Wanted Dead or Alive (1987)

Rutger Hauer is a bountry hunter with a heart of gold. He lives in a warehouse, has a boat where he romances his girlfriend, rides a motorcycle and has a mullet.

Gene Simmons is a creepy evil terrorist who gets into the US by pretending to be a rabbi, then cuts off his fake beard and blows up a movie theater. Way to go, Mr. Terror!

The CIA, who have their secret headquarters inside a Gold's Gym building, know that Hauer is the best bounty hunter around. But they don't play by the rules and neither does Hauer.

Basically this action flick has nothing new in it, but Rutger Hauer and Gene Simmons do a decent job in their roles and there are plenty of ridiculous scenes full of explosives. Oh yes, and there are an abnormal number of men in the film with very high foreheads.

The Corpse Grinders (1972)

Gravedigger Caleb makes extra money by digging up corpses for Landau and Maltby of the Lotus Cat Food Company. When Caleb tells Landau that he'll get no more bodies until he pays him for t he ones already provided, Landau starts killing winos to supplement the dwindling corpse supply.

Landau and Maltby bring the bodies to the company during the night, load them on the conveyor belt to the grinder, and turn them into cat food. The after hours workers are an odd assortment of old scrawny men and a one legged hobbledeehoy called Tessie who looks like Carrot Top. Ew!

Caleb and his wife, who is crazy as a fruitbat and carries around a creepy doll that she feeds soup, are killed by Landau after Caleb refuses to provide him with more of the dead.

Meanwhile Dr. Howard Glass and Nurse Angie Robinson have noticed that all of a sudden many cats are attacking and killing their owners. Sadly enough this is accomplished by the actors holding a poor wriggling cat against themselves, which is supposed to look like an attack but really just looks like what it is - the poor cat is trying to get out of their grip.

Howard and Angie head down to the Lotus Cat Food factory at night so they won't be noticed. But Angie wears a bright red dress and pumps, so she's hardly incognito.

This leads to a match of wits and brawn between the team of Landau and Maltby versus Howard and Angie. No one will be admitted during the cat holding sequence.

Mark of the Astro Zombies (2002)

This shot to video movie features fat alien robots that walk strangely, a shopping mall location, bad acting, and John Carradine's head.

The Astro Zombies, armed with machetes, roam suburban shopping malls killing everyone in their path. The President, the FBI, and a reporter try to figure out how to stop them. Since there are only about a dozen of them, you'd think it would be pretty easy, but apparently bureaucracy has bungled it again, as they rampage on and on and on with their prop machetes.

At one point the President and a group of muckity mucks meet in an office space because the Oval Office is not available. Uhhhhh, if the Oval Office isn't available for the President, than who is using it?!

My favorite part of this movie is the dvd cover. It's reminiscent of the 1960s style artwork, which is appropriate since this movie is based around Ted V. Mikels 1968 movie Astro Zombies, a much better movie shot on film.

Hello. I'm John Carradine's head and I'm proud to be appearing in this movie.

I like Ted V. Mikels movies, but the problem I have with this one is that it doesn't have the charm of his older films. Also shooting on video seems to highlight the short fallings of using tin foil for spaceship walls and rubber masks for alien heads.

Hatchet (2006)

College students go to Mardi Gras in an attempt to distract their friend Ben, who has just been dumped by his girlfriend of eight years. Ben isn't interested in partying or picking up chicks, so he goes off with his pal Marcus in search of a haunted swamp tour.

The swamp tour boat crashes near the reputed cabin of a mutant kid, who was accidentally killed by other kids who were harassing him. Rumors abound that the cabin is haunted, but as it's the only shelter for miles, the group of tourists head towards it.

The mutant shack has lots of implements useful for killing, and unfortunately it also has a mutant, who stumbles out and starts a-slashing anyone it can get it hands on. From here, all the characters fight about how to escape the oncoming mutant death. They discover that one girl is a local looking for her father and brother who disappeared in the swamp. She was smart enough to bring a gun, but not smart enough to bring more than a few bullets - idiot!!

An okay movie with it's middle of the swamp boat crash, no search party, no escape, no more bullets, man eating crocs in the water, killing machine mutant in the woods, oh my god we're all gonna die, haunted swamp ride theme.

Guardian of the Realm (2004)

In the future, there are goth clubs with bad dancing, morphing mutants, fashionably coiffed police, and murder. And they are all boring.

In fact, the future has never been so boring. Characters open their mouths, sending you into a stupor, only to awaken after an undetermined amount of time, dismayed to find that you are still watching this snooze fest.

Witches (1990)

I never had any interest in seeing this movie, but Michelle suggested it and since I'd never seen it, I said okay. I'm not often interested in children's movies, especially after viewing the horrible dreck that passes as entertainment for kids these days. Often it has an alarming lack of plot and intelligence. But this movie was a pleasant surprise.

Based on a book by Roald Dahl, the story is entertaining and the little mice are adorable.Anytime you're dealing with a Dahl story, you know that they filmmakers started off with a good clever story. Thankfully that story and atmosphere also managed to be in the movie.

Luke and his grandmother go on vacation and end up at a hotel that is hosting a convention of witches, who plan to use a potion to change every child in the world into mice, who can then be disposed of accordingly. The special effects and puppeteering are well done (Jim Henson's company is involved).

Luke is the only one who is wise to their plans, having gotten trapped in their meeting room when he was searching for his pet mice. It's up to him to convince his grandmother and try to save himself and Bruno, the gluttonous child turned into a mouse. (He reminded me of Augustus Gloop from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Facatory.)

The Condemned (2007)

Tv producer Breckel decides to broadcast the ultimate reality show in which ten convicted murderers are dropped off on an island and the last one left alive is set free. Doesn't seem like a good idea in any realm of thought, especially since at the end there's going to be a murderer released into society.

Breckel and his overly enthusiastic crew bribe wardens all over the world to get the ten best fighters, and then drop the ten prisoners off on the island. Unfortunately the brainiacs also put their control center on the island, which isn't a good idea when you have ten killers running wild.

As no tv channel will touch the show, Breckel broadcasts it as a pay per view event via the internet. Too bad for Breckel that one of the killers is really undercover special ops Conrad, played by wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin - not to be confused with Colonel Steve Austin, the six million dollar man. Conrad is a good guy so he doesn't want to participate.

The movie portrays the killers as much more likable than the entire film crew and when Conrad heads to the control tower, you're ready for him to kill everyone in sight, which of course he doesn't as he's really a nice little hard working special ops guy who got wrongly imprisoned.

The only thing I can think as Breckel wracks up millions of viewers on his pay per view internet extraveaganza is that his server is going to crash.

Snowboard Academy (1996)

Wow, nothing worse than an unfunny comedy filled with cliches. Corey Haim plays The Wizard, a snowboarder whose older and more responsible brother manages their father's ski slope. The Wizard is such a rebel that he and his friends snowboard down the ski slopes, causing havoc and breaking people's skis over their heads. Yeah, what funny guys.

Dad's ski resort isn't making much money and his estranged wife won't sign the divorce papers unless he gives her half of the value of the resort. The Wizard comes up with an idea to start a snowboarding school, which big brother hates. But Dad okay's the idea as long as it can make a profit and the snowboarders can win a competition against the skiers at the end of two weeks.

In addition to this thrilling plot line, we have the comedy stylings of Rudy James, played to the max by Jim Varney, of Ernest fame. Rudy lands an entertaining job, as well as that of safety inspector, since there isn't enough money to pay two salaries. Not only does he not ski and is a walking accident, he's also a lousy comedian.

Rudy's jokes consist of olde tyme material such as, "My girlfriend is so fat that when we finish making love, she rolls over and smokes a ham." That is as good as it gets, folks, don't hurt yourself heading for the exits.

Ninja Turf (1985)

aka Los Angeles Streetfighter

New kid in school Tony is threatened by Chan, who claims to run the school, and demands protection money. Young, who ironically appears to be in his mid thirties, interrupts the altercation and agrees to fight Chan at night in an alley. After kicking Chan's butt, Young is approached by a couple dressed for a night on the town (complete with rhinestones), who hire Young and his friends to do security. Yes, everyone knows the best security guards are found by checking out high school fights in dark alleys.

After doing several security jobs, including one at a toga party(?!), Young and friends are hired by a rich guy whose party has free drugs for his guests and massive drug deals in an upstairs bedroom. Young observes the deal and decides to steal the drug dealers money filled suitcase while the dealer is having a bubble bath with his girlfriend.

In an even more brilliant move, Young and friends immediately run away, right in the middle of the party, thus making it completely clear that they stole the drug money. Yes, the money is gone and so is the entire security team. Can't be more obvious than that. This brings Superfoot Bill Wallace into play as the man sent to recover the money and teach these punks a lesson.

Contrary to the title, there are no ninjas in the film. The name just capitalizing on the ninja craze of the eighties. The dubbed film feature stilted dialogue, scenes that go nowhere, and many shots that are so dark you can't even tell who is there or what is happening. Sadly, it makes no difference to the plot.

There are subplots about Tony dating Chan's sister Lily, and Young's mother, who appears to be approximately the same age as Young and could pass for his wife. Even though they are supposed to be in high school, most characters look like they are in their late twenties or thirties.

Silliest dialogue:
1. My name is Mario. We heard about the rumble. That's why we came.
2. I run this school.... For starters you pay me $5 or I kick your ass.
3. Kill! Spike 'em! Kill! Spike 'em. (chanted by gang the Spikes)

Oddity of Note:

1. the couple at the high school fight dressed up in a suit and rhinestoned dress
   
2. the drunken leader of the Spikes wears a cut off shirt showing his bloated belly
   
3. Young has a mustache, not something normally seen on high school students
   
4. the toga party needs to hire security
   
5. there is a touching scene where the gang gives Mark a birthday cake
   
6. does this man look like he's a high school student to you?! Well does he??? Young, indeed.

Broken Angel (1988)

Suburbanites Chuck and Cathy Coburn are shocked when their perfect unibrowed daughter Jaime disappears after the prom, where a local gang put a hit on her boyfriend Ron aka Rocket. Turns out Mom and Dad were in the dark about little Jaime, aka Shadow, as she is an active member of LNF, a middle class white gang of suburban kids who deal coke. Rocket is the leader of he gang, and only after the shooting at the prom does Jaime's secret life come to light.

Chuck, played by William Shatner, becomes consumed with finding his little angel, thus continuing the trend of totally ignoring his son Drew, who feels like his family doesn't even like him or care anything about him. During Chuck's search for Jaime, he finds that Drew also has a secret life.

The movie takes a really preachy tone about teen gangs and parents who are too busy for their children and use them as status symbols. Jaime has a horrendous unibrow, which even in a time of unplucked eyebrows, is distracting and disturbing in it's wild abandon.

There is some unintentionally funny dialogue, such as "But everyone's heard the Dragons are packing heavy" or "You're with Rocket! Do you know how many girls would like to trade places with you?!"

Also hilarious is a scene of a bloated Shatner being chased down the street by an Asian gang!

Replikator (1994)

Here's what we're working with:

1. Ludovic aka Ludo - first man cloned, done during an escape when murders were being committed by the police
   
2. John - Ludo's friend who resembles Peter O'Toole
   
3. Kathy - Ludo's ex-girlfriend working on clone project for the evil Scott
   
4. Byron Scott - gel haired evil businessman who wants to clone human flesh
   
5. Victor Valient - honorable police detective, he's not a crooked cop
   
6. Accolina as Tina - celebrity that Scott lusts after while wearing his 3D virtual reality helmet

Scientific whiz kids Kathy and Ludo were developing a replication program, but had a falling out when Ludo was sent to jail. Now each works for a different company trying to develop the program. Each one is attempting to get their project online first, so that they may reap the huge monetary values that will be thrown their way.

Byron Scot is an evil self-centered man in league with killer cops who will stop at nothing to become the first person to unveil the replication machine. Secretly he plans to clone human flesh with it, although he leads Kathy to believe that he is only interested in the scientific aspects, and not ruling the world and stealing all it's money.

Ludo becomes tangled up with Vincent Valient, an honest cop, which is too bad for Vincent since the police are in league with the evil of all evil men, Byron Scott.

After Ludo is cloned during a police murder, Scott has lost his chance to become the first to make a human clone, sending him into even more of a lunatic frenzy.

To make matters completely confusing, Ludo's clone is evil and commits murder. Everyone thinks it's Ludo that is doing the killing, but it's not. It's the evil Ludo and at this point things get really confusing as it's Ludo and Ludo...which is which? Programs. Get your programs here. It's hard to tell the Ludo's without your program.

In a mind numblingly uninspiring ending, the Ludo clone gets a melty face and then explodes.

House (1986)

Author and Vietnam vet Roger Cobb moves into his Aunt's house after she commits suicide. Cobb grew up in the home and his son Jimmy disappeared there while they were visiting. Cobb swore he saw Jimmy floundering in the pool, but wasn't there when he dived in to rescue him. Aunt Elizabeth claimed that the house took Jimmy. Cobb's starlet wife, Sandy, thinks Elizabeth is crazy, as does her neighbor Harold.

After Roger moves in, he hears noises from the upstairs, while ghosts and monsters appear to him. Harold thinks insanity runs in the family as Cobb dresses up in fatigues and insists a monster tried to pull him into the closet. Cobb enlists Harold for help, who has his own run in with a monster.

Cobb sees his dead Aunt, who warns him that she is dead because the house tricked her. He is also visited by a monster who takes the form of his estranged wife Sandy before trying to kill him.

As Cobb investigates further, he is sucked deeper into the houses world of secrets. Does the house have his son or is it just using his memories to trick him like it tricked his Aunt?

A decent big budget horror movie with a really good sense of comedy.

Body Snatchers (1993)

In another body snatching remake, a teenage girl notices strange things happening once her family moves onto an army base while her father makes sure the base follows EPA requirements. There's nothing new in this film, other than lots of teen angst and hunky army pilots. The characters are given a brief introduction and when they die, you really don't care. There is some female nudity which might intrigue teenage boys. The absorption of the human body and the screech of the aliens is creepy. Other than that, there's not much here.

The Adventures of Young Van Helsing (2004)

Michael Harris is a descendant of the infamous vampire hunter, Van Helsing. Yet Michael doesn't know it because his last name has been changed to protect him from the evil that might try to harm him.

Michael is your typical teen - exceedingly awkward, has a crush on a popular girl, and is the lead singer of a yet to be named generic radio friendly rock band. His rival for the girl's affection is brutish Karl, a football player and bully, who beats up Michael before going to his early admission college chemistry class. Karl is an odd looking chap who looks like he's about thirty. It's kind of creepy.

Meanwhile a doltish professor on an archaeology dig revives a creature who searches for Van Helsing's missing scepter and his heir, Michael. The creature manages to find him easily enough, speaks in subtitles, and has huge fake teeth which make him look less spooky and more stupid. The one cool thing is that he also has red eyes.

The props in the movie are far too cheap for something with this type of budget. They look like wood that has been badly spray painted gold.

There are continuity errors in the car chase scene near the end of the movie. When the interior of the car is shown, it is night. Yet when they show the car racing along the road, it is daytime.

The movie has way too much of the band, which Michael ends up naming The Van Helsings. We are then forced to watch them play at the high school in dance in long scene with no real point, other than to promote the generic rock song being played. And the bass player is the worst at faking playing the bass.

There are flashbacks to the original Van Helsing in 1905. He is always out of breath, in a community theater way, and he has a young Hindi sidekick. Unfortunately the sidekick is played by an obviously caucasian child with greasepaint and a turban slapped on his lily white cranium. Very sad, indeed.

This is the type of film that give kid/teen movies a bad name. It's poorly written and doesn't engage the imagination. Scarily enough, it sets itself up for a sequel involving a werewolf.

Larva (2005)

The new vet comes to town and discovers a mystery parasite inhabiting some local cows. Host Tender Meats are testing their scientifically altered genetic feed in town as they wish to increase their profits - and who doesn't. As everyone knows the best place to test questionable new feed is in a cattle town where townsfolk eat their burgers rare.

The Doc figures out there is a parasite problem, but the Ceo of Host Tender Meats doesn't like the Doc's new fangled ideas on food safety. At a town meeting he claims the Doc is a trouble maker who doesn't realize that actually doing something about the life threatening parasite will mean ruining the town's tourism and industry. In other words, the town will lose money.

Jacob, the only cattleman in town who believes the truth, and the Doc find a large beastie running through the rafters of Jacob's barn. The parasites are growing, mutating, evolving, and that's not good. Neither is Doc's method of investigation as he touches the mystery parasite with his bare hands. Geez....

The creepiest things about the movie are the parasite evolves into something that looks like a child size piece of spinach with a spine, and David Selby plays the evil old Ceo of Host Tender Meats.

The Tripper (2006)

I wasn't expecting much from this movie, but I liked it. A group of hippies and their non-drug taking friend (always a bad combination) head off into the woods to go to a music festival. Unfortunately they've picked the one festival with an insane killer in the woods who wears a Ronald Reagan mask and does a bad Reagan imitation. The movie is book ended by some heavy handed political stuff, which will make you comatose. There is also a scene with male frontal nudity.

The Mad (2007)

Billy Zane plays the epitome of deadpan dads by turning in his best Steven Seagal imitation. A family stops in a small town to attend a fair and decides to stay overnight. This turns out to be very unfortunate since the special that night is tainted organic beef from the local farms.

Those who consume the tainted burgers turn into toothpaste drooling zombies in less than an hour. I'm neutral on this movie because there are a few pretty funny things, but the comedy isn't that great and the horror isn't that scary.

However, I will give it some credit as I can't think of any other movie in which a meat pattie disappears on it's own and later takes a bite out of a human. Yup it's the only film I can thin of which features killer meat.

Fido (2006)

When the head of Zomcon moves into the neighborhood, the Robinson's get their own zombie. After the great zombie war, all zombies were relegated to the wild, which is separated from living areas by a chain link fence. But with Zomcon's zombie collar to control their killing ways, zombies have become servants to the Leave It to Beaver world.

Little Timmy Robinson, child outcast, names his family's zombie Fido and makes it his pet. During an outing in the park, Fido eats a busy body neighbor, which causes panic and a zombie outbreak within the confines of society.

An amusing look at the 1950s with zombies, with a sub plot about romantic relationships between zombies and humans. Billy Connolly does a nice job as Fido.

Wolfen (1981)

When a rich couple are killed, Detective Dewey Wilson is assigned to the case. Wilson's investigation takes him in directions he hadn't anticipated as it begins to appear as if the killings were made by some sort of animal. If only it were Bigfoot....

I expected a typical werewolf movie, but this delves into suspense and the supernatural more than straight horror. Albert Finney is excellent as Dewey Wilson and James Edward Olmos delivers a great performance as Eddie.

The cinematography is very nice. Shot in the South Bronx while it was full of abandoned buildings and piles of rubble , the modern ruins are both horrifying and beautiful. The crumbling church is amazing.

Gangs of the Dead (2006)

A meterorite falls from outer space, crashes through a bridge, lands on a group of homeless people and turns them into drooling zombies. While the hobo zombies lumber down the street, two gangs meet in a warehouse to conduct some business and the undercover police operation prepares to take them down. Unfortunately on the way to make the bust, the police encounter the zombies and havoc ensues.

The two gangs, two officers, and a weatherman all end up making a stand in the warehouse. Even in times of the earth being overrun by homeless dead, they still can't work together to ensure their own survival.

Those looking for a true zombie film will be disappointed as there is not so much zombie in the film, as there is stupid gang members. Also the zombies have green skin and drool a thick blue liquid, which is just plain strange and not as scary as if they were drooling blood.

Devil's Prey (2001)

Five friends are handed a flyer for the ultimate rave and decides it would be a great idea to attend. The rave is in the middle of the country in a barn, there is no cost to get in, and the drinks are free. 

The group are kicked out of the rave supposedly because one of them is selling drugs.  (Isn't this supposed to be the ultimate rave?)  As they drive away from the rave, they hit a girl with their car and then get run off the road by a gang of hooded masked figures. Of the five friends, two are nice and the other three are jerks who take drugs and are completely unlikable.

The hooded guys are known as The Shadows and wear masks that look like evil Micheal Jackson clown faces. It makes one wonder how they can see anything as they are roaming through the woods at night.  Charlie O'Connell plays the nice kid.

The Unexplained: Poltergeists

A&E's series, The Unexplained, gives us stories of poltergeists from people who claim to have experienced this phenomenon. Is there conclusive proof of their existence anywhere in this epsiode? No, but that doesn't mean there isn't some enjoyment in watching people talk about their experiences seeing figures or having ladders walk towards them!

The best story revolves around the country bar of Bobby Mackay, where poltergeists push people down the stairs and try to drop ladders on them. One fellow claims to have encountered a man in the restroom who had a handlebar mustache and 1800s clothes. The narrator then tells us that the bartender found the fellow's "almost lifeless body" on the bathroom floor. The overly dramatic language tries to hide the fact that the guy fainted due to  excessive heat and possibly the ghostly figure.

The man claimed that the ghost looked just like one of the two men who killed a girl in 1896 and threw her head in the well in the basement. Amusement is added to the story when the man claims that if he takes off his cowboy hat, he looks just like the judge who was at the two men's hanging (he doesn't.)

From Beyond (1986)

Dr. Katherine MacMicheals, in 1980s glasses which take up more than half her face, is called in to examine physicist Crawford Tillinghast. Crawford is believed insane after he is found running from the the house of Dr. Pretorius, leaving the doctor on the attic floor lacking a head.

Crawford insists the Resonator is to blame as it allows creatures to come from another dimension and that is what killed Dr. Pretorius. Katherine's tests reveals that Crawford's pineal gland is enlarged, and she uses this info to convince the hospital to let her take Crawford back to the attic of death, where everyone gets in trouble with the Resonator. Pineal glands enlarge, sexual deviancy reigns, and strange creatures appear in the house. It's freaky H.P. Lovecraft and Jeffrey Combs, which is reason enough to see it.

Captain N: The Game Master (1989)

Episode: Kevin in Videoland
What can I say, but wow is this bad. Teenager Kevin and his dog Duke are sucked into the tv while Kevin plays a Nintendo game, and end up in Videoland, where Kevin must help characters from various videogames. Kevin is Captain N, and he helps the good characters fight against the villains, who are lead by the ugly Mother Brain.

This episode used the same footage of Kevin over and over. Basically the show is one long commercial for the Nintendo system and it's games. This is something that should only be watched by those who are nostalgic about seeing it on Saturday morning tv in their youth.

Hot Wax Zombies on Wheels (2000)

Remember those really crappy movies they used to show on "Up All Night" on the USA network? They were supposed to be funny but were un-watchable. There was plenty of gratuitous nudity and a story line so ridiculous that you just knew the film was based on one bad joke and lots of boobs. Well this is one of those films - except it's recent and though the plot is nonexistent, it's really stupid and not a great film, you can watch it.

An evil gang of zombies opens a hair salon in a small town, where they can rid everyone of their body hair. Anyone who gets a wax turns into a zombie. These are not your standard zombies though. There is no staggering, no rotting flesh, and no zombie makeup. In fact, the only way you can tell they are zombies is that they talk about how glad they are to be rid of their "pesky body hair" and are overly interested in sex.

Why are the zombies doing this? I have no idea. They never tell us. The whole town becomes zombies except for two crusty old sea captains, a barber, and his friend's girlfriend.

There is an error in one scene where the evil zombie lady is chasing the heros on her motorcycle and her front wheel is not moving at all. Yes, I know they film it on a trailer, but they should have shot it so that you could not see that her tire was stationary. It looks ridiculous.

Pumpkinhead 4: Blood Feud (2007)

When the Hatfields accidentally kill one of the McCoy's daughters, and beat up Ricky McCoy because he's dating their sister Jody, all hell breaks loose as Ricky asks Pumpkinhead to wreak havoc on everyone named Hatfield...except for Jody because he loves her, but kill the rest of her family because it would serve them right.

Yes, the Hatfields and McCoys are still fighting it out in the fourth installment of Pumpkinhead. And what better to ensure that you can live forever in peace with your fiance than to kill her entire family? Ricky seems to be a little short sighted on his quest because I can't think of anyone who would thank their betrothed for the complete destruction of their feuding family.

Ed Harley (Lance Henricksen) shows up every once in awhile to say that calling Pumpkinhead is a really bad decision. But he's never direct about why, so no one gets what he's talking about - wouldn't it be easier just to tell Jody that in order to stop Pumpkinhead she has to kill Ricky? Before the poor thing figures it out, there's only one member of her family left. And actually, she doesn't figure it out, Ricky does.

The town, homes, and interiors look like something out of the late 1800s, which is disconcerting since you keep think you're looking at the old Hatfield-McCoy feud and the something will occur to remind you that it's present day. Also the two families are interchangable as each has five million members and except for the fathers and grandpa in the wheelchair, they're just a sea of nameless faces. Who just got killed? I don't know. They all look the same.

Also since they all live in the same house, you'd think Pumpkinhead would dispatch them all in one night. But he takes his sweet time about it, leaving the family to wonder what is happening and why they are getting killed. This leads to speculation that it is a bear, to which one replies, "It ain't no bear doing this. Bears don't just go after one family." No truer words have ever been spoken.

Also watch for the accents flying all over the place. Some sound like southerners, others sound like French Canadians. What the hell is up with that? Ricky is especially bad and goes in and out of his confusing accent.

And thanks to the filmmakers for not using CGI for Pumpkinhead. I'm so sick of CGI monsters which may look nice, but are obviously not real. It's much more effective to have a real monster in the film.

The Slaughter (2006)

A group of stereotypical college kids head out of town to clean up a house that has been uninhabited for forty years. I'm not sure how they got this job since they are the worst workers in the world. Only two of the group take the job seriously, while the others focus on having sex, smoking weed, or sulking.

The guy who hired them is a total ass, and for some unknown reason, hangs out at the house with the kids, who he obviously can't stand. Before they've even started cleaning, he threatens that he will sue them for breach of contract. He also gets the leader to agree that they will clean without getting full payment. It makes no sense.

There is a flesh covered book in the basement and a scary demon lady who keeps appearing. The water in the attic starts working and prompting one girl to take a bath. Why do people insist on taking baths when they aren't dirty and the tub is in a huge attic in an abandoned house?

This is one of those stories where everything has to line up and certain things must occur in order for the demon to return to earth. The zombie makeup is decent, but the scary demon lady has one of those stupid devil voices and herky jerky movements.

Stupidest line - "I guess when I blew myself up, it reversed the power."

Stupidest visual - the spooky demon lady creature wears underpants.

Death Warmed Up (1985)

Death Warmed Up is an odd film from New Zealand in which a doctor is experimenting on peoples brains. I'm a bit fuzzy on the whole thing, but a young man named Michael is hypnotised by Dr. Archer Howell and kills his parents. He is captured and sentenced to jail time.

Years later after being released, Michael goes on a vacation with his girlfriend Sandy, and another couple named Lucas and Jeannie. They end up on the same island where Howell now has a lab and Michael wants revenge. The four enter the tunnels on the island, get lost, meet two mutants they had gotten into a fight with on the ferry, and are chased around the tunnels by the mutants on motorbikes.

One of the girls gets injured and the other wants to take her to the hospital. But Michael says no because that is where Howell works. The mutants break out of the hospital tunnels and start roaming the streets, which apparently is not unheard of as when the bar owner hears there is trouble at the hospital, he knows the mutants are on their way.

The four friends end up being taken to the hospital by the doctor's goons, who save them from the mutants for some reason. Then havoc ensues. Michael and Sandy are the only ones who make it out of the hospital, but he's crazy and the movie ends oddly, with Michael walking off and Sandy crying next to the car.

One thing to note in this film is a beach scene where the guy is wearing a little bathing suit and he has an enormous package. It took up a major portion of the screen and prompted the thought, "he's got an armadillo in his trousers." It was that huge. But the really odd thing is that it was so prominently featured because the cameraman appeared to lying on the sand right next to his leg. Very very odd. See this film if only to gasp in disbelief at his massive crotchal region.

Offerings (1989)

A young boy who doesn't talk falls down a well after being scared by one of the neighborhood kids who picks on him. Cut to ten years later - he's been in a mental institution because he killed his mother, who was very abusive. Did the fall somehow make him snap? What were his injuries? We never know.

But now he's lying in a bed at the local sanitarium where he is heavily sedated. Unfortunately the new nurse waits a few seconds too long to give him his sedative, so he kills her and escapes. He then proceeds to track down and kill all the kids who tormented him. Oh those kids.... The interesting thing about this slasher flick is that all the violence happens off screen.

Tourist Trap (1979)

Chuck Connors is a freak who owns a tourist attraction that the new highway has bypassed. So he doesn't get many visitors anymore. But I'm not sure who would really want to go there to begin with as it's mostly creepy mannequins strewn about the yard and standing around in the house.

Apparently he's also telekinetic since things fly around and kill people stupid enough to come to the close tourist attraction. I guess since Carrie was a hit they decided to have things flying around this movie.

Bram Stoker's The Mummy (1997)

Egyptian artifact hunter Abel Trelawny is mauled by a mummy in his own home - the indignity!  His daughter Margaret comes home and tries to solve the mystery of what attacked her Dad.  

With the help of his old assistant Corbeck and her exboyfriend, who is curator at an Egyptian place, they set out to solve the mystery of Abel's mummy attack.

Ridiculously enough, Abel has a mummy under the stairs in the basement and another in a packing crate packed in shredded paper. But stupidest of all, he has Queen Tera, the mangy seven fingered mummy, in his study.  Gee, ya think maybe it's a bad idea to store the Queen of all curse-mongers in your study? 

Nightmare Weekend (1986)

"Hey, you're quality and I'm quality", is the best pick up line the pinball tough can muster. If only the movie were also quality, but no, that would be too easy. A scientist turns personal objects into a small metal ball, which rolls or flies over to a person and goes into their mouth. With the ingestion of the strange silver ball, the subject turns into a drooling mutant, which makes one wonder why a scientist would work to perfect this product.

Needing subjects for his useless experiment, three young women end up going to his house for a vacation. They swim, cavort while scantily clad, and have sex with guys they pick up at the local bar, which is an incredibly lame place.

There is a subplot about the scientist's daughter, a rollerskating teen with a primitive computer that talks to her through a puppet named George. The puppet drones on in monotone, as it's a computer, and protects the daughter from any harm that may come to her - which is a good thing since her dad is a mad scientist.

The movie doesn't have any idea where it's going or where it's been. Nothing makes sense and people keep going to that lame ass bar to hang out.

Rocktober Blood (1984)

Rock star Billy Eye Harper goes nuts and tries to kill his girlfriend and backup singer, Lynn Starling. Lynn escapes, testifies at his trial, and Billy is convicted for murdering twenty-five rocknrollers (!?)

Two years after his electrocution, Lynn is leading his band and ready to rock. She's recorded the song Billy wrote for her, Rainbow Eyes, a horrible pop metal song that will get stuck in your head and make you regret ever hearing it.

As Lynn prepares for her upcoming tour, she does aerobics, takes a vacation, and is stalked by Billy, who seems to be back from the dead. Problem is no one else ever sees him. So is Lynn insane or has Billy really come back from the dead?

Billy is supposed to be scary but he really looks more like Mike Reno from Loverboy than a singer in a metal band. I think a huge part of the problem is the headband. And the Kiss type makeup.

Frostbiter (1996)

Two idiot hunters on Manitou Island break a sacred circle of skulls and release the spirit of the Wendigo. Other hunters get stuck on the island in a snow storm and take refuge in the old shack that is within the broken circle. The shapeshifting Wendigo tries to kill them all before they can figure out that they must close the circle to contain it and save themselves.

The music throughout the film is too loud, which makes it really hard to hear the dialogue. There is some claymation like something out of a Ray Harryhausen film.

Arachnid (2001)

A ragtag band of scientists and their nature guides crash land on an island full of spiders when their plane mysteriously stops working. There is a subplot about the female pilot looking for her brother, a navy pilot who has disappeared while flying a new plane.

There is lots of icky spider spit and their webbing looks like cotton candy. The characters aren't too bright. One of the women falls into a hole, something grabs her, and she loses her shoe. A guy then sticks his frickin' head down the hole to retrieve the shoe, real bright.

Oh yeah, and the giant spiders are alien life forms that come from outer space. But don't let that fool you because it's only touched upon and overall the movie is not that interesting.

Thrillkill (1984)

Carly writes programs for video games, which sounds very cool until you realize that it's the early 1980s when computers were the size of a car and games were in he incredibly primitive DOS format. (Do kids today even know what DOS is?)

Carly has just finished programming a new game called Thrillkill. Perhaps this game was cutting edge in 1984, but I find that hard to believe it as it's not even up to the level of something like Berzerk, from the early 1980s.

For the past three years, Carly has been siphoning money from her employer through fake accounts. Caspar, the head of the company, has figured out something is going on and sets out to make Carly pay for her disgressions. Caspar has a voice like Dracula and uses random pauses mid-sentence, kind of like a cross between William Shatner and Bela Lugosi.

The convoluted storyline involves Carly's sister showing up unexpectedly with a friend, a secret password written on a book of matches, and location of the stolen money hidden within the game, which one must play and beat in order to enter the secret password. How inconvenient.

With twists and turns in the storyline, and no one who is actually what they appear to be, there is potential for a good movie. Unfortunately, it's not a very good storyline, or a very good video game. In the words of Thrillkill, "Welcome to Thrillkill, the game that plays you." Uh yeah, right.

Terror in the Swamp (1985)

A professor and his lackey experiment on a Nutria (a small rodent) to produce a large animal that can be hunted for it's giant pelt. The man sized rodent with a tail is running wild in the swamps, which anagers hillbilly brothers Jessie and T-Bob because their traps are being poached.

Rumors of a monster in the swamp prompts the offer of a reward for a fur-bearing animal weighing more than one hundred and fifty pounds. This sends tons of Cajuns into the swamps, riding in boats filled with shotguns and alchohol.

The sheriff decides to send Green Berets to locate the monster. They stomp carelessly through the woods and end up shooting at a kid, which makes one wonder if they are Green Berets due to the color of their hats, rather than any real military training.

There is a crazy swamp lady who laughs too much, T-Bob cries, and a shack explodes during a fight. The Nutria is never seem very clearly as it is too dark in the woods to tell what he looks like, but the one glimpse we do get appears to be a man in a shabby ape suit.

Also there is Officer Bruce, not the brightest guy on the force. When Bruce finds clear mystery liquid in a jug, he sniffs it and takes a big swig. He also decides it is a good idea to spray insecticide on the river where the drunken rednecks are boating during the monster hunt. The clouds of insecticide make it difficult for anyone to see and cause the hillbillys to discharge their guns, drive in circles, and drink even more.,

The Visitor (1979)

Eight year old Katie is an odd, creepy little child who finds a gun in a present box at her birthday, wields it like a lunatic and shoots her Mom, paralyzing her from the waist down. Mom hires housekeeper (Shelly Winters) who knows there is something evil about little spooky Katie. Detective Jake Durham (Glenn Ford) is investigating the birthday party shooting and knows there is something not quite right with Katie. But he doesn't get much done when a bird flies into his car and he promptly dies.

Katie scares everyone except super old Jersey (John Huston), who wears khaki outfits, babysits her, and has come to the US to walk on rooftops in front of a line of bald men holding boxes. While Katie dispatches everyone in her path, Jersey always has the upper hand in their interactions. Katie gets angrier and angrier until, in a scene right out of "Enter the Dragon", Katie chases Jersey into a room of mirrors. Her frustration grows as all she can find is his reflection, and in anger smashes mirror after mirror.

There is only one genuine scare in the film, which is when Mom comes home after leaving Katie in the hospital, but finds her playing Pong in the living room. Oddly enough Mom doesn't seem concerned as to why or how Katie has come home, but apologizes for their fight earlier in the day.

When creepy Katie turns around, she is a monster with light is streaming out of the holes in her face. She pounces on Mom, drags her to the second floor, and then throws her down the stairs. This is when Jersey sends the freakin' birds.

Anticipating the public fury over Jersey's birds of death, the movie ends with happy kids in hot Jesus Heaven, while Katie smiles and gazes about lovingly. To make the point perfectly clear and avoid the lawsuits for emotional trauma, we are then treated to the phrase, "We don't kill kids. We just kill evil." Well played, Jersey....well played.

Rise: Blood Hunter (2007)

Lucy Liu is Sadie, a reporter for a local paper, who stumbles upon a vampire, ends up his next victim, and wakes up in the morgue as a vampire with no idea what's happening. You'd think a vampire who decides to kill the vampires who killed her would make for an exciting plot, but you'd be dead wrong.

The movie is mostly Liu standing, walking, and staring. There is a whole lot of nothing in this movie, and what is there, is slow moving and often pointless. There are flashbacks all over the place and most come on without warning so it may take you a second to realize that the film has cut back to when she was human.

In one scene, she stands on the edge of a bridge, watching the traffic below before deciding to throw herself over the edge. The next thing we see, she is in a bed with bandages on her face, being nursed back to health by a man who says "Welcome to Mexico." So I guess when a vampire falls off a bridge, they land in Mexico. Uh yeah.....

On the plus side Sadie has a crossbow which only takes her 4.3 seconds to load. On the downside, she spends most of her time standing around doing nothing. Adolescent males should note that Liu is naked a few times during the film.

The Quick and the Undead (2006)

Ryn Baskin, a cut-rate, spaghetti western, Clint Eastwood type, collects pinkies from zombies as the US government has a bounty on zombie fingers. His rival, Blythe Remington - a soap opera name if ever there was one - steals Ryn's bag of pinkies, leaves him for dead, and plans to infect people with the zombie virus in order to make more money on pinkies.

The US looks like a spaghetti western, with dusty ghost towns dotting the landscape. Remington and his gang hole up in a huge building which isn't ideal for securing against zombies. Ryn, who is immune to zombie bites because he sucks out the poison, follows them to get his bounty back and havoc ensues.

The zombies are few and far between. While some of the makeup is pretty good, the zombies themselves are fairly lame and appear not to have any idea how to effectively stagger.

Terminal Justice (1995)

When I first looked at the cover, I thought it said Cybertech PhD, which sounded ridiculously awesome!  But alas, it was not to be.  Bobby Chase is  a cop who has night vision eyes due to a tragic eye accident during the war in Russia.  After his old partner is killed, Bobby vows to track down the killer.   

In another part of the plot, Bobby is assigned to protect an actress whose image was used for a virtual reality sex program.  There are threats to kidnap and clone her, so Bobby must be on guard.

Luckily it's 2008 and the police can link right into his night vision eyes so they see everything he does.  Yes, 2008..... a bad choice for a future film as it's not far enough into the future.  The computers of the future are laughable, and all the future technology is embarrassing.

Mutant (1984)

Two brothers end up in a small town where something is amiss. They find a dead body which disappears after they try to report it, making the local sheriff label them as troublemakers.  Then the younger brother disappears.  When the older brother tries to figure out what happened, he discovers that the town has a zombie problem.

Chiller (1985)

In the cryogenic storage chamber there are shuffing feet covered in tin foil. This rouses our guard to investigate, thus finding his replacement who jumps out from behind a storage tank, as well as a leak in one of the containers.

The leaky cylinder contains Miles Creighton, a big league executive who died ten years earlier. His mother couldn't bare to part with him and had him crygenically frozen until such time as the process of bringing the dead back to life had been perfected. Unfortunately the temperature in the container has dropped below the point where he can be refrozen and the only option is to attempt to revive the human popsicle that is Miles.

Thankfully Miles was wrapped in the finest tin foil known to man, thus preventing freezer burn, and doctors are able to revive him. He lingers in a coma until violent convulsions wrack his body, while an inept nurse fails to call anyone to assist him. Luckily it doesn't signal death, but life and Miles is deemed good enough to go home, where he immmediately creeps out his sister and finds that his dog hates him.

Mom declares her zombie son head of the company and he promptly throws out everything the company has done over the past ten years, including charitable activities, church donations, and snuffs out anyone who gets in his way. Even though he's super creepy, Mom worships him and hardly anyone questions what a jerk he is. No one even seems all that unnerved by the fact that he's been dead for the past ten years, which is very odd.

After the family priest figures out that Miles has no soul and Miles tries to rape his sister, Mom's brain starts cranking and she locks him in the freezer, only to send us right back into a loop to the beginning of the film where there are now multiple cryogenic container failures in the storage facility. Uh oh....

There is never any explanation for the tin foil feet in the opening sequence. Also it seems like a major design flaw to have to walk through the cryogenic storage room to get to the security control room. Their architect should be shot.

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

When I think of Richard Burton and James Earl Jones, I think of two really great actors. So how the hell did they get into the mess that is Exorcist II?

While the movie asks if goodness brings evil upon itself, the movie's answer is a convoluted mess of nothing. Instead we get the Synchronizer, in which Father Lamont synchs up with little Reagan MacNeil via a hippie head band adorned with flashing lights. We are also treated to Reagan tap dancing to Lullaby of Broadway in the most disturbing see through hat, intercut with scenes of Father Lamont being chased and hit with stones while on his African trip to find the demon Pazuzu. Since the two are synched, the effect of the stones on Lamont's head causes Reagan to stagger and catapult off the stage during her tap dancing routine.

The film also features hordes of locusts, Dana Plato as a child who can't talk, a psychiatric institute with glass rooms which afford no privacy during treatment, Reagan's house of mirrors, and James Earl Jones in a giant locust suit. How could they go so wrong?

The most memorable moment of this movie is when Father Lamont tries to beat out a fire with a crutch. A crutch?!? How the hell is that going to help? In fact, if Lamont hadn't interfered, perhaps the flaming box of fire would have gone out after incinerating itself.

Instead Lamont's flailing crutch spreads fire throughout the basement passageway until Dr. Tuskin grabs a fire extinguisher to put out the flames. Yes, sad but true - there is a fire extinguisher in the hallway but Father Lamont chooses a crutch as a valid implement of fire fighting.

Nightmare at Noon (1988)

A mute albino in a van filled with computers puts a green glowing substance in a small town's water supply, which turns them into homicidal maniacs. Ken and Cheri Griffiths who are traveling through town in their RV and get trapped in town after the albino's minions turn on some sort of machine that generates a force field around the town. Sheriff George Kennedy and his deputy daughter try to control the town and stop the homicidal townsfolk from killing each other. 

Under Siege (1992)

Steven Seagal is Casey Rybek, a former navy seal who has been busted down to cook status after punching out a commanding officer. He's loved by the Captain and crew, except for a few officers who are sticklers and the irritating Commander Krill, played to annoying perfection by Gary Busey.

It's the Captain's birthday and Rybek is planning a special meal, but Cmdr. Krill locks the troublemaking Rybek in the meat freezer because he has plans of his own - namely flying in a stripper, band, and catering crew. Not the best idea when you're on a battleship carrying nuclear missiles, but no one really questions it.

Before you know it, the entire crew are locked below deck in the foc'sle, courtesy of Cmdr. Krill and the cut throat band mercenaries who came aboard under the guise of musicians and caterers. Led by the the animated Tommy Lee Jones as the currently insane fomer CIA agent William Stranix, the bad guys plan to load the nuclear missiles onto a stolen submarine, then sell them for millions of dollars.

It's a great plan except for one big problem and that hideous problem, such as it were, is Steven Seagal. Rybek's position as the cook belies the fact that he has special forces and counter terrorist training. Cmdr. Krill's disdain for Rybek as well as Rybek's propensity to state, "I'm just the cook," lead hijinks to ensue as Seagal proceeds to kill or maim everyone within a hundred foot radius.Under Siege is a fairly decent action movie and arguably Seagal's last flick before his expanding ego and waistline made his career self-destruct. After watching his recent films, I was stunned at how thin and young he looks here. It's too bad Seagal didn't have a better grip on why it's not a good idea to be in charge of everything on his own movies. If he had people around him who dared to say no, and who he was willing to listen to, then maybe he could have stayed on top of the action film genre.