Fiend (1980)

An alien energy reanimates a corpse who rises from the grave, kills a couple, buys a house, gets a car, feeds his cat, opens a music academy, and teaches violin. Honestly, is there a more bizarre concept for a film? What sort of reanimated corpse is going to buy a house or teach violin? And where did he get the money to purchase the home in the first place?

The corpse, who goes by the name of Mr. Longfellow, has to kill to keep his body from deteriorating. He strangles women in the neighborhood and glows red when he's committing these crimes. He spends all his time down in the basement rec room. In the other half of the basement, there is a little area where he keeps a knife in fancy box and slashes photographs of his victims.

Mr. Kender, his next door neighbor, suspects something is off with Longfellow, especially after a little girl is murdered behind their home. When Longfellow needs to kill, he starts looking waxy and his eyelids get all droopy which is yucky.

While the story is ridiculous, the film is actually well done, nicely edited and another good attempt by Don Dohler.

AVP Aliens vs Predator Requiem

A spaceship filled with alien hatchling specimens crash lands on Earth unleashing the hatchlings on a small town. Aliens run amuck in town as a Predator arrives to take control of the creatures that killed his friend.

The townsfolk don't get any character development, so it's hard to remember anyone's name. But since they're all stereotypes, you can remember them that way. There's the ex-con, sheriff, younger brother, pizza guy, army mom, little girl, asshole jock, and hot chick.

As the slaughter of the townspeople rages on, a small group bands together to try to survive, and must decide whether to follow the Army's instructions to go to the center of town for an evacuation or to head to the hospital in hopes of using their chopper to escape. Guess which is the better idea.

Blood Sisters (1987)

A sorority initiation calls for pledges to spend a night in a house that has been closed for thirteen years due to multiple murders that took place within. The local fraternity has rigged what they call pranks inside the haunted brothel to test the bravery of the sorority pledges as they compete on a scavenger hunt. Oddly enough, this is the only movie I remember where the pledge master is actually concerned for the pledges safety and considers calling off the hazing ritual.

The movie has ghost prostitutes, the couple who decides to have sex in the haunted house, and a geeky girl with glasses straight out of Scooby Doo. Her glasses are knocked off her face at a key moment in the ghost activity and she blindly moves around with her arms outstretched in front of her.

Murder Mansion (1972)

Stranger's lost in what the description called "a thick and leering fog" - how in the world does fog leer?! - end up stranded in an old mansion at the edge of a cemetery. The young woman who owns the home invites them to stay the night and spooky things happen.

There are numerous flashbacks to events you wont' care about, a creepy lady, her hulking driver, and a twist ending that will generally elicit a response of "oh..."

Final Payback (2001)

Richard Grieco is Joey Randall, an ex cop who who is having an affair with his former Captain's wife, who is murdered while he sleeps downstairs. Randall becomes a suspect as not only is he observed fleeing the scene, but he also accidentally grabs in the murder weapon by the handle.

Randall goes on the run and becomes involved with his ex-girlfriend who is soon to be married. Randall's only friend, a former junkie, is worked over by a corrupt cop played by Martin Kove. Grieco is very puffy and does not look healthy. He looks nothing like the picture on the cover, and I don't even think the girl on the cover is in the film.

Blood Mania (1970)

Groovy hipster Dr. Craig Cooper is providing care to a rich old guy who's sleazy daughter Victoria likes to walk around wearing see-through dresses. When Victoria finds out Cooper is being black mailed by an old friend, she decides to give him the money, which she'll have once daddy dies. If she hastens his death along, then perhaps she can get what she desires, which is Cooper.

Victoria's younger sister Gail, who has a massive bouffant, goes to the county fair with Cooper. Gail is young and vapid. Cooper is old and bulky. They look like father and daughter, not a couple, which makes it a bit creepy.

After an incredibly long, long, long montage of their day, Cooper returns Gail to the house where Victoria witnesses them kissing and goes crazy - thus beginning both the blood and the mania referenced in the title.

The Sickhouse (2007)

An old plague hospital in London is set to be demolished as authorities are concerned that there might be remnants of sickness inside that could start another epidemic. But archaeologist Anna doesn't care about the public's health, so she breaks into the hospital to finish her work and finds a secret tunnel which holds a small box.

Anna believes that there is evidence in the hospital that plague doctors working at the hospital killed children. The doctors are wearing hoods to protect them from the plague, and look like something out of Mad Magazine's Spy vs. Spy. Either that or like they have giant chicken heads, either of which can be creepy and stupid at the same time.

You can tell Anna is an archaeologist because she uses a brush on whatever she's working on. But she's not a very good one because she tends to use a pick ax on whatever is in her way and she doesn't use any safety precautions when entering the tunnel. When she opens the box she found, a blue mist comes out, unleashing evil within the hospital.

At the same time in a subplot that will soon come crashing into the storyline, four teenagers steal a car and joyride around the city while taking drugs. The completely annoying group look quite a bit older than the teens they supposedly portray, and it is not obvious until the plot points arise that one is deaf and one is pregnant. When they run over someone in the road and crash the car, they end up hiding in the very hospital that Anna is working in.

When the deaf Clive is attacked by a plague doctor, everyone goes nuts until Anna happens upon them and takes charge. Unfortunately her idea of taking charge is to offer plague boy a glass of water from the plague hospital water supply. Um, if they are demolishing the building, might the water also be unsafe? Then she tells them they need to get as far away from Clive as possible so as to keep from catching the plague.

Her other brilliant ideas are placing old plaguey Clive in a metal cage to keep him safe - How? How can that possibly keep him safe in anyway? - and sending the pregnant girl to check on him. Geez, out of everyone there, wouldn't the pregnant one be the last person who should check on him? How ridiculous!

The movie tops itself by having an ending which causes complete confusion and makes no more sense than anyone's actions throughout the film.

Rambo III (1988)

Once again John Rambo is approached by Trautman to help with a mission in Afghanistan. But Rambo is living peacefully in Thailand helping monks build a monestary and raising money for them via brutal fighting in arenas.

When Trautman is captured, Rambo decides to go in and rescue him. He heads into the desert, plays a game involving a dead goat, and ends up at the camp where Trautman is being held. Helping him are an Afghan guide and a boy who wants revenge as his family was killed in a raid on their camp.

There are subtitles for background chatter while Rambo makes his way through the camp setting bombs. It makes no sense to subtitle anything as none of it is relevant to the plot. If these were not there, it wouldn't make a difference. Much of the time, the camera is on Rambo, while there is a subtitle on a voice in the background saying something about how it's almost time to get something to eat. It doesn't matter. Yet, when the soldiers are yelling at Trautman or other captives, there often isn't a translation. Wouldn't that be the point where they should include that?

As in most Rambo movies, eventually he kills everything within reach.

Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return (1999)

19 year old Hannah goes to children of the corn country to find her mother, who she's never met. The desolate town contains not only info on her mother, but Isaac who promptly wakes up from the coma he's been in for nineteen years. His followers see this as the first sign of the prophecy where the first son and first daughter must have a child.

Stacy Keach stars as the town doctor and Nancy Allen stars as Hannah's mother. He Who Walks Behind the Rows - a name that is scary and stupid at the same time - puts in an appearance later in the film.

And in case you missed that it was twelve o'clock, ten million clocks ring to hit the point home.

Zoltan, Hound of Dracula (1978)

A construction worker opens a coffin containing a dog with a stake through his heart. The idiot pulls out the stake, thus awakening Dracula's dog, whose eyes glow in the dark.

The dog and Dracula's servant Igor travel to the US to find a descendant of the Count as they need a master to serve. Igor drives a hearse with a big bat on the back window, not discreet at all.

Revenge of the Cheerleaders (1976)

Aloha High School's cheerleaders run wild and are completely unlikable. They have sex in the school hallways, in front of teachers, and in the locker rooms. One girl makes out with a guy's butt while he's at work as an ice cream clerk making a lady a banana split. There are boobs and untanned butts flying everywhere, plus David Hasselhoff as a basketball star named Boner.

Every once in a while the cheerleaders and basketball team break into an ungainly song and dance number, which is embarrassing for all the participants.

The girls dose the school lunch with drugs on the day state inspectors are visiting, while the principal hopes to close the school and open a mall. It's mayhem and naked people everywhere, starring a bunch of cheerleading jerks.

Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984)

Break dancers Ozone and Turbo team up with rich girl Kelly - whose dad doesn't like Kelly wasting her life dancing with the lower class - to save the neighborhood youth center, Miracles, which is about to be demolished by a corrupt business man who wants the land to build a shopping mall.

Will the break dancers save their neighborhood? Will they win the dance off against that rival dancing gang? Will they get the hell off the ceiling? And will the rich girl's father learn that just because someone has no money, dresses odd, and dances to the rhythm of the street doesn't mean he is a conman after rich people's money?

If you're looking for a cliche in action, you've got it:

• neighborhood bands together to fight evil industrialist
• rich girl's parents hate her urban friends but come to realize they are good kids
• rich girl is told she doesn't belong by urban girl
• rival dance groups put aside their differences to fight a common enemy
• shy guy gets girl by being himself
• shy guy asks older guy for advice about girls and is given lesson in the wrong things to do
  

Dragon Fighter (2003)

A status hungry scientist working in a secret underground cloning facility - yeah that's right, secret underground cloning facility - puts what he believes is a dragons egg in an incubator. Newly hired head of security, Dean Cain, is not only a former military man with the skills to fly a Black Hawk, but also a well learned brainiac in chemistry and biology, due to his parents being biologists. In fact, Cain reads heavy duty books on these subjects just for fun.

Though the other scientists are cloning experts, they don't seem to have a clue about what is going on within the complex or are alarmed when the doctor shows up with a large mystery egg. Cains knowledge of all things biological and chemical means that he correctly guesses that the patronizing doctor has found a dragon egg, and is very alarmed at the possible consequences. None of the cloning experts seems concerned about their fate.

The madman scientist only cares about his precious dragon egg, not what might happen once it hatches. Thus he balks every step of the way when faced with the danger that is hatching within their compound walls.

The incubator tank is full of pink smoke, so no one can see what is happening inside. As it is a sterile environment, two contamination suited flunkies are sent in to extract the newly hatched creature. Shortly after the two men enter, there is a terrific explosion that destroys the room.

What do you know, a dragon is now kalumpfing through the halls. Super idiot scientist still demands that no one harm his find, as all he can think about is the fame it will bring him. I'm thinking even a dead dragon would make him superbly famous, plus they're in a cloning facility so couldn't they just clone the dead dragon after coming up with a better plan on how to deal with it once it hatches?

The rest of the movie is sort of like Alien, except the dragon is obviously computer generated which makes it more amusing than threatening. I actually forgot that they were in an underground complex and thought that it was a movie taking place in the future. Ninety five percent of this movie takes place in the hallways and futuristic looking labs......which once again makes the film look very much like a sub par Alien.

Welcome to Spring Break (1988)

aka Nightmare Beach

After blowing the big game, Skip and his friend Ronnie head to Spring Break to have some fun. Ronnie confirms his idiot status by wearing a mesh tshirt, parking in the Demon's biker gangs spot, and giving them the finger. Ronnie confirms he is the responsible, smart guy by stating that they don't want any trouble.

Meanwhile Diablo, the leader of the gang who was electrocuted for murdering a teenager has gone missing from his grave. Soon a black motorcycle with a mysterious rider are killing people during Spring Break. The gang thinks it's Diablo come back to life, the local police department isn't sure.

There is a running gag about a young woman who convinces men she needs money and has sex to get them to contribute, a guy with new wave hair who steals money from vacationers, and a guy who continually plays pranks about being dead.

There is a continuity error in the film. When Skip holds a screwdriver to Doc's neck, at first it is a Phillips head. But when they show it again, it is a flathead.

The film features John Saxon and Michael Parks, who most people know from "Twin Peaks", but I alway like to think of him as the free wheeling motorcycle rider in "Then Came Bronson".

The Curse of the Crying Woman (1963)

aka La Maldición de la Llorona

Stupid woman, what with her crying and her curse...what the hell!? This black and white Mexican horror film has some nice atmosphere and very creepy eye makeup, but the translation is ridiculous.

Newly married Emily receives an invitation from her Aunt Thelma to visit. When Emily arrives, she discovers that her uncle Daniel has died in a terrible accident and her Aunt has not aged from when she last saw her years before.

Thelma is a strange woman as she is never around during the day and has no reflection. Turns out she has discovered the secrets of Marian Lane, the wailing witch, who threw her life away in exchange for power.

Thelma and her deformed man servant named Fred were not aware that Emily had remarried and are quite upset that she has brought her husband Herbert along to visit. Herbert ends up getting the brunt of the abuse in the movie as not only does the creepy zombie in the bell tower throw him over the railing, but he also falls through a trap door.

It is silly hearing all the Americanized names. But ever more ridiculous is that the zombie locked in the bell tower can reach through the bars on the door and unlock it the door from the outside.

Most ridiculous lines:

1. "You're coming close to the front door of the supernatural!"

2. "Why is that horrid monster in the house?" "Fred?" Uhhh, yes, the horrid monster's name is Fred.

Cybercity (1999)

aka The Shepherd

Why would anyone go see a film called The Shepherd? They wouldn't, which is why they titled the dvd Cybercity.

C. Thomas Howell is a shepherd - someone hired to assassinate those considered undesirable or a threat to society - whose wife and kid are dead, but he keeps reliving this via future-vision. He is asked to kill a woman and her child. The boy doesn't talk because he's "had a scare."

Roddy Piper is the Preacher who appears on video and hologram and half way through the film starts dragging around a massive cross.

David Carradine has a ventriloquist dummy that wears a wig and chokes C. Thomas Howell, who's ass gets too much airtime in the film.

Howell becomes attached to the woman and little boy, and decides to help them avoid assassination. They hide in a church which creepily enough has a bed behind the pulpit. Howell and the woman have sex while the little boy is in the same room. Yes, no need to be concerned about emotional scarring of the child.

Thomas's shirt bulges strategically at the chest to reveal his tattoo. Unfortunately the way the shirt pulls looks very feminine, thus undermining any attempt at tattoo machismo.

Best of all is the little future car they drive around in, which appears to consist of a golf cart with blue lights and cardboard doors. Hurrah for the cyber future!

Wisconsin Death Trip (1999)

Wisconsin Death Trip is based on the book of the same name and attempts to be faithful in it's narrative of death in a small Wisconsin town during the 1890s. The book is a collection of photographs and newspaper clippings from Black River Falls, WI, all of which involve death and hardship.

While I was fascinating by the book, the film was very slow moving. Overall the film had an antsy feeling which was very effective, but the whispering throughout drove me crazy - although not as crazy as the poor people that lived in Black River Falls.

I was very taken with the window smasher who appeared several times throughout the film. I would recommend the book, but I found the film difficult to get through.

Get Crazy (1983)

Max Wolfe loves rocknroll and is about to do his 15th annual New Years Eve concert. But villain Mr. Beverly wants to shut down the theater and put up a highrise. When Max won't let Beverly buy out his lease, Beverly vows to put an end to the concert.

With a typical rocknroll versus the establishment storyline and comedy that sometimes falls flat, the film still managed to be really fun and make me laugh. There is also a great cast including cult favorites Mary Waronov, Paul Bartel, Clint Howard, Malcolm McDowell, Lee Ving, Bobby Sherman, Fabian, Lou Reed, Howard Kaplan of The Turtles, and The Doors' John Densmore.

Lou Reed is great as Audin, the reclusive singer who comes out of seclusion to play the show as a favor to Max, and has the taxi driver take the long way to the show as he's having a burst of creativity.

Malcolm McDowell plays Reggie Wanker, a self obsessed rock star who wears a huge codpiece, drinks magic water, and talks to his penis - which talks back, eeek!

Other stand outs are Bobby Sherman and Fabian, who are very funny as Mr. Beverly's henchmen.

The Godmonster of Indian Flats (1973)

After a drunken night in town, sheep farmer Eddie wake up in the barn next to a large bloody mass of something. Luckily local mad scientist Dr. Clemons and his hippie assistant Mariposa happen by to hear Eddie screaming. The daft doctor immediately realizes that this yucky thing the size of a small child is going to solve his research theory.

Meanwhile back in town, Mr. Barnstable - a redundant name if ever there was one - a representative from a rich mining company, has arrived bringing offers to purchase everyone's land. This doesn't sit well with the local officials who do not want to give up control of the town.

The town officers come up with a plan to discredit Barnstable by blaming him for killing the Sheriff's dog and framing him for a shooting of a local man. As Barnstable is chased out of town by a vigilante group wanting to hang him, he happens upon Dr. Clemons lab (which looks more like a bunker).

Clemons has been raising the gooey thing from the barn, which he determined is a sheep embryo, although the sheep must have been intimate with an alien judging by the final result. The embryo has grown into the title character, the Godmonster - a massive misshapen mutant of a sheep that is larger and taller than a human being and has strangely long legs of different lengths.

Horror of all horrors, the Godmonster escapes and runs wild through the country side while Mariposa chases after it, only to finally catch up with it and say the oddest line ever in film, "I've been following you since the glory hole." Yeeehaw!

Wow, inexplicable, unfathomable, bizarrre... truly has to be seen to be believed.

Frankenstein's Daughter (1958)

Oliver Frank, a descendant of the infamous Baron von Frankenstein, is working on a potion that will bring the dead back to life. He slips the potion into fruit punch that he gives to Trudy, the niece of his boss Carter Morton, who is arguable a mad scientist. Trudy turns into a monster and runs around town in a bathing suit freaking people out.

This sequence of events leads me to the biggest question of the film - if Oliver is trying to make a potion to bring the dead back to life, then why is he giving it to the living? Sadly, there is no explanation.

After Trudy's friend Susie won't make out with Oliver while on a date, Olvier runs her over with his car so he can use her organs for his experiments. Oliver takes the secret passage into Carter's house so that he can use his lab. It seems odd that Carter doesn't know about the passageway, but no explanation is offered.

When Oliver is done with the monster that is Frankenstein's daughter, she doesn't leave via the secret passage, but walks straight out the front door?! The monster has an outerspace type of jacket and gloves, a massive bandage on her head, and looks like a melty faced Jack Carter. In fact, Frankenstein's daughter looks not so much like a daughter at all, but like a large ugly heavily bandaged man.

The House That Dripped Blood (1971)

A house reflects back whatever type of person you are and everyone who rents it dies.

This anthology has four stories:

1. a writer sees his story come to life when a creepy strangler starts killing people.

2. Peter Cushing sees a figure in a wax museum who looks just like his true love.

3. Christopher Lee plays a strict father who will not let his daughter have any fun.

4. an actor buys an old cape while making a vampire movie and strange things start to happen.

Ants (1977)

Construction workers anger a colony of ants, causing them to attack a nearby hotel. In a subplot, a rich jerk attempts to purchase the hotel from the old lady who has owned it forever.

When a young boy becomes covered by sticky, biting, deadly ants after doing some dumpster diving, a doctor declares that he died from a virus. The construction foreman Mr. Carr insists that the ants killed him, but the arrogant doc won't even consider that suggestion as he knows more than someone who works with heavy machinery.

Whenever ants swarm onto someone, they scream for help and fall flat rather than making an attempt to brush off the ants. It's really annoying. Later in the movie, one of the construction workers who gets ants on him screams that his leg has gone numb. It would have been helpful to explain earlier in the film that the ants had a numbing effect on people as it would make it much less irritating when people do nothing to save themselves.

Oddly enough, no one notices the massive swarms of ants advancing on the hotel, leading to the climax when the guests - including a lady in a wheelchair and a girl who gets dizzy from heights - get trapped in the hotel by the big freaking mass of attacking ants.

Scared Stiff (1987)

Psychiatrist David buys an old plantation that used to be owned by an abusive slave owner, George Masterson. The moves his girlfriend Kate a singer who makes music videos, and her son into the home. Kate starts having visions of the former owner and David finds a trunk in the attic which contains the body of a woman and little boy.

As Kate's supernatural experiences increase, David becomes cruel and uncaring, appearing to be possessed by the spirit of Masterson. But are Kate's experiences real or imagined? The question arises due to Kate and David having met when Kate was a patient in the psycho ward. David insists that her mental illness has returned, while Kate becomes frustrated when David will not believe that there is a threat to their safety.

The end of the movie is incredibly lame with Masterson turning into the strange creature pictured on the cover without any explanation.

Beyond the Door II (1977)

When Dora, her new husband, and creepy little son Marco move into a new home, strange things start happening. Dora starts seeing her Carlo (her first husband who committed suicide), Marco somehow gets into the basement even though the door is always locked, and inanimate objects become threatening.

Marco becomes increasingly creepy, telling his mother he is going to kill her. There are also a few scenes which suggest his incestuous interest in Dora. He also seems to have some sort of supernatural power as he pins his pilot stepfathers picture to a swing, which makes the plane go into a nosedive. He also draws picture of his mother holding a knife and his father with his throat cut. The question becomes are the happenings supernatural or is Dora going insane.

Capture of Bigfoot (1979)

Why do all Bigfoot movies from the 1970s have bad sensitive folk music ballads for their theme songs? Just another mystery for Bigfoot fans...

Two trappers capture a baby Bigfoot and are taking it back into town when mama Bigfoot comes calling. The two men are employed by local businessman and lunatic, Mr. Olsen, who is obsessed with having his own Bigfoot so he can make a fortune using the creature as a tourist attraction.

Olsen sends more trappers to look for the poor critter and havoc ensues. Local Ranger Steve Garrett tries to protect the creature, his girlfriends son (who is out roaming around in little Bigfoot country), and the town from Olsen and his brigade of Bigfoot inciting hunters.

The Bigfoot creature looks more like a yeti than the dark haired North American Bigfoot usually depicted in films, what with it's white fur and bad haircut. Like many 1970s Bigfoot films, there is almost no Bigfoot action.

Rambo: First Blood, Part II (1985)

I've spent my life avoiding Rambo movies, but since my friends rented this and wanted to watch it, I figured there was no legitimate reason to maintain my anti-Rambo stance.

John Rambo is dropped off in Vietnam on a secret mission to find out if there are any POWs still alive. He is given a camera (which seems to confuse his war weary brain), and told to take photos if he sees any prisoners. He is not to engage anyone or do any rescue operations.

Of course, this is contrary to Rambo's own moral compass and when he sees prisoners, he grabs one to bring back with him. Unfortunately the mission is a fake and the man in charge leaves Rambo to be captured by the Vietnamese.

As in all 1980s movies, the Russians end up being the bad guys. They torture Rambo until he escapes, kills everyone, and heads back to find the man who left him for dead.

The Alpha Incident (1978)

The opening line of the movie says it all, "This doesn't make any sense!" Scientists transport a virus from Mars via freight train with a biochemist posing as a conductor guarding it. Inevitably a not so bright railroad worker accidentally breaks a vial while investigating the contents of the top secret shipment, and is infected by the virus. When the train stops at a small station, the five railroad employees and the biochemist are quarantined while scientists frantically try to find a cure for the virus.

The small group must stay awake because the virus will kill them if they fall asleep. They ingest amphetamines, but then sit around boring the viewer into a near sleep like state. There isn't any action and the dialogue is not very interesting. The movie has a Night of the Living Dead type of ending.

Dr. Alien (1989)

Oh Dr. Alien, you are so horrible...and yet I find you somehow appealing. Uber-nerd Wesley agrees to help new science teacher Ms. Xenobia with an extra credit research project, unaware that Xenobia is an alien and that he will be her subject.

After Xenobia gives Wesley a shot, he turns into super stud, complete with upturned collar. Every time a mini-tentacle like appendage with lips protrudes from the top of his head, women can't resist him. There's never any explanation of why the girls don't see the creepy thing bobbing around atop his head, but it emits something that makes women throw themselves at him.

This is a bad 1980s teen comedy, whose charm is perhaps due to it's ridiculousness. Make no mistake, this is a horrible movie, but for some unknown reason, I enjoyed it.

Minotaur (2006)

Village youths are sacrificed to a Minotaur who lives in an underground maze beneath a castle. Our hero Theo, who is not supposed to be sacrificed as he will later be chief of the clan, goes along with those who are to be sacrificed as he plans to save his true love, who was taken a few years earlier. Though it is the Iron Age, the youth are mostly stereotypically good looking and have dirt smudges on their overly pretty faces.

Problems arise due to the slow pacing, overly dull exchanges, and the self-titled beast not actually being a minotaur at all. The film begins with an explanation that the minotaur is half man, half beast. But the Minotaur in the film can best be described as the body of a hairless bull with the skull of a bull, which is inexplicably dripping with goo. It's decent CGI, but it does lead one to wonder how this creature gains sustenance by eating the teens since it doesn't seem to have any way to swallow anything it eats.

Feast of Flesh (1967)

aka Deadly Organ

An organ playing fiend in a bad wig, rubber monster hands and rubber mask kidnaps women and renders them useless by using the hypnotic qualities of his keyboard and shooting them up with heroin. While in a trance, the woman willingly get physical with the freaky organist who wears his mask as he gropes them, yeech!! A slow paced film which features a volleyball scene in which the teams play by catching the ball and then throwing it over the net.

Night of the Bloody Apes (1968)

When Dr. Krallman hears that his son Julio has leukemia, he decides to save him by replacing his heart with a gorilla heart. Some nauseating real surgery footage later, his son has a heart which randomly turns him into a massive man with a gorilla-esque face who stalks the night while wearing pajama pants, rapes, and kills women.

In an almost unrelated subplot, a full figured lady wrestler gets in the ring and does her wrestling thing. Turns out her boyfriend is the detective who is investigating the ape man murders. Yup, that's the only connection between the two stories.

Though the title promises bloody apes, there is only one guy in an ape suit, and Julio, who is only sometimes a gorilla man.

Zu Warriors (2001)

Beautifully shot story of a demon in a mountain and the warriors who fight to defeat him. Unfortunately the good versus evil plot line is nothing special and I didn't care about the characters.

Cheerleader Camp (1988)

Alison is haunted by nightmares and hallucinations of death and blood. She joins her cheerleading team for a trip to Camp Hurrah, where there are competitions for the cheerleaders, mascots (who are second class citizens), and queen. There doesn't seem to be any criteria to win the queen competition.

The mascots are excluded from the cheering activities and even have a separate dinner time where they must eat while wearing their massive mascot heads. Why would they think this was okay?

Alison's nightmares continue and her boyfriend Brent, played by Leif Garrett, is a total sleazebag as he hits on other cheerleaders right in front of her, and even pursues the easy girl on their own cheering team. When Alison voices her dismay, Brent apologizes and then dumps her when she has qualms about having sex at camp. What a great guy. Soon cheerleaders are getting killed and Alison's teammates are disappearing.

The film boasts the worst rap I have ever seen, which is done by Brent and Timmy, the two male members of the cheerleading squad. Their role on the team appears to be dancing badly in the background as the girls do some elementary moves. You can't appreciate the awfulness of their rap without seeing it. It is the whitest rap ever.

Watch for the scene in the camp office where there is a copy of Leif Garrett's 1978 "Feel the Need" album sitting on top of the record player and leaning up against the wall.

Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe (1991)

A random woman gives birth - with her pants on - to Tommy, the child of an alien being. The child has the anti-life equation in his head, which is some sort of mathematical formula.

When the child gets into grade school, Secundus returns to take the formula from his head. Abraxas, the good guy, also returns to earth to save Tommy and his mom. Havoc ensues as Abraxas and Secundus fight in slow motion while eighties style soft rock instrumentals underscore the ridiculousness of the scene. Truly horrible.

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.