. So check it out, but don’t let your doctor give you that shot of the glowing green stuff,even if he says it’s just to clear your sinuses.

Keep an eye out for…

- Jiffy-Pop eyeballs
- head peeling
- zombie cats
- finger snacks
- labatonomy parties
- skater rink glo-stick overdose
- intestine wranglin’
- padded rooms with a view
- zombie boobies
- horny disembodied heads (is that even possible?)
- the ultimate tribute to the band Talking Heads

rated 9.4 out of 10 for the movie

Check out the trailer for Re-animator

Raised on a steady diet of Rosen’s Drive-In’s “Famous Double-Decker Dogs”, and peach iced tea, Dan began to cultivate at a young age a life-long appreciation for the B-movie genre and it’s many sub-genres.

“Drive-In Dan” got his nickname after being born at Rosen’s Drive-In, where his mother worked. She went into labor while serving a customer at the concession window and gave birth while the film “It’s Alive” was playing on the big screen. Dan Rosen (owner and long-time friend of Drive-In Dan’s mother), along with his wife, Marlene, helped deliver the baby. Some of the “regulars” who were standing around at the time started to say his nickname, and from that point forward he became known as “Drive-In Dan.”

That night, Dan became a part of the drive-in’s family, and today he continues to be a local celebrity in his hometown. There is even a hot dog eating contest (that has gained national attention) bearing his name at the drive-in every August 13th to honor his birthday. The added exposure has helped breathe new life into the once dying establishment by putting it on the map as a favorite tourist attraction. Rosen’s Drive-In has become known for its showing of old B-movies from the 70’s and 80’s. In the fall Dan used to put on a yearly haunted house attraction that had sci-fi and horror-themed rooms, complete with traditional “pop-out gags” that developed quite a cult following.

As a young boy, double-billed “creature features” served as his babysitters while his single mom would work the night shift. Around the same time, Dan also started to take an interest in the poster art featured on the drive-in’s marquees for upcoming releases, and began drawing his own versions of his favorites such as “The Thing”, “Halloween 3″, and “Phantasm.” As the years passed, his fondness for the genre grew. He not only enjoyed the movies for their entertainment value, but was also fascinated by the special effects and makeup wizardry used to create the on-screen magic. When Dan isn’t busy running the drive-in’s film projector or greeting hordes of eager movie patrons in the parking lot, he spends his free time dreaming up and bringing to life his own cast of crazy B-movie characters inspired by the many films he has seen over the years.

While searching the Internet for a designer to create a web presence for his horror merchandise business, Drive-In Dan came into contact with graphic artist, Steve “The Retroman” Jencks, who owns and operates Retro DC, which specializes in web design, illustration, and logo branding. During the brainstorming and design phase of the project, Steve mentioned that he also ran a site dedicated to the B-movie genre called “Lost Highway.” The first time Dan visited Lost Highway, it was like he had just entered a paradise for low-budget movie lovers. From the genre-inspired layout to the written reviews, it was clear that this site was created by a true fan who celebrates the fun and cheesy universe of B-movies. In June 2008 Dan was invited to be a part of the Lost Highway family. He hopes that new and regular visitors will enjoy his contributions to the site.

No, this isn’t an exclusive never-before-seen photo from the new “Honey, I Shrunk My Head” movie. It’s Virgil Travis who was shaken, not stirred as a test tube baby.“

Head puppeteer Charles Band of Full Moon Pictures (now Full Moon Features) brings us yet another unnecessary killer doll movie with 1999’s “Blood Dolls.”

This is your typical out-for-revenge billion-are genetic freak who falls in love with his rival’s power-hungry dominatrix wife story, along with a supporting cast of deadly dolls and sideshow rejects that would make even P.T. Barnum feel at home.

The movie opens as software magnate Virgil Travis (Jack Maturin, a.k.a. “Chris”), who wears a latex mask that looks like “Destro” from G.I Joe with a bad case of the chicken pox, has just gotten the short end of an anti-trust ruling.  He seeks retribution with the help of his mini-slaughter squad against those who have double-crossed him (including the judge and prosecutor on the case).  The film suffers from “CGD” (Confused Genre Disorder).  It doesn’t know what it wants to be, and plays like a series of poorly-edited movie clips from a miscellaneous genre compilation DVD.  My gut feeling (not the bad burrito I ate) tells me that this film was thrown together using cannibalized parts from different scripts in order to make a quick buck and launch a new line of toy figures.

There really aren’t a lot of notable action scenes involving the “trio of terror”, except for a “Triple-Doll Dare” that goes horribly wrong, leaving Pimp (a 70’s Blaxploitation-style doll) with a barbecued noggin’, courtesy of a flame-throwing lawn ornament, in a scene reminiscent of Michael Jackson’s Pepsi commerical accident.  The Blood Dolls, designed by Mark Williams, look great and each character is an overblown racial stereotype that will no doubt  have the PC Police in a tizzy.  Unfortunately, the dolls take a backseat to the human dummies in the film with a screen time of less than 5 minutes.  In most cases if you blink you’ll miss them, kinda like Mike Tyson’s 90-second annihilation of Michael Spinks.

One of the brief highlights in the film comes from veteran actor Nicholas Worth (George Warbeck), who delivers some of the best and funniest lines in the movie. The bad news is that Warbeck’s personal security team is so inept  they would make Barney Fife and Gomer from “The Andy Griffith Show” look like trained assassins.   “Squires”, the lead guard, couldn’t hit a target if it was attached to the barrel of his gun, and second-in-command “Security Guy” (actual name) is a comic-book-reading rookie guard who is so dumb, he’d trip over a wireless connection.  In the movie they’re hired to “protect” a multi-million dollar mansion, but I wouldn’t let either one of these losers guard a cheap pack of chewing gum.

As if things weren’t already weird enough with a Bible-thumpin’ clown-faced assassin, an eye-patch-wearing “guard dwarf” with anger management issues, an S&M couple (Harrison and Moira Yullin), and killer dolls, director Band adds an imprisoned all-girl house band to the mix, which is forced (by electrical shock) to perform music selections at the request of their demented master.   When the girls (a slutty version of the Spice Girls) aren’t doing a mean Milli Vanilli lip-synching impersonation, or having extreme wet towel fights while fully clothed, they spend most of their time being trapped in bad music videos.  I’m pretty sure that Venesa  Talor as “Cotton Baby” had a “show boobs” clause in her contract (which wasn’t a problem, being that she is a former stripper) because at 3 minutes 57 seconds into the film, she has a spontaneous “boob-bustion” for no apparent reason, other than to fill a nudity quota of some kind.  It happens so fast it makes Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” look like a full-length feature.

From the first time we meet the Yullins it’s very obvious that Moira (Debra Mayer) is the one pulling all the strings in their relationship, and Harrison is merely a figurehead to his malevolent wife’s ambitions of world domination.  When this oddest of couples isn’t engaged in fetish role play, Mistress Moira sells her soft-core dominatrix videos online, and  Harrison teaches “Creepy Laughing 101″ at the local college, and also practices the fine art of goofy facial ticks.  Although actress Debra Mayer does an absolutely terrific job at modeling a variety of sexy-looking S&M outfits throughout the movie, most of her scenes and dialog with Virgil are so painful you’ll be begging for a morphine drip.

If you’re a fan of films from Full Moon’s glory days, then revisit some of their earlier classics like “Trancers 2″, “Puppet Master”, or “Subspecies” and avoid this shoddy mess of ridiculous subplots and bad directing.

Keep an eye out for….

- Terrifying use of flexible metallic conduit
- Soul-powered dolls
- Jack Attack’s clown makeup from “Demonic Toys”
- Spontaneous boobustion
- Robo-Rotary Tool of Death
- Creepy Laughing 101
- S&M Web of Death
- Song about a killer female sex organ
- Extreme wet towel fights
- Appearance by a Sith probe droid
- Daredevil stunt dwarf
- Dollman comic book cameo
- Dominatrix fashion show
- Jaw-dropping twist ending
- Falling dumbbells
- Surprise appearances by film crew and equipment

rated 2.5 out of 10 for the movie

Watch the trailer for Blood Dolls.

“When New York hookers have a slow week, they’ll often perform as street mimes for some extra cash.”

Back in Junior High science class we were forced to partake of the barbaric ritual of frog dissection. You’d think as a horror/sci-fi fan that I would be giddy in anticipating at slicing open a frog like some sort of evil mad scientist. But honestly real gore is well gross…I don’t like it…I don’t want to see it and I especially don’t want to touch it. The site of my own blood makes me qweezy, changing my daughters diapers is it’s own horror show (by the way never feed your kids pork and beans and fresh fruit before bedtime.) So the thought of pulling out those little goey frogs lungs in science class still makes me …oh…..ugh….wait…qweezy..room spinning….

When watching a horror movie I know the gore is fake, the situations are fake and I’m in no immediate physical danger of loosing a limb or having my soul swallowed… well at least during the work week. If I ever happen to be stuck at a summer camp with a history of teenage mutilations rest assured then I’ll be calling for a cab to take me home immediately. If I’m ever faced with the situation of battling demon elves that I inadvertently let loose while reading from the scrolls of an ancient book..well then that’s just my own darn fault for majoring in ancient Latin. But real life gore, like removing the innards from a helpless tree frog ,is not my idea of entertainment nor is it educational. Given the opportunity, I might try to hook it up to a car battery and jump start that little Kermit back to life. Sure It’ll probably shoot him across the room in an amphibian ball of flames smelling like french fries but at least I tried to bring the little green guy back to life. I am nothing if but pro-frog.

Jeffery Franken faces a similar dilemma in the cult classic Frankenhooker. Jeffrey is a mild manner Jersey electrician who has just lost his fiancee, Elizabeth, in a horrific lawnmower accident. Blondes should not operate heavy machinery while thinking or standing in front of them. Jeffrey somehow sneaks away his fiancee’s head in a bowling bag I’d presume and preserves her in the spacesaver fridge out in the garage right next to to the frozen fish fillets. He also happens to dabble in electro-genetics so he devices a plan to bring Elizabeth back from that great lawn clipping pile in the sky. Through the process of drilling his own head with a craftsman power tool he devices the brilliant plan to develop a batch of jiffy-pop explosive-crack cocaine to use on a group of hookers. It just goes to show people get inspired in all sorts of different ways. So It’s a 4th of July fireworks display of exploding hookers parts giving Jeff an all you can carry buffet of left ho-vers to use for his Elizabeth 2: Electric Boogalo. Through a lightening storm Elizabeth is resurrected as a brand new woman in high heeled Franken boots, purple eye shadow and a pointed bra but instead of being the dimwitted blonde, she’s a crazed hooker monster (a mooker?) out to make some extra cash. The only problem is she keeps scaring away customers and the few that she does bag surprisingly explode from all her pent up sexual static-electricity. All Jeffrey wants to do is settle down and make little Franken babies with her so he goes off to try to rescue her from her new career. I can’t believe I never saw this movie as a teenager It’s truly a fine example of 80’s horror/comedy. There’s also a great twist ending with revengeful spare hooker parts and a pimp named Zorro… you had to know a pimp was going to be involved somehow but he’s not a fencing masked vigilante. So head on down to the video store, put your money on the table and proudly ask if they have Frankenhooker in stock. Some Assembly may be required.

Keep an eye out for…

- combustible crack ho’s
- girlfriend lawn mulching
- head drilling
- explosive hamsters
- extreme sexual static friction
- whiplash decapitations
- bucket of legs and breasts (and it ain’t chicken)
- body building pimps named Zorro
- revengeful spare hooker parts

“Wanna Date? got any money?”
Hey aren’t those the first and last questions you should ask on a date?

rated 9.1 out of 10 for the movie

Check out the trailer for Frankenhooker

“Can we pull over? I think I caught a junebug in my teeth.“

I’ve recently starting go back to the local gym. Repetitive computer mouse movements and the occasional chair shifting aren’t burning the calories like I’d hope. Yes it’s time to lose that pizza gut that I’ve worked on so hard over these past several months. The countless hours sitting in front of a computer to perfect it’s shape and density, it’s truly like a work of art. Sure it hasn’t won me any awards in categories like “most likely to have grease in his veins” but I did get honorable mentions in “most likely to run over your grandma for a doughnut.” or the coveted “achievements in long range Girlscout cookie flavor identification.” I do have a lifetime membership to Fitness USA that I got back in 1997 on a dare and by lifetime apparently that means at some point in my life I plan to use it again so why not now. I figured out why I hate exercise so much…it’s work…and I do a lot of that already, hence the title “working out” but I will keep at it and continue to work those abs and glutify my glutes and perfect my pectorals. Whatever it takes so I don’t gasp for air in exhaustion from opening a jar of tomatoes.

William Smith, a life long body builder, plays a biker named Angel who knows what it takes to stay in shape. This former Marlboro man also knows how to keep a fake mustache attached to his upper lip precariously for long periods of time as evident in his starring role in the 1969’s biker movie “Run, Ange, Run.” A little known fact, Smith also holds the record for 5100 continuous sit ups over a 5 hour time frame barely beating out my record by 5000 or so. William usually plays a b-movie direct to video bad guy these days but finds himself early in his career in the uncomfortable role of a misunderstood sensitive bike type. Angel is hightailing it out of town with his favorite hooker/girlfriend/go-go dancer Laurie, played convincingly by Valerie Starrett. Ms. Starrett is actually the wife of the director Jack Starrett which must have made some of her love scenes a tad uncomfortable. Turns out all the bikers gangs are looking for Angel now since he sold them out for his story to “Like” Magazine for a whopping $10,000. Even in the late 60’s that amount shouldn’t have been enough to sell out your fellow riders but Angel isn’t the shiniest tool in the shed and thinks he’s struck the jackpot. He continually tries to get rid of Laurie a good 3 or 4 times before they even leave town, this despite her bailing him out jail by turning tricks in the parking lot the night before. Now that is true love. His bipolar medication was obviously left at home as he switches back and forth between sensitive Angel and homicidal “I’ll stick a fork in your eye” Angel, but that seems to only makes Laurie love him more.

Through a series of mind numbing motorcycle montages accompanied by the tunes of Tammy Wynette, Angel and Laurie evade the pursuing biker gangs confusing them with a stunt spectacular at a train station that would make Evil Knievel proud. No one under 18 will be admitted during the breath taking train jumping sequence. Narrowly escaping being raped by a gang of train hobo’s Laurie and Angel flee to an abandoned barn to pretend to be in school and to take a literal roll in the hay. I think people with hay fever wouldn’t even find that love scene stimulating. You can almost hear the director screaming “Get your damn filthy hands off my wife!!!” as William attempts his best to grope Valerie without actually touching, an impressive acting skill.

Angel and Laurie then decide to go house hunting and start a life together ala June Cleaver style fulfilling their redneck American dream of owning a beat down shed in the middle of nowhere. The film had taken a sharp nose dive at that point with scenes of them at their dinner table talking about their life and their dreams…then montages of them running on the beach and holding hands to the sounds of flute music…and…wait is this a Lifetime movie of the week? Did I accidentally stumble into a feminine hygiene commercial? What happened to the motorcycle gang that was about rip off his arm and beat him with it? Unfortunately they’re still back at a local bar starting up their own roadhouse dinner theater and picking bars fight with rejects from Docker pants commercials. Be sure to take note of the go-go dancer in the background who continues to dance while heads are getting smashed around her. You gotta love the 60’s for little gem moments like that.

Years, months, or days appear to be go by and Angel is now sans mustache, the ultimate sacrifice of a motorcyclists is shaving, and is now living the good life down on the farm. Angel teaches his neighbor, Dan Felton, to ride a motorcycle and in return Dan gives him a job in sheep dipping. Luckily that’s not as obscene as it sounds and Dan is thrilled to have a job dousing sheep in chemical flea baths for a honest day’s pay. He then starts spouting poetry about birds and freedom and at some point appears to want to cry! (Billy what is wrong with you? Shouldn’t you’ve beaten someone senseless by now?)

Dan’s daughter, Megan, decides to go hang out at a local bar and gets raped by that long lost biker gang I mentioned earlier as they finally learn of Angel’s whereabouts. If you throw enough coincidences in a film, things like that are bound to happen so Dan thinks Angel did it because Megan is now a mute and only screams at the sounds of revving motorcycles. Based on this overwhelming evidence Dan loads up his shotgun to go make mince meat out of Angel back at his shack. My dog barks at the sound of lawnmowers but I don’t shoot the nearest landscaper.

Angel who has been away in the city has returned from finally picking up his check and avoided the long wait at his mailbox. Things go sour from there when the motorcycle gang of four and a very angry Dan show up with shotgun in tow. It’s a rodeo-style showdown with some motorcycle wranglin’ and furniture tippin’ ending with lessons about life, love, and the evilness of greed. Yup ladies and gentlemen it’s a chick-flick.

I think if any lessons I learned from this movie is that… 1. $10,000 is not enough to rat out biker gangs or pay for a year of college. 2. motorcycle montages sung by Tammy Wynette are a great way to fight insomnia. 3. William Smith could crush most people using only his index finger and thumb.

As far as chick-flick/biker films from the late 60’s go this was pretty good. So go grab yourself a Harley and scare up some sheep with “Run, Angel, Run.”

Keep an eye out for….

- bar-room brawl with optional go-go dancers
- off key folk singing
- sheep dipping
- cackling rednecks
- hobo throwin’
- imprompto train jumping evil knievel style
- motorcycle montages
- hay rollin’
- bi-polar domesticated motorcyclist
- mustache wrangling
- chicken feeding
- motorcycle induced sheep stampedes
- babbling homeless Santa impersonators
- Tammy Wynette singing
- extreme facial hair

warning this movie is known to induce drowsiness. Do not operate heavy machinery while watching. If you have allergies to wool or hay we suggest you consult your doctor before viewing.

rated 7.9 out of 10 for the movie

Watch the trailer for Run, Angel, Run.

“Little Johnny didn’t sleep well that night. It may have been due to his new Hasbro’s Demon from Hell night-light.“

When I was a young kid my biggest fears were 1. Having my parents continue to dress me in country western shirts and friction inducing corduroy pants for school and 2. That creatures living in the sewer would come up through the toilet and drag me down to their netherworld. Both of which give me bad flashbacks and why to this day I have yet to use a public bathroom in a rodeo bar. My older cousins would also say those giant green porta-potties were simply a means to transport the toilet creatures from one part of the country to another only furthering my phobias. Sure maybe it was a hoax on a gullible fashion-challenged kid or perhaps it was a part of a larger undercover government conspiracy to thin crowds at county fairs and racing events. The truth may never be known.

In the movie C.H.U.D., the director apparently suffered some of the same childhood dramas as myself and used filmmaking for his therapy. C.H.U.D supposedly stands for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers. Run for your lives! It’s an acronym movie title… oh the horrors! but wait it turns out that it actually stands for Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal which is the name of a secret government policy to dump toxic waste under the city streets of New York. Would New Yorkers even notice the difference…probably not, that is until a cute little dogs get mutilated and a photographer starts screening his calls…thats when the cops are called into action. Christopher Curry plays Captain Bosch…a good cop with a disturbing mustache who is trying to find out the cause of the sudden disappearance of his wife and dozens of homeless people in the city. He meets A.J. played by City Slicker Daniel Stern, a centaurian looking fellow who runs a soup kitchen and is occasionally out-acted by his enormous hair or stained shirts. A.J. (when will the acronyms end!) is convinced that his homeless friends are being snatched up by someone or something in the sewers like a demonic Leona Helmsley looking for a few new hotel servants. The captain isn’t convinced though until they discover a giant moon boot and a clock radio that also acts as a geiger counter…shoot I have those things in my basement and I don’t have a CHUD problem….yet. The clock radio lights up like a Christmas tree indicating something is moving towards them and then the something starts growling. They express mild concern in the possibility of a horrible mutant creature about to munch on their innards and casually head back to the surface to attend a board meeting, successfully diffusing what could have been a actual tense situation.

Meanwhile in what seems like a completely different movie, George Cooper played by John “made for t.v. movie” Heard is taking photos of his pipe-cleaner shapely girlfriend, Lauren, who complain about pimples on her butt and wants to have lots of babies. George is also trying to hunt down one of his other star photo models, a homeless bag lady whom he has to bail out of jail. She brings him down below the city streets for a tunnel of garbage tour and to show him a chewed up leg which resembles someone’s unfinished BBQ ribs dinner platter.

A plot finally tries to rear it’s ugly head but thankfully is squashed via long scenes of useless dialog and dull boardroom scenes that play right out of a community theater production. Where is the cannibalism!? Government and city officials deny the existence of the C.H.U.D.S. then Daniel Stern has a temper tantrum and throws a book silently across the desk and suddenly they starting telling the truth. Guantanamo Bay should take notice on these interrogation techniques.

The officials decide to destroy the mutants by attempting to gas the tunnels and seal off the manholes. Meanwhile the captain simultaneously decides to send in a squad of police officer armed with standard issued flame throwers apparently forgetting the devastating results of what happens when you light a fart only on a much bigger scale.

A.J. and George end up trapped underground as a few escaping mutants attack John Goodman dressed as a copy at a local Diner. The John Goodman sized-snack doesn’t seem to ruin their appetites and they continue their night of rampage. Luaren is also attacked by a C.H.U.D. in her apartment but her class on samurai sword fighting self-defense at the YMCA finally pays off. She then steals a police car with keys still in the ignition and hightails it to the diner to find out where her boyfriend is. The scapegoat government official will do anything to make sure the public doesn’t know about the mutants and attempts to kill all the witnesses including A.J. and George still trapped below the city streets. Always better to kill every innocent bystander then letting them know you were illegally dumping toxic waste.

C.H.U.D is pure 80’s horror cheese. The gory effects are great and the over the top acting made this an enjoyable afternoon movie between info-mercials about carpet cleansers and botox creams. So I say CHUD it out….and always be sure to check the toilet seat before sitting.

Keep an eye out for….

- professional phone screening
- elf-like neighbors
- canine lynch mobs
- standard police issued flame throwers
- mutant neck extenders
- extreme shirt staining
- epileptics with rambo knives
- boardroom theater shows
- coin eaters…keep the change
- lost moon boots
- ground chuck-o-legs
- clock radio’s with optional geiger counters
- aggressive pay phone collectors
- shower clogs
- highbeam eye-lights
- gratuitous use of the term “manhole”
- explosive bread delivery trucks

Name that CHUD

a. Chihuahua Hound Undersized Dogs
b. Communist Hungarian Urban Development
d. Contortionist Hiding Under Desks
e. Contaminated Husband’s Underwear Discovery
f. all of the above

rated 7.6 out of 10 for the movie

Watch the trailer for “C.H.U.D.”

It’s been an extremely busy week and though I did get to watch 2 movies this past week neither really felt they would work well for one of my reviews. But while realizing I would be late yet again with a worthy b-movie review, I thought I’d get a bit creative and put together a video review of these two films that missed the cut. So here’s my first attempt below that I posted to YouTube. I’ll be making these brief video reviews occasionally. Hey now you’ll know my face so you can stop me on the street and kick me in the shins for recommending Troll 2. “You can’t piss on hospitality”

Watch episode 1: A brief review of “Them” and “Two Lane Blacktop”