Omega Doom (1997)

Rutger Hauer is Omega Doom, a robot who wanders into the middle of a robot gang fight in a bombed out town. The two gangs, the Roms and the Droids, are looking for a hidden treasure of guns.

While it might seem like this would be action oriented, it mostly involves lots of talking and a decapitated droid head that gets kicked around a lot and then reattach itself to spare bodies without heads. Omega Doom wears a Russian hat, drinks lots of water, and kills half the robots in town before wandering off, none the worse for wear. Not very exciting, is it.

Creature From Black Lake (1976)

Joe Canton and a friend are checking their traps in the swamp, when a hairy hand reaches up from the water and drags the friend out of the boat. Joe manages to get away and we are treated to a shot of him escaping that is framed by the furry wet crotch of the creature, ewwwwww!!!

Two college students, who are older than your typical college kids, head into town to do research on the stories of the Bigfoot creature. The small town Sheriff warns them not to go round scaring the towns folk with their creature talk, which they proceed to do because they are clueless idiots.

The two end up finding a young man whose parents were killed by the creature and meet up with Joe Canton, whose story has been told outside of town. Joe also lives in a shack with newspaper on it's walls, wears a stained union suit, and drinks from a moonshine jug. But he is a creature believer and thus alright with them.

Any hopes of excitement are dashed as the two students spend most of the movie riding around in their van talking and having run ins with people who don't want there to be any creature talk. In the best Bigfoot scene in the film, the creature rolls their van down a hill and shortly afterwards it bursts into flames. Take that, college boy.

Action Jackson (1988)

Policeman Jericho "Action" Jackson is framed for the murder of a businessman's wife and goes into hiding with the businessman's mistress, played by Vanity, who is a junkie and a singer. Vanity keeps insisting that she needs a fix, yet her withdrawal appears to be nothing more than needing to freshen her makeup and redo her poofy hairstyle.

They stay at a hotel run by Jackson's friend, a former pro boxer who looks like Bo Diddley and has a raspy cartoon character voice. Several of Carl Weather's co-stars in the Predator have roles in this film and Craig T. Nelson is the evil drug dealing businessman who's hair is the same color as his suit. Standard eighties action flick with not much going for it other than Weather's unbelievably cut abdominal muscles and a bad guy minion whose hair is right out of an eighties metal band.

For Safety's Sake (1986)

Gary Coleman works at Safety Central, which appears to be some sort of strange place where he punches buttons, uses a computer to watch kids do dangerous things and then reprimand them.

His targets are Jack and Jill Example, who must be cursed since during the film they manage to be stalked by a pervert, escape a fire, choke on food, and suffer various injuries from doing stupid things. Gary, along with his guest experts, admonishes the kids to stay calm, keep cool, and think.

One of the better sketches is the man who tries to get Jack to open the door by using various excuses, like signing for a package, needing to use the bathroom, and needing to talk to his mom. Jack contemplates letting the creep in, but eventually locks the door and calls a neighbor. In the credits the man is credited as "Letch" so it's a good thing Jack didn't let him in.

Harley Davison and the Marlboro Man (1991)

Harley and Marlboro come up with a great idea to save their friend's bar. They'll rob a bank and use the money to pay the outrageous fee for a five year lease.

Unfortunately they target the wrong Brinks truck and end up with a haul of crystal dream, the newest drug of choice, but whose name keeps reminding me of the drink powder, Crystal Light. As soon as the drugs are stolen, the enforcers show up wearing floor length bullet proof pleather coats which are supposed to make them look intimidating but instead make them look sort of stupid. The lead enforcer is played by Daniel Baldwin.

For some reason Mickey Rourke kept reminding me of Corey Haim, which is not at all a good thing.

Species: The Awakening (2007)

A slimy, naked, alien with a head like a pixie hat kills a bunch of people in a hospital, and then morphs back into her human form, which is a beautiful young woman named Miranda. Her Uncle Tom - whose name can't help but make you laugh - whisks her off to Mexico to search for his former scientist partner, Forbes, who might be able to save niece Miranda as she is the alien seed of their previous experiments.

Yeah that's about as good as it gets. Forbes has let his failed experiments run around the town as they will eventually die. Good move there. His success story walks around town dressed like a nun and sometimes morphing into an alien killing machine.

Forbes tells Uncle Tom that Miranda is at the end of her life span and the only way to keep her alive is to give her blood. So Uncle Tom goes hunting for someone to kill. Yup. It might sound exciting, but it's really not.

When Evil Calls (2006)

When an unpopular high school girl wishes for popularity, a clown shows up in her bedroom and hands her a cell phone with a text message saying she's won a wish. The only stipulation is that she has to pass the message on to two friends.

The next day she is the most popular girl in school. However when others get the message, their wishes turn out badly as only the original wishmaker truly gets their wish. A fat kid wishes to be skinny and is flattened by a bus. An unattractive girl wants to be prettier than the beautiful girl in her class, and the pretty girl immediately gets acid accidentally thrown in her face. Oh evil clown, why do you taunt us so?

Two detectives start investigating the bizarre deaths, although the headmaster doesn't seem to think there is anything odd about many of his students dying.

Each wish segment isn't more than five minutes long and is only tied together by a drunken, raving, filthy janitor narrator who makes bad jokes about the upcoming story.

It doesn't even seem like a movie. And then you realize that it's not. They just took these short films made to be seen on cell phones and tied them all together with the narrator and realeased it as a film. Now that takes a lot of nerve.

It also means you have to put up with seeing that one stupid text message about the wish over and over and over again. Absolutely horrible.

See No Evil (2006)

Co-ed college aged convicts are assigned to clean up an old hotel and in return for three days work, have a month taken off their sentence. The hotel is over eight stories high, so I'm not sure why this task would ever be assigned to around eight convicts with no real supervision.

The group randomly split up and roam around the building, which is going to be converted into a homeless shelter. A couple of the guys have blueprints of the hotel in hopes of finding an old safe which is supposed to house lots of money. But when they stumble across a hobos corpse, one runs away right into the grappling hook of serial killer Jacob Goodnight, who likes to remove the eyes from his victim's heads.

I'm not sure if the young prisoners are supposed to be completely unlikable or if teenagers are supposed to think they're cool because they're total jerks who constantly sass authority figures.

When people start disappearing, one of the characters asks if there is anyone else in the building and is told that they did a sweep of the building before the kids arrived to clean out all the homeless people. Too bad they didn't also make it a priority to clean out the hobo corpses because I find that creepier than living, breathing hobos.

The movie has a million plot holes and the entire premise of prisoners, who wear street clothes, have backpacks, aren't shackled in anyway, are allowed to roam a huge hotel without guards or tracking devices, is completely idiotic.

Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007)

A reality tv show ventures into the hillbilly infested hills to film a Survivor type show. When one of the contestants doesn't show up - having already been dispatched by the inbred hicks during an amazing opening sequence - the producer is called upon to take her place on the show. Henry Rollins is the fatigue clad host of the show and turns out to be one of the more likable characters.

As usual when you put people in the middle of the woods fifty miles from civilization, they turn into complete idiots when faced with hillbilly killers chasing them. The group traipses into a cabin in the middle of nowhere, no phone lines going to it, in an attempt to make a call, never once guessing that it might be inhabited by the very people chasing them.

Also it is never a good idea to hide in the old abandoned mill in hillbilly country, or to run through the woods so as not to be seen on the road. You idiots, these people know the woods like the back of their hands, and the woods are full of bear traps and death of all shapes and sizes. But let's stick to the woods while we try to escape hillbilly death. Basically it's the same movie as Wrong Turn.

Bloodmonkey (2007)

A group of college students go into the African jungle with F. Murray Abraham, a professor who has discovered a previously unknown valley which hold a new breed of primate that has aptly been named a Bloodmonkey. The creature sees in orangey bloodmonkey vision and tears anything that is human limb from limb in a matter of seconds. Hurrah for this new discovery!

The six students believe they will be assisting in base camp, but find themselves going down into the jungle where there are tents set up in this so-called undiscovered land. The group are not as suspicious as they should be, which is unfortunate since the first night there one of their group disappears.

One girl is documenting the trip on video for her college course, which begs the question how she is going to charge her camcorder in the middle of the jungle?

There is not so much Bloodmonkey in the film, but there is a scene in which the characters talk about how heavy the rain is that is hitting the tents while outside you see streams of water which appear to be coming from hoses. Horribly enough it is supposed to be Bloodmonkey's pissing on their tents, which one student claims is common for animals to do when marking their food. What? I've never heard of any animal who pisses on what it is going to eat. Maybe to mark their territory, but not their food. Stupid college kids.

Lobsteroids (1989)

Ultra low budget movie made in Portland, Maine about a mad scientist, his daughter, and giant lobsters on the loose. The film has tons of footage of local bands, with just a few of the more interesting being The Kopterz, The Wild Hearts, Bebe Buell and the Gargoyles, and the Brood.

The best band death scene is probably The Brood's which takes place during a beach party. What more could you ask for than a giant lobster claw taking out the drummer? Nothing, I tell you! Not one thing!

The Breed

One silly cover for one silly premise of a killer dog movie. Brothers John and Matt inherit their uncles home on a private island and decided to fly in with some friends and spend the weekend. The other side of the island used to be rented to a dog training school, which was rumored to be doing genetic engineering.

When an adorable puppy tromps out of the underbrush, the gang adopts him. Later that night when the dog runs out the door, two of the group head out to find him and instead encounter a snarling adult dog who promptly takes a bite out of one of the girls.

When the issue of treating the dog bite and the possibility of rabies comes up, John says he doesn't want to ruin their weekend by flying back to the mainland and suggests Sara can have the bite treated after the weekend. Showing what horribly crappy friends they are, everyone agrees to wait until their planned departure time so that they can spend the weekend partying.

If only they had been decent friends they would have been off the island before the dogs started watching their every move, destroyed their plane, and decided they all must die.

Dragon Wars (2007)

Reporter Ethan is obsessed with Sarah. Coincidentally both are the main players in the dragon battle of good and evil which is waged every five hundred years and Sarah has an orb inside her.

While that might sound in good in theory, the movie is totally forgettable and mostly void of dragons.

Ninja Nightmare (1980)

aka The Last Reunion

In an overly long opening sequence in Japanese occupied Philippines during WWII, a young boy -played by a kid with limited acting ability - sees his parents killed and mother raped by US soldiers.

Thirty two years later, the son is a man who is looking for revenge. Conveniently the military unit is having a reunion. Their reunion mostly consists of drinking, brawling, dancing with women, and hanging out in discos with bad bands. And all of them hate their buddy Steadman, but to be fair, Steadman is an ass.

Leo Fong, who plays the adult son, buys a sword and says he's going to warn the men in obscure ways that he is going to kill them. What this really means is he tells them they are going to die right before he kills them.

Keep an eye out for the D'Hi Octave Band who look like the Philippino version of KC and the Sunshine Band, complete with white jumpsuits with sequined flames. They sing "Zodiac Lady" a song about all the zodiac signs. Oh yeah.

Cyberzone (1995)

I think it's a rule that any title containing the word cyber has to be somewhere between mediocre and terrible.

In the future, Phoenix, AZ marks the west coat of the US. There are spaceships, robot factories, and Los Angeles is an underwater agricultural city.

Jack Ford is a bounty hunter hired to recover four pleasure droids that have been stolen. He is teamed up with Beth, a snooty droid specialist who has never been on the earths surface. Of course this means that her arrogant demeanor is in for a rude awakening in the rough and dirty streets that Ford normally inhabits.

As this is the dirty pathetic future, there are strip clubs with mutants, crime, droids, spaceships, surface dwellers and those who never go to the surface. Yep, it's like every other cyber movie.

Two things to note:
First, they start with four pleasure droids but end up with only three and make some lame excuse that they lost the other somewhere. Huh? Did the fourth girl decide she didn't want to be in the film any more? Did they only have three nun outfits? It just seems like some lame excuse. Couldn't they have come up with something better?

Second, it's always bad to use real technology when doing a future movie. When they plug the big old ribbon cable into the droids neck with connector pins, they have effectively rendered themselves utterly low tech. So much for the cyber future.

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.