Highway To Hell

Watched August 4, 2025 

 

1991

Starring: Chad Lowe, Kristy Swanson, Patrick Bergin

Director: Ate de Jong

 

Charlie (Chad Lowe) and Rachel (Kristy Swanson) are in a beat up pinto driving off to Vegas to elope.  They didn't tell anyone except Rachel did leave her mom a note so she wouldn't worry. They are worried about getting in trouble so they get off the freeway onto a smaller frontage road. They get gas at an antique gas station called Sam's Last Chance. Sam (Richard Farnsworth) warns them to not stop between the two joshua trees.  As they drive Charlie falls asleep and they almost crash spinning around by a billboard. An officer stops them but it's Hellcop! He has awesome "hand" cuffs that are real hands. Hellcop grabs Rachel out of the car and handcuffs her in the back of his crazy souped up cop car, they disappear. Chad goes back to the gas station where Sam explains that his long lost wife was taken to hell on that road. Sam also has a bunch of clippings of other women taken. Sam gives Charlie his 1930's car and says it's got something special and shows him how to divert onto the mystical road to hell.

 

Hell is the desert, very sunny and bright. Charlie runs into a motorcycle/scooter gang. They threaten Charlie but don't actually do anything. Rachel and Hellcop stop at Cop Diner. Ben Stiller is outside grilling meat on the sidewalk as the short order cook.  Ann Meara is the waitress who won't stop talking. Jerry Stiller is a cop just trying to get a cup of coffee. All the cops are various stages of zombies. Rachel gets the handcuffs off by pouring boiling coffee on them and runs out. She gets trapped by the moto gang who give her to Hellcop. They're heading the Satan I guess.

 

Lita Ford is a hitchhiker who tries to get a ride with Charlie, but a crazy guy jumps on his car instead. 

In a chase with Hellcop, Charlie's car is super damaged. He uses a random phone to call for help but in the meantime a tow truck shows up. Mr. Ben is the dog that is along for the whole movie.  Beezle (Patrick Bergin) is the tow truck driver/fix it guy and he has a 6 year old kid Adam (Jarrett Lennon). The car is fixed but Adam stows away on the side rail so Charlie doesn't see. There is a group of fix it road workers with Andy Warhol wigs. They are taking people with good intentions to pave the road to hell. 

 

They go to a gambling hall called Hoffa's. Gilbert Gottfried is Hitler. Sexy dancers and folks dressed from the all different eras. Hellcop and Rachel are there but Hellcop shoots Charlie. Beezl shows up and uses Adam to heal Charlie.

 

The next part is a shortcut. Charlie drives to a cave where Hellcop is parked. All this time Charlie recognized Clara, a woman with the motorcycle gang, as Sam's lost wife. She warns Charlie that this shortcut is a test, and she failed it. 

 

In the eroded sand cave a door appears, Rachel is there dressed in black tied to a bed. Charlie and Rachel kiss, she wants to have sex so that Satan doesn't want her anymore. Charlie had grabbed her bracelet that fell when she was arrested and gives it back to her but she doesn't really care. Hellcop is there and fights Charlie, but Charlie manages to shoot Hellocop with his Hellgun. Even though Charlie is bleeding from the mouth Rachel still wants to make out and have sex but Charlie sees her in the  mirror and she's a crazy demon! Awesome effect. Charlie manages to fight the demon and escape but it was all a trick and he's back on the same road.

 

Now there is a parade on VW beetles chasing Charlie but he gets past them and makes it to Satan City. Joke bumper sticker "Pontius is my copilot." Charlie he has to cross the river Styx and Chiron doesn't want him in since he's not dead. Charlie manages to get in, finds the real Rachel who was also tempted by becoming a super great violinist instead of a mom running a pizza place? Satan tries to makes some deal, but they had learned that Adam isn't dead either. His parent's were killed and Beezle took him. Charlie and Rachel want to take Adam back to Earth with them. They have to outrace Hellcop to try to make it out of Hell. The moto gang is chasing them too and lead guy has a sword, but Clara helps them crash so they don't get Charlie and Rachel. The vibe is Clara is now free in death. Clara tells them to shoot Hellcop in the eyes. The car does have some turbo booster they find at the last minute and make it out of Hell.

 

They get arrested by the real cop but then Hellcop makes it through too and fights them but Rachel shoots him in the face. They drive away.

 

End text crawl!

Adam goes to the live with his aunt and uncle in Cleveland. Charlie and Rachel get married and have a pizza shop and she plays violin. Adam writes letters to the dog. Some other stuff.

Great! Practical effects, horror comedy, jokes that worked for me. Cool hell setting. Chad screen kisses really weird. Picked on a whim based on the bad Photoshop image showing up on Plex. I'd never heard of this movie before. The tone is strange so I can understand why it doesn't have a long legacy.

Poison Ivy

 

Watched August 3, 2025

 

1985

Starring: Michael J. Fox, Nancy McKeon, Cary Guffey,

Director: Larry Elikann

Camp movie! Getting on the train are a bunch of rowdy kids. Dennis (Michael J. Fox) is the cool councilor with all the girlfriends. Ike (Adam Baldwin) is the lead councilor/hard ass. Dennis has a rope tied to a kid Timmy (Cary Guffey) who is a flight risk (the kid from Close Encounters). Dennis kisses a girl then on the train starts hitting on a new girl. Jerry (Joe Wright) is a con kid who fakes the mumps so he can get his own room on the train where he puts on his cool guy gear like a Michael Jackson silver glove and shiny vest. He tries to hit on Irene (Shanna Stewart) from the girls camp. 

 

At camp Pinewood, they have breakfast. Timmy hates everything and keeps trying to run away. The assistant nurse Rhonda (Nancy McKeon) shows up. Freckle faced writer kid Brian (Thomas Nowell) is instantly in love with Rhonda and sends her flowers and a poem, as a secret admirer.

 

Jerry starts having Brian write letters home for other kids, as it's mandatory and everyone hates it. Brian makes the letter, the kids copy it and they pay with their canteen tickets.

 

Dennis lays it on thick to Rhonda, but she's engaged...he still doesn't quit. Jerry becomes an agent for the baseball phenom to play varsity to win the big game.

 

Jerry and fellow campers us the littlest kids to distract the councilors at the water so they can steal a canoe to get to Camp ChickIwanna, the girls camp across the lake. Dennis is already there kissing a councilor. Lots of hard TV cuts. The boys and Dennis escape in the laundry truck, but Timmy gets caught. 

 

Parent's weekend. Nancy's fiancé comes to visit too and is a bore. Dennis borrows sleeping pills from a parent and puts in the  fiancé's burger, he falls asleep. Rhonda does like Dennis and they kiss. 

 

Timmy starts to warm up and his bunk mates teach him how to swim using the bathtub in the camp director's cabin. The director's wife seduces Ike and the boys jump out the window. 

Color war: Gray versus Blue. For some reason, there is a writing portion in the competition, but Brian doesn't like what's he written so they lose that portion. The bunks are split up into the different teams. They add Timmy to their swim relay but Jerry is on the other team and freaks him out and he almost drowns.  Timmy runs away and everyone goes to look for him. On the other side of the lake, they find a weird guy with an ax and what looks like blood splatters, but he's just into making splatter paintings and Timmy is fine.

 

Timmy swims the lake back to prove he can swim!All the bunk mates are friends now!

 

Brian rolls in poison ivy to spend more time with Rhonda.  Rhonda thought for a bit that Dennis was the writer but sees it was Brian.  Everyone is friends, back on the train. Rhonda dumps her boyfriend. Dennis is made assistant direction after he canceled the color war and the wife was into it. 

 

Bland and forgettable, obviously everyone starts out unlikable. On the plus side, no awful slurs with some minor diversity in background players. The cinematography is bad. No wonder no one talks about it. Shooting Georgia for Maine. I watched it in Maine. After I picked this as a bad non-horror movie to watch with folks not interested in horror, I realized that I think I made my husband watch this before, but I remembered nothing.

The Wraith

 Watched July 4, 2025

 

1986

Starring: Charlie Sheen, Sherilyn Fenn, Nick Cassavetes, Clint Howard

Director: Mike Marvin

 

Magical lights come out of the night sky to create a car! ... the Turbo Interceptor!

 

A couple is night driving when Packard (Nick Cassavetes) and his gang stops them and forces them to race for the car or they hint at raping the girlfriend. He loses the race and the gang takes his car, leaving him and his girlfriend on the side of the rural highway. 

 

Keri (Sherilyn Fenn) is walking out of her house when Jake (Charlie Sheen) rolls up on his motorcycle asking for directions. She offers to show in the way but then her not boyfriend Packard shows up. They all go to the local swimming hole. Jake meets Jamie's little brother Billy, Jamie was killed a year ago but they never found the murderer. Packard threatens everyone and forces Keri to be his girlfriend, but she isn't, she likes Jake.

 

The Interceptor shows up and the car gang tries to race it. The Interceptor stops and the other racer crashes into it! Huge explosion and goes down a hill. Lots of cars explode in this movie!

 

Officer Loomis (Randy Quaid) shows up and talks to the gang. The recovered body isn't charred, it's clean with the eyes gouged out.

 

The car gang has a sweet garage hang out. Rughead (Clint Howard) is the tech guy with Skunk & Gutterboy being the punk dirtbags. There are a couple more guys in the gang. Billy works at the drive in burger joint where Keri is a roller skate server.  

 

The Interceptor shows up again and another guy is dead. The mysterious helmeted dude gets out of the Interceptor and shoots up the garage. Then he blows up a bunch of cars. Rughead is the first one to call the helmeted figure a wraith.

 

One night Skank and Gutterboy see Keri on the back of Jake's motorcycle. They follow and try to shoot him but they total their car instead. Packard watches Keri and Jake kiss, then the Interceptor shows up and pushes them into the cemetery where Packard's headstone is.

 

Jake and Keri go swimming and make out.

 

Packard grabs Keri at work to take her. Billy stand up but gets punched. In the car, Keri says she knows it was Packard and his gang who killed Jamie. Jamie was her boyfriend.

 

The Interceptor shows up and races Packard,  with the cops following. A hauler car trailer is run into, lots of car explosions. The Interceptor runs into Packard and he's dead. Each time this happens the Interceptor is fine.

 

Jake says bye to Billy who now knows he's Jamie. Jake gives Billy the Interceptor. Jake and Keri ride off into the moonlight on his motorcycle.

 

Keri's outfits are great! Clint Howard's hair and outfits too. Lots of rad car explosions and great stunts. Well shot on location in Tucson, Arizona. The mystery of the wraith isn't much of mystery. It seems pretty clear when the new guy in town Jake shows up at the same time as the mysterious car. You are just waiting for each time the Interceptor to keep chipping away at the gang that killed Jamie. I couldn't find this one for awhile and was psyched to find a DVD widescreen at a thrift store. I always looked at the poster/video box art and though the wraith would ride a motorcycle because he always wears a full face helmet.

The Boyfriend School AKA Don't Tell Her It's Me

Watched August 1, 2025

 

1990

Starring: Steve Guttenberg, Jamie Gertz, Shelley Long

Director: Malcolm Mowbray 

 

In South Carolina, Gus (Steve Guttenberg) is a cartoonist recovering from Hodgkin's Lymphoma. According to the movie, he is 'fat', he has lost all his hair; eyebrows and all. Lizzie (Shelley Long), his sister is a romance novelist with a three-year-old daughter, Annabelle nicknamed piglet and a weird husband. Lizzie doesn't want Gus to be single anymore so she starts a plan to set him up now that he's in recovery.

Jamie Gertz is a journalist with an old junker car. She works with Trout (Kyle MacLachlan) at The Grackle newspaper. They were dating but are an on/off seeing other people. At the beginning of the movie she goes on a bad date where the guy doesn't remember her name: Emily.

 It turns out that Emily is sent to do a feature at the romance convention in town. She interviews Lizzie but Lizzie is actually interviewing her for Gus. Lizzie invites Emily and Gus over for dinner. Lizzie and her husband are really into Asian culture- but due to the time its played as a joke. Chinese food is weird and gross, I guess. Gus hasn't regrown his hair, is wearing a bad wig and still looks sick. Emily and Gus don't hit it off, the dinner is weird. The husband serves jellyfish salad and Emily throws up. That's after Annabelle tossed an oil covered bolt on Emily, staining her dress. Lizzie always explains to Annabelle in adult language what would happen to her body when she does something dangerous. But Gus saw Emily in her old timey slip and it's not very scandalous.

Gus tries to call Emily to make a date but she's not interested. Trout gets back together with her sort of.

Lizzie decides she can give Emily the fantasy she desires in Gus so it's makeover time. Gus's hair grows back and he starts working out, jogging while Lizzie rides a scooter beside him.

Once he's got the bod, Gus gets a cool mullet plus Lizzie says he's got to get a new persona. Now he's Lobo Murunga from New Zealand.

At a gas station at night, Emily is pumping gas into her junker when Lobo pulls up on his motorcycle, causing her to overflow the gas. At the counter, she only has $2 but accidentally pumped $20 of gas.She doesn't have a way to pay, but it turns out the counter guy is a robber and the actual shopkeeper is on the floor. Lobo comes in, he wants to be cool but also figures out the robbery. He wants to chicken out but then hits the robber with the coffee pot. Lobo tries to leave but Emily is in love and makes him come home with her. He pretends to pass out but she kisses him. In the morning, he leaves but Costanza's her with his Maori amulet necklace. But his motorcycle is back at the gas station.

Lizzie goes to the gas station to give Lobo back his necklace. Lobo shows up and takes her for a motorcycle ride to a random spot where they dance in a house/event space. Lobo drops her back off at her apartment.

Gus doesn't want to do it anymore but the necklace still hasn't been returned. He gets it from her apartment but then Lizzie makes up an errand to return the books that Lizzie lent her.

Gus's cover is almost blown at Lizzie's house but luckily his niece Piglet doesn't talk much The husband tries to play along too.

Emily does break it off with Trout but he was also seeing another woman from their office ( Madchen Amick) from their office. It  seems like a cut plotline, because it doesn't really matter that Trout is seeing someone else. I guess it's showing he's not a great guy.  Lobo is at her apartment and they make love once she formally ends it with Trout.

The next day Lobo pops out his blue contacts and says he's Gus, Emily rightfully kicks him out. Emily goes to Lizzie to blame her for the plot but Lizzie keeps playing the game she set up saying that everyone is mad at her but Gus is moving to NY. Even though Emily feels betrayed, she's still into Gus/Lobo. Her car barely starts and she makes it over to Gus's waterfront shack, but he's gone. Her car won't start now so she gets on his motorcycle and makes it to the airport. He's in line and they both are both into trying to be together, now that the truth is out. He's not moving to NY, he's just going to a wedding in Tallahassee so she comes too. Lizzie is watching them the whole time and Annabelle is in the car and says a new word.

It's a pretty crazy set up, overall it's fine but the trickster plot is pretty bad. It's a hard concept to just lie to someone about who you are and then have them still want to be with you. Great outfits. Kyle MacLachlan is a good creep and it fun to have two Twin Peaks actors together.

The Wicker Man (1973)

 

Watched June 20, 2025

 

1973

Starring: Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland

Director: Robin Hardy

 

My local theater was showing this and I thought it was good excuse to see it. I'd heard a lot about the crazy Nick Cage remake, so why not see the original.

It's the end of April. Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) arrives by seaplane to the remote British island of Summerisle. The police had received a letter and photo of missing 14-year-old girl, Rowan Morrison. At first, no one in the village recognizes the photo. The letter about the missing girl was anonymous. 

Sergeant Howie goes to the Morrison family, the mom runs a candy store. She has one daughter but doesn't have another, no missing Rowan. Everyone isn't being totally obtuse, just cheerfully unhelpful.

Sergeant Howie spends the night at the Green Man Inn. Everyone is there, it's the local pub, singing and kissing. The innkeeper's daughter has a beautiful daughter Willow (Britt Ekland). Their songs are about sex, semi-subtly. Officer Howie goes outside and everyone is having sex on the lawn. He goes back inside to see a kilted man offering his teen son to Willow. They play a song about coupling. Sergeant Howie is Christian and wracked with guilt about these fornicators.

In the morning, all the school boys are practicing the dance around a maypole with a singer, it's almost a musical. The girls are inside with their teacher, Ms. Rose (Diane Cilento). Sergeant Howie is still looking for Rowan. Ms. Rose says she's not there but he grabs her roster and Rowan's name is listed as a student. Ms. Rose and Sergeant Howie talk outside, and she basically says Rowan is dead. Sergeant Howie goes to the records office, there is no death certificate for Rowan. All the townsfolk keep questioning Sergeant Howie's authority to be there at all. 

Sergeant Howie visits Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), who explains that they all worship the Earth. Sergeant Howie asks to dig up the coffin, he doesn't appear to get permission so he does it at night. Inside there is a giant hare instead of a human body. 

Ms. Rose is at Lord Summerisle's house, they're singing together. Sergeant Howie throws the hare at them. They say this is Rowan, she changed. 

At the Inn, Willow sings a seduction song and bangs naked at the wall trying to get police officer to come over to her room. Sergeant Howie barely manages to stay away, as a good Christian he is engaged but a virgin. He tries to leave May 1st but his plane won't start. He looks up pagan rituals about May day. 

Back at the Inn, Sergeant Howie goes to rest since he can't leave yet. Willow and the innkeeper say they'll use a special thing to keep him asleep. Instead Sergeant Howie wakes up,  and sees a strange burning hand/candle. Sergeant Howie knocks out the innkeeper and puts on his fool costume. 

Previously, Sergeant Howie had searched all over and found that last year's harvest was bad. He's convinced they're going to sacrifice Rowan for a better harvest. The town marches and does their May day ceremony, they are led to Rowan, she's alive and fine.  Sergeant Howie unties her and runs away with her but it was all part of the plan to get the police officer, a Christian virgin to come to the island of his own free will so they can sacrifice him to have a better crop yield. Sergeant Howie tries to get them to stop, but they put him in the wicker man, where there are also a bunch of animals in cages and they're all burned at sunset.

Great crazy folk horror vibes.  I already knew the basic plot so the town trick wasn't a surprise, but it was still fun. There's so much music it could be a musical, there is a folk theme song called Corn Rigs. Christopher Lee is so young in this one!