THE WEIRD WORLD OF WEIRD (1970) ***

Hosted by Ralph Story, this dated television special will be of interest to Ed Wood fans, Satanists, and Mondo movie aficionados.  It’s an examination of the occult in the modern world and focuses on everything from the mundane (like astrology and horoscopes) to the slightly supernatural (a “real” witch is interviewed) to downright spooky (there’s a segment on Anton LaVey).  There are also segments on horoscope hotlines, a hippie wedding, telepathy, seances, a visit to Magic Castle, ghost hunting, and hypnotic regression. 

My favorite part was seeing Plan 9 from Outer Space star Criswell appearing sporadically throughout the program and making his zany predictions.  (He even pops out of a coffin!)  Some of his nonsense is good for a laugh, but I did find it amusing that his prediction about “men and women using the same washrooms” eventually came true!

Criswell isn’t the only name B-movie fans will recognize.  Mighty Joe Young’s Terry Moore and Forbidden Planet’s Anne Francis are briefly interviewed about their belief in horoscopes.  Plus, we also get to see the Girl in Gold Boots herself, Leslie McRae modeling a Zodiac-inspired evening gown.  The scenes of LaVey’s black mass rituals are mostly just scenes from his movie, Satanis, but Story’s cheeky commentary over the footage garners a few big laughs. 

Speaking of which, viewers with a genuine interest in the subject may not appreciate Story’s snide remarks throughout.  However, his skepticism is justified, especially when you see some of the borderline ridiculous subjects (like the guy who can “read” balloons).  Sure, some segments may be more amusing than others, but The Weird World of Weird is a breezy (it’s only forty-five minutes long) and enjoyable bit of pseudoscience hokum.  Anyone who’s ever flipped through one of those old Time Life books back in the day is sure to dig it. 

THE HOUSEMAID (2025) *** ½

Millie (Sydney Sweeney) gets a job as a housemaid to rich Nina (Amanda Seyfried) and her family.  It quickly becomes apparent Nina has a screw or two loose, but Millie sucks it up since she’s on parole and desperately needs a job.  Predictably, Millie winds up having an affair with Nina’s husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), which really sends her off the rails. 

Directed by Paul (Ghostbusters) Feig, The Housemaid is essentially a big budget Lifetime movie set in the Wrong “Insert Occupation Here” mode.  Given the fact that Lifetime movies are a guilty pleasure of mine and that Seyfried and Sweeney are two of my favorite actresses working today means I was virtually predestined to check it out. 

Seyfried gives a tour de force performance.  Her extreme toxic positivity borders on unhinged and once she actually becomes unhinged, it’s truly a sight to see.  She especially shines during the longish flashback sequence which shows how she met her husband.  Sweeney downplays her sexpot rep and delivers a fine performance playing a demurer version of her typical persona.  (Although she is given a big-time glow-up whenever the plot requires.)  I also got a kick out of Elizabeth Perkins as Sklenar’s bitchy mom. 

The movie is often smarter and even funnier than it really needed to be, which is appreciated.  Seyfried gets a particularly hilarious line when she meets Sweeney for the first time and offers her some charcuterie:  “Is it too early in the morning for meat and cheese?”  I also dug the bit where Sweeney and the Skelnar bonded while watching Family Feud.  Speaking of which, there is a lot of chemistry between Sweeney and Skelnar.  While their obligatory sex scene is tastefully done, it still manages to titillate. 

This is a first-rate popcorn thriller through and through.  The twist that occurs about two-thirds into the flick is pretty good too.  Heck, it even takes a turn into torture porn territory by the end, which helps to up the ante.  When it comes to delivering thrills, The Housemaid cleans up. 

GOOD MORNING AND GOODBYE! (1967) ****

Good Morning and Goodbye! is a Russ Meyer film that no one really seems to talk about.  I honestly knew very little about it going in, which was for the better.  I mean, Faster Pussycat and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls will always be vying for the top spot.  This one is a complete riot.  It easily landed in my Top Five favorite Meyer movies even after only one viewing. 

The opening beats are quintessential Meyer.  From the rapid-fire editing and the hilariously overblown narration, you know you’re in Meyer Territory.  The shots of naked women frolicking in nature and busty blondes wildly go-go dancing are just Pure Cinema.  Also, I have to say that the opening credits, where the names of the cast and crew are emblazoned on mailboxes as a sports car speeds down the road, is really cool too. 

The film explores the various love triangles (and rectangles) of the Boland family.  Angel (played by the magnificent Alaina Capri) is a sultry temptress who humiliates her impotent husband Burt (Stuart Lancaster) by humping every stud in town.  Meanwhile, Burt’s virginal daughter Lana (Karen Ciral) is busy trying to catch the eye of a jive-talking hot rodder (Don Johnson… no, not that one).  There’s also a nymph (Haji) who skips through the forest and lurks in lakes that goes around influencing the action. 

Capri only appeared in three movies (including Meyer’s Common Law Cabin, which came out the same year) and that seems like a tragic loss for cinephiles.  She is incredible in this film as her knockout physique is only matched by the ferocity in which she spews her hateful dialogue.  Meyer’s filmography is littered with badass women with enormous breasts that chew men up and spit them out, and I’m here to tell you Capri is one of the best.  I also enjoyed Haji as the nature girl who sparks lust in Lancaster by belly dancing, gyrating wildly, and growling and meowing like a goddamned cat. 

As much as Meyer’s technique shines throughout, it can’t be overstated just how terrific screenwriter Jackie (Faster Pussycat) Moran’s dialogue is.  There are some real jaw-droppers here.  If they ever make a Smithsonian of smut, the screenplay for Good Morning and Goodbye! belongs in its hallowed halls.  I could quote this film endlessly, but I’ll just limit myself to my two favorite lines, both of which are spoken by Capri:  “Okay, so I’m a biological freak,” and “You play the stock market like a fox, but you store your nuts away like a squirrel!”

AKA:  Lust Seekers.

RED SONJA (2025) ** ½

After decades in Development Hell, this redo of the old Brigitte Nielsen flick found its way to the screen with director MJ (Silent Hill:  Revelation) Bassett at the helm.  It’s a much more serious (and bloody) treatment of the character this time around.  While I sort of missed the goofy antics of the original, this is a perfectly acceptable, if a tad bland, interpretation. 

Sonja (Matilda Lutz from Revenge) is a nature loving warrior woman who does battle with anyone who desecrates the sacred forest.  A fey emperor named Draygan (Robert Sheehan) is laying waste to the wilderness in search of a mystical book.  Sonja steps in to stop him and is promptly thrown into a gladiator pit for her troubles.  She eventually leads a revolt, and with her former gladiators by her side, sets out to protect her home from the emperor’s legions. 

Lutz is the reason the film works as well as it does.  She imbues the character with the toughness the character requires, but it’s the subtle hints of humanity that prevents her portrayal from feeling cliched.  I liked the early scene where she discovers poachers have slain animals only for their trophies.  The best moments come courtesy of the funny comic relief shtick with her horse, which plays like something out of a Spaghetti Western. 

The supporting cast is solid too.  Sheehan is appropriately whiny as the sniveling villain.  My favorite bit was when he gets excited that his men have found a cyclops to join his army.  Wallis Day cuts a striking image as the sexy white-haired warrior who acts as Draygan’s right hand woman.  Rhona Mitra also has some nice moments too as a gladiator woman that Red refuses to fight. 

Overall, this is pretty standard stuff, but it’s watchable in a lazy Sunday afternoon entertainment kind of way.  It kinda lands closer to Xena:  Warrior Princess than Conan, although that’s mostly because the budget wasn’t quite high enough to meet the film’s aims.  As a consequence, the CGI and greenscreen effects run the gamut from decent to wonky.  Some establishing shots of arenas and castles resemble cut scenes from a video game too.  The pit battle with the aforementioned cyclops starts out fine, but it winds up feeling rushed and anticlimactic.  

That said, it’s enjoyable for the most part.  Red Sonja meets its quota of no-frills sword and sorcery shenanigans.  For many, that will be enough. 

Bassett also directed an adaptation of another Robert E. Howard character, Solomon Kane.

BLACK SNAKE (1973) ** ½

Black Snake isn’t the first, last, best, or worst exploitation flick about the evils of slavery, but it is the only one directed by Russ Meyer. 

The whip-wielding Lady Susan (Anouska Hempel) lords over a Caribbean plantation where the slaves are brutally mistreated.  Meanwhile, Sir Charles (David Warbeck) believes Susan murdered his brother, so he travels to the plantation from England to seek revenge.  He soon however finds himself in the middle of a deadly slave revolt. 

Russ Meyer’s Black Snake works better as a slave exploitation movie than as a work of one of the great masters of skin cinema, even if his fingerprints are all over the material.  The story is given somewhat of a boost thanks to Meyer’s trademark punchy editing and camerawork.  It’s just that his distinctive style can only carry the picture but so far. 

Another Meyer hallmark is the powerful female character in Lady Susan.  Hempel cuts a memorable figure dressed like a female Zorro and wielding a deadly whip.  You just sort of wish she inhabited a better film. 

While Black Snake isn’t necessarily “bad”, it’s frustratingly misguided and uneven.  There are some gruesome bits here as Meyer offers up plenty of whippings, a crucifixion, and even a shark attack.  A few moments flirt with the horror genre too.  (Hempel’s ghastly discovery in a bathtub would look at home in a Mario Bava picture.)   Meyer’s usual brand of cheeky humor, although somewhat muted compared to his other work, runs against the grain of the harsh and cruel depiction of the barbarism of slavery.  (Although the scene where the slave driver begs for his life and comically winds up putting his foot in his mouth is pretty funny.) 

As uneven as Black Snake is, there’s plenty to like about it.  We get some T & A, courtesy of Anouska, but not nearly as much of you might expect, especially coming from Meyer.  It’s the general air of unpleasantness that lingers over the proceedings that knocks it down a notch.  It also means this will probably be the least rewatched film in Meyer’s oeuvre for fans of the director.  (The Seven Minutes notwithstanding.)

AKA:  Sweet Suzy.  AKA:  Slaves.  AKA:  Black Snake:  The Whip.  AKA:  Duchess of Doom.

DANCE OR DIE (1987) ***

Jason (Roy Kieffer) is a dance instructor who comes home to find his coke dealer roommate murdered.  Soon after, he begins receiving threatening phone calls demanding he hand over a bunch of drugs, which he clearly doesn’t have.  Adding to his woes is the fact that he’s a recovering addict, and all this business with drugs might push him back into using again. 

Speaking of drugs, you’ll probably be wondering what kind of drugs the filmmakers were on.  This is one nutty flick.  

Directed by Richard W. (Ring of Fire) Munchkin, Dance or Die was an early effort from the legendary direct to video producing duo of Richard Pepin and Joespeh Merhi.  It’s an oddball mix of dancing and action that doesn’t always work, but when it does find the sweet spot, the results can be jaw dropping.  The opening does for ballet what Breakin’ did for breakdancing.  That is to say, it’s fucking hilarious.  Even the cheesy Meet Cute in a grocery store contains a genuine laugh or two.  

Then there’s the hilarious dream scenes.  One looks like a cross between a heavy metal music video and a community theater version of Cats.  Another resembles a fever dream mash-up of an Easyriders Video Magazine mixed with a Skinamax flick.  I also got a kick out of the subplot where our hero turns to a psychic friend to find the missing coke.  (I wouldn’t dream of spoiling where they find it.)  Moments like these make Dance or Die a B-Movie fan’s dream. 

The action is okay too, although there’s not quite enough of it to really satisfy DTV action fans.  It’s those nutty dream sequences that make Dance or Die so memorable.  The druggie drama is fine and all, but the subplot about our hero going to Narcotic Anonymous meetings ground it in a reality that’s not nearly as fun as the cartoonish world that the campy dance routines inhabit.  These scenes of our hero wrestling with his addiction are easily the weakest aspects of the film and really prevent the movie from attaining legendary status.  The finale, which intercuts a cheesy choreographed dance routine with low rent shootouts and action is pure bliss though. 

ICE CREAM MAN (2026) ****

A week or so before Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man came out, my feed was inundated with videos of Gen Z YouTubers (none of whom I follow, mind you) holding tiny microphones and aggressively clutching their pearls as they condemned the film for having the audacity to (checks notes)… contain politically incorrect humor?  They were also shocked (SHOCKED!  I tell you!) by the extreme gore, mostly done by zombified children.  It’s almost as if none of these bozos had ever seen The Children, Who Can Kill a Child?, or Cooties. 

Well, forget those weenies.  I’m here to tell you Ice Cream Man is another bonafide classic from Roth.  It’s a fun, gory, and mean-spirited romp that plays like a Troma movie on steroids.  It’s a lot better than that Weapons crap, I’ll tell you that. 

The plot has a creepy ice cream man (Ari Millen) coming into a small town and handing out ice cream to all the kids.  Before long, the ice cream turns the children into kill-crazy brats that brutally murder all the adults in town.  It’s then up to the last surviving normal kids to stop the ice cream man’s reign of terror. 

Like most of Roth’s work, the film is full of black humor, gory goodness, and scenes of awful people getting their just desserts.  (I’m allowing myself only one ice cream pun in this review.)  Some of the juicy highlights include the kids using an ice cream scoop to dole out their principal’s brains, turning a teacher into a human version of the Operation board game, and a standout death involving a microscope.  While the flick coasts on the copious gore, Roth (who is also hilarious as the father of our hero, who makes an unending stream of dad jokes) also delivers a few well-edited sequences, my favorite being a terrific nod to The Birds.  I also got a kick out of the scene where a priest tells our heroes the overly complicated way the title character must be dispatched, which plays like a parody of the cheesy lore usually found in horror films. 

However, the best part was the attached preview for Roth’s next film, a collaboration with Snoop Dogg called Don’t Go in That House, Bitch! that ranks right up there with his original Thanksgiving trailer. 

If Ice Cream Man has a flaw, it’s that it might not be as polished as Thanksgiving (the movie, not the trailer).  Time will only tell if it has the replay value of Roth’s Green Inferno or Cabin Fever. I guess when you’re the 21st century GOAT of horror, your only competition is yourself.