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.

Body Puzzle

 

Watched November 17, 2024

 

1992

Starring: Joanna Pacula, Tomas Arana, François Montegut

Director: Lamberto Bava

This synopsis is more condensed and scattered as this was watched during a weekend movie marathon with a good friend and my notes are lacking.

 

Begins with a blond guy "playing" piano and listening to music but also has headphones on and he is remembering a motorcycle accident. He was chasing his lover(?) who was on a motorcycle in the rain, he was in a car yelling "you're going too fast!" Then the motorcycle rider slips, crashes and dies. It's shot really manically like no one is doing the right thing. Blond guy is also going too fast as he yells as the motorcyclist.

 

A bakery owner is stabbed and his ear is cut off. The ear shows up in the fridge of Tracy (Joanna Pacula). She goes to visit her dead husband's grave and it's been robbed. The detective alerts her to this, so she goes to stay at her parent's country house.

 

 Next kill: hand cut off by trapping and tying up a women in the bathroom. and kidney or liver

Tracy has a big Beethoven St. Bernard dog. 

 

The killer then tries to kills a pregnant lady in the hospital- is she in labor or just having a check up? 

The detectives are starting to connect the murders. Tim is trying to put Abe back together from the parts he donated when he died. Detective and Tracy have a thing. Jr. Detective is my movie bf. 

 

Makes sense, suspenseful, good twist. Great setting. English language filmed in Italy. Crazy kill of a teacher of the blind students while they sing but can't see what's happening. Best kill: swimming with a knife to kill a lifeguard then cutting off his dick!

 

My Bloody Valentine

 

Watched February 14, 2025

1981

Starring: Paul Kelman, Lori Hallier,  Neil Affleck, Keith Knight

Director: George Mihalka

 

Valentine's Bluff, Canada 

Two miners go down to the mine in full coveralls and face masks. One takes off the mask to reveal a lady and she pulls down her coveralls and she has a heart tattoo on her breast. She's stroking the other person's mask. Then the masked miner pushes her into a wall spike and stabs her with a pickax.

 

February 12th

We meet the main group of miners: Axel (Neil Affleck), goofball Howard (Alf Humphreys), mustachioed Hollis (Keith Knight, and AJ (Paul Kelman). They are switching shifts, they get off the mine cart, take showers and head to the Union Hall where their girlfriends are putting up decorations for the Valentines Dance.

 

Axel (Neil Affleck) is Sarah's (Lori Hallier) new boyfriend.  She used to date TJ (Paul Kelman) but he left town to try for something better on the West Coast but he never told Sarah. She still cares about him, but is mad he left. TJ feels like a failure because he couldn't escape the small town and working in the mine.

 

Mabel owns the launderetee and is helping decorate the town.

 

Twenty years ago there was a planned Valentine's Day dance. The miners were leaving the mine, still 5 guys were down there. Someone didn't off-gas the methane and a cave-in occurred. It took rescuers six weeks to get down there. Only one survivor remained,  who lived by eating the dead. The next year he killed the two supervisors with a pickax, then was committed to the mental hospital. That's why there hasn't been a dance in so long.

 

At the Union Hall, a box of chocolates is left for Mayor Hanniger (Larry Reynolds). The mayor takes it in the car with the Chief Newby (Don Francks) but opens it to reveal a real heart! ...and a note to cancel the dance.

 

The Mayor and police Chief take the heart to the coroner and it's human, but no body is discovered.

 

Mabel, the owner of the launderette, has been helping decorate for the dance. Back at the launderette, she finds a heart box too, then she is attacked. The next day, she's found in the dryer, her heart is in the box with another warning to cancel the dance. The Mayor and Chief say Mabel died of a heart attack but they are trying to see if it's the guy from 20 years ago but the hospital can't find his record?

 

Meanwhile with AJ back in town, he want to get back with Sarah but Axel's not into it. It's a good triangle because they talk about it. Sarah is torn she does still like AJ but he left without telling her, so she feels abandoned.

 

All the young folks are bummed about the canceled dance, but the miners say they can party at the mine mess hall. They all go over there. AJ and Axel fight, Sarah says she's not into either of them.  A couple goes to the shower/coverall drying room to fool around. The guy, Dave goes to get more beers and lady is killed.

 

A dude goes to the kitchen to get a hot dog and his face is boiled. Two other ladies go get hot dogs and discover a cooked heart in the hot dog water. They discover Dave dead in the fridge. The girls and dude reveal the dead bodies and say we've got to get out of here but Sarah, Patty, Howard, another couple go down to the mine as a distraction for Sarah. They start in the mine cart down. The couples goes to fool around. Then after the upstairs party disperses, Axel and AJ go down to the mine to get everyone. They all think it's the crazy miner from 20 years ago. By now the other group has found the police Chief, he gets a group to head to the mine. Down in the mine the killer gets the couple. Howard and Hollis also die.

 

Axel and AJ find Patty and Sarah, they try to climb out because the elevator isn't working. A body falls from above. They head back down. Patty keeps freaking out but then she's killed. They think Axel falls down a water pond. Now it's just Sarah and AJ try to escape the killer. They get the cart headed back up but it's not moving fast. AJ has a shovel to fight off the killer's pickax. They get off and Sarah runs to the side tunnel. Sarah pulls off the killer's mask and it's Axel!

 

Axel was a kid when his dad was killed 20 years ago by Harry Warden the original mine cave in survivor crazy guy.  There is a small cave in. The townspeople get Axel loose but he runs deeper into the cave screaming "Sarah be my bloody valentine!"

 

 I watched the Shout Factory transfer and it looks great, but it's almost too bright for some scenes that are meant to be a little more mysterious. I had seen it before but it was super fun to revisit on Valentine's Day. I love how wonderfully Canadian it is, and I love that they aren't supposed to be teens. They are young adults in a weird little town. 

Great! 

Rocktober Blood

 

Watched October 28, 2022

 

1984

Director: Beverly Sebastian

Starring: Donna Scoggins, Tray Loren, Cana Cockrell

At a recording studio/house, Billy Eye (Tray Loren) is laying down the vocal track for his song "I'm Back." His band is really into it, but Lynn (Donna Scoggins) is less impressed. It's 4:30 am but Billy leaves for a hook up. Lynn antagonizes him about cheap dates. He says he wrote the song "Rainbow Eyes" for her and she's about to record the backing vocal. Lynn does two takes but it's not working, she heads to the jacuzzi alone. Black leather pants and boots walk down a bunch of stairs- it looks like Billy is already back from his date. He kills the producer by slitting his throat. He hangs another woman in the studio on a rack. Lynn comes out of the jacuzzi, back to the studio to find Billy. Billy makes some subtle jokes about killing two people. He then attacks Lynn. Somebody shows up? and stops Billy so Lynn gets away.

Jump to two years later. 

An MTV style VJ does an interview with Lynn about her new show at a party. He explains it's been two years since Billy went crazy, killed two people, was convicted and executed. Lynn dealt with the trauma but now is the lead of Headmistress, the same band and using Billy's songs. They are having a pre tour launch party with a guy breakdancing in a gorilla mask. Everyone looks '80s metal awesome. Lynn goes upstairs to the spooky office and is attacked by the breakdancer but it's actually Billy! She tells the blond producer Tony (Tony Rista) so he punches the breakdancer, but it's not Billy anymore! Tony tells Lynn to head out of town to relax as they continue to get the show ready.

 

 Lynn heads to a Lake Tahoe cabin (seems like the same studio as the beginning). She is up there with two friends and she is attacked by Billy while hiking in the woods, but it can't actually be him, he's dead! The women get a bunch of creepy phone calls. They do a bunch of jazzercize leotard work outs. They go on a speedboat. Lynn's brunette friend is planning to fly to San Francisco but checks the jacuzzi and it's unexpectedly on. Billy bursts out the water and drowns her. He then hacks up her body, where she cries out even though she has already drowned. Lynn takes a bath in her strange bedroom that has a bathtub in it (on carpet, no less) then Billy chases her in and out of the house. The producer calls, Lynn wants to see Billy's body since she's convinced it's him. Tony says he's British and will go lose his green card if he digs up a grave, good point. Lynn goes to the cemetery anyway with her blond friend. The friends stays in the car, which has an open top while Lynn goes to dig up the grave. Once Lynn has just about finished, Tony shows up to help. They open the coffin, Lynn hallucinates that it's Billy's living face but it's just a rotting skeleton. 

The night of the big show, everyone is getting ready. Billy is stalking around the venue, he kills the blond friend with an iron! Lynn gets her wig on, then Billy reveals he's John, Billy's twin brother! He's been the killer all along. He's the talented one but managed to blame it the original murders on Billy who Lynn thought was the killer. But Billy/John is still pissed that Lynn is using his songs. Billy/John pulls out a big bottle of ETHER! and knocks out Lynn and places her in a coffin, that's happens to be part of the stage show. 

The show starts! Song 1: There are four women in white, gauzy clothes tied up around the stage. Billy kills two of them but it seems like part of the show. The security guard and Tony know it's Billy/John now. The coffin with Lynn rises to the stage and Billy/John makes Lynn sing rainbow eyes while poking her with a spear. Then Billy handcuffs himself to Lynn and sings "I'm Back." Lynn manages to get away and Tony hits Billy/John with a guitar. Blood runs down Billy/John's face and it ends with a freeze frame.

For the Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare theme, this is the best of the three (Slaughterhouse Rock, Black Roses, Rocktober Blood.) The backing band is Sorcery from the wizarding world of Stunt Rock. They're great. The Stunt Rock trailer has all the best stuff,  but the full length movie lags, just a heads up. The acting is bad, Lynn does some casual nudity while taking a jacuzzi and baths. They make the most out of the limited sets and at least make some interesting choices with shots.

Ghoulies 3: Ghoulies go to college

Watched May 18, 2016

1991
Starring: Evan MacKenzie, Kevin McCarthy, Eva LaRue, Patrick Labyorteaux

Ghoulies AKA Comic Book Toilet Demons

This falls into the comedy horror camp, except this one is more just T&A as there are supposed deaths but very little blood. So anyone who was killed could in theory still be alive. There are some awesomely terrible puns which I enjoyed such as a young party goer has a deer head fall onto her head and someone says "What is this a Stag party?" Oh yeah, of course she's topless too.

I haven't seen any of the other Ghoulies movies, but boy have I looked at the poster/cover of a bunch of toilet demons many times. This movie takes place 21 years after the first (and second?) At a college where two frats are taking part in Prank Week. They pull pranks on each other all week long until one emerges victorious and gets to wear the official prank hat. Yes, college is dumb.

In the bathroom of the slob frat, Mookey (Patrick Labyorteaux) finds a comic book in the wall. This bathroom is incredibly disgusting, even for frat standards. He starts to read the comic out loud and it begins to summon the ghoulies, but he doesn't finish the incantation, so the Ghoulies remain trapped in the toilet. Mookey takes the comic to his Mythology class, where Professor Ragnar (Kevin McCarthy) finds and confiscates it. Professor Ragnar hate the prank week as he is often the victim. Looking at the comic book, the images remind him of some mythological demons. He finishes reading the comic book aloud and the Ghoulies are summoned. They now only do the bidding of Prof. Ragnar, and he wants the Ghoulies to stop the frats. The Ghoulies: Rat, Cat, and Frog with abs make it to the Slob frat just after they have all left. The Ghoulies fall into a pile of clothes, so now they look just like college students, except they are a tiny Cat, Rat and Frog demons. They get super drunk. Then they really escalate the prank war. They blow up the campus security guard's little truck with him inside.

The side story adding to the frat war is the slob frat member Skip (Evan MacKenzie) used to date Erin (Eva LaRue) but now she is somewhat interested in the Snob frat member Jeremy (John R. Johnston). Erin eventually figures out she wants to be with Skip, but then the Ghoulies kidnap her. Prof. Ragnar goes totally nuts with the Ghoulies power, but Skip saves Erin and banishes the Professor to the toilet. Prof. Ragnar comes back for one last battle with a face on his stomach, he is  now the super ghoulie depicted in the comic. But Skip throws the comic into the toilet and that destroys the demon Professor.

Lots of boobs, some weird goofy deaths like a lady taking a plunger to the face. It's not great, but I've seen far worse. Still pretty enjoyable considering I haven't seen any of the previous toilet demon movies.

Snake Island

Watched April 22, 2016

2002
Starring: William Katt, Wayne Crawford, Kate Connor, Dawn Matthews

As the opening credits roll it's clear that this movie is a Crawford joint for sure, as Wayne Crawford is the writer, director and star of Snake Island. Another animal attack movie from the early 2000s (see Octopus 2), while this one isn't great it's a whole lot better than Python 2. I've said it many times before but even the worst practical effects hold up better than CGI to the test of time.

In South Africa, a group of tourists are on a riverboat cruise of sorts. I'm not sure where they are headed as it's a ragtag group. The party consists of a couple on their honeymoon, a single white lady, a black lady that is a local, a PH:Professional Hunter, the captain of the boat, a waitress for the boat and another guide. And a writer who specifically wants to stop at Snake Island because he is writing a book about it. The boat stops at Snake Island to drop off the writer, but the Captain also has some supplies to drop off for their friends. Half the group goes gets off on Snake Island, while the other half stays on the boat. The island is suspiciously empty. Back at the boat, a single snake gets onto the boat, they all freak out and in trying to kill it, a hole is created in the boat's gas tank. This means everyone has to get off at Snake Island until they can fix the boat. Snake Island at one point was a resort destination, there are multiple rooms for all the people to stay in. It's still unknown what happened to the people who where supposed to be on the island but it seems like they may have been breeding snakes.

The whole gang gathers that night around the campfire, and luckily one of the ladies brought some cool cd's and they all have a dance party. Some of the ladies even get topless for no reason at all. Even a snake joins in the dancing! A couple sneaks off to the pool and has sex, when they come back everyone has gone to bed. This is when the snakes start to kill. 

The honeymoon couple gets killed, then the single black lady gets snake strangled right outside the shower. But the shower curtain has a great Snake Island Resort logo printed on it.There is a point when one of the snakes calls a lady a bitch, which is nuts. Everyone gets killed by snakes except for the writer and the white lady. They manage to escape across the island on a riding lawnmower. They make back to the boat or another boat...the plot points didn't totally stick with me and I'm writing this several months after I watched it.

It's not great but the choice of live snakes, snake puppets and CGI does work for the most part. It doesn't make any sense why these snakes hate humans but just go with it. They do have a sense of humor about the movie since they added a snake dancing and a snake calling a lady a bitch, which is nuts. It still isn't bad enough or good enough to recommend though.

Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare: The Edge of Hell

Watched October 13, 2015

1987
Starring: Jon-Mikl Thor, Jillian Peri, Frank Dietz

The Tritonz, a heavy metal band from the US comes to a farm house in Canada to write and record their new album. But what they don't know is that the family that lived in the house previously was attacked by some mysterious demons, and the demons may still be around.  All the band members bring their wives and girlfriends as support. The drummer has a weirdly fake Australian accent. John (Jon-Mikl Thor) the lead singer of the band and his lady take the master bedroom of the house, which has a bed made to look like a piano. 

All the bandmates settle into the house. The bands manager Phil (Adam Fried) makes them dinner then they all head to the barn to record some songs. While Phil is rocking out in the control booth to the awesome sound of The Tritonz, a cyclops demons that looks like a penis spits in his drink. Phil unknowingly drinks the demon spit and things begin to get weird. He goes down the basement to find some extra drum sticks. One of the bitchy girlfriends shows up and comes onto him. But she turns into a demon and bites him on the shoulder. 

The band leaves the barn to find the van is gone, so they think Phil took it since they can't find him either. All the couples take this opportunity to make out. Later that night a bunch of groupies come to the house.  Demon possessed Phil shows up again and tells them to show him their boobs, but they freak out and leave. The drummer guy gets demon possessed too but becomes a better lover because of it. The couples keep dying but not before the keyboardist hooks up with a guitarist and have a long drawn out gross sex scene. Then John and his woman have an equally long and gross shower sex scene. Eventually every one is presumed dead except for John. In the barn, a huge demon comes to kill John. To combat the demon, John reveals himself to be the Angel Triton and he concocted all the people and the story that we just saw to get the demon to come out. There is no band, it was all an elaborate ruse, with lots of sex scenes. John fights the demon, as the demon throws demonic starfish at him. They lock arms and try to overpower one another. In the end, John doesn't beat the demon, the demon just decides to leave the house.

There is a ton of filler footage of the van driving down highway on the way to the house. They also show the house and the moonlit night many many times, trying to get across a mood of spookiness. There are lots of boobs and super gross too long sex scenes. All the acting is really bad. All the mini demons looks like dick worms. The fight with the main demon at the end is pretty great because it's so bad. It's super terrible, but kinda fun in that regard.

Witchboard

Watched September 29, 2015

1986
Starring: Tawny Kitaen, Todd Allen, Stephen Nichols, Kathleen Wilhoite

Linda (Tawny Kitaen) and Jim (Todd Allen), a young couple are throwing a party at their apartment. Linda invited an old friend, Brandon (Stephen Nichols) who is not friends with Jim anymore...but it takes some time for this relationship to be explained. Brandon is talking to some of the party guests about weird ghosts, religion and acting like a jerk. He has brought a Ouija board , that he has a lot of experiencing using. He convinces Linda to try it with him and they contact a little boy named David. Brendan seems to know a lot about the Ouija board, the history of it and how to use it correctly. After asking the ghost boy David some questions the board jumps off their laps. From outside, they hear a pop and Brandon's fancy sport car has a sudden flat tire.

Since Brandon had to leave the party suddenly he left his Ouija board at Linda and Jim's place. The next day Linda uses the board to contact the ghost David and he helps her find her missing ring. That same day, Jim is at work on a construction site when his friend and coworker is flattened by a pile of Sheetrock. Jim comes home upset about the sudden death of his friend. Linda starts to act strange but it turns out she might be pregnant. Brandon talks to Linda and tells her that she shouldn't be using the board alone. Linda thinks it's harmless until she gets trapped in the kitchen and a knife is thrown to the ground and covered in cocktail sauce.

Brandon thinks that Linda is a victim of progressive entrapment, where a ghost slowly manages to gain the trust of a person until they can take her over. He hires a crazy medium to lock out David from Linda's mind. The medium, Zarabeth (Kathleen Wilhoite) is a valley girl/punk-ish nut but it seems like she does have a real connection to the spiritual realm. They hold a séance and it seems like Zarabeth kicks David out. Brandon drives Zarabeth back home, but the bad spirit follows her into her house. In her apartment it slits her throat and pushes her out the window onto sharp sundial.

Linda and Jim go to the funeral of his construction coworker. There Jim is questioned by a detective who thinks the accident was actually murder and Jim is the main suspect. The detective begins to follow Jim.

Brandon wants to go up to Big Bear where David was killed to make sure they've been talking to him and not some other ghost. Linda tries to contact David again and he shakes her around until she is knocked unconscious. Jim takes her to the hospital but then goes with Brandon to Big Bear.  They find out the David isn't lying by looking up his murder on microfiche at the library. Jim and Brandon spend time together and repair their relationship that was torn apart by Jim's love for Linda.

They get another Ouija board to contact David  to see if he can help them figure out what the actual dark spirit that is trying to progressively entrap Linda. They take it to an old dock and in front of a bunch of tied up barrels try to contact David. It turns out that David is talking to them but there is also an old Portuguese spirit that used to live in Jim's building that is trying to possess Linda. After talking to David, the barrels are unleashed. Jim is knocked unconscious and Brandon falls into the water. Dazed, Brandon does pull himself out of the water but then is killed by an ax to the face. Jim later wakes up, stumbles around and finds Brandon dead.

Jim heads back to the apartment and it's all torn to shit. Linda is now possessed by the Portuguese old man spirit and tries to kill Jim with an ax. They tussle, spirit possessed Linda tries to convince Jim he is the opening to the spirit world and the only way to close it is to kill himself. The detective shows up and tries to arrest Jim but Linda attacks him. Jim then shoots the Ouija board and that gets rid of the spirit but not before he is pushed out the window. 

Later we see Jim and Linda get married, so it all worked out for them. The landlady is cleaning up their messed up apartment and she find the bullet damaged Ouija board and a sequel is hinted out.

All the characters are unlikable and prone to sudden outbursts of rage. Since this was made the 1980's I'm not sure if these kids are 16 or 35. Jim and Linda live in a fancy older building that has been converted to apartments. He works in construction and maybe she is a college student, but we mostly see her hang out around the house. The ghost scenes are pretty weird. They talk about progressive entrapment over and over again which is funny. 

House II: The Second Story

Watched September 15, 2015

1987
Starring: Arye Gross, Jonathan Gross, Royal Dano, John Ratzenberger

Based on the cover art of the decomposed hand ringing the doorbell of a house and the description on the back of the box I figured this movie was about a haunted house that didn't want anyone to live in it. So it proceeds to attack the main character with ghost and ghouls. I was so wrong, this movie is not really a horror movie, it's like a weird fantasy movie with some strange horror aspects, kind of.  
A young couple in the 1950's give their baby away but are sad about it. Then they go back into their old Richardsonian Romanesque house. The wife hears something strange, the husband gets a shotgun then a ghost man named Slim Razor shoots them.

Twenty five years later, that baby is all grown up and he comes back to the house. Apparently the house has been in Jesse's (Arye Gross) family for years. Who raised him or who took care of the house for those 25 years is left unexplained. He shows up with his girlfriend, Kate (Lar Park-Lincoln) who works at a record agency. They are maybe moving into the house, but it wasn't clear to me. That night his friend Charlie (Jonathan Stark) and his girlfriend Lana (Amy Yazbeck) show up drunk because it's Jesse's birthday. Charlie and Lana are invited to stay in the house and they specifically play Lana's new demo really loud to get Kate interested and it works. Kate think Lana has some talent so she calls her boss John (Bill Maher) to come check out Lana's music.

Jesse is some sort of artist, but that doesn't amount to anything aside from Charlie giving him a copy of American Art that Jesse is featured in. Jesse in obsessed with the history of the house and finds some photos of his great-grandfather and a crystal skull. Jesse wants to know where the skull is so Jesse and Charlie dig up his grandfather's grave. As soon as they get the coffin out the ground and open, the crystal skull is there and a hand chokes Jesse. Jesse and his Great-Grandfather share the same name. The grandpa comes to life, he has been waiting for 70 years for someone to dig him up. They bring him back to the house where he tells them a bunch of stories in a crazy montage. Gramps and Charlie get drunk and drive Charlie's sportscar around, which is super weird since cars didn't exist in Gramps's day. Gramps says it's important to protect the crystal skull, so he puts in on the mantle.

While the guys were hanging out int he basement, a Halloween party has started. An old girlfriend of Jesse's shows up and hits on him which makes Kate mad and she eventually leaves with Lana and John. A beefy caveman with rough clown make up shows up and steals the crystal skull. He takes it up stairs into room that leads to a jungle dimension. Charlie happened to have an uzi in his car and with Jesse they go get the skull from the cave man. Just before Charlie is about to be killed by the caveman, a pterdactyl eats the caveman and takes the skull to it's nest. Jesse gets the skull but a baby Pteradactyl has it. They fall through the floor back into the house with a baby peterdactyl and a dog worm.

The party is now over as the house has been opened up to different time dimensions. Some Aztecs come and steal the skull next, but Charlie and Jesse can't tell where they went. The next day a electric repairman ( John Ratzenberger ) shows up to fix the wiring in the old house. Instead of fixing anything he rips a giant whole in the wall that leads to another dimension. He is not surprised as he has seen walls open to other dimensions before.  In that dimension they find the skull and the Aztecs who are sacrificing a virgin. Charlie and Jesse fight the Aztecs and get the skull back and save the girl. Back in the house with Gramps they all sit down to have a nice turkey dinner along with the woman they saved, the worm dog and the baby Pteradactyl. When Gramps pulls off the cover to reveal the turkey, instead it's the wild west bad guy Slim Razor who shoots Gramps. They are taken to the wild west zone and Jesse manages to shoot off Slim's head. The cops show up and surround the house because of all the previous gunfire. Slim comes back to life and shoots the cops. Charlie and the virgin are still tied up in the wild west dimension. Jesse defeats Slim and gets the skull but Gramps still dies. He grabs the Pteradactyl, the dog worm and heads to the wild west to live there forever.

The back of the VHS box that I have has this movie rated R, which doesn't make any sense. Elsewhere it seems rated PG-13, which seems like a better fit as nothing very terrible or gross happens. 

Part of my disappointment in this movie was thinking it was going to be a horror movie, not expecting a strange fantasy adventure tale. Since Jesse ends up in the wild west, is it possible that he is his own Grandpa? It's never explained why Gramps wanted the skull, was he trying to come back to life?  

They set up the girlfriends with backgrounds at the beginning but then they just leave after the party, so their stories don't go anywhere. This movie was very strange, there is a worm dog and a baby Pteradactyl, which I've never seen before as supporting characters. Even

The Hidden

Watched July 6, 2015

1987
Starring: Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Nouri, Claudia Christian

It begins with a crazy dude robbing a bank and shooting a bunch of hostages. He then steals a Lamborghini and leads the cops on the crazy chase that ends in a death defying shoot out and crash. The robber is super burned during the car crash but somehow is still alive and taken to the hospital. At the hospital, just before he dies he transfers his internal alien parasite into the man in the bed beside him. The parasite's new body has a heart condition and gastrointestinal distress, but the parasite manages to revive him and get itself out of the hospital.

Lloyd Gallagher (Kyle MacLachlan) shows up as an FBI agent from Seattle to work with Tom Beck (Michael Nouri) the local detective on the case for all the people that the first guy murdered. Lloyd knows to chase the second guy from the hospital because he has some clue to how the parasite works, but he doesn't say that. He doesn't even reveal to Tom that he knows it's an alien parasite.

The parasite guy steals money from a record store, kills the clerk and takes a boom box. He then steals a red Ferrari. The cops track him down to a strip club but he has already transferred the parasite to a stripper, Brenda (Claudia Christian.)  She wears this dress that just looks like a strapless red mini in the front, but the back is all straps with a huge dip that shows off her butt cleavage, it's nuts. Now infected, she fucks some random dude to death and steals his car. The cops chase her but she has a bunch of weapons from when the parasite was in its second body. Lloyd and Tom chase her from a car, but she runs out onto a roof top. She is shot a ton of times and Lloyd pulls out a crazy specialized weapon, but she jumps of the building before he can use it. She transfers the parasite to a dog before she dies.

The parasite goes from the dog to the owner who happens to work at the police station. At the police station, the parasite infected guy goes nuts and shoot up the place. Lloyd was acting so weird that Tom arrested him, but Tom now believes the alien parasite is real and get Lloyd out of jail. At the jail, the current parasite guy keeps shooting everything. Tom and Lloyd manage to shoot him, but the parasite jumps into another body first. 

It all comes down to showdown where the parasite manages to get into a Senator that is about to announce his candidacy for president. Lloyd and Tom manage to get to the hotel where the press conference is and they shoot the bad guy but Tom is shot in the process. They Senator is dying and thecops are going to arrest Lloyd for shooting him. Lloyd using a flame thrower to light the Senator on fire which draws out the parasite and allows Lloyd to use his special weapon to kill it. The Weirdest part is the very end. Tom is dying in the hospital, he has a wife and young daughter. It turns out that Lloyd was such a good parasite hunter, because he's an alien too. But a good alien who has been tracking the party parasite who just wants to create havoc on Earth for some time. Tom is going to die, so Lloyd transfer his alien into Tom's body, so that Tom's wife and daughter will still have a dad, even though it's an alien dad.

This movie is great! The parasite is so gross and like a teenager, into slutty chicks, fast cars and loud music. I can't believe that I hadn't heard of this movie before, I highly recommend it.

Virtuosity

Watched June 22, 2015

1995
Starring: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Kelly Lynch

Parker Barnes (Denzel Washington) is an imprisoned former cop who was incarcerated after he killed some innocent bystanders during a stand off with a psycho serial killer who kidnapped and killed his wife and daughter. He is still a good cop so he has been recruited for a virtual reality program to train cops for intense scenarios. During a test of the program, named SID 6.7 (Russell Crowe) the other prisoner is killed in real life when his brain is overloaded in the digital world.

The programmer, Lindenmeyer (Stephen Spinella) who created SID is obsessed with it/him.  He is approached by a man working in cybernetics to turn one of Lindenmeyer's sexy lady programs into a real being. Instead Lindenmeyer tricks the cybernetics guy into making SID into a cyborg. SID immediately escapes and begins killing people. His programming is that of tons of serial killers so he starts recreating some of those murders like the Tate-LaBianca murders by the Manson family. Even though Parker is still in jail, they recruit him as the only man who can track SID down, because one of SID's inspirations in the same man who killed Parker's family.

After his Manson style killing, SID goes to Media Zone, the coolest club and takes a bunch of people hostage. Parker shows up in time to chase him out of the club, but SID manages to escape again. SID has a special regeneration powers with nanobots, as long as they can get glass to take the silicon out of he can rebuild any damaged part of himself.

Parker teams up with Madison Carter (Kelly Lynch) the criminal psychologist who is also on the case to try to determine what SID will do next.  After a train incident where they think that Parker shot a lady when it was SID, they lock Parker up and tell him that the tracking device they implanted in his brain has a neurotoxin that they can release if he escapes. SID wants to play the game so he kills the drivers and give Parker the keys to free himself.

SID kidnaps Madison's 10-year-old daughter and takes over a TV station that is having a heated debate on immigration. SID just wants people to watch him. Parker cuts the phone feed and it seems like all his viewers have left, which makes SID crazy. Parker chases SID onto the roof of the television station.  During their battle, SID falls through a bunch of glass that cuts him into pieces. He starts to regenerate then Parker rips his chip out. But SID was the only one who knows where Kelly's daughter is being held, so what is Parker to do?

Jump to an alternate cut where Parker is thrown from the building and killed, but it's now the virtual world, but SID doesn't know it. SID shows Madison where her daughter is, the Madison detaches from the virtual world. Parker came back to to life in the digital world and is still battling SID, because Lindenmeyer won't let Parker out the digital world. SID almost fries Parker's brain in real life, but Lindenmeyer is killed and Parker can escape. Parker uses the tricks he learned from when his wife and daughter were killed to make sure he can get Madison's daughter out alive.

In comparing 1995 digital thrillers, this movie is way better than Johnny Mnemonic. The digital effects are pretty good, I feel they hold up mostly because they aren't trying to create realistic effects, the effects are for a digital world. Russell Crowe is a good villain and Denzel is great.  The programmer is the worst and I can't believes they didn't hold him accountable for bringing SID to life, he really had it in for Denzel for some reason. When SID feeds on glass to make his limbs grow back it's pretty cool.

Thirst

Watched May 18, 2015

1979
Starring: Chantal Contouri, Shirley Cameron, Henry Silva, Rod Mullinar

Kate (Chantal Contouri) is a professional lady about to take some time off from work. Apparently she is the descendant of a vampire clan, but she in unaware of this. A group of scientific vampires kidnap her and take her to a farm where they keep humans that they milk the blood out of like cows. The scientists are convinced that they just need to awaken the blood thirst that is in her genes for her to claim her vampire destiny. They drug her and perform various experiments to try to convince her that she wants to drink blood.They don't do a very good job of making her like the blood. They make her hallucinate so that she is surrounded by mysterious forces, and they only stop when she drinks blood.

After the initial tests don't seem to work, they let her go back home and to work but then she bites her friend and her boyfriend. The scientists bring her back for more conditioning but it still doesn't seem to work. They invite her to participate in a special ritual, they give her fangs to bite one of the human blood cows and she does it. Even though she has now had some blood, she still doesn't embrace her inherent vampirism. The group also kidnapped her boyfriend and brought him to the farm, one of the doctors tries to help them both escape. The doctor pushes the lady scientist into a blood vat, and she dies. The doctor and Kate escape on a helicopter but another scientist grabs on. When he falls off he falls onto power lines. Kate is taken to a weird basement cave where her boyfriend is being drained of his blood. The doctor says that Kate can drink him, but she doesn't want to. Then Kate lets the doctor drink from her. She then seems to embrace her vampire heritage.

Good special effects, it's slow in places, but overall pretty interesting. The exposition of the story can be frustrating. I did want Kate to escape the vampires and it seems like she resists for so long, so it's disappointing when she succumbs. Since they are constantly drugging Kate it's so confusing what is real or fake for her. If I was trying to turn someone into a vampire I wouldn't make them have terrible drug trips I would make the vampire lifestyle seem really glamorous, but the scientists don't take that approach.

Street Trash

Watched April 3, 2015

1987
Starring: Mike Lackey, Mark Sferrazza, Jane Arakawa

Whoa! I did not know what I was in for when I randomly chose to watch Street Trash. As someone that watches a lot of low quality movies, I first figured that this was just lumped into the horror category. But that still didn't seem to fit and I still had a hard time describing the movie.  After reading into the history of the movie, it helped me categorize the movie which is trying to offend everyone. I'd put it into an offensive exploitation category. I didn't even know the melt category of movie existed, but that is apparently what this movie is too. Street Trash could not be a better title or more literal for this movie. It wants to offend everyone.

Homeless alcoholic Fred (Mike Lackey) lives in junkyard, in a room build from cars and tires with his younger brother Kevin (Mark Sferrazza). They have lots of friends on the Brooklyn streets who are also homeless alcoholics. It kicks off with Fred stealing some booze from the local liquor store and being chased around. While being chased he steals some money from another bum but loses most of it when he has to hide in a garbage truck that almost crushes him. He loses the stolen booze and most of the money he stole, leaving him with a single dollar.

The junkyard is run by an obese guy and his assistant Wendy (Jane Arakawa) who actually does all the work. Wendy is friends with Kevin and tries to help him out with food and work sometimes. Mostly she helps out by making sure the cops aren't called on them. The junkyard is actually controlled by crazy Vietnam vet, Bronson (Vic Noto). All the bums have to pay Bronson in cash or booze. He has a lady that he treats like shit and she is rough looking even by homeless standards, at least all the guys have clothes.

The local liquor store owner unearths an old case of Tenafly Viper, a mysterious booze, and puts it on sale for $1 a bottle. Since it's the cheapest drink around, the local homeless population starts buying it. But as soon as you drink it, it melts, explodes and completely destroys your body.

The local cops, who are the worst, find the first man melted by Viper and start investigating what could have done this. The lead detective, Bill (Bill Chepil) immediately suspects the homeless population, since he hates all of them.

Fred meets a lady vomiting in an alley outside a restaurant and she's so drunk she thinks Fred is her  boyfriend. Fred takes her back to his junkyard tire shack and they have somewhat consensual sex. The sounds of them having sex lure all the other homeless perverts to watch. After Fred is done he pushes the woman away, all the other men grab the woman. They drag her off screen, gang rape and kill her. She is found on the side of the river later by the junkyard owner, who then rapes her corpse. 

It turns out her boyfriend was a mobster and he takes it into his own hands to stop the guys who killed his girlfriend. Bill the cop goes to confront Bronson,who is convinced knows how the homeless men are melting. They get into a brawl but Bronson stabs the cop in the back with his carved femur shiv then chokes him to death. Bronson has his cronies to bury the body and they happen bring him some Viper in tribute. Bronson's girlfriend grabs the booze first and takes a swig, she immediately melts into disgusting goo. 

 Bronson thinks that Kevin is responsible for the death of his girlfriend. At that moment Kevin happens to be about to have sex with Wendy. (They never kiss, she just kisses his belly, it's totally weird.) Bronson chases Kevin around the junkyard storage building for awhile but Kevin manages to escape being murdered. Fred shows up and throws some Viper onto Bronson's face, melting a portion of it. Bronson is about to kill Fred when Kevin lights a gas canister that shoots through the air and decapitates Bronson. 

This movie it nuts. It's interesting having homeless people as the main characters as it doesn't glamorize it at all. The melt special effects are great and disgusting.  There is an extended scene where Bronson rips off a guy's dick and they all play hot potato with it around the junkyard. I can't say that I liked all of it since I haven't completely been desensitized...yet.

Popcorn

Watched December 8, 2014

1991
Starring: Jill Schoelen, Tom Villard, Dee Wallace, Derek Rydall

Maggie (Jill Schoelen) a college student, has been plagued by strange dreams. She has been writing down her dreams and they're so strange she is considering turning them into a screenplay. She is a member of the film club at her college, they all get together to make a plan to raise some money for the club by having a horror movie marathon at a local theater. The theater they want to used has been closed for about 15 years, since a film culminated in several real murders and a fire. All the students get together to clean up the theater and get it ready for their marathon. While testing the reels, they find a strange short film call the Possessor, it's mostly a close up of an eyeball, but it remind Maggie of her dreams. To make their marathon a success, they set up cools stunts to have during the movie like shock seats, a giant mosquito puppet, and smell-o-vision. 

The night before the show, Maggie's mom Suzanne (Dee Wallace) goes to the closed theatre with a gun. As she approaches the marquee lights come up and the doors open for her. She goes into the theater and shoots at a shadowy figure, but the figure captures her.

The day of the show, all of the club members dress up as different characters to make the marathon really fun and it seems like it's going off well. The first movie, Skeeter is about a giant mosquito and to scare the audience they set up a model mosquito to swing through the theater.  The teacher is running the fake mosquito, but there is a mysterious figure that takes over the remote and the teacher is stabbed by the mosquito. The audience doesn't see this and the killer hides the teacher's body. The real killer then makes a mask of the teacher and pretends to be him. The next victim is a student who has been in a  relationship with the teacher, she goes to kiss him. As she pulls away, her lips rip off the costume revealing the strange mutilated face of the killer.

It turns out the killer is Toby (Tom Villard) one of the students in the film club. It turns out that Toby was a kid during the first fire and he was horribly burned, but survived. He now makes all sorts of masks to be different people. He captures Maggie and wants to finish how the first movie ended with a live murder.  He puts on the movie, the strange one they screened that reminded Maggie of her dreams, then raises the screen the audience is now captive to a real murder, but they think it's just a show. Luckily Maggie's boyfriend Mark (Derek Rydall) comes to the rescue and Toby is killed.

This movie is super fun, it cleverly takes some horror movie tropes and plays around with them in a interesting way. There is a little bit of humor, but the deaths are still gross and weird. Toby is a really strange villain with how they constructed his face to be burned but could still put masks on it. Maggie looks like Lydia Deetz, but that seemed like a popular look at the time. I really like the movies that they played during their marathon: The Stench, Skeeter and The 50 foot electrified Man.

I illustrated by favorite part, the Shock Clock that tells the time that the movies start but also squirts blood out of a heart into a goblet.

The Lawnmower Man II: Jobe's War

Watched November 19, 2014

1996
Starring: Matt Frewer, Patrick Bergin, Austin O'Brien, Ely Pouget

The main discussion before watching this movie was if it mattered if we had seen the first Lawnmower Man movie. I had vague memories of having seen it at some point when I was a kid but didn't remember much. We put together that the first one was about a simple lawnmower man ( not a real thing) who was approached by a scientist with a conceit that he could make the lawnmower man smarter by connecting him to a computer. The lawnmover man then gets enmeshed in the digital world and tries to take over the real world. Well, the sequel picks up somewhere where the first one left off.

The scientist, Dr. Benjamin Trace (Patrick Bergin) who created the mind digitizing chip was taken to court and lost the patent on his chip. Jobe (Matt Frewer) the simple lawnmower man wasn't destroyed int he first movie, but he lost his digital mental powers. Jonathan Walker (Kevin Conway) brings the body of Jobe back it turns outs he is fairly okay. Jonathan and his fellow researchers reconnect Jobe to the cyber sphere where he quickly starts making a world of his own. 

Peter (Austin O'Brien) is a kid who knew the lawnmower man before he lost his mind in the cyberspace. It's now the future and it looks a lot like Blade Runner. Peter is now a street urchin, who lives in an abandoned subway car with three other friends. They like to connect to the net and cruise around. The cyberspace experience is a 3D wonderland where you can fly around wherever you like. 

In the cyber space, Jobe contacts Peter and asks him to find Dr. Trace. After he lost his patent, Dr. Trace shunned technology and moved to the desert. Peter and his friends manages to figure out where Dr. Trace and they tell him about Jobe.

With each session in cyberspace, Jobe keeps getting more powerful and kills some people that try to stop him. He is stuck in his wheelchair but one way he orchestrates the deaths is by overloading computers that are controlling flights so that they crash, killing both the intended target as well as a whole place on innocent bystanders. Jobe wants Dr. Trace to finish work on the chip because this will give him the power to take over the world. Dr. Trace connects with his former student Dr. Platt (Ely Pouget) who has been working for Mr. Walker and this leads him to Jobe. Controlling the media, Jobe makes a bunch of cities riot so that everyone jacks in to connect to his world cyber power to escape their terrible reality. I guess he's trying to take over the world by making everyone tied to the digital world. Dr. Trace, Peter and his friends all go into cyberspace and destroy the digital versions of the chip as well as the real chip in the real world. This stops Jobe from taking over the world and returns him to his simple, but kind self.  

I'm currently very into  movies that deal with the visualization of the internet, I find it very fascinating. So I'm currently compiling a list of awesome cyber movies, and this one makes the Internet look pretty cool.  They put on glasses and jump into a 3D world, but they have to get permission to access it, so they can get kicked off.  In the digital world all the kids ride on cool motorcycles. There isn't much hacking involved, mostly just jumping into 3D Internet space.

I enjoyed this movie, I'll have to check out the original and see how they stand up to each other. I'm sure the first one is better, but we'll see.

Relentless

Watched July 14, 2014

1989
Starring: Leo Rossi, Robert Loggia, Judd Nelson, Meg Foster.

New York police officer Sam Dietz (Leo Rossi) has just gotten a promotion to detective but it comes with relocating to Los Angeles. At his new station, he is partnered with old pro Bill Malloy ( Robert Loggia) and their first case is investigating a man who was murdered in his bathroom. 

At the same time Buck Taylor (Judd Nelson) just got a letter from the police department that he failed the psychological part of his application to join the force. He is obviously maladjusted so this is just the thing that pushes him over the edge. He grabs the phone book, picks a number and decides to murder that person. 

Sam jumps in to trying to figure out who killed the guy in the shower, but his partner is reigning him in a bit. Buck continues to pick random people out of the phone book to murder. He is very careful about his kills, wearing gloves and leaving minimal evidence. But he does leave a note written on the page of the phone book that he used to find his victim. 

Buck has flashbacks to his childhood, it turns out that his father was a well respected cop. It also turns out that his dad was a total nutjob who abused Buck and trained him to be a police officer from the age of 5. What was when he taught him to shoot a gun and was disappointed that his wasn't an instant marksman. He also would make Buck do obstacle courses while shooting at him, so there is no surprise that Buck turned into a serial killer.

Sam puts several people to work doing file searches to find clues to who the murder could be, all the while Buck keeps killing. It turns out that the first man who was killed came into the police station to report a death threat call, but the cops didn't do anything about it. Sam keeps putting the clues together and figures out that Buck is the main suspect, but this as Buck finds Sam's wife and kid and takes them hostage. Sam shoots Buck multiple times and that ends the serial killings.

Judd Nelson is pretty creepy as a serial killer, but this movie is just pretty standard. Meg Foster plays Sam's wife and she has the craziest see through eyes, it is destracting from her fine performance as a concerned wife. Judd Nelson also wears these pretty crazy '50s outfits that in 1989 were probably terrible but are pretty hip today. His murder outfit is super crazy though,  an all black outfit of mock turtleneck with cut off cuffs and waistband and high waisted jeans.

Mindkiller

Watched June 23, 2014

1987
Starring: Joe McDonald, Wade Kelley, Shirley Ross, Kevin Hart

The only thing I could I remember from my first viewing of Mind Killer several years ago was Swingles, the super awesomely named singles bar. This was yet another VHS that I unloaded on Jen when I moved across the country and it came around again so we could decide whether it's a keeper or not. I also remember this movie being really poorly lit, but on a second watch I determined I first saw it when my TV was dying and was making every movie appear very dark.

Warren (Joe McDonald) works in the research materials section of a library located deep in the basement. He is obsessed with meeting women but has a hard time with it. He watched a movie entitled How to Pick up Women and tries to learn some time tested techniques. He takes his new moves to Swingles, his local singles bar. Warren's roommate Brad (Kevin Hart) is a more confident guy and has no problem taking home ladies of his choosing. This only make Warren more frustrated.

A new researcher, Sandy (Shirley Ross) is hired at the library and Warren is instantly in love. Unfortunately, Sandy has a policy of not dating co-workers. While pulling some old research papers Warren finds a very interesting case study of a man who developed telepathic powers. Warren stays up all night reading the paper and once finished feels like he has unlocked the power of his mind.  Warren can both manipulated machines and people. He seduces the women of his choice at Swingles, but he still longs for Sandy. He begins to manipulate Sandy and they go out together, but even with Warren's power Sandy knows that something is wrong. Warren invited Sandy over for dinner with Brad along as well. Even with his new found telepathic powers Warren is still really inept with social skills, but he has become a much better cook. Brad and Sandy really hit it off with genuine affection even though Warren is convinced that Sandy likes him. 

Warren's other co-worker Larry (Wade Kelley) reads the research paper and soon is using the powers himself, but he researches it further and finds out what happened to the author of the paper. It turns out that the paper was written by a local scientist who used to live with his mother. His mother is still in the area so Larry goes to talk to her. She has gone crazy because she saw what the power did to her son and how it ultimately killer her son. Larry tries to get to Warren to tell him the danger of using the power but it's too late. The power has already mutated Warren's brain and turned him into a monster. Monster Warren only wants Sandy for himself so he tries to kill her, luckily Larry has it figured out and saves the day.

The brain monster effects are pretty cool and gross. Warren is definitely an unattractive and awkward guy so I could see him using his power for evil and letting it get the best of him. Larry uses his power to seduce a woman by listening to coyote howls. His fascination with coyotes doesn't seem to play out or add to the plot. Better than I remember it but it's still pretty weird. Swingles stands up to the test of time as a cool place to meet people, just be careful if you see a spilled glass right itself.

The Horrible Dr. Bones

Watched February 21, 2014

2000
Starring: Darrow Igus, Larry Bates, Sarah Scott Davis, Danny Wooten

We are introduced to Dr. Bones (Darrow Igus) a record producer, when his assistant brings a singer to audition for him. When Dr. Bones plays his intended backing track, the guy's head explodes. Dr. Bones discovers that to fulfill his intended plan he need to find a really great live group. He holds open auditions where he meets Urban Protectors, a hot R&B band with a really sexy lead singer Lisa (Sarah Scott Davis). Urban Protectors have their own sound guy, Jamal (Larry Bates) who Dr. Bones and his assistant instantly dislike. Dr. Bones loves the Urban Protectors unique sound so he signs them right away. Jamal is a little wary but still supportive of his group. 

Dr. Bones wants the Urban Protectors to play a live show to show off their talents, or so they think. It turns out that Dr. Bones has a crazy spell that he wants to cast to take over the world. He can hide the spell in music but when he tried recorded sound that guy's head exploded. They play the show and the spell works, it gives Dr. Bones control over everyone. Jamal knows something is up so he heads to the basement where he finds Dr. Bones working his spell. He also finds a aquarium that is empty except for a bunch of hearts on stands. Jamal grabs one of the hearts, squeezing it and he watches one of Dr. Bones minions fall down dead. Jamal manages to shake the band out of their stupor and convince them Dr. Bones is bad news. All the hearts are destroyed and Dr. Bones is pushed into a power convertor and destroyed...or so we think!

The effects are pretty terrible, there are a lot of rubber 3D hearts being tossed around. It's a short movie at about 73 minutes but it feels much longer which isn't a good sign.
This is a Full Moon production, so I knew I was in for some direct to video, low budget storytelling. Before the movie even began we got to see a trailer for Ragdoll, an advertisement for the Ragdoll doll,  and an for the soundtrack to Ragdoll. Then we got to see an ad for the soundtrack to The Horrible Dr. Bones, all before the movie started. I don't want any of those products but it did make me check out the Full Moon site and you can subscribe to their streaming service and watch all their terrible movies, I'm genuinely tempted.

Light Blast

Watched December 15, 2013

1985
Starring: Erik Estrada, Ennio Girolami, Michael Pritchard, Peggy Rowe.

I'd never heard of this movie before but Jen's boyfriend was excited to share it with us, so we all headed over to his place to watch it. In preparation I watched the trailer on youtube so I had some hints that it involved lasers, dune buggy's and car chases.

It begins with two teens, a guy and a girl, hanging in a train yard. They are flirting with each other and once they get to a certain car they begin having sex. Little do they know that there is some test going on, we see a giant LED clock flash the hour, then a laser blast and their bodies are melted into oblivion.

The location of the train yard is unknown, but the next scene gives us the setting of San Francisco. A bank is being held up by two guys, they have taken hostages and they're surrounded by the police. They rattle off their demands including having some lunch brought to them by a specific cop, but they include the detail that the cop has to be naked. We see some nude legs walking towards the bank, the meal is revealed to be a roast turkey surrounded by french fries. Inspector Ronn Warren (Erik Estrada) is the cop who is delivering the lunch, it is revealed that he is wearing black briefs. The robbers laugh at him, then he pushes out a gun that was hidden in the turkey and shoots them. What a cop!

At a race track, the same evil laser guy sets up his laser and ends up killing a lot of the audience at the track. Since this is the second laser melting it comes to the attention of police, plus the mayor receives a letter from the laser scientist. Dr. Yuri Soboda (Ennio Girolami) developed this crazy water powered laser and now he wants $10 million dollars or he'll use it to destroy San Francisco. Ronn and his partner are on the case. The rest of the movie is various car chases and shootouts until Ronn tracks down Dr. Soboda and watches him be destroyed by his own invention.

I do enjoy action movies but I often have a harder time with older ones, so this movie was fun but I can't say I loved it. There is a fantastic death scene from an old lady in curlers and a housecoat, very melodramatic. Erik Estrada basically uses a turkey gun, which is nuts. It's always fun to see some locations in the bay area, it's changed so much since the '80s that it's hard to tell where everything is. From a tiny bit of research it seems like it was an Italian production but at least to me it looks like a lot of is was actually shot in and around San Francisco.

The Gruesome Twosome

Watched September 14, 2013 

1967
Starring: Elizabeth Davis, Gretchen Wells, Chris Martell, Rodney Bedell

As a teen, Blood Feast was one of my favorite horror movies. It's so ridiculous, gory and low-budget. It's so bad that it made me think that anyone could make a movie so I started making my own movies. That included a video project for my drama class called Camp Blood, a mash up of Sleepaway Camp and Blood Feast.  It never occurred to me to look up more movies by gore and exploitation master Herschell Gordon Lewis. So I'm starting now with The Gruesome Twosome.

 The Gruesome Twosome is awesomely terrible but it delivers everything I'm looking for in a movie. I'm a fan of camp and gore, so it's pretty easy to please me. It begins with two mannequin heads with construction paper faces. They talk to each other about what's gonna happen in the movie, concluding with one of the mannequins being stabbed and having blood squirt out of it's head.

The basic plot is that Mrs. Pringle (Elizabeth Davis) runs a wig shop out of her house with help from her son Rodney (Chris Martell.) They don't just sell wigs, they sell genuine human hair wigs and they get these wigs by scalping young co-eds. Mrs. Pringle lures the girls in with a room for rent sign, then traps them in a room with Rodney where he cuts off their hair and most of their head with it.

Several girls have gone missing so the local college is on alert. Kathy (Gretchen Baker) lives on campus with several other girls and she is curious about the strange disappearances and murders. She thinks she has a lead and calls the police but it's just a strange old man who was bringing some bones to his dog. One of Kathy's roommates wants to move out of the dorms so she hears about a room for rent. She is then captured and her hair is removed. Since Kathy knew what this friend was up to she goes to check out the room for rent and finds Mrs. Pringle. Kathy is stuck in the room with Rodney and about to get it when Kathy's boyfriend and the police show up. They arrest Mrs. Pringle and her son and the wig shop goes out of business.

With the minimal plot there is a lot of filler. One scene has all the girls in their pajamas in their dorm room eating KFC chicken and dancing. They also go to the beach and hang out in bikinis and frolic in the water. There is a fair amount of dialogue re-dubbed and it sounds terrible. I still loved this movie, it's so silly. The acting is terrible and you know what's going to happen, but it's great. The gore is super gross though, Rodney rips out one of the girls guts and it's super disgusting. Even if you still see the actors moving when they're supposed to be dead. All the shots last too long, but it's okay. Since it was made in the '60's all the wigs and hairstyles are big and fun. 

Herschell Gordon Lewis is still alive and well, no longer making exploitation movies but instead is a master of direct marketing! Check out his site: herschellgordonlewis.com