The Slayer (1982)

Posted: 30/04/2018 in Trash movies
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Ah the glory days of the early 80’s slasher film. It really does feel like these films were popping up left and right and who can really blame the studios for gambling on them, Halloween and Friday the 13th paved the way and the cash cow was going to be milked until it ran dry. Enter J.S. Cardone’s 1982 example…..The Slayer.

Fans of the slasher/body count genre already know what they are getting into as Cardone lays down the plot. Kay (played by Sarah Kendall; best known for her role in Karate Kid 2) is a surreal artist, who has been haunted by nightmares, her brother Eric (played by Frederick Flynn) believes a vacation with their
two friends would be an ideal way for his sister to ease up and start relaxing so that the nightmares in which she is being chased by monster will stop. Eric’s wife Brooke (played by Carol Kottenbrook) doesn’t like the idea of spending a week alone with unstable Kay and her husband David (played by Alan McRae). I was surprised to notice how much Brooke looked ravaged after only 4 years in marriage. Also, you should check sinister music that played in background when Eric cut himself during a shaving. Maybe the director tries to tell us something?

A

A walking nightmare

So two boring couples arrive to the island where they are going to spend unforgettable vacation. MUAHAHAHAHAHA They are being greeted by evil looking Marsh (played by Michael Holmes; best known for his role in Deadly Prey). Marsh also warned them about upcoming storm in the most odd way. Not paying attention to this warning two couple settle out for the beach with hope to catch some sun. Meanwhile, somewhere near them a fisherman gets killed by oar. I thought this island was deserted? Or they just want us to think so?

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6iob14

 

Later that night Kay and David had an argue. David was assaulting Kay because she is having nightmares. Like it is her fault. Kay went to bed while David had decided to take a walk around the house. He hears something at the attic. When he went to check out what that sound was the attic doors trapped his head, leaving poor David to hang from the ceiling. Seriously, how the fuck is something like that even possible? And yet he managed to die here. You really have to be a grade A moron in order to die this humiliating death. Of course, no one has noticed anything.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6iobfo

 

The next morning Kay wakes up in her bed next to her husband. She starts kissing him not suspecting anything and like no argue took place recently. Then the blood starts flowing out of his eyes and Kay becomes suspicious. She removes the cover only to find out that David’s body is missing. There is only just a head. She starts screaming and then wakes up, this time for real. There is no David in her bed. So everything was just a wonderful dream. Or was it? Anyway, Kay runs out of the house screaming and raising alarm. Eric and Brooke starts searching for David around the island. Kay’s dream came true when she found decapitated body of her husband hanging from the ceiling in some ruined house which Kay used to draw before. Coincidence?

Later that night, after putting Kay to sleep, Eric goes searching for possible culprit. He went to the boathouse. I don’t know what he had expected to find there. And he found nothing. So he takes a walk down the peer where he finds a fishing pole. While he was inspecting it a fishing hook flies out from
somewhere and ties up around Eric’s neck. Then the killer (whoever that might be) pulls his away into the sea. Well, Eric was talking from the start he might do some fishing on this vacation. Actually it is all he was talking about. How ironic.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6iobuw

 

Brooke starts searching for her husband moments after he got killed. Talking about marital connection here. And she goes where? That’s right! To the boathouse. Right where killer wanted her to be. She tried to escape but the killer pitch forked her from behind right through her tits. I guess her marital problems are now over and she might finally rest in peace. And that leaves us just with Kay.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ioc9u

 

The next morning Kay starts searching for her brother and his wife. She heads to the beach where she finds Eric’s bloated body on the shore and Brooke’s corpse already infested with small crabs. She starts panicking and barricading herself in the house while some cheerful ’70s music is playing in the
background. Nevertheless the killer still finds his way in. The struggle and chasing around begins until Kay had finally managed to shot the Slayer (played by Carl Kraines) from the flair gun. While killer was laying on the ground with his smoking body Kay took that opportunity to escape out. But when she opened the door a monster from her dreams was lurking on the other side. It materialized itself right out of nowhere. “What happened then”, I hear you asking. Nothing! Kay woke up once more. And yes, she was in her bed but as an 8 eight years old girl far away from the cursed island. It is  Christmas morning and her parents wants her to go and open up her presents under the tree. And her dad has a special present for her – a black kitten. Just the one Kay used to see in her dreams. Maybe it wasn’t all just a wonderful dream? What a unbelievable stupid ending!

I don’t like this present!

Conclusion: The Slayer only manages to scrape its way in to the slasher genre with its heels dragging across the floor. Like Dead Pit, Hard Cover and Small Town Massacre J.S. Cardone’s video nasty includes many of the prominent trappings, but tries to incorporate something slightly different. The majority of the runtime is pretty standard stuff as a silhouetted killer hacks off cast members one by one, but when the maniac is revealed to be a supernatural monster, Cardone stretches the realms of the category beyond tradition. The level of performance from the cast is really bad, especially the lack of emotion from lead, Sarah Kendall. Even when her brother and husband have been slaughtered she fails to look anything other than totally flat. But this even wouldn’t be so much bad slasher if there wasn’t for that idiotic ending. Sometimes it is better to finish a movie with cliché. After all, we were all expecting it.

Virtual Combat aka Grid Runners (1995)

Posted: 29/03/2018 in Trash movies
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– “Dragon” Wilson doing his best Liu Kang impersonation!

 As the movies thought us in all the way back in the 80’s the peak achievement of science is bringing a hot virtual woman into the real world. In this movie it’s brilliant Dr. Cameron that develops the procedure that can take a virtual character and imprint it’s consciousness onto the cloned body. Naturally his first choices are characters from the popular CyberSex video game- nice and subservient girl Liana (played by the always charming Athena Massey) and dominatrix called Greta ( Dawn Ann Billings).

Comes equipped with her very own whip!

Besides being a horny old goat Dr. Cameron also has a solid business acumen- he tries to sell his ex- virtual babes to a greedy businessmen Burroughs right away. Unfortunately for him he ends up so caught up in his work that he fails to notice that another VR character is willing himself to a physical form– a final boss of the Virtual Combat game Dante (played by a chiseled, long haired Michael Bernardo). Soon enough Dante kills the old man and I was really sad to see him go, he might have been an old pervert but he sure was a brilliant scientist!

And how does he keep his Video Game powers in a real world exactly?

Now, Dante is none other the character that’s been giving our here Quarry (Don “Dragon” Wilson) nightmares. You see Quarry is a Grid Runner ( a kind of a VR Cop) and he uses all of his free credits on just that game.  He could never get past Dante in the Level 10 of Virtual Combat. And to be honest, I do know how that feels like (’cause I’m that generation that grew up with Sega Mega Drive 2). Naturally a nightmare turns oh too real when Wilson’s partner gets killed by Dante while tracking the girls.

Naturally Wilson vows to avenge his fallen partner even if that means disobeying a direct order by his boss.  To get to the bottom of things he starts fighting anyone and everyone that stands in his way (from the gang members to the cops!) and he even ends up throwing down with none other than suited- up Loren Avedon (The King of the Kickboxers,  No Retreat, No Surrender III) and I must admit going corporate did not diminish his impressive kicking ability one bit! On the flip side he didn’t seem to keen to go running after Wilson so I guess suit does have it’s limitations.

After all the battles he lays low in a shelter where by coincidence he finds a runaway ex-VR girl Liana. He doesn’t immediately realize what he stumbled across but he gets her tracking neckless off of her and soon enough the rest of her clothes too.

Their moment of happiness didn’t last long because Avedon and his goons managed to track him down. Even after putting up a fight Liana ends up captured again and  barely makes it out alive. Then to make things worse it turns out that the leak in the department was his boss all along! So he almost got killed again. Well, at least he managed to  dispose of the Dominatrix Greta vie repeated kicks to the stomach and she evaporated for some reason (I mean you never know with those cloned bodies, they don’t make them the way they used to do).

Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead!

Now, we finally get to the final confrontation and the interesting thing is- Dante speaks only trough the unique form of telepathic narration (Bernardo doesn’t even move his mouth). Something like an omnipotent “Fight!” voice from Mortal Kombat whenever you see him frowning followed by a voice coming from out of nowhere.  Not really the reaction you want your Big Bad of the movie to project.

Now, in spite of all that, Bernardo shows some neat Martial Art movies and his fight with Wilson is good fun (even with all those cheese Special Effects thrown in for good measure) if not exceptional. “Dragon” also does some Bruce Lee tribute jumps and it all ends with badly animated laser blasts. Man, I do miss those in the modern movies.When all is said and done Wilson is back spending his credits on video games (he learned nothing?)- but now he’s using them to hook up with Liana and that’s definitely a better option than more of the Virtual Kombat!

Verdict: Generally, Wilson’s more serious movies tend to get a little dull, so his SF phase actually strikes me as a breath of fresh air. He did more than a few SF movies (Sci-Fighter, Future Kick, Cyber Tracker) but man he should have done a lot more!

And if you want some more Bernardo in your life (this time with his actual voice) there’s a pair of extremely fun and gory MMA style flicks Shootfighter: Fight to the Death and Shootfighter II that paired him up with the Karate Kid’s William Zabka and Hong Kong movie legend Bolo Yeung. Those are awesome as hell!

Trivia: Omnipotent voice is actually Michael Dorn- Worf from Star Trek: Next Generation.  Actually a great choice. Too bad they botched it so much with the dubbing process.

The Surgeon aka Exquisite Tenderness (1995)

Posted: 22/03/2018 in Trash movies
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When I discovered A-Pix entertainment for the first time I didn’t know by then how blessed I am. While rummaging through a list of their titles I noticed quite few we have already watched (such as Jack Frost, Werewolf). With my eyes sparkling with glee at the assortment of nefarious titles in front of me, my gaze fell upon the one with Malcolm McDowell’s name on the cover and smile appeared on my sweaty visage. I present you my treasure of the day: The Surgeon!

The story begins in the 1950s in a sequence filmed in beautiful, crisp, black and white. A family has rushed their son to a doctor’s home, where the doctordecides that the boy is in need of emergency surgery, which he performs in a back room. The doctor doesn’t take necessary precautions and he botches the surgery and “accidentally” kills the boy. The boy’s brother is nearby and sees his brother dead on the cold, metal table. There’s also a bit of poeticimagery here involving an actual lollipop while the song “Lollipop” plays in the background, silly as that may be in the grand scheme of things.

That’s our prologue, and it quickly cuts to the present, where we see a beautiful physician Dr. Theresa McCann (played by Isabel Glasser) begin a very bad day as she arrives for work at a hospital. She runs late to a lecture by Dr. Stein (played by Malcolm McDowell), who is demonstrating an experimental technique on a baboon. The baboon goes nuts in the middle of the lecture then dies. We find out Dr. McCann has been protesting Dr. Stein’s experiments with hospital administration, but we soon learn that something much more sinister is going on.

It is funny because it is true

After this incident Dr. Theresa went to check out the patients with her medicine students. We notice there are a lot of black people among sick ones. There are young Whoopi Goldberg (though it is not actually she, this girl here is hot) and some old fat black lady. While Theresa and students were on entourage some mysterious doctor sneaked into one of the patient’s room and injected her some sort of toxin which made poor woman’s body melt down. And here is the clue for the viewers: He left a lollipop on the desk next to patient’s bed. Dr. Theresa couldn’t be there in time to save her so she went back to her officewhere she found a note left for her by one of her top students Dr. Hendricks (played by James Remar, known for his role of gay Rayden in awful Mortal Kombat: Annihilation). Even despite being a witness of horrible and painful death of the one of her patients Dr. Theresa smiled when she saw a drawing of bare ass in the note. See, even doctors are not immune so such kind of low-brow jokes.

A Valentine card

Theresa went to meeting hospital director Dr. Ed Mittlesnay (played by Charles Dance, best known for his role of Tywin Lannister in HBO’s Game of Thrones) who gave her suspension because of tempering with other doctor’s patient. Knowing that something odd is happening there Theresa and Dr. Hendricks sneak into hospital. There they find Dr. Stein’s corpse. There goes their top suspect. Malcolm McDowell surely looks like a murderer, especially with that deranged look of his. But if he isn’t the killer, then who it is? We found out that soon since killer got into the fight and ended up incapacitated by Dr. Hendricks.
Later we find out that he is Dr. Julian Matar (played by Sean Haberle). Apparently he got fired 3 years ago because he was conducting unauthorized procedures on patients. Back then, he ended up paralyzed after trying to escape by jumping through the window. And now he is back! Somehow.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6gpa2l

 

Julian manages to escape this time again. And now he is heading to the hospital, dressed like a doctor, to take what he came for (whatever that might be). Remember fat black lady Milly (played by Mother Love) from the beginning? Well, she is our good doctor’s next target. Being cranky as she is she saw through
his mask and went out looking for the help. As it is custom in such kind of movies they searched the room but no one could be found. And of course head nurse wouldn’t believe her. But the moment Milly went back to bed Julian, who btw has much resemblance to Serbian actor Ivan Bosiljcic (though Ivan Bosiljcic is a pathetic looking guy), jumped down onto her from the ceiling. The rest of the scene is left out for our imagination.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6gp9tc

 

Now do you remember young Whoopi Goldberg? Thats right, she is the next victim. Her name is Lisa (played by Juliette Jeffers) and she ended up in the hospital with the broken leg after car accident. But broken leg doesn’t stop her from having a sex with her boyfriend in her own hospital bed while
surrounded with candles! What kind of hospital is this? Patients are being murdered every now and then while some other patients are turning their room into a brothel! Anyway, Lisa’s boyfriend needed refreshment after hard work so he went to the bathroom. And thats Julian’s time to strike. At first, it looked like boyfriend is going to overpower him but eventually Julian gave him enough injections to put him down for good. She moved onto Lisa, and not in a way her now late boyfriend did couple of minutes before. Julian poisoned her with gas and then injected her the same substance he gave to his first victim.
Meanwhile, Theresa and Hendricks were having some naked fun in the pool when they received a call from Lt. McEllwaine (played by Peter Boyle, who needs no special introduction). They arrived just in time to find Dr. Ed being killed by Julian. We learn that Julian is blaming Ed for loosing his license so he
stapled Ed’s mouth shut. Poetic justice. In the meantime, Julian is tasting his own medicine. What he is up to now?

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6gpa3l

 

The hospital is now under full police protection and they are using Dr. Theresa as a bait. Of course, that didn’t stop Julian from dispatching them all, one by one, and pinning Theresa to where it all started – the surgery table. He wanted Theresa to be the last ingredient for his cure – a substance that regenerates tissue even after you die. They had some sweet talk giving her enough time to shock him using a defibrillator. And that was the cue for the entire police force to bust in and shower Julian with rain of bullets while Theresa was still behind him! Yup they made a Swiss cheese out of poor Julian, who just needed to be loved. What a stupid ending!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6gpa9l

 

Or is it? As you can see in the scene above, Julian has taken the advantage of their moment of carelessness to inject himself some more of his juice. He woke up in the mortuary and killed fat pathologist. And now he is going to finish what he had started. Surprisingly he manages to kill Dr. Hendricks while he was in bed with Theresa. Theresa then finished him in a more stupid way then a previous one. I am tired of bullshit and don’t want to waste any more words on this plot so you can check for yourself below.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6gpawj

 

Conclusion: Directed by Carl Schenkel, The Surgeon aka Exquisite Tenderness is a film with German roots (to add to the confusion, it is also known as The Beast in the White Smock and Infernal Torments in German, although it was filmed in English). I will try to watch this again because I still can’t believe a movie with Malcolm McDowell, James Remar, Peter Boyle and Charles Dance in it could be this bad but it’s bland and uninteresting despite their competent performances. Were all of them totally broke? That must be it right? I don’t know. Another thing that’s very noticeable about this movie is its above-average use of make-up effects. The blood and gore effects were done right and might even cause some viewers to cringe. AS for the plot itself, many films have explored the uses of the Pituitary region of the brain for its possible regenerative properties. Yeah this is very funny movie to watch but personally I would rather always recommend you this and this. To me Jeffrey Combs is the only true mad scientist.

Worse News: Charles Bronson strikes back from the grave!

Posted: 12/03/2018 in Tribute, Worse News
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Robert “Bronzi” Kovacs is a Spanish musician and actor with an uncanny resemblance to the late, great Charles Bronson (strangely, there’s more that a couple cases of Bronsonism here in Europe).

Something like this…

He already made his first steps in fulfilling his  destiny as a Bronson double for the Western themed commercial for LIDL, European mega- supermarket chain.

He followed that up a Western/ Horror production called From Hell to the Wild West, and  now to top it all off, he takes a lead role in a awesome looking Death Wish tribute called the Death Kiss, coming to the screens later this year. You can enjoy the first trailer right here:

Just look at him go!

 

 

Nightmare City aka City of the Walking Dead aka Incubo Sulla Citta Contaminata (1980)

Posted: 29/01/2018 in Trash movies
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Exploitative and cheesy, now over 30 years old, this often overlooked gem by respected Italian director Umberto Lenzi (Cannibal Ferox, Black Demons) is a forerunner of the running infected “zombie” film. Born from a producers desire to ride the Italian zombie splatter cycle, and marketed as such on later DVD releases, Lenzi wanted to differentiate the film and base it roughly on the Seveso disaster of 1976, an industrial accident which saw the local population exposed to a chemical outbreak, although any references or thoughts on this are submerged by the sheer zombie-esque action and preposterous scenes. In fact, even director Lenzi doesn’t see this as a zombie movie. Neither do we, considering this poor excuse for make-up, which you too will going to see soon.

nc

When politically principled and fashion-unconscious TV reporter Dean Miller (played by Hugo Stiglitz) turns up for work one morning, he’s sent to the airport to cover the arrival of a certain Professor Hagenbeck in order to interview him about a recent nuclear spillage that iz hitting the headlines. He is told to take one of the station’s best cameramen with him. As the pair arrive at the airport, a military transport plane that refuses to respond to calls from the control tower comes in to land with no obvious sign that there’s anyone on board. As military personnel gather round and tactfully ignore the presence of Miller and his hesitant cameraman, Professor Hagenbeck emerges and promptly stabs the officer who has stepped forward to meet him. He’s immediately followed by a band of wild-eyed men with radiation-burn faces, who launch an all-out assault on the assembled soldiers. Despite being armed with machine guns, the military men are slaughtered by this manic and seemingly bullet resistant group of blade-wielding ghouls, who hungrily drink blood from the wounds they inflict. Luckily they completely ignore Dean and his cameraman, who after watching on for long enough for the horror to soak in, beat a hasty but hardly panic-stricken retreat.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6dw66l

 

Meanwhile, on the local TV Channel 5, Miller interrupts some aerobic show with news flash related to slaughter which had occured earlier that day. After it was over aerobic show continued like nothing had happened at all. Soon after that zombies, who obviously don’t like publicity, emerged into station armed to the teeth and slaughter each and everyone of employees. Well only Miller somehow managed to escape again, leaving his coworkers on their own.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6dw7ly

 

Faced with this sort of crysis millitary decides to develop a strategy. The authopsy results of one of the zombies excluded them from being extraterrestrial. Well at least they know something now. Colonel from Atomic Institute explained to them that, after being exposed to extremely high value of atomic radiation, people in the plane developed superhuman strength and ability to regenerate themselves, as long as they are getting fresh blood. So his solution is to shoot them to the brain in order to kill them (wow you really need to be a rocket scientist to come up with such an idea). So thats what you get when you expose people to radiation – bloodsucking superintelligent zombies. I am not sure now how Japan lost the war. Anyway, turned out that their plan wasn’t so bulletproof as it seemed Later that night mutant zombies invaded millitary base, sabotaged it and achieved one of the greatest victories in the history of warfare.

We have been invaded

We have been invaded!

After winning the battle now it is time to finish the wounded. Local hospital is their next target! Ha! No survivors! It seems that they can infect other people too now. Mutants attack doctors and personel who turn to sucking blood of their patients. Miller was again on the scene and escaped yet again after the first signs of danger. For one news reporter he is often too eager to leave the place of happening. At least now he remembered to take his wife Dr. Anna Miller (played by Laura Trotter) with him. While driving away they heard on the radio that millitiray declared state of martial law. Having nowhere to go
they decided to come by to nearby gas station and help themselves with a cup of instant coffiee. They don’t mind bodies laying around. Meanwhile, Sheila Holmes (played by Maria Rosaria Omaggio) and her maid Liz (played by Sara Franchetti) are baricaded in house. One mutant managed to smeal through cellar and stab Liz into her boob then pop her eye out. What an overkill!!!

You got something in your eye. Let me take it out for you

You got something in your eye. Let me take it out for you

Sheila’s husband Mayor Warren Holmes (played by Francisco Rabal) came home to check on her, after failed millitary plan to release a nerve gas. He arrived just in time to find her infected by cellar mutant. He had no other option that to blow her head off (literally). Yet in the next scene Sheila is laying on the floor with the head on her shoulders. I guess she gor increased power of regeneration.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6dw77p

 

Attracted by smell of coffee mutants invaded gas station so Dean and Anna were forced to look for sanctuary in a church. There they find infected priest who tries to beat them to death with a huge candle. Dean answers the challenge with a candlestick. This looks like paper, rock, scissors fight.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6dw7ab

 

Dean and Anna are now in amusement part though now there isn’t anything that can be found amusing there. They fight their way to the top of a huge rollercoaster where Mayor Warren is waiting fot them in his helicopter. Dean and Anna grabbed onto the rope hanging from the helicopter. Anna should have paid more attention to the rope climbing lessons in elementary school gym class since she couldn’t get into the chopper. Doll representing her body falls down, breaking it’s spine, arms and legs while falling between rollercoaster bars. You can’t blame Mayor for that. Decision to pick them up from a rollercoaster was completely in place since this movie is a real rollercoaster of awesomeness!!!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6dw7cs

 

Dean could only watch his beloved wife dying without any trace of dignity. Let’s face it, it is not heroic death. He starts screaming repeatedly and he screams himself awake in the bed, next to his wife who is sleeping soundly. That’s right, everything was just a beautiful dream! Or was it actually? When he received a phone call to interview famous Professor Hagenbeck he dressed up quickly and ran there immedieatly. It seems that he hasn’t learned anything from his dream because…

Nightmare

Conclusion: Nightmare City is the perfect movie for horror fans who need a fix of gory horror that just doesn’t care about making sense, it just wants to be an all-out zombiefest. In many ways Nightmare City conforms to the Italian exploitation horror archetype. The acting is uneven, the cast multinational, the plot liberally peppered with logic holes, the subtext gossamer thin, the violence bloody, and women seem to suffer more horribly than men. Surprisingly, given the film’s country of origin, the Italian dub is often an even bigger mismatch to the actor’s mouths than its English equivalent, on which the English-speaking Mel Ferrer comes off the best. As for the poor zombies, aside poor makeup, they are not quite zombies at all. They are not acctually dead they are organised, intelligent, oftenly well armed and they are RUNNING AND DRINKING BLOOD of their victims. Nightmare City is let down by a dreadful cop out ending, which ruins the, well, not-so-awful work the rest of the movie had done.

 

Tarantino talking about Nightmare City- big Planet Terror (Grindhouse) influence.

Worse News: Critters are BACK!

Posted: 11/01/2018 in Worse News
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There have been a constant clamoring about some sort of a sequel to the 80’s cult classic:  Critters for some time now. Jordan Downe of the ThanksKilling franchise even threw his hat into the ring with a cool, little short film called Critters: Bounty Hunter.

Now, nearly 4 years later we finally have an official announcement of a net- series Critters: A New Binge  coming from Blue Ribbon Content (Warner Bros/  Verizon) on  go90 platform. Jordan Rubin will direct from the script by Jon Kaplan, Al Kaplan and himself. Series is produced by the original Critters franchise’s Rupert Harvey and Barry Opper alongside Kaplans and Rubin.

Here’s an official synopsis:

-In “Critters: A New Binge” the critters return to Earth in search of one of their kin, who was left behind years ago during an earlier mission. They land in Burbank, California where they wreak havoc on a group of high schoolers and their families.-

 

HERE THEY COME!

Bloody New Year (1987)

Posted: 31/12/2017 in Trash movies
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If you’re at least a little bit like us it’s only natural for you to try and find a nice New Year themed B-Horror movie to watch on the New Year’s eve. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many of those, those in the “nice” category even less.  But, sometimes you just have to make do with what you have.

We spoke to some length about our opinion on British Horror (Don’t Open ’till Christmas) still you can’t fault them for trying. This final film of the B-Movie alumni Norman J. Warren combines the 80’s style Holiday Horror with the time loop theme that’s actually quite popular today. The result is shall we say- underwhelming although there is some fun scenes throughout . Let’s dive in!

“Teenage” friends Lesley, Janet, Spud, Tom and Rick (all in their 30’s) are spending the day at a seaside Luna Park. There they end up rescuing an American tourist Carol. They should have figured out things are about to go wrong when fortune teller starts screaming at them but they had no idea what’s going to happen next. Then they run into a gang of local hooligans  and running from the them they randomly take a boat out to sea, only to lose their way and end up stranded!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6chb5l

Just look at him go!

Things just get better from there. On a seemingly deserted island they stumble upon an old hotel, but it’s too devoid of any sign of life. Not long after apparitions  start appearing around the hotel. First sign that something is not quite right is the band appearing and disappearing from the hall. But things get really serious with flying Arab Rudolph Valentino- lookalike coming out off the big screen. Stupid chick (Janet?) starts running and ends up caught up in a net .

One by one teenagers fall and some of them even come back as some kind of zombies.

Soon  Carol and Rick are the only remaining and the ghosts of the 1959 party appear and explain that the hotel is stuck in a timewarp due to some scientific experiment gone wrong (somehow than includes an airplane crash?) leaving the guests trapped forever the ghostly state- running again and again in a loop.

Charming young lady!

Verdict: If you happen upon an old Hotel with New Year’s Eve decorations  just run the other way (especially if it’s on an a deserted island)! Warren intended the film as a throwback to 1950s B movies with the film set on an island trapped in a time warp  but the result looks almost like someone randomly tried to reproduce The Shining from memory using couple of his friends and the local ruin of a building. And the general sleaziness of the picture and the crazy effects are more reminiscent of the Italian exploitation cinema than of something out of UK.

All in all don’t repeat our mistake and watch this movie tonight- you can do so much better!

 

 

 

Worse News: Eric Freeman wishes you a Merry Christmas… and Happy Garbage day!

Posted: 25/12/2017 in Worse News
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Eric Freeman (Silent Night, Deadly Night 2, Murder Weapon, Young Rebels ) was one of our inspirations for starting this page in the first place and for the longest time he was a mystery wrapped in enigma. After decades of obscurity Eric Freeman finally resurfaced in 2013  and even more significantly he finally returned  to acting (after 18 years) with logically- a Christmas themed movie: A Husband for Christmas, also staring Eric Roberts, Vivica A. Fox and Ricco Ross in 2016 and then episode od CBS’s Bull  recently in 2017.

 

Wishing us all the best for holidays and also promoting his new website:  http://www.theeericfreeman.com – up and running starting this December! You can order lots of fun stuff including a Garbage Can with his picture on it!

…and just in case  you want some more of those sweet Freeman guitar licks we got one for for you. Check this out:

 

 

 

 

Young Rebels (1989)

Posted: 14/12/2017 in Trash movies
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Here we have another jewel from Iranian director Amir Shervan (Samurai Cop, Killing American Style). The story about revenge, family strings and cleaning up neighborhood. If you ever had a chance of watching any of abovementioned movies then you’ll know what to expect in this one.

Young Rebels is about a crime boss Mr. Vincenzo (played by G. Alexander Vidrion), who deals drugs and hates everything and everyone (which is not a surprise at all since he is an old man). His son Joey (played by Robert Z’dar) is one of his enforcers. The Crime boss hates him too. With a reason, since Joey had managed to fuck up drug deal which can be seen in the opening scene. If you pay close attention you’ll notice that one of the goons attending this drug exchange was played by none other than legendary Eric Freeman. Anyway, they wanted to keep both drug and money and now they are left empty-handed. That is why they need a plan B (as in B movies). That’s when we get to the main story. Our hero of the film Charlie (played by John Greene) has a younger brother Ben (whose name is listed wrong on the IMDB and I can’t tell which non-photo, never-acted-again) who borrowed money from the boss and he owes big time. The only way he can get out of debt is if he has Charlie fly a helicopter to Mexico to transport two drug kingpins to the states. Charlie shrugs his shoulders and agrees despite the risk. Meanwhile, Mr Vincenzo solved a problem when his workers went on strike action by killing them all. Simple and efficient!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6bocv2

A possible solution for the immigrant crisis?

Of course, the deal goes sour with the two kingpins ending up dead. Now the crime syndicate is after the brothers. So Joey and his thugs make an ambush at Charlie’s girlfriend place. Ben rushes is and manages to warn Charlie, but both him and the girl end up dead. Some cowboy style showdown occurs, followed by funk music playing in the background, from which only Joey and few goons manage to come alive, while Charlie ends up hiding and wounded. His friends find him and now they are plotting a revenge against Mr Vincenzo since every single one of them had some quarell with the crime boss.

Pad

And he got shot to his back moments ago

Meanwhile Joey spends some relaxing time with his stripper girlfriend (played by Delia Shepard) when he gets interrupted by one of his goons. His father wants to see him. Apparently they found a lead about Charlie’s whereabouts with a help of crooked Judd (played by Dale Cummings) who is a deputy to senile old Sheriff (played by Aldo Ray). They now bust some Mexican party, trying to extort any info about Charlie but their attack once again got repelled by Charlie, his friend Genza (played by Tadashi Yamashita) and others. So everyone have gone back to doing what they like. Charlie’s girlfriend’s corpse didn’t even gone cold properly and yet he is already onto her sister Liz (played by Christine Lunde). Meh no point living the past, I guess. And Joey went back to his girl so she can finish striptease in peace.

Hello ladies

Hello ladies

But Joey can’t catch a break. Charlie interrupts their little show. Joey then heroically uses his girlfriend as a living shield and manages to escape. Meanwhile Mr Vincenzo once again visits immigrants farm and kills Chico (played by David Kinder), in a chainsaw torture scene which manages to produce very little blood, after refusing to give him info about Charlie. Charlie arrives to the place just in time to be accused of Chico’s murder by crooked Deputy. Again, he manages SOMEHOW to escape and long car chasing scene occurs, in which Charlie managed not only to outsmart police but even to locate Joey after and execute him. It is worth mentioning that like for any other action scene in this movie sudden location changes are characteristic for this scene as well.

A perfect example of knighthood

Mad with death of his son Mr Vincenzo goes after Charlie for revenge. Liz joins the fight too. With her help and help of his friends Charlie disposes of goons and crooked cops one by one in several ridicolous action scenes. Eventually, he corners Mr Vincenzo at some house and we get to see some fistfight with more sudden location changes and punches that don’t connect. Now, I have to point out shameless way in which Charlie came victourious out of this duel. Although Mr Vincenzo was kinda 30 years older than Charlie he beated a living crap out of our “hero”. Charlie was forced to reach out for less honorable measures. While Mr Vincenzo wasn’t looking Charlie kicked his butt (literally), pushing him away just enough to have a time to shoot him from his gun (somewhere near the end of that scene the producers suddenly realized they should have added some blood). Meh what can you expect from a man who sleeps with a sister of his girlfriend just couple of days after she was killed? Sheriff arrived just in time to conclude that he has absolutely no idea what is going on here. And that conlcudes this movie too.

Conclusion: First thing wrong about this movie is its title. There are no particularly young people in this movie, nor could they be said to be rebelling against anything. Sidetracked again! I have already mentioned confusing sudden location changes. This isn’t quite all. There’s some of the worst acting I can remember, primarily from Ben but also from Joselito Rescober, who you’ll remember as the ultra-camp waiter from “Samurai Cop”.  There’s the way that punches sound like a bomb going off and are so ludicrous that I can’t even imagine a late 80s no-budget action movie seriously going “yes, this is effect we’re going for”. But the most confusing were cuts from one scene to another with no particular order. Of course, this results in many continuity and plot holes (like the one when Ben’s fiancé turned out to be Charlie’s girlfriend couple of minutes later). Still, just like other Amir’s movies, this one is a hella lot of fun to watch.

 

 

 

 

Death Promise (1977)

Posted: 05/12/2017 in Trash movies
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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In the late 70’s, the early days of post- Bruce Lee boom, we were bombarded with all kinds of Kung Fu flicks-from the Shaw Brothers to the to the rise of young Jackie Chan‘s to the budding American Martial Arts flicks but it’s a movie called Death Promise that really sticks out like a sour thumb. I mean to this day I haven’t encountered another a Kung Fu movie like that- a film about the common folk’s rise against their evil landlords. Combining Asian Martial Arts with the harsh social reality of the life in the projects and Charles Bronson or should I say Charles Bonet style complete overkill revenge movie.

In New York City, slum lords are resorting to using nefarious methods to evict tenants or have them leave so they can tear the buildings down for more commercial properties. One such victim is Charley Roman, a karate expert whose electricity and water has been shut off courtesy of the slum lords.
Unfortunately it doesn’t show that the effects of the late-70s New York
financial crisis also include Karate and Kicking Ass!

Obviously someone is dead set on evicting poor souls out of their homes but at this point we have no idea who. Their next play is to set buildings on fire. To that end we have some bad archival footage of fire.  They tried to set fire to his building too, even thou the few card-boards they have wouldn’t make much difference. But Bonnet won’t give them any chance, So he jumps in and immediately starts kicking ass. Unfortunately the bearded punk didn’t seem ready for this and he started going into some kind of spasms as soon as Charles Bonet touched him. I wasn’t sure should I laugh out loud of just feel sorry for the guy.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6b7v0v

Well, at least the bearded guy survived…

After Bonet dispatches of the arsonist gangs we finally see the evil cabal that’s behind all of this aka The Landlords and for and I must say for an evil cabal they are very diverse group of people from very different backgrounds, everything from the elderly high court judge to the nasty ghetto pimp. I have to wonder just how all these people got together in the first place?

Anyway , Charley’s dad ends up mysteriously dead on the kitchen floor. He seemingly met his demise without any resistance, uncharacteristic for him. All the while Bonet and his black friend (with an awesome name Speedy Leacock) were having fun at the bar. But who could have defeated an old boxer like him so effortlessly? I mean we saw him dispose off some young punks with no trouble earlier in the film. The plot thickens. Bonet finds his father’s body and completely loses his mind– coupled with a ridiculous scream effect!

Now, despite the wishes of his late father his teacher Shibata show him the letter (revealing their enemies) right away, without a second thought. Unfortunately according to Shibata his skills are not up to par, so before any revenging is done- so he sends him away to China (or maybe upstate New York )  to his master Tony Liu (The Way of the Dragon, Fist of Fury) to sharpen up his skills. There’s just one thing, Liu is absolutely not an old man (hell, he is 65 now- 40 years later and that’s still not that old) and grey in his hair is painfully obviously a paint.

Also if you pay any attention the fact that his master- a Japanese Karate practitioner Shibata was taught by a Chinese Kung Fu Man who’s style is definitely not Karate doesn’t seem to bother anyone. But it’s an old American picture, maybe we should just be happy there’s no yellowface involved.

Returning to his home after months of heavy duty training he is right away reunited with Leacock. And with his help he is making a list of people he needs to kill. As we all know you can’t really achieve anything if you don’t make a list fist. They start of by pouring the poison down the string Ninja style, ending a life on elderly Judge in his sleep without anybody noticing a thing before it’s too late. Their next kill is a bit more public, Bonet dispatches of the evil businessmen by punching him to death trough a car window after a lengthy chase! They also get reinforcement, Liu’s other student shows up to help out- looking like a Bruce Lee’s mentally challenged third cousin.

Now, when they get to the pimp, Leacock insist on doing he deed himself. You can get complete picture of situation in those slums and it’s neighborhood when you hear his 12 year old brother had gone OD (must be some relative of  Drew Barrymore too).

He seems as shocked by her disproportionately large nipples as the rest of us.

The remaining Landlord, an old man with a cane sends his men on the three of them and tries to run away but gest a shuriken into his hand, then one in his back. Bonet follows him to the roof where he gets cut by a katana in front of his eyes !? It turns out, Shibata is a Yakuza!  He was behind the landlords all this time! So, wait, why did he then send his student to sharpen his martial arts prowess so he can more easily defeat him? Must be some Honor code we just can’t understand?

Aaaayyyy blonde dude is so fuckin’ awesome!

The remaining Landlord, old man with a cane got a shuriken into his hand, then his back. Bonet follows him to the roof where he gets cut by a katana in front of his eyes !? It turns out, Shibata is a Yakuza!  He was behind the landlords all this time! So, wait, why did he then send his student to sharpen his martial arts prowess so he can more easily defeat him? Must be some Honor code we just can’t understand?

They go into a prolonged fight with Shibata before killing him with his own sword– irony, right? Also he then throws his lifeless body aka something that is obviously not a human being down the building.  Also that something seems very, very heavy because someone in great shape like him  can barely lift it.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6b4gup

Maybe even a greatest fall in history of the cinema!

Verdict: Unfortunately Death Promise’s  Charles Bonnet never got to be the next best thing in Martial Arts movies, even though he did get to act again in his friend’s Roy Van Cleefe’s (another Martial Art legend)  Black Dragon Revenge and Way of Black Dragon. And for all the cheesiness of Death Promise I consider that to be shame ’cause the dude was a real life badass and  genuinely excellent Martial Artist and  different than many tournament fighters back in the day  he actually looked good on the camera. At least we finally did get a Latino American Martial Art super- star with Marko Zaror (Savage Dog, Reedemeer, Machete Kills, Undisputed 3) but we had to wait for 2000’s for that.

And now one more time: Death Promise theme!

Trivia: Interestingly in the old days when movies were made on the dime- posters were often masterpieces! Death Promise poster for example was done by the legendary comicbook artist Neil Adams (Batman, Deadman, X-Men). Now in the days of multi- million dollars franchises, we often only get bad Photohop photo- manipulation.

 

 

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