Manhattan Baby (1982)

An archaeologist explores an Egyptian pyramid that is rumored to be cursed. Soon he's falling into a hidden chamber where his guide is impaled. Feeling thankful to be alive, his luck soon changes when he gets blasted in the eyes with a laser and goes blind.

Meanwhile his wife leaves their daughter alone in a huge courtyard where a creepy blind gypsy magically appears and gives her a cursed medallion.  No one shall ask why kids don't run away from creepy gypsy's and why the parents only brought one of their two children on this fabulous trip to Egypt. Well, it was fabulous before two of the three family members were cursed.

Back in New York, strange things start happening.   A locked room is opened by a coworker who immediately disappears.  The kids bedroom floor is covered with desert sand. Their sons toys appear at the archaeologists workplace, and their son tells them not to be scared when his sister is screaming because that's what she always does when she travels. And most importantly, our archaeologist father is blasted in the eyes with lasers a second time. Hooray!

Strange things happen, curses abound, blindness comes and goes, they search for help based on a polaroid with a name on it, and that damn gypsy keeps giving out amulets to unsuspecting children.  This is a Lucio Fulci film. Although the story starts with the archaeologist father investigating the tomb in Egypt, back in New York everything revolves around the little girls possession by the evil amulet. Theres not a lot of blood, although there is a vicious attack near the end of the movie.  It's fairly slow paced and the parents seem a bit slow on the uptake.  But on the plus side, the father is played by Christopher Connelly, who I like, and the little boy appeared in House by the Cemetery.

As if the bandages weren't hilarious enough....

It's never pleasant when you can see nose hair. 

Get used to a lot of shots like this.

Among Friends (2012)

A group of friends go to an 80s themed dinner party at a friends house. When they arrive, she lets them know that this is also a murder mystery party. The group splits into teams of two and starts searching for clues in different parts of the house.  Later they gather at the dinner table to display the clues they found.

Things take a weird turn when they discover that they've been drugged and can't move their legs.  After passing out, they wake to find themselves tied to their chairs.

It turns out they are actually horrible friends, since they lie, cheat, steal, and figuratively stab each other in the back. Now someone knows their secrets and is so aghast at how terrible they are, that they only course of action is revenge.

After the initial set up, the characters are tortured physically and psychologically. I don't enjoy torture movies, and the characters are so repulsive that you can't really fault the killer for wanting to make them pay.  So it's not something I particularly liked.  The movie was directed by Danielle Harris, which will be interesting to some horror fans.

Porn Star Zombies (2009)

With a title like this, there aren't high expectations for anything watchable.  Then the movie starts and confirms that this isn't going to be good.  It's black and white, but not in a meaningful or artistic way. Also it appear s they used the live sound from the mics. There is definitely no ADR and sometimes the ambient noise overwhelms the dialogue, (the scenes in the convenience store are particularly annoying).

I don't know if they ever said the name of the main character, but I assume it's Gavin based on the listing on IMDB.  So let's go with that.  Gavin is the director of a low budget porn, and gets his annoying friend Richard Magnet a job as an editor.

The two show up at the site of the shoot, a small rental home that is supposed to be in the middle of nowhere.  It's obviously not since we can see parking lots and what appears to be the back of a perhaps a convenience store on the other side of the fence.

The producer, who is always screaming at people, doesn't allow any protection on set.  So when one girl ends up with a virus, it is quickly spread to everyone else on the shoot. Too bad it's a zombie virus and soon everyone is turning into drooling ,lightly made up zombies.

I picked up this pack of movies knowing they would all be really low budget. The trailer for Office Dead seemed okay, and I love watching zombies movies, so I took a chance since the DVD was so cheap. Although this movie was not good, it turned out to be more entertaining than Bunker of Blood.  Also the bad acting isn't out of place in porn, so it wasn't as noticeable.

I'm not sure why they chose to film in black and white.  There isn't really any reason for it, unless perhaps they thought the blood looked more realistic?  This would also enable them to use chocolate syrup since they wouldn't have to worry about the color.  There's not a lot of makeup on the zombies and that which they have is rudimentary.  As expected there is a fair amount of female nudity, but there is also a shot of one guys dangly bits, (not sure why they didn't use the muscular guy for that shot.)

A lot of the jokes are crude (as would be expected), and would probably be funny if you're a teenager or in a frat. The characters aren't the most likable and you won't care when they die.  Overall the movie isn't good, but it did get more bearable as it went on, which is the opposite of lots of movies, and I did laugh a few times later in the film.

The Chair (2007)

The Chair? Now that's a completely uninteresting title.  Psychology student Danielle moves into a new apartment and strange things start occurring.  She tells her sister she believes the house is haunted, but since she's taking copious amounts of meds, her sister doesn't believe her and fears she's not actually taking her pills.

Danielle has the bright idea to look in the door that goes to a storage area under the eaves.  Strangely enough she never checked this area when she moved in.  Am I the only one that looks through a new place when I move in to see if anything was left behind by the previous tenants?

There are numerous items under the eaves that lead to the discovery that a magician used to live in the house in the early 1900s.  He not only did he do magic, but he experimented on a serial killer strapped in a chair - the same chair mentioned in the title.  And Danielle can learn all about it when she has a CD made from an old wax cylinder and matches it's audio up with an old movie of the actual experiment.  Hurray!

Danielle starts getting all wiggedy-whack, which makes her sister wonder if she's having another episode. Guess it's pointless to tell her Danielle is probably possessed by a child killer circa 1900.  But she'll probably find out soon since Danielle has taken an unnatural interest in a young boy who not only rides his bike up and down the sidewalk, but is also a terrible actor.

When the chair appears in the attic, and Danielle (who bears a resemblance to Nicole Sullivan) gets those crazy eyes, you just know it's trouble for anyone she can get her hands on.  And why would any kid be so stupid as to actually believe being strapped into that chair is a game?

At one point earlier in the film, the chair is seen hovering near the ceiling in the hallway.  This never happens again.  Too bad because I was hoping the chair would be haunted and move on it's own. Instead we get a thesis writing college student with no visible means of support living in a large three story Victorian and the implausible things that happen to her.

The Depraved (2011)

aka Urban Explorer

A group of strangers hires a guide to bring them into the underground tunnels in Berlin, and are the only ones surprised when there turns out to be a creepy serial killer down there.

Guide Kris leads them on a two hour walk deep into the tunnels to find a bunker formerly used by the Nazi's.  On the way back, brainiac Marie blinds Kris with her camera's flash which makes Kris lose his balance, results in a horrible accident ,and made me want to push her down an air shaft.

While Marie and Juna go to get help, Denis and girlfriend Lucia stay with Kris.  Then a strange looking man with huge teeth shows up and offers to help save their friend. Hurray! He quickly gets a stretcher and hauls Kris out of the shaft, asking Denis to help him carry the injured man to safety.  He's got a nice little apartment of sorts, with a stove and fridge, as well as medical supplies. While eating some soup, Denis talks to him and discovers he's a former East German border guard, which means he's seen and done some very sketchy things, including shooting people.

Yup, it's all too easy, especially since there was a previous run in with some thugs.  Let's face it, you're walking through deserted tunnels under a huge city. Surely someone unsavory is going to be living down there. If you're lucky, they'll only be crazy, instead of a psycho killer.  And where the heck are Marie and Juna? Did they get help, run into the thugs, get lost, or meet up with some other trouble? Do we care?

This one doesn't break any new ground.  No one is particularly engaging or obnoxious, (well, not compared to a lot of recent movies). One cliche that drives me nuts is when characters are hiding from a killer, and they talk or whisper while the killer is near.  The killer is somewhere behind them and Lucia falls down a hole. She keeps yelling at Denis not to leave her. Oh my god, shut up!

The best thing about this movie is that a lot of it was actually shot in the underground tunnels of Berlin.

Bunker of Blood (2011)

The President has lots of press conferences where he spouts one sentence updates on the deteriorating relations with a foreign country and an upcoming nuclear war.

A couple of soldiers break into a locked facility and kill a bunch of people. Based on watching these scenes, it appears that being repeatedly shot by automatic weapons is a fairly peaceful way to go.  It's less painful then being hit in the head with a basketball.

Then we're off to the bunker, which is filled with people of questionable intellect.  Shouldn't the survivors be people who don't act like drunk patrons watching a bar fight?  There's no one likable here so hopefully they all die.

Honestly, I can't tell you much about the plot because it's not very cohesive.  It lost my interest fairly quickly and I didn't enjoy it. The actors don't seem to have any experience, and the dialogue doesn't help.  I guess the only good thing I can say is that it's not the worst thing I've ever seen, and at least they accomplished their goal of making a movie.   Low budget movies can be fun to make, but it doesn't mean they're fun to watch.

This press conference seems menacing.

Why is there a thin black rectangle around the bullet hole?

These guys are super calm when faced with intruders shooting
automatic weapons. Note the spray of blood on the right. 

It seems like their victims should be full of holes...

...but they look pretty peaceful and there's hardly any blood.

Don't roll your eyes while saying your lines

Primitive green screen

After they get to the bunker, this shot comes out of nowhere

A sheet with stenciling? This must be a government facility

Aw hell, these idiots are our future?

Rigor Mortis (2104)

I love Chinese hopping vampire movies.  It's such a different concept to Western horror movies depictions of vampires and zombies.  The whole thing fascinates me, and I love the traditional garb they wear and the silly way they hop with their arms outstretched.

This movie describes itself as a "...martial-arts-infused chilling homage to classic Chinese vampires movies...."  So I was pretty damn excited to hear about it. The trailer looked totally crazy and was action packed and super creepy.  So imagine my disappointment when the movie was not anything like the trailer.

Chin Sui-Ho, a down on his luck formerly successful actor, moves into a rundown tenement building.  His apartment has known tragedy before and on the first night he attempts to hang himself and ghostly spirits attempt to possess his body.

Sui-Ho is rescued by a Priest who lives nearby and fights off the spirits. The Priest seeks out Sui-Ho as he eats in the downstairs restaurant and relates stories about some of the other apartment dwellers.   Sui-Ho tentatively interacts with some of the people, and feels protective of a young mother and son who are alone.

But there are supernatural happenings in the building, and when one of the tenants dies, another performs a ceremony that will bring him back from the dead - which is all that tenement needs since it's not such a great place to being with.

It's too bad the trailer portrayed it as a movie with hopping zombie action and more action in general. I probably would have enjoyed it if I hadn't believed it was something totally different from what it turned out to be.  It's visually well done, and the story is intriguing, but my expectations were for something totally different and ultimately I was left disappointed. It is a much bleaker movie than the trailer would have you believe.  Of note is that many of the actors appeared in the Mr. Vampire films.

El Muerto (2007)

aka The Dead One

Diego heads to a Day of the Dead party and crashes his car.  A year later he comes back and goes to a party, which is convenient since his dead white face make up doesn't wash off. But it's not so convenient the next day when he wander the streets looking like a skull.

Based on a comic which I've never read, the good things about this are a main character with Day of the Dead makeup and the creepy Billy Drago.  I also like Michael Parks simply because he played the title role in the 1960s TV series Then Came Bronson back and was also in Twin Peaks.

The bad thing about it is that this film seems to take forever to get through and the lead character is Fez from That 70s Show.

Blacklight (1999)

Larry hates psychics. Yet he's married to Sharon, a psychic who helps the police find people who have disappeared and usually end up dead.  After one such search, Larry and Sharon are run off the road after leaving the crime scene, and Sharon loses her eyesight.

When Sharon gets home from the hospital, Inspector Schuman and Detective Howard visit to ask if she can look through some files. Sharon says she's missing her eyes and has lost any clairvoyant ability she had before the accident. Larry smiles evilly to himself at this news.

But when Sharon tries to commit suicide by weighting herself down in the pool, she sees another crime being committed.  She gets a vision of a little girl who is missing, and feels she must help.  Det. Howard hates psychics, but Inspector Schuman is willing to give her a chance.

Dr. Godard, a friend of Larry's, needs his help on a project and offers to put Sharon in a new study where they try to help the blind see.  The research involves transmitting images from a camera into the brain, and bypassing the optic nerve.  Larry dances an imaginary jig as he imagines a sight enabled Sharon who is not a psychic.

But the experimental treatment seems to be helping her regain her gift, and she starts helping Schuman in his investigation of a serial child killer - until he gets Schuman wrist slapped for his unauthorized methods.  At one point Sharon tells him that she can see the killer and he has no distinguishing marks. This proves to be untrue when the killers face is revealed and he has incredibly  huge teeth.

Ridiculous dialogue-

"She's just not motivated to do anything now. She won't even learn to read Braille." - unsympathetic jerk husband Larry, whose newly sightless wife just came home from the hospital

"Larry, that image is coming from inside Sharon's brain." - Dr. Godard

In Fear (2013)

Tom and Lucy, a girl he's recently started dating, have plans to meet some friends at a festival.  It's a long drive and Lucy's friends are expecting her that night.  But Tom has booked a hotel in hope that Lucy may be interesting in a romantic night together before they spend the next few days with their friends.

Since the hotel is off the beaten path, they arrange to meet a guide at a local pub.  But the two leave the pub in a hurry, and it's not clear if Tom had some sort of run in with the locals. Luckily their guide is waiting outside in a jeep in the parking lot and the young couple follows him out to the middle of the countryside, where he points them to a dirt road.

Down the road, they find a gate with a chain on it.  Now right there, if that is me in the car, I'm getting a bad feeling about this. Their guide didn't get them to their destination, and hotels don't normally have farm type gates with locks on them. How is anyone going to stay in your hotel if they have to unchain a gate? This does not bode well.

But if our characters are suspicious, then they decide to go somewhere else and the movie ends. So Tom and Lucy undo the chain, and head down the road. They follow the signs on the twisting narrow road and get lost.  Ending up back where they started, they try again - and get even more lost.  The light is fading and the two are nowhere near finding their lodgings.  Fear is mounting in the car due to the creepiness of the roads and rundown cabin with a no trespassing sign near where they came in.

Lucy starts seeing people in the dark, but Tom doesn't believe her, which starts things down an ugly road.  Things get even more intense when they pick up a man from the side of the road who says people are chasing him.  Low on gas and with no sign of the hotel, it's not clear what is real and how they are going to survive the night.

Based on the extras on the DVD, what is most interesting about this film is that it was shot chronologically. There was no script and the actors didn't know what was going to happen to them.  They didn't know if the car would blow up, there were monsters in the woods, or they would be killed.  They also didn't know if their own characters were good or evil. This is because the director wanted them to be tense, unsure of what's going on, and they had only known each other for two weeks, just like the characters in the time.

It also explains why Lucy is always screaming, "Tom!" repeatedly.  If there had been a script, maybe she would have had something less annoying to say.  I wish I had counted how many times she screamed his name, because it's probably a hundred times.  It became really irritating and as she started to lose her voice from the screaming, it became even more annoying other than the hope that her voice may disappear completely.

Bled White (2011)

After some undisclosed event, food and gas are scarce and there are zombies running around.  The few people left in town exchange good and services in order to survive, and rely on  regular drop offs of canned food from the government.

The story follows Matt and Ed, who are not guys you'd want to meet, and has titled sequences with other characters who interact with the main characters.  The stories don't follow a linear form, which is confusing at first since the story will cut back to a previous point in the story.

None of the characters are particularly likable, except the girl at the end.  People don't make good decisions and tend not to be as cautious as you would hope, considering there are freakin' zombies all over the place.

I'm always confused when I see films like this with all sorts of award notices on the DVD cover.  How would something like this get any awards?  Was it the best of what was submitted and by default they're the winner?

Blood Glacier (2013)

Researchers in the middle of nowhere discover that part of the  glacier has turned a color red that resembles blood.  They bring a sample of it back to home base to examine, and discover that it is a new life form which attaches itself to DNA cells of a host and effects change in the host cells.

The group is expecting a visit from some Ministry big wigs.  The only rational member of the team suggests that they warn them not to come since it could be dangerous. There was an attack the previous night that they believe was from a rabid animal, and they don't want to expose their benefactors to this.

The rest of the group is only concerned about showing off their new discovery, which will get them funding and major kudos in the scientific community.  Since there is only one radio and they fear the one naysayer warning their potential visitors, two scientists hike to a supply site to hide the radio. Because what could possibly go wrong and require contact with the outside world?

We soon find out what terror awaits when the guides and Ministry visitors come across a woman running down the mountain in a panic. The group at the top of the mountain keep referring to rabid foxes, when the animals are obviously larger than that.  Things get worse and worse for both groups until most are united in the small base camp and stuck in the cabin with no phone. Aha!

This has similarities to The Thing, with a group isolated and trapped in an ice and snow covered land. The dubbing wasn't the best, but I didn't care since it would either provide some unintentional humor or I'd get used to it (which I did).  Overall I liked it, even though the ending made me go, "you idiots!"

Silly dialogue-

"Stop eating that banana when you're crying."

Researcher 1 - It stinks!
Researcher 2 - That's all you've got to say?
Researcher 1 - It stinks of science history.

Anyone whose seen the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra will feel right at home with that last quote.

The Children (1980)

When technicians at the nuclear power plant are unable to locate a suspected issue, they figure that reporting this will result in unwanted overtime, and punch out to drink at the local bar.  Not a good choice since a leak of black sludge has somehow resulted in a toxic yellow fog.

Ignoring basic safety precautions, a school bus driver drives into  a yellow cloud of fog covering the road.  When the children  don't return home, the Sheriff goes out looking for them and discovers the bus abandoned, and partly blocking the road. Inside are the children's belongings, but no sign of what may have happened to them or the driver.

With nervous parents and missing children, the police block the roads in and out of town, just in case the children have been abducted.  There's no sign of the kids until one randomly shows up at her parents house.  Her mother is overjoyed at the safe arrival of her child and smiles as she hugs here - until that hug  ends up with Mom being burned alive by her toxic nuclear cloud child.

Soon the Sheriff has his own close call with the children, and beings warning the other parents about what will happen if their children show up and want to give them a hug. It's easy to tell who's been in the nuclear fog because their fingernails have turned black. 

This movie scared the hell out of me when I saw it in the 1980s. Quite honestly, the kids just look pale and have black fingernails, but there's something about them that's super creepy. It's like when you're a kid and your brother pretends to be a zombie and slowly walks after you with arms outstretched.  At first it's silly, then it's annoying, but then it's creepy.  You know it's just your brother, but in the back of your head there's this small thought that says, but what if it isn't? 

I really like this film. It may be partly nostalgia and partly because it's an indie film from the 80s, but I also find it entertaining, which is the most important thing about any movie. Granted there are times the movie gets slow, but overall I like it.  While the movie was released on DVD by Troma, it's not a Troma movie. It was an independent film that was later picked up by Vestron Video, one of my favorite VHS labels.  So don't be scared off if you don't like Troma films.

The claw is a nice touch.

Driving blindly into a cloud of fog? Bad bus driver!

Put some clothes on, and cover up your package.

Everyone's happy until.....

... Mom starts burning.

Black fingernails means death!

Cut off their hands and win a prize.

Evil killing machines? But look how cute they are.

Curse of Chucky (2013)

Wheelchair bound Nika and her downer of a mother live in an isolated mansion. One day an unexpected shipment arrives and inside the box is a Chucky doll.  Since they don't know where it came from, or why it was sent to them, the mother dumps it in the trash can. Not sure why they didn't return it, but there you go.

By the next morning, Mom is dead, the Chucky doll is no longer in the trash, and Nika is dealing with her nasty sister Barb who wants to sell the home and put Nika in assisted living. Basically Barb wants money and Nika is in the way.

Nika offers to make dinner for everyone, which includes Barb, Barb's husband, child and nanny, and the Priest they brought with them.  By this time Barb's child has bonded with the Chucky doll and insists he can help them make dinner.

Nika proves to be a good cook by making a delicious chili, which Barb thought was far beyond her invalid abilities.  The guests devour dinner, which is unfortunate for one unlucky diner since Chucky laced one dish with rat poison.  Wouldn't they be able to taste that? It seems like that would be pretty noticeable.

With Chucky off and running, the deaths start mounting.  There's a number of potential victims in the isolated house for Chucky to kill.  Nika suspects something is going on but of course who's going to believe a hysterical woman screaming about a killer doll.

Chucky looks suitably evil in some of the shots, and Brad Dourif is always creepy and entertaining, so it's good to see him in this film.  His daughter plays Nika.  This is one of the rare sequels that improves upon some of the previous ones.  But in true movie cliche style, when Nika is trying to warn her sister about Chuckie, she just repeatedly shouts to get away from the doll, rather than offering any information as to why it might be a good idea.

The Haunting (1999)

When her invalid mother dies, Nell isn't sure what to do since she's cared for her for years.   Her sister decides the best thing for both of them will be to sell their mothers apartment, which basically means sis wants some money.

Nell, whose feeling lost and abandoned, volunteers for a sleep study.  She's hoping to not only solve her sleep issues, but to figure out what to do with her life.  She's always let other people control her, and is excited about being on her own.

She arrives at a mansion and meets Theo and Luke who also volunteered to be subjects.  Dr. Marrow and his assistants show up later.  They arrive without any equipment, barely ask any questions,  hand out paper tests, and give no details on what they will be doing while in the house.  That's because the sleep study is a cover for Marrows actual research which is how people react to fear.  Oh that's just great since you're in a massive mansion which is essentially an uncontrolled environment and at least one of your subjects is mentally unstable.

Marrow tells the group  about the owner of this opulent mansion.  Later that night, Nell starts to experience various phenomenon. Based on what the spirits tell her, she believes that the owner was an evil man who murdered numerous children used as child labor to build his home.  Oh dear.... things aren't going well for poor Nell as she climbs a rickety old spiral staircase and has to be rescued. The question is, are these spirits only appear in Nells head, are they tricks set up by Dr. Marrow to gage his subjects fear, or is the place actually haunted by an evil spirit, and if so will everyone die?

This is a remake of the 1963 horror classic, The Haunting.  The original has atmosphere, tension and filled me with an uneasiness. It's also got a better story line.  The new story involves an evil wealthy man who uses child labor to build his dream mansion, but murders the children when it's convenient.  The sets are opulent and and there are many special effects. Luke's personality is distracting and more appropriate to something comedic, where it just seems out of place in this film.  So I'd recommend the original over this one.

Also I kept wondering who is paying the Dudleys (caretaker and cook) to care for this place?  They come out everyday to clean and do maintenance work.  And why the hell don't the Dudley's warn anyone who decides to stay there, rather than saying that they leave at dark and won't come back till morning, cryptically implying certain doom will result from spending the night?  Damn Dudley's... this all could have been avoided if they'd been straight forward about the crazy mansion.

Locked in a Room (2012)

This is one of those movies where you have no idea what's going on.  Scenes go nowhere, characters are despicable and unlikeable, new characters are frequently introduced with no background on how they fit into what has already happened, locations switch randomly to other unknown locations, and you can't even tell the characters are in the same place.  Good god.

So since it was so disjointed, here are some thoughts I jotted down during the movie:

• Teresa went to Mexico. Now she has a knife and is thinking of doing something bad, (such as starring in this movie). 
• Deb? asks stranger for money to get a hot chocolate. Stranger give hers $5.  Deb gets mad. Sarcastically tells stranger to dig into purse because she can do better than that. Seriously? WTF? Someone punch Deb in the throat.
• 20 minutes - still no plot
• Why does this girl keep running outside to puke on the brick walkway? 
• Teresa's brother Red is missing. I guess this is him since he has red hair.
• 28 minutes. She keeps a gas can in the van she's living in and she's sniffing it. 
• Here we go - they're locked in a room with lots of bottles, one marked urine.
• Everyone is an a-hole!
• This isn't horror! This is drama with people inexplicably locked in rooms with jars of urine and a guy in a strange mask who visits them and asks them questions.
• She's out of towels and I hate her.
• That is not a motel room doorknob, it's too nice.
• Yay! Is she dead? Smother her.
• Okay we have a plot: grandma died, had a shifty insurance company who hired an attorney to investigate... something because insurer doesn't want to pay.
• Now someone else is locked in a room. Are all the jars urine? They're drinking them without a problem.
• Why are they locking people in rooms?
• It's been 51 minutes and there's still an hour left in this thing?!? AARRGGGHHH!!!!
• WTF? Now there's a ventriloquist? Seriously, beat the hell out of it.
• Red's talking pretty tough for a nose picking, urine drinking, impotent red head with an anger problem.
• No!! No more new characters!  
• That childs blood is so chocolately. "She's fresh..." with chocolatey goodness.
• Another character and even more sarcasm
• "Well I guess we just hate each other, don't we? But what I want to know is who killed grandma?"
• Exposition to explain what the hell we just watched?  Screw you movie!
• Did you just lock yourself in a room, you freakin' idiot? Yup, she sure did.
• Scariest thing in movie is mask looking through door and it's not scary at all.

Okay.....

The previous shots made the van appear to be isolated,
but she's actually at the edge of a parking lot.

Yes, the best way to determine if you have any
gasoline is to look down the nozzle and sniff it.
Note: she keeps the gas can inside the van she's sleeping in

Mexican wrestler sighting

If they were really evil, they wouldn't put
labels on the urine and water.

Red and his charcoal hobo bruise

Why no one attacks this guy is beyond me. His mask is off
putting, but he looks easy to overpower. At the very least
you could smash the jars of urine over his head.

I'm wondering why she's hanging out in a hotel hallway.

Big Ass Spider! (2103)

Alex is an exterminator who ends up in the hospital after being bitten by a spider that was swatted by an overzealous customer.  While he's waiting in line trying to figure out how he's going to pay the emergency room bill, a morgue attendant is brought over for treatment. He claims he was bitten by a large spider that came out of a body bag.

Alex offers to get rid of the spider in exchange for the cost of his bill.  Security guard Jose escorts him down to the morgue where Alex determines the spider has escaped in the vent system.  He enlists Jose to help him navigate through the vents so he can rid the hospital of the spider, which has now grown quite a bit in size.

Meanwhile the military has arrived at the emergent room. The dead body that was received included part of a secret project, aka the spider, and shouldn't have been transported to the hospital due to the risk to the public. They end up in the basement where Jose and Alex have just located the critter. But when the spider disappears down a sewer line, Jose and Alex are led off to be interrogated by the military.  Alex offers to help them, but they don't want any civilians involved in their business. Soon TV news reports show video of a spider bigger than a truck traveling down the alleys in town.

Jose and Alex decide that even though the military doesn't want their help, that they would get lots of publicity if they stop it. They're both hoping Alex may leverage that into a date with Lt. Brant, an attractive woman in uniform who has rebuffed his flirtations.

At first the film seems to be one of those movies that doesn't know how to mix comedy and horror, but as it goes on it gets better and ends up being fun to watch.  There's nothing that scary in it, but it was amusing, and the main characters were likable.

Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys (2014)

Fish and Wildlife employee Michael and his family relocate to a small town after Michael is hired to resolve the problem of the thinning fish population.  It turns out there are lampreys in the water and they're killing all the fish. No one is overly concerned since they figure they can keep them out of the water by using the shut off in the dam near the beach.

To their surprise the lampreys start hoping over the dam and going through an opening they thought was secured.  Michael and his co-workers figure out that the lampreys have gotten into the towns water system. They beg the Mayor to shut it down and tell people to stay away from bodies of water. But the Mayor doesn't want word to get out because it would inconvenience people and they should be able to enjoy the beach.

Too bad the Mayor didn't realize these are mutant lampreys who enjoy eating people, and don't seem to need water to get to where they're going.  Perhaps if he'd heeded the warning of the experts, he wouldn't have died a terrible toilet lamprey death.  Truly disgusting.

This is exactly what you'd expect from The Asylum.  Not very good CGI, plenty of nonsensical actions by the characters, and a better title than a movie.

Devil Times Five (1974)

aka The Horrible House on the Hill

When a van transporting a group of criminally insane children crashes, the kids survive and wander off through the snow.  They head toward an isolated lodge in the distance where home owner Papa Do is hosting guests who are sure to provide plenty of unnecessary drama.  There's his untrustworthy wife Lovely who spends her time trying to seduce Ralph the mentally challenged caretaker as well as Rick, a former lover.  Next we have Papa Doc's daughter Julie and her boyfriend Rick, who spends his time fighting off Lovely's advances. He works for Papa Doc and often irritates him due to Ricks tendency to speak his mind and not get pushed around.  Employee Harvey is a milquetoast trying to work up the nerve to ask for a promotion, transfer, and raise.  Plus Harvey's drunk of a wife.

Into this unhealthy atmosphere come the children, who tell them our weekend vacationers about their car crash, but leave out the part about living in an asylum.  Julie and Rick start to think the kids are weird, but the others aren't the swiftest and don't notice anything peculiar about them.  Too bad because strange things start happening. The generator shuts off, the electricity goes out, and phone don't work. Oh it must be that slow witted caretaker. It couldn't possibly be the children who are killing off the adults in a series of events rigged to look like accidents.

Apparently there were issues behind the scenes and sections of the film had to be re-shot.  This would  explain why Leif usually has long dark blond locks, but sometimes ends up in a bad brown wig.  Also there are several scenes in which he takes the wig off to reveal short dark hair underneath.  In the context of the film, it makes no sense.

Leif's little sister Dawn Lyn played the youngest killer kid, and their mother played Lovely, the nymph wife of Papa Doc.  I hope the kids didn't attend a premiere or see the film when they were young since their mom has several topless scenes in it.

Leif Garret - killer kid with cool 70s hair....

...but sometimes a bad brown wig makes an appearance

Sorrell Booke later had the role of Boss Hogg
on The Dukes of Hazzard

Four of the five insane children in a promo
shot with the alternate title for the film