HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: DON’T FUCK IN THE WOODS (2016) **

Don’t Fuck in the Woods has the typical boilerplate plotline you’d expect from a low budget horror comedy:  A bunch of annoying characters (they look too long in the tooth to call “teens”) go camping in the woods, smoke a bunch of dope, have lots of pre-marital sex, and are promptly killed by something lurking in the dark.  I guess the big difference is that instead of a killer in a mask, the characters are killed by a rubbery looking monster.  So, at least that’s a slight change of pace. 

The early scenes hold promise.  The opening sequence in particular is surprisingly clever and laugh-out-loud funny.  If only the rest of the movie had the same amount of ingenuity, it could’ve been a worthwhile parody of the genre.  However, instead of spoofing the conventions of a horror film, Don’t Fuck in the Woods succumbs to laziness and decides to merely follow them.

The characters are your standard issue stock archetypes that usually populate these things.  There’s the stoner, the horror nerd, and naturally, the horny teenagers.  The big difference is the lesbians who actually manage to seem like a genuine couple.  Or at least a lesbian couple you’d find in an indie drama and not a low budget horror spoof. 

At 72 minutes, the movie is relatively short (it’s only an hour if you don’t count the credits and/or blooper reel), but it runs out of gas about halfway through when the jokes start to dry up.  (The indifferent scenes of our heroes sitting around the campfire and playing games of Truth or Dare and Marry/Fuck/Kill help to pad out the running time.)  Another problem:  Despite a decent gut ripping scene, many of the gory bits feel rushed. 

The good news is that the film is just as preoccupied with scenes of scantily clad women disrobing as it is with scenes of formerly scantily clad women being killed by the monster.  Ultimately, there’s just not quite enough of these scenes to make Don’t Fuck in the Woods recommended.  It’s almost as if the characters took the title seriously after a while.

PLANET OF THE FEMALE INVADERS (1967) ***

I’ve seen a lot of Mexican wrestling movies in my time, but Planet of the Female Invaders might be my first Mexican boxing movie.  A boxer double-crosses a gangster and refuses to take a dive.  He follows the pugilist and his hot girlfriend to an amusement park where they hop on what looks like the park’s latest attraction, a UFO ride.  Well, as it turns out, it’s a real-life flying saucer that winds up transporting the would-be parkgoers to a planet populated solely by sexy women. 

Their plan is rather diabolical too.  They want to steal the lungs of children to help them breathe in our atmosphere so they can take over the world.  Luckily, a handsome scientist and his bumbling sidekick hop in a rocket ship and try to stop the aliens’ devious plot. 

Planet of the Female Invaders is a sequel to Planetary Giants (which I haven’t seen).  It’s sort of like a Mexican riff on Hollywood’s low budget sexy spacewomen movies like Cat Women of the Moon and Queen of Outer Space.  It takes a little while to get off the ground (no pun intended), but it’s worth the wait once you realize that none other than Lorena (Santo vs. the Vampire Women) Velasquez is the one playing the sexy evil alien leader.  As a bonus, she also plays her sexy goodie two-shoes twin sister who helps the earthlings escape!  Seeing Velasquez in her regal form-fitting space queen outfits sharing the screen with herself as she wears her slinky sisterly apparel is quite a treat.  She gives not one, but two great performances that will surely leave you seeing double.  Because of that, the sluggish first act and the overlong boxing scene are easily forgiven.

Planet of the Female Invaders also contains a scene that is curiously prescient that’s worth mentioning at some length.  Once the earthlings are brought to the sexy space gal planet, they are repeatedly told by their captors to wear a mask (that looks like a modern-day face shield) while on the planet for their own safety.  Naturally, one dumbass ignores the rule and… well… you can probably guess what happens to him.  It’s as if director Alfredo B. (Santo vs. the Martian Invasion) Crevenna predicted the anti-mask sentiment of the current lockdown.  Of course, his vision of the future includes twin Lorena Velasquezes, which instantly makes the world the movie inhabits preferable to our own.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER MAN (1966) ** ½

I’m a big fan of Doris Wishman, although I readily admit I much prefer her wild, anything-goes ‘70s work to the nudies and roughies she made in the ‘60s.  Having said that, this one is pretty good.  It has all the hallmarks you’d expect from a Wishman joint, namely:  Awkward editing during the dialogue scenes (to disguise the fact she didn’t have synch sound), random ass cutaways to planters and clown paintings (again, to disguise the fact she didn’t have synch sound), and gratuitous close-ups of feet and breasts whenever things slow down (again, to disguise the fact she didn’t have synch sound). 

Ann (Barbi Kemp) just got married to Steve (Tony Gregory).  When Steve comes down with a mysterious illness, it leaves their household without an income.  Forced to support her ailing hubby, Ann turns to her former roommate’s lecherous pimp for help, who promptly puts her to work hooking.  Naturally, when Steve finally figures it all out, it leads to predictably tragic results.

A lot of the fun comes from seeing Ann’s transformation from mousy housewife to sexy lady of the night.  By that I mean, the change is almost immediate.  One minute she’s wearing demure wardrobes, and the next, she’s slinking around in a skintight bodysuit and sporting a beehive hairdo.  Her hubby is often hilariously oblivious to the change in her.

Like many of Wishman’s films, Another Day, Another Man looks great.  Wishman’s cinematography is usually on-point, and this is no exception.  The big issue is the odd plot detours that often lead to a bumpy ride.  At one point, the plot stops abruptly and goes into the pimp boyfriend’s backstory.  The stuff with the pimp courting twin sisters into a life of prostitution, and the subsequent subplot about a boyfriend breaking off his engagement because he learns his girlfriend’s a hooker eats up a lot of screen time and gets in the way of main plotline.

Another Day, Another Man is also kind of tame and a lot less seedy than Wishman’s best work.  It’s still fairly enjoyable though.  I’d say it’s about on par with Bad Girls Go to Hell, but it’s far from the dizzying heights of Let Me Die a Woman.

The most memorable part is the awesome music.  The main theme, “The Hell Raisers” by The Syd Dale Orchestra is one of the greatest pieces of music ever written.  It later became the iconic Something Weird theme, and if you’ve ever watched one of their videos, you know it will be stuck in your head for days after you hear it.  The rest of the music in the movie isn’t quite as memorable, but it’s still pretty darn good.

The dialogue is often a hoot too; my favorite line being:  “I haven’t seen you since yesterday… and that’s almost twenty-four hours!”

AKA:  Another Day, Another Way.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: I SAW THE DEVIL (2011) ****

While stranded roadside awaiting a tow truck, a pregnant woman is kidnapped and killed by a deranged serial killer (Min-sik Choi).  Her fiancé (Byung-hun Lee) just so happens to be a secret agent, and he sets out to exact revenge.  Not content to merely execute his girlfriend’s killer and be done with it, our hero instead allows him to escape, only to find him and punish him again and again.  Unfortunately, the crafty killer eludes his grasp, and he sets out to make his tormentor pay by making his family his next victims.

From Jee-woon (The Last Stand) Kim, I Saw the Devil is one of the most brutal, unflinching, harrowing, and disturbing films I have ever seen.  That’s not hyperbole.  I actually had to stop the movie a couple times because it became so intense and I was so emotionally drained.  Maybe 2020 wasn’t the year to check out such a bleak, nihilistic, and depressing flick. 

That said, the craftsmanship at work here is astounding.  It is a headlong plunge into the darkest recesses of man’s soul, and it never looks back.  it would’ve been easy to let something like this lapse into your standard torture porn scenario.  However, Kim proves to be a dynamic filmmaker.  There is a scene inside a car where the camera pans around the three passengers that is on par with anything the Masters of Horror have concocted. 

The performance by Lee is an all-timer too.  He is a complete badass during his stalking and torturing scenes.  As a fan of his work in the G.I. Joe movies, I expected that.  What caught me completely off guard was how great he is during his grieving sequences.  His final scene is downright heartbreaking, and in the last few seconds of screen time is some of the best acting I’ve seen in a long time. 

In short, I Saw the Devil deserves to be discussed in the same breath as Seven and Silence of the Lambs as one of the all-time greats of serial killer cinema.  Be warned however:  This movie will chew you up and spit you out. 

SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY (1988) ***

Superstar:  The Karen Carpenter Story is the wonderfully bizarre first film from director Todd (Safe) Haynes.  It tells the rise and fall of wholesome pop singer Karen Carpenter and her struggles to balance her career with her battle with the debilitating eating disorder anorexia.  That might not sound “wonderfully bizarre” until you realize it’s (mostly) told with Barbie dolls.  All this might seem a little quaint now, but I remember when it caused a sensation when it was first released. 

The film (which clocks in at a scant 43 minutes) was made in 1988, just before people were obsessed with Behind the Music, so seeing such a frank portrayal of fame, fortune, and mental illness was still something of a novelty.  The fact that it’s acted by Barbie dolls just adds to the overall effect.  What makes it so compelling is the acerbic wit that runs throughout the picture.  Any old YouTuber nowadays can film a movie using Barbie dolls.  It takes a gifted filmmaker to tackle the subject matter and craft it into something darkly funny and even somewhat poignant, especially when all your leads are played by toys.

At the height of her stardom, Karen is insulted by a journalist who calls her “fat”.  Soon after, she becomes anorexic.  Her bandmate brother Richard puts their career over her well-being, forcing her to tour, causing her to spiral further out of control.

Haynes’ uses many of The Carpenters’ songs (as well as a few other artists) throughout the film, and quite well, I might add.  The fact that he never got permission to use them ensured that this would never get an official release.  However, it’s that kind of bravado that helped to cement the movie’s underground status. 

Despite the fact the lead is a hunk of plastic, you strangely wind up feeling something by the end of the film.  That’s due largely to Haynes’ talent behind the camera.  Forget the fact he got all his actors from Mattel.  That montage of Karen singing and binging on Ex-Lax while the numbers on her scale continue to dwindle is as good as anything in a Scorsese movie.  I also applaud his clever set design, which is simultaneously low-tech (at one point, a Light Bright is used for stage lighting) and ingenious.

Even at 43 minutes, this is still probably a good fifteen minutes too long.  The live action snippets aren’t nearly as much fun as the stuff with the Barbies, and the man-on-the-street interviews could’ve easily been scrapped.  Despite its flaws, Superstar:  The Karen Carpenter Story is a fun glimpse into the burgeoning mind of a warped and gifted director.

ALL THIS AND WORLD WAR II (1976) **

All This and World War II is an assemblage of WWII stock footage interspersed with scenes from old WWII movies set to Beatles songs.  Well, covers of Beatles songs to be exact.  It’s not very good, but it’s just bizarre enough to hold your attention and leave you scratching your head.

I have a soft spot for this sort of nonsense.  It reminds me of something they’d play on Night Flight back in the day in the wee hours of the morning.  It was made during the pre-MTV days when filmmakers were still experimenting with ways to merge pop music with a visual narrative.  Like most experiments, it’s a failure, but there are a few definite highlights.

The covers are mostly terrible, and they almost always are an ill fit to the action on screen.  It’s kind of surreal hearing country and western legend Frankie (Blazing Saddles) Laine singing “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” while Laurel and Hardy, Jimmy Stewart, and Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy enlist.  Some marriages of sight and sound are just stupefying, like watching Pearl Harbor being bombed to the tune of Leo Sayer’s rendition of “I am the Walrus”.  The Battle of Midway, set to Elton John singing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, works slightly better, but it still feels a little tone deaf (in more ways than one).

Laine’s cover of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” is probably the best song in the bunch.  (It’s a lot better than Steve Martin’s version from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, that’s for sure.)  The majority of the covers are just plain bad though, and some of them border on thoroughly unlistenable.  Even the songs that sound like they can’t miss fail spectacularly (like Tina Turner’s “Come Together”) and the ones that must’ve looked good on paper (like The Brothers Johnson doing “Hey Jude”) are big disappointments.  (They should’ve used the Wilson Pickett version.)  

This review is coming from someone who isn’t a Beatles fan, so your mileage may vary.  As someone who enjoys weird shit, it went down smooth enough.  I’d certainly rather watch this over that Across the Universe bullshit any day. 

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: MYSTERIES OF BLACK MAGIC (1958) ***

Egle Elohim (Nadia Haro Olivia) causes a sensation when she performs a black magic stage show in a small Mexican town.  Professor Tejeda (Carlos Riquelme) is skeptical of her abilities, but once he sees her show, he becomes convinced she is the descendant of a 15^th witch.  He investigates the matter, and Egle promptly kills him using that old black magic.  It doesn’t take long for his daughter Maria (Lulu Parga) to become suspicious too, especially once Egle begins casting a love spell on her boyfriend (Aldo Monti).

Mysteries of Black Magic is a stylish and entertaining Mexican horror flick.  What it lacks in originality, it more than makes up for in atmosphere as there are plenty of fog-shrouded crypts and torchlit-dungeons that add an eerie ambiance to the proceedings.  Egle’s magic shows are also a lot more macabre (and nastier) than the typical American mad hypnotist/magician movies of the era, which helps to set it apart from many similarly themed films. 

The film moves along at a reasonably steady clip too, and the plot-heavy dialogue scenes are short and sweet for this kind of thing, which is nice.  Although it starts to run out of gas near the end, the witch’s comeuppance makes for a solid enough send-off for the horrible hag.  The climactic appearance of a zombified, leprous sorcerer adds to the fun in the final reel. 

The only real downside is that the supporting performances are a bit stiff and/or reserved.  That’s okay though because Olivia makes a memorable impression as the scheming, brooding witch.  She more than compensates for her castmates’ lack of thespian prowess, especially when she’s conjuring demonic forces, performing black magic rituals, or barking orders at her assistant, who has ears so big they put Mr. Spock’s to shame.  Even if you didn’t enjoy the movie as much as I did, Olivia’s performance is sure to cast a spell on you.

AKA:  Return from the Beyond.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE INITIATION (1984) ** ½

Daphne (Spaceballs) Zuniga is a sorority pledge who must spend the night in her parents’ department store with her sisters as part of her initiation.  Too bad there’s an escaped lunatic lurking about who’s stabbing everybody in the throat with a three-pronged garden trowel.  Gee, do you think this ominous figure could be somehow connected to all those bad dreams Zuniga’s been having lately? 

Produced by the creators of the Buck Rogers TV show, The Initiation starts off with a scene of Clu Gulager banging Vera Miles, and let me tell you, it’s far and away the scariest part of this movie.  Sadly, this is one of those deals that is made of scrap parts of other horror films and then patchworked together in a half-assed fashion.  Among the cliched plot elements are an escaped killer, nightmare sequences, dream analysis, and long-buried family secrets.  Oh, yeah, and there’s a sorority initiation too.  There’s so much going on in the flick that it almost forgets what it’s about.

Which is a shame because once the action switches over to the shopping mall, The Initiation turns into a decent little slasher.  Heck, I even dug the last-minute twist ending.  It’s just that the first fifty minutes or so is rough going at times.

Zuniga does a fine job, all things considered.  Her character actually is allowed to have a little personality, which is a nice change of pace.  Future soap star Hunter Tyler also helps to brighten things up as Zuniga’s plucky pal.  Gulager is always a welcome presence in something like this, even if he doesn’t stick around very long.  Miles looks slightly embarrassed to be there (this came out the year after Psycho 2), but the pay must’ve been pretty good because she doesn’t phone it in. 

The gore is OK too.  The garden trowel kills are moderately bloody, but it’s nothing that would get gorehounds’ pulses racing.  To make up for that fact, we get a little T & A, although not enough to bump this up to *** territory.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: NECROMANCER (1988) **

While leaving campus one dark evening, college student Julie (Elizabeth Kaitan) is raped by her one of her fellow classmates.  Feeling powerless and looking for revenge, she turns to a local witch (Lois Matsen) for help.  She performs a satanic ritual and imbues Julie with a green-eyed succubus who roams around at night seducing and killing the men who wronged her. 

I’ve always been a big fan of Elizabeth Kaitan.  I think she really deserved a career outside of cheesy horror flicks and B movies.  With her raspy voice and crimson mane (although it’s dyed blonde here), she was always a welcome presence in even the worst cinematic offerings.  Here, she gets a decent topless scene, although it’s not nearly enough to make the often-laborious film worth sitting through.

Necromancer is one of those annoying types of movies when just when it should be over, it plods on about twenty minutes more.  All the plot threads have been wrapped up, but it conveniently finds new ways to drag on.  The superfluous nerd character (who looks like Keith Gordon in Christine, but with green streaks in his hair) feels particularly tacked on.  I’m not sure if the director lost a bet and had to give this guy a part or what, but he’s quite annoying and unnecessary. 

There is just enough stupidity to keep you watching though.  For instance, the witch’s place of business is hilarious.  It looks like an ‘80s version of a hipster pop-up boutique.  That is to say, the witch just pitched a tent in her driveway, decorated the insides with a bunch of witchcraft shit, and called it a day. 

Also, get a load of Russ Tamblyn as Kaitan’s professor (and former flame).  He really chews the scenery and makes his work in all those Al Adamson movies seem downright Shakespearean in comparison.  In fact, he even gets to perform Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy in this and boy is it ever… something.  

The monster is really lame too as it looks like a bunch of strawberry jam wearing a blond wig.  I did like the green-eyed demon effects whenever Kaitan goes to kill somebody though.  They were sort of reminiscent of Bobbi Bresee’s transformation in Mausoleum.  If only Kaitan had a pair of monster boobs like Bobbi did in that picture.  Maybe then, Necromancer would’ve been worthwhile.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: TIMECRIMES (2008) ***

Timecrimes is the first film by Nacho Vigalondo.  While no means perfect, it’s much more inventive and fun than his later films like Open Windows and Colossal.  In some ways, it almost feels like a warm-up to his contribution to V/H/S:  Viral, “Parallel Monsters” as both films feature a hero foolishly messing around with time and space. 

Hector (Karra Elejalde) moves into a new house with his wife Clara (Candela Fernandez).  While relaxing in his backyard, he thinks he sees a damsel in distress (Barbara Goenaga) in the woods.  When Hector goes to investigate, he soon finds himself hunted by a menacing figure wrapped in bandages.  Our hero is then pursued to a nearby laboratory where a lowly technician (played by Vigalondo) is working on a time machine. 

Timecrimes is simultaneously complex and deceptively simple.  There are no real surprises here, but that’s because if there were, the film’s painstaking timeline would be disrupted.  While many viewers will be able to figure out how it all plays out, it’s still a lot of fun to watch Vigalondo slyly dropping all the pieces into place. 

Nacho is also able to milk a surprising amount of suspense out of what is ostensibly a forgone conclusion, which is pretty admirable.  While it often plays like an overlong short film, Vigalondo keeps things moving along at a steady clip.  There is no fat on the movie as every scene needs to be there in order to keep the film’s tightly structured premise afloat. 

The cloaked, bandaged killer casts a striking image.  He’s definitely one of the most stylish looking killers in recent memory as he resembles a low budget ‘70s Italian version of Darkman.  Even if you can easily guess his identity, the shadowy stalker will leave a memorable impression on you long after you see it. 

AKA:  Rewind.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE STRANGE CASE OF DOCTOR RX (1942) * ½

Whenever a high-profile murder suspect gets off Scott free by the courts, the vigilante “Dr. Rx” swoops in to see that justice is served.  Super sleuth Jerry Church (Patric Knowles) is urged out of retirement to catch the killer before he strikes again. 

The Strange Case of Doctor Rx feels like Universal’s attempt to create a detective franchise in the vein of Sherlock Holmes, Perry Mason, and Charlie Chan.  The fact that Mantan Moreland plays Church’s perpetually put-upon valet particularly makes it feel like a latter-day Chan adventure, but done in Universal’s B-programmer style.  This wasn’t a bad idea, but the problem is, the character of Church is thoroughly unlikeable. 

I’ve enjoyed Knowles in other films.  He did an especially good job in The Wolf Man, which came out the year before.  It’s just that his character is an utterly detestable blowhard that it makes it hard to care whether or not he ever gets around to solving the case.  What really makes it bad is the fact that he bosses Moreland around way too much.  When Sidney Toler was giving Moreland the business as Charlie Chan, it was generally good-natured, but here, the dialogue is often downright nasty. 

Although they make it out that Lionel Atwill is going to be the fiendish Dr. Rx, it’s another case of bait-and-switch.  Atwill is usually fun to watch, but unfortunately, he isn’t given very much to do this time around.  The same can be said for Shemp Howard, who plays a bumbling detective on the case.  It’s a shame when such gifted comedians like Shemp and Mantan have to play second (and third) fiddle in such a dreary flick, especially when they are both obviously far above the material.  At least the filmmakers were smart enough to let them share a scene together, which is far and away the best thing the movie has to offer.

Another reason to hate this movie:  The big horror-related sequence winds up to be nothing more than (SPOILER) a trick by the killer to scare Knowles off the case.  Seriously, why go through all the trouble of concocting a mad scientist lab complete with a killer gorilla in a cage for just a cheap scaring tactic? 

In short, the only side effect from this Rx is sheer annoyance.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE RING 2 (1999) *

In 1998, The Ring was released simultaneously with its immediate sequel, Spiral.  Spiral was so bad the producers got together and agreed it didn’t exist.  After that, they hired the original director Hideo Nakata to helm The Ring 2, the “true” sequel. 

As someone who didn’t mind the original and thoroughly detested Spiral, I thought this was a smart move.  As it turns out, The Ring 2 is nearly just (but not quite) as bad.  Heck, it’s even worse than the American remake and its sequel! 

The kernel of the premise is similar to Spiral as everyone is looking for the heroine of The Ring who promptly disappeared after the events of the first film with her young son.  Things dovetail once our characters finally catch up with the mother and son duo and learn there is something seriously wrong with the kid.

Even though Spiral was appallingly bad in just about every way, at least the set-up had potential.  This one similarly bungles whatever promise it had early on.  While Spiral made radically stupid storytelling decisions, at least they were so dumb that it was sure to stay (for better or worse) engrained in your skull for years to come.  The additions to the mythology in The Ring 2 are much more generic and uninspired.  Most of it deals with a lot of Stephen King/X-Men crap involving psychics and telekinesis, and none of it feels like it should fit in with the mythos of the original.  Things really go in the toilet once a doctor tries an experiment on the kid to draw the ghost girl Sadako out into the real world. 

There is one genuinely effective moment when a forensics expert recreates Sadako’s face by molding clay over her skull, but the rest of it is aggressively boring.  According to The Ring’s lore, if you watch the haunted videotape, you die a horrible death seven days later.  When you watch The Ring 2, you’re sure to die of boredom seven minutes in.

Nakata later went on to direct the sequel to the American remake, The Ring Two.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE CURSE OF THE KOMODO (2004) **

It’s been a while since I watched a Jim Wynorski flick.  As a fan of his work, I’m usually up for whatever genre he finds himself dabbling in at the time.  The Curse of the Komodo was made during Jim’s SyFy Channel phase, and as early-century CGI-heavy monster mashes go, you could do a lot worse.

Scientists working on a remote Hawaiian island get hoodwinked by the government who want to turn their giant formula into a weapon.  Naturally, a Komodo dragon gets into their stash and grows to enormous size.  After eating up all the wildlife in the area, the ravaging reptile soon sets its sights on making a hot lunch out of the scientists (not to mention a gang of thieves who are hiding out on the island).

It’s always fun seeing Wynorski finding ways to utilize his usual cast of stock players.  In this case, we have Tim Abell as the reluctant hero, Gail Harris as the sexy scientist, Arthur Roberts as a cop, Jay Richardson as the head of the operation, and Paul Logan and Melissa Brasselle as the thieves.  The most memorable bit comes from Glori-Anne Gilbert who goes skinny-dipping mid-movie and manages to steal the film out from under the Komodo in the process.  (The swimming hole location will look familiar to fans of Wynorski’s Busty Cops Go Hawaiian.) 

It must be said that the Komodo effects are pretty good, at least for a SyFy Channel flick.  What I liked about the creature was that it looked fake, but in the best possible sense.  Like the aliens in Mars Attacks!, the monster has a herky-jerky gait about him which is a nice nod to the ‘50s stop-motion monster movies that the film is clearly aping.  

Too bad the budget was so low that they could only afford to show him sparingly.  Yes, most of the running time is devoted to a lot of dull dialogue scenes.  The stuff with the thieves hiding out on the island eats up a lot of screen time (as does the subplot involving the Komodo’s saliva turning people into half-assed zombies).  If only Glori-Anne Gilbert managed to hop in that swimming hole two or three more times, it might’ve been worthwhile.  (Brasselle does have a couple of scenes where she walks around in a see-through T-shirt though.)  As it is, The Curse of the Komodo is a watchable, but inessential addition to the SyFy and/or Wynorski library.

Wynorski returned the next year with Komodo vs. Cobra.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: FILTHY MCNASTY 4: CARNAL HOLOCAUST (2015) * ½

As far as Chris Seaver’s no-budget horror-comedies go, I thought Filthy McNasty was one of his more watchable efforts.  Although Parts 2 and 3 somehow passed me by, that didn’t stop me from watching this fourth installment in the series.  Speaking as someone who’s sat through many of Seaver’s films, I pretty much got what I was expecting (or deserved, depending on your point of view). 

A nerdy Sex Ed teacher named… uh… Ms. Sex Ed (Desiree Saetia) is ridiculed by her unruly students for not knowing enough about the subject she’s teaching.  She goes home, does a Satanic ritual, and summons two of Filthy McNasty’s underlings (Meredith Host and Jesse Ames) who use black magic to make her hot.  (Well… they make her take her glasses off and wear better-fitting clothing.)  Naturally, if she wants to stay that way, she has to lure her students to their death.

Most of the jokes are crude and unfunny and the characters are beyond annoying.  The Scooby-Doo-style scenes are pretty painful and the stuff with the two demons (who wear slightly less than elaborate Halloween masks) is almost just as bad.  Even the sexy actresses in the cast can’t do much with the material.  A lot of nudity would’ve gone a long way with something like this, but unfortunately, the two actresses with the biggest breasts only show them very briefly.  

The big problem is the length.  Most of Seaver’s movies clock in at around an hour or so.  This one is a whopping 81 minutes.  To say it wears out its welcome fast in an understatement.

It’s not all bad though.  The scene where the students sit around and discuss which Ernest movie is the best is good for a laugh.  I also enjoyed the Mystery Science Theater reference and seeing a character reading an issue of Psychotronic magazine.

The big gross-out moment comes when one of the demons bangs one of the busty students.  Not content to merely use his demon dong on her, he sodomizes her with a giant turd that goes into her butt and out her mouth.  I guess that gives new meaning to the term “ass to mouth”.  If that doesn’t leave a bad taste in your mouth (pardon the pun), nothing will.

AKA:  Beyond McNasty:  Filthy McNasty 4. 

CLEANING OUT THE DVR: BLOOD SAND (2015) ***

(DVR’ed from Showtime Beyond on March 23, 2018 during a Showtime Free Preview Weekend)

Teenagers awaken on the beach after a night of non-stop partying with little memory of the night before.  They soon learn the hard way that if they touch the sand, tiny tentacles lurking beneath the surface will drain them of their blood and suck them down into the ground.  While stuck high and dry in various places (lifeguard stand, immobilized car, trashcan, etc.) they must work together to overcome the subterranean menace. 

Blood Sand is a surprisingly entertaining amalgam of Blood Beach, Tremors, “The Raft” segment from Creepshow 2, and the old childhood game of The Floor is Lava.  The opening sequence of teens filming themselves partying it up on the beach had me expecting the worst as I was afraid this was going to be another Found Footage horror flick.  Thankfully, director Isaac Gabaeff quickly scraps that angle and almost immediately gets the movie down to business. 

The cast do a fine job of selling the potentially silly premise and help to make it feel grounded (no pun intended) in reality.  Brooke Butler and Megan Holder are believable as the two rivals for their man’s affections who put their beef on hold to survive the night.  Playboy Playmate Nikki Leigh also puts in a memorable turn as the perpetually topless first victim.  It’s Jamie Kennedy who steals the movie though as the asshole beach cop who cluelessly stumbles upon the scene mid-movie. 

Blood Sand is a little bit better at each turn than it has to be as Gabaeff gets a lot of mileage out of the slim plot and limited location.  That is, until the final reel, which comes as a bit of a letdown.  The full-grown monster is kind of chintzy (Ray Harryhausen did the whole tentacle monster thing better in the ‘50s with It Came from Beneath the Sea) and the CGI is fairly crappy overall.  The gore is better than average though, which helps.  What really matters is how Alex Greenfield and Ben Powell’s script consistently finds new ways to wring genuine suspense out of the characters’ predicament. 

In short, Blood Sand is a shore winner.   

AKA:  The Sand.  AKA:  Killer Beach.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA (1955) ***

Kenneth Tobey stars as the captain of an atomic submarine who has a close encounter with an unidentified object during maneuvers.  The government calls in a pair of scientists (Faith Domergue and Donald Curtis) to investigate and they come to the conclusion that it was a giant squid who was the culprit.  You see, all those H-Bomb tests out in the middle of the ocean has turned a regular old squid into an enormous monster.  Pretty soon, the massive mollusk is terrorizing the deep blue sea, and it’s up to Tobey, Domergue, and Curtis to stop it. 

It Came from Beneath the Sea is something of a comfort film for me.  It might not be the best of the movies Ray Harryhausen provided stop-motion special effects for, but I have a certain affinity for it.  Not only does it feature cool special effects, the familiar, reliable cast help to elevate it from the ranks of your typical ‘50s monster mash.  Usually, the human drama scenes are always the dullest in these things.  This time around though, the stuff with Tobey, Domergue, and Curtis is engaging and entertaining, making the love triangle scenes more than just filler.  It also helps to hold your attention as you await the monster mashing carnage.  Tobey (no stranger to giant animal movies after starring in Them!) and Domergue (who also starred in This Island Earth the same year) in particular have a lot of chemistry together and make for a fine team.

Special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen does a remarkable job considering the monster is little more than a collection of tentacles.  (In fact, there are six instead of eight, but who’s counting?)  While the monster itself may lack the personality of some of Harryhausen’s best creations, the scenes where it eats fishermen, attacks boats, flattens pedestrians, and in the film’s centerpiece, topples the Golden Gate Bridge are a lot of fun.

That’s what it ultimately comes down to:  Fun.  Are there better giant animal movies from the ‘50s you could watch?  Sure.  However, this is a solid, if unsung genre entry that will surely fit the bill for fans of the genre, cast, or Harryhausen.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: INVITATION TO HELL (1984) *** ½

Susan Lucci walks into traffic and gets ran over by a distracted limo driver.  Before he even realizes what he’s done, she pops up like Nosferatu, zaps him with electricity out of her finger, and fries him to a crisp.  That’s just the start of this absolutely nutty Made for TV horror flick directed by the legendary Wes Craven (the same year as A Nightmare on Elm Street).

Robert Urich (the same year as The Ice Pirates) stars as a computer tech whose new job finally allows him to move his family to the good part of town.  Lucci is the head of the local country club where people are just DYING to be a member.  Urich and his wife (Joanna Cassidy) eventually learn that joining a country club can be HELL.

Invitation to Hell is a very ‘80s meditation on the evils of upward mobility, keeping up with the joneses, and the permeating snobby country club mentality.  There’s also a little bit of the old Invaders from Mars influence in there too as once people go to the country club, they don’t come back quite the same.  The ending is fucking nuts too.  You won’t believe it.  It’s sort of similar in a way to the finale of Elm Street except with… hell, I won’t spoil it.  (The scenes of Urich working in his science lab are kind of reminiscent of the mad science-y stuff in Craven’s Deadly Friend too.)

While this won’t rank up there with Craven’s best, for a TV movie, it’s pretty badass.  It’s fast moving, and there’s never a wasted scene.  The silly premise could’ve been severely bungled in lesser hands, but Craven leans into the film’s weirder moments and indulges them, resulting in something much more memorable than your typical TV Movie of the Week.

Much of the credit goes to the cast, who play all of this very seriously.  Urich is fantastic.  I may be biased as I am a huge Ice Pirates fan, but he should’ve won an Emmy for keeping a straight face during the last ten minutes.  No matter how great he is, check out this supporting cast:  We have Soleil Moon Frye (the same year as Punky Brewster) and Barret Oliver (the same year as The Neverending Story) as his kids, Kevin McCarthy as his boss, Joe Regalbuto as his best friend, and bits by Craven regulars Michael Berryman and Nicholas Worth.  Add some top-notch cinematography by Dean (Halloween) Cundey and you have yourself one hell (no pun intended) of an entertaining flick. 

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: B.C. BUTCHER (2016) * ½

B.C. Butcher comes billed as the world’s first prehistoric slasher movie.  While it takes a while before it leans into the slasher elements, it does kick off with a juicy gut-munching scene.  The good news is it’s only 51 minutes long.  The bad news is it wears out its welcome almost immediately.  Hey, look on the bright side:  It’s only 51 minutes long.  I for one can’t imagine sitting through 90 minutes of this. 

Neandra (Leilani Fideler) is the leader of a tribe of sexy cavegirls who has the hots for a caveman named Rex (Kato Kaelin!!!).  She’s completely unaware that the tribeswomen are all secretly banging him on the side.  After Neandra kills a cavegirl for messing around with her man, a disfigured caveman takes revenge by killing off the women in the tribe one by one. 

B.C. Butcher was released by Troma, and while it’s pretty weak in just about every way, it’s definitely the kind of thing that’s in their wheelhouse.  It looks better than many of their films, but it’s just as insufferable as many of their failed horror-comedies.  The ladies in the cast do what they can, although I can’t help but imagine that this would’ve been a hundred times more tolerable if the cavegirls showed some skin.  We do get a cavegirl catfight set to faux-Benny Hill music though. 

If they couldn’t deliver on the skin, they could’ve at least doubled down on the gore and/or comedy.  With the exception of the opening gore scene, most of the kills are bloodless or (even worse) occur offscreen.  There’s only one real laugh in the whole thing too.  (When a tribe member announces she has to use the “little cavegirl’s room”.)  Heck, even some unintentional laughs would’ve been appreciated.

B.C. Butcher was directed by 17-year-old Kansas Bowling.  I can’t say the results are close to good, but I can say I was impressed by the fact she was able to assemble a cast that included Kato Kaelin (who flubs most of his lines), Kadeem Hardison (who narrates), and Rodney Bingenheimer (who introduces a caveman band who play instruments made of watermelons).  She was also somehow able to get the rights to play “Alley Oop” over the credits, so respect.  Because of that, I can’t completely dismiss it.

Bowling later went on to play one of the Manson girls in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. 

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE RETURN OF CHANDU (1934) ** ½

Bela Lugosi stars as a mesmerist named Chandu who is trying to save a princess (Maria Alba) from being kidnapped by an Egyptian cult who intend on sacrificing her.  Since it was re-edited from a serial, that means Chandu saves her about every twenty minutes or so before she is promptly recaptured by the bad guys.

Sure, The Return of Chandu is a bit repetitive in nature, but it gives you a nice opportunity to see Bela Lugosi doing everything you’d want to see Bela Lugosi do.  He sports a ring that turns him invisible.  (It’s kind of like his belt in The Phantom Creeps).  He hypnotizes people just like he did in Dracula.  (He even has a little spotlight over his eyes.)  The villains also use poisoned flowers to immobilize any woman who sniffs them, just like in The Corpse Vanishes.  Not only that, but you get to see Bela Lugosi playing a rare hero role, which is always nice.

The Return of Chandu was also riding high on the tails of The Mummy (and America’s fascination with Egypt, which was popular during the time).  There are even subplots about stolen mummies and reincarnation (which was also all the rage at the time).  The fact that many of the elements are familiar to Lugosi fans kind of makes this like a comfort movie as it often plays like a greatest hits collection of his other movies.

This feature was edited from the first four chapters of the serial, The Return of Chandu.   Because it wasn’t taken from an entire twelve-chapter serial, it flows together much more naturally than a lot of these things typically do.  The brisk sixty-minute running time also helps to keep the storyline moving, even if admittedly, there ain’t a whole lot of story to go around.

It was an early serial, so the last-minute escapes aren’t as daring or elaborate as some of the stuff you’d see in the ‘40s and ‘50s.  In one cliffhanger, Bela simply moves out of the way of a flying poisoned dart.  While it’s certainly creaky in places and more than a tad repetitive, The Return of Chandu should fit the bill for most indiscriminate Bela fans.

AKA:  The Return of Chandu the Magician.  AKA:  Chandu’s Return.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: EDGE OF THE AXE (1989) ** ½

Edge of the Axe is Spanish horror maestro Jose Ramon (Vampyres) Larraz’s take on an American slasher movie.  As is usually the case when foreigners try to make their film look as American as possible, Larraz falls just short of the mark.  It looks okay on a surface level, but there is something that feels off about the whole thing, which kind of adds to the fun.

A small town is beset by an axe murderer who goes around hacking up young women.  The suspects include a two-timing hot-tempered fumigator (Page Mosely), the town’s asshole sheriff (Fred Holliday), and the creepy church organist (Spanish horror legend Jack Taylor).  Naturally, it’s up to the computer geek drifter hero (Barton Faulks) to put the pieces together and solve the murders. 

The fact the film features a computer geek for a hero is notable.  In 1989, computers in slashers were still something of a novelty.  These scenes look so dated now that they give the movie an added cheese factor that most of its contemporaries lack.  I particularly loved the silly scenes where Faulks keeps in touch with his girlfriend through a crude form of instant messenger.  Every time they send a message to one another, it’s read aloud by a funny echo-y voice that I guess is supposed to be the computer “talking”.  I wonder if this is where AOL got the inspiration for the “You’ve Got Mail” dude.

Larraz does a fine job on the stalking scenes.  The opening sequence in a car wash is the most memorable.  Unfortunately, the axe-wielding maniac, who sports a cool white mask and black poncho, hates animals just as much as the humans.  There’s a grisly moment when the killer decapitates a pig and puts its head in someone’s bed.  (Godfather, eat your heart out!)  That scene delivers on shock value, but the part with the dead dog kind of crosses the line.

Overall, this is a solid, if unspectacular slasher.  Those looking to get a quick dose of stalking and slashing (or… in this case… chopping), will probably get their money’s worth.  Fans of Larraz will enjoy seeing his decidedly European style transposed into the very American milieu.  It probably needed one or two more showstopping sequences (I dug the severed head gag) to really put it over the top, but Edge of the Axe is just sharp enough for me to give it a marginal recommendation.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: AUTOPSY OF A GHOST (1968) * ½

When Basil Rathbone, John Carradine, and Cameron Mitchell go south of the border to make a Mexican horror comedy, you know you’re in for… well… something.  Things kick off with a truly impressive puppet show opening credits sequence.  Sadly, it’s all downhill from there.

Rathbone stars as a ghost named Canuto who has spent the last four hundred years living in a basement talking to his own wisecracking skeleton.  The devil (Carradine) appears and makes Canuto a bargain:  If he can make a woman fall in love with him to the point of sacrificing herself for love, he’ll let Canuto go to Heaven.  Things get complicated when an absentminded inventor (Mitchell) and his family move into the mansion.

Autopsy of a Ghost would’ve been okay if most of the movie revolved around Basil trying to break his curse.  Unfortunately, the bulk of the running time is devoted to the B plot of a wimpy bank teller who embezzled a bunch of money.  A lot of people are out to get the loot for themselves, which leads to a bunch of annoying bullshit that gets in the way of ghostly shenanigans. 

When the film focuses on the three gringo stars, it’s only slightly better.  The scenes of Basil (in his final role) acting alongside his talking skeleton aren’t bad.  (In fact, the effects are well done.)  There’s just not a lot for him to do the rest of the time.  Carradine (who filmed this in Mexico around the same time as much better The Vampires) hams it up as the Devil, but the material he’s given to work with is woefully unfunny.  It especially pains me to say I don’t like a movie in which Cameron Mitchell plays an inventor who creates a robot nanny, but here we are.

Honestly, what can you say about a movie when a puppet show is far and away the best part?

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: DEAD SNOW: RED VS DEAD (2014) **

This sequel to Dead Snow picks up immediately where the first one left off with our hero Martin (Vegar Hoel) fleeing the horde of Nazi Zombies from his winter cabin.  He gets picked up by the police, who think he’s the one responsible for massacring his friends, as they don’t cotton to his story that Nazi Zombies were the ones responsible.  Meanwhile, the Nazi Zombies begin gathering their forces and set out to finish the war they started decades ago.

Like its predecessor, Dead Snow:  Red vs Dead is all over the place.  Much of the intentional humor falls flat or is just plain unfunny.  However, when the film concentrates on zombie carnage, it’s pretty entertaining as there’s plenty of crushed heads, strewn guts, and mashed brains to go around.

Some of the additions to the zombie lore are equally hit and miss.  The idea that zombies can recruit new cadavers to their cause by simply touching their forehead is kind of odd.  Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned bite on the neck?  I did like the subplot where our hero receives an arm transplant from a zombie donor, which grants him zombified powers.  Imagine Evil Dead 2 if Ash and his possessed hand had a détente and that should give you an idea of what to expect. 

There’s some fun to be had here.  The best bits come mostly in the form of little throwaway moments (like the zombie doctor performing emergency surgery on soldiers during the final battle).  For the most part though, Dead Snow:  Red vs Dead is a bit overstuffed and overcrowded.  Take for instance the addition of Martin Starr as the leader of a trio of American zombie hunters.  He’s not bad or anything, it’s just that he and his Star Wars-obsessed cohorts feel like they came out of an entirely different movie.  Either that, or they were just shipped over to cater to the American market.  If writer/director Tommy Wirkola had whittled this thing down a bit (it clocks in at a whopping 100 minutes), it might’ve worked.  As it is, the unwieldy running time and abundance of unfunny gags prevent Red vs Dead from coming to life.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: MASSAGE PARLOR MURDERS! (1973) **

A nut is stalking the massage parlors of New York City and killing hookers in gruesome ways.  It’s up to detectives O’Mara (John Moser) and Rizotti (George Spencer) to solve the case and bring the killer to justice.  That is, if they can ever stop making time with hookers and seducing potential witnesses.

Massage Parlor Murders! is at its best during the (surprise, surprise) massage parlor vignettes.  The opening sequence in which a painfully shy customer nervously interacts with his masseuse is funny.  The scenes where the killer murders the working girls are pretty good too.  While they aren’t overly gory, they almost seem like a dime store version of an Italian giallo or something. 

The film really hits a wall during the detective scenes.  They just go on forever and bring the movie to a halt.  Even the oddball comedic touches that don’t exactly land (like the ballet scene) are still amusing next to the monotonous stuff with the detectives.  Other sequences are really drawn out (like the swinger pool party) or are completely botched (like the ending) which often makes the seventy-nine-minute running time feel much longer. 

Moser and Spencer are boring and forgettable in the leads, but the supporting cast offers some bright spots.  The Last House on the Left’s Sandra Peabody has a winning presence as a murder victim’s roommate who is romanced by Moser.  Basic Instinct’s George Dzundza (who also acted as the film’s assistant director) has a memorable turn as a murder suspect nicknamed “Mr. Creepy”.  We also have a cameo by the typically weird Brother (The ‘Burbs) Theodore as an occult expert who is consulted during the investigation.  Although their efforts aren’t enough to save the movie, they help make some of the dull detective scenes bearable.

Whenever the girls are using their hands and bodies to pleasure the customers, Massage Parlor Murders! works, but like most massage parlors, it’s all tease and no please (or so I’ve heard).

AKA:  Massage Parlor Hookers.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: VEROTIKA (2019) **

I’ve been a huge Misfits fan for what seems like forever, so I was excited to learn front man Glenn Danzig was making an anthology horror movie based on his own comic book line.  His music has always been infused with his love for old horror films, so I was anxious to see how he would fare as a horror director.  As far as musicians-turned-directors, he has a long way to go before he can touch Rob Zombie, but I can honestly say, there is enough inspired lunacy here to make me interested to see what he does next.

Porn star Kayden Kross stars as our host, Morella, who in the opening scene, gouges a woman’s eyes out.  She then introduces herself to the camera and we go right into the first story.

“The Albino Spider of Dajette” (***) is about a pink-haired girl named Dajette (porn star Ashley Wisdom) who is distraught when her boyfriend leaves her.  In most movies, the boyfriend leaves because he wants to see other people.  In Danzig’s world, the boyfriend leaves because his girlfriend has eyeballs where her nipples should be.  That’s not even the weird part.  When her boobs start crying, the tears land on an albino spider, and it morphs into a six-armed man-spider who goes out and kills every time Dajette falls asleep. 

I tell you, when it comes to becoming a spider-man, getting bit by a radioactive spider is soooooo gauche next to being bathed in titty tears.

Most directors would take an idea like a woman with eyes for nipples and base an entire story around it.  For Danzig, it’s just the jumping off point.  You have to admire something so hilariously insane, even if the craftsmanship is a bit shoddy.

Then again, any time I want to criticize this segment for its stilted performances, awkward camerawork (I can’t tell if Danzig is trying to channel Jess Franco’s haphazard camera zooms on purpose), or slipshod editing, I remember it’s about a woman with eyes for nipples whose teat tears turn a spider into a half-human spider-man, and I think… gee… I haven’t seen THAT before, so ***.

The next story is the Eyes Without a Face-inspired “Change of Face” (**).  A masked stripper known as “The Mystery Girl” (Rachel Alig from Bikini Spring Break) goes around hacking off the faces of women and puts them on her dressing room wall.  It’s then up to a determined detective (The Karate Kid 3’s Sean Kanan) to end her reign of terror.

This segment isn’t nearly as wild as the previous tale, which puts it at a disadvantage.  It isn’t necessarily bad, per se, but it’s certainly a comedown.  Alig is pretty good though as the faceless stripper who wears skull-shaped pasties.  She’s definitely a much more credible lead than Wisdom was, that’s for sure.  I also had fun with Kanan’s performance as the comically gruff detective.  That doesn’t quite compensate for the fact that the story is slight, and the non-ending is rather frustrating.

The final tale, “Drukija:  Contessa of Blood” (**), is a reworking of the old Elizabeth Bathory legend as a vampire woman (Alice Haig) bathes in the blood of virgins to remain eternally young. 

This is one story that would’ve benefited from some tighter editing.  I mean there’s a scene where Drukija stares at herself in the mirror that just goes on forever.  That said, the scenes where Drukija slashes open virgin throats and bathes in their jugular spray are something else.  Too bad that this one, like “Change of Face” is completely devoid of an ending.

So, in short, this is an extremely hit or miss affair.  It’s particularly rough going after the first story.  However, if you ever wanted to see an albino man-spider trying to negotiate the price of Greek from a French prostitute, then Verotika is for you.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: OPEN WINDOWS (2014) * ½

Elijah Wood stars as a fan who gets cheated out of a chance to meet his favorite movie star, Sasha Grey.  While livestreaming her Comic Con panel, a hacker sneaks onto his laptop and offers him an opportunity to hack into her phone so he can spy on her.  He stupidly agrees, and winds up getting himself into one precarious situation after the other. 

Nacho (Colossal) Vigalondo’s Open Windows plays like a modern-day riff on not one but two Hitchcock classics.  Like Rope, it’s seemingly done in one take and the peeping tom stuff plays a lot like Rear Window (except our hero uses a lot of newfangled computer technology instead of a simple old pair of binoculars).  The movie it’s most like though is that terrible flick Unfriended as it all takes place on a computer screen.

It’s not a bad idea.  There’s enough here to fill out a short film, or if done well, a seventy-five-minute movie.  At a hundred minutes though, it runs out of steam way before it crosses the finish line.

The film especially gets tiresome once Wood leaves the confines of his hotel room.  At least those early scenes had a sense of claustrophobia about them.  Things really start to unravel once more and more people start popping onto Woods’ screen, offering him guidance, or possibly trying to trick him.  The constant zooming in and out from window to window quickly gets annoying too. 

Once it becomes a chase movie, the movie really starts to become implausible. The protracted finale also helps to further test the audience’s patience.  The string of plot twists that punctuate the third act would be laughable if it all weren’t so damned ludicrous.

Much of the suspense comes from Wood being so gullible and allowing a stranger complete access to his computer.  I guess that’s the film’s biggest lesson:  Sometimes, when you’re on the internet, and all you want to do is see Sasha Grey naked, you wind up getting hacked and end up with a bunch of unwanted spyware on your computer.  Hey, we’ve all been there before. 

AKA:  Black Hacker.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: RUNAWAY NIGHTMARE (1982) ½ *

Two shiftless lay about worm farmers pine for a little excitement.  They get more than they bargained for when they unearth a woman buried in a shallow grave.  Her friends, an all-woman cult of gunrunners, thieves, and killers (and possibly, one vampire) come looking for her and hold the pair of worm-wranglers hostage.  Eventually, the gals initiate our heroes into their gang, but only because they need someone to act as decoys while they steal a shipment of platinum (or is it plutonium?) from the Mob.

Runaway Nightmare is a real head-scratcher.  It’s a low budget, no-name, no-talent Bataan Death March of a movie that plods endlessly on without any rhyme, reason, or rhythm.  It takes a collection of interesting ideas and promptly does nothing with them.  At first, it seems like it’s going to be a Russ Meyer movie by way of Jeff Lieberman, but even the promising scenes of the all-girl cult members romping around fall flat. 

It’s also annoyingly amateurish.  I mean, I’m a fan of bad movies, but even I have my standards.  It’s full of poor line readings, incoherent editing, and gratuitous ADR.  It’s also the only flick I’ve ever seen in which multiple characters repeatedly overstate plot points and somehow it manages to make it that much more confusing.  It shouldn’t be confusing because nothing ever really happens, but there you go.  

The craftsmanship is so poor it isn’t even good for a cheap laugh.  Take for instance the scene in which two cult members have a duel.  One of the girls fires her gun, there’s a puff of smoke, and then one of the other characters has to relate to the audience that the gun was tampered with and she blew up.  Man, it’s bad.  That’s not even including the long, pointless dinner table scene that goes on forever.  Or the ending that plays like a Ted V. Mikels version of Kiss Me Deadly.

If the film had been jam-packed with nudity, it might’ve softened the blow.  However, whenever it looks like the girls are going to strip down and have a little fun, we only see them nude from the back or the side, which doesn’t help anyone.  Teasing the audience with nudity and then not delivering in an already piss-poor movie just makes it that much worse. 

The lesbian three-way shower scene has to go down in history as one of the most botched sex scenes of all time.  It’s one thing if their relations are obscured behind an opaque shower curtain so the audience doesn’t even get a hint of skin.  It’s another thing for the girls to exit the shower COMPLETELY DRY.  What in the actual fuck? 

In short, Runaway Nightmare is a runaway disaster.