TUBI CONTINUED… CHICKBOXER (1992) * ½

You know you’re in trouble from the opening credits sequence which is nothing more than a five-minute scene of a woman (presumably star Julie Anne Suscinski) lacing up her shoes and tying them.  That’s right, we can’t just watch her tie her shoes, we have to watch her lace them up too!  I know low budget filmmakers have to find creative ways to pad their films out (this one is only an hour long), but this is fucking ridiculous.  (The film is further padded out with gratuitous scenes of Suscinski narrating the action from her living room as she relates her life story to the audience.)  

Kathy (Suscinski) is a nerdy girl who wants to be like the star of her favorite TV show, Chickboxer.  Against everyone’s better judgment, she signs up for a karate class.  Meanwhile, bad guys have been blackmailing the mayor in order to set up a criminal empire and take over the city.  When Kathy learns her karate teacher is in cahoots with the villains, she reaches out to the star of Chickboxer (Michelle Bauer, the only real star in the movie) for help.  When she blows Kathy off, she takes it upon herself to bring the bad guys down herself.  

Chickboxer kind of reminded me of a mash-up of Robot Ninja and Fright Night, minus the gore of the former and the fun of the latter.  The general idea is fine, but the execution is sorely lacking.  The big problem is that it feels like it’s missing an entire act.  There needed to be more scenes of Kathy honing her kickboxing skills in order to defeat the bad guys believably.  As it is, she just decides in the last ten minutes to take them out.  Up till then, there hadn’t been much action, and the action we do get in the finale is painfully lackluster, even for a shot-on-video production.  

Bauer is the lone bright spot.  Too bad she isn’t in it enough to make much of an impression as it’s more of an extended cameo than anything.  She does get a good sex scene at the end, but it’s too little too late to save the movie.  If she was front and center the whole time kicking ass (as the misleading thumbnail suggests), we might’ve had a winner.  (I did like the scene where Suscinski trains by watching Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout, though.)

Well, 28 days in February and 28 movies watched on Tubi.  I began the year with 365 movies in my Tubi watchlist.  At the start of this month, I had 441 movies in my Tubi watchlist.  At the end of the month, I had 435.  Some progress is being made.  Will I be able to clear out my watchlist before December 31st?  Keep reading!

TUBI CONTINUED… CHEAP THRILLS: THOSE DRIVE-IN HORROR FLICKS (2022) ***

I’m a sucker for a good horror compilation.  While I personally prefer horror trailer collections as opposed to clip packages, they still can hit the spot when I’m in a pinch.  Cheap Thrills:  Those Drive-In Horror Flicks is one of the good ones.  

SEE:  Rock monsters attack astronauts in Missile to the Moon, zombies menace Duane Jones in Night of the Living Dead, Vincent Price squares off against vampires in The Last Man on Earth, a pregnant man pleads for the life of a parrot monster in Night of the Blood Beast, Frankenstein’s Daughter proves she’s a chip off the old block, a spider man stalks chorus girls in Horrors of Spider Island, The Wasp Woman shows us what the buzz is all about, The Brain That Wouldn’t Die won’t shut up, George Zucco commands The Mummy’s Hand, Creature from the Haunted Sea gets more laughs than screams, we take a visit to the home of The Beast from Haunted Cave, witness The Attack of the Giant Leeches, see a fisherman become a hot lunch for The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues, The Killer Shrews attack James Best, Vincent Price invites us to The House on Haunted Hill, The Screaming Skull loses its head, The Snake Woman shows off her charms, the Ymir rampages in 20 Million Miles to Earth, Killers from Space talk poor Peter Graves to death, Soledad Miranda investigates the Sound of Horror, Jonathan Haze feeds Audrey Jr. in The Little Shop of Horrors, and MORE!  MUCH MORE!

Overall, Cheap Thrills:  Those Drive-In Horror Flicks offers up a good mix of (mostly) public domain titles, along with a healthy dose of ‘50s cheese, and even a few Universal titles.  There really aren’t as many horror compilations like this on Tubi as you might think, which is kind of a shame.  I hope they add more of these things in the near future.

TUBI CONTINUED… MOURNING WIFE (2001) ***

Mamoru (Yoshikata Matsuki) owns a printing press business with his wife Tomiko (Mayuko Sasaki).  When an accident kills his mother and leaves him paralyzed, it threatens to close the shop down.  Desperate to keep the business up and running, Tomiko hires a drifter named Ryuzo (Keisaku Kimura) to help run the printing press.  It doesn’t take long for the two to start knocking the boots.  Their happiness is eventually threatened when Mamoru finds out the two have been making time behind his back.  Naturally, Ryuzo has been harboring a dark secret, but his secrets pale in comparison next to the ones Tomiko’s been hiding.

From the early scene where Sasaki spills her mother in-law’s ashes and masturbates with her remains, you know Mourning Wife is going to be a little different than the rest.  Allegedly a remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice, director Daisuke Goto resists the temptation to take the material down the usual pathways.  (I mean, was there a masturbating with skull fragments scene in the old John Garfield movie?)  While it still plays by the rules of classic film noir, the film has fun poking at the confines of the genre.  It explores unique angles within the love triangle dynamic and introduces new wrinkles into their relationships that your average noir thriller just would not explore (like Sasaki’s previous affair with a lesbian doctor).  

Mourning Wife is just a little different at every corner to keep you on your toes.  The only place it really disappoints is the ending.  (Although, quite honestly, the movie would’ve been hard pressed to top the masturbating with your mother in-law’s remains scene.)  While it still follows in the grand noir tradition where everyone gets what’s coming to them, it’s ultimately far too abrupt and unsatisfying to really pack its intended wallop.  Other than that oversight, it remains a solid, sexy, and unusual thriller.  

AKA:  An Affair with a Woman in Mourning.  

TUBI CONTINUED… UNCLE’S PARADISE (2006) ** ½

Takeshi (Shiro Shimomoto) is a weird old guy who gets kicked out of the house and goes to stay with his nephew Harou (Mutsuo Yoshioka).  Uncle Takeshi is suffering from a strange form of narcolepsy, which gives him terrible, erotic nightmares.  Whenever he rises from an unexpected slumber, he wakes up with a raging boner and a case of the hornies.  Trouble brews when he begins seeing the woman of his dreams/nightmares while he’s awake.  That doesn’t sound like a bad thing until you realize she’s a zombie.  

Uncle’s Paradise is an odd Japanese “Pink” movie.  The first half almost feels like a Japanese version of a quirky American indie flick, with occasional sex scenes sprinkled about.  The characters all have bizarre character quirks and at the same time are kind of endearing and likeable.  

Things get really weird though in the second half.  The shift in tone is a little jarring to say the least.  Still, there’s plenty of wild shit here.  I’m not saying it works or anything, but any Japanese sex flick that includes attacks from giant squids, big-ass spiders, and venomous snakes (it bites a guy right in the dick after he accidentally cums on it) is going to at the very least skate by with a ** ½ rating.  That’s not even taking into consideration the zombie girlfriend or the crazy finale, which takes place in what can only be described as a brothel for the damned.  

Sure, Uncle’s Paradise hits as much as it misses.  Another debit is the fact that the sex scenes are rather brief.  The ending is certainly unique enough to make up for some of its missteps along the way.  Despite its uneven nature, any movie in which a guy cums on a snake is going to pass with a marginal recommendation in my book. 

AKA:  Mighty Extreme Woman.

COCAINE BEAR (2023) ** ½

Syd (Ray Liotta in his final role) is a drug dealer who loses a shit ton of cocaine in the middle of the wilderness.  A bear eats a mess of it and pretty soon, it starts mauling people left and right.  When her daughter is abducted by the bear, a concerned mother (Keri Russell) must do whatever it takes to get her back.

A movie about a bear high on cocaine seems like a can’t miss proposition.  Somehow, director Elizabeth Banks manages to miss just as much as she connects.  I will say that when Cocaine Bear hits the sweet spot, it’s a damned good time.  However, every time the film manages to hit a… er… high, it’s usually short-lived.  

The problem is the inconsistent tone, which often changes from scene to scene.  Reactions to the Cocaine Bear alternate from, “Ha, ha, that bear is high on cocaine” to “Aww, look how cute that bear is on cocaine” to “RUN!  THAT FUCKING BEAR IS HIGH ON COCAINE!”  Had the movie been comprised of mainly the latter reaction, it could’ve been a party.  

Banks never decides how to approach the film.  Parts feel like a foulmouthed version of a ‘90s Amblin movie.  Other parts feel like a Coen Brothers crime comedy.  The best parts feel like a SYFY Channel (or maybe even a Tubi) Original.  That is to say, the bear attack scenes.

Even then, the bear attack scenes are uneven.  There’s nothing here that manages to reach the heights of Grizzly.  Heck, there’s nothing here that manages to reach the heights of Grizzly 2!

Banks does give us one terrific sequence that almost (but not quite) makes up for the lapses elsewhere in the film.  It comes when the bear takes off in pursuit of a speeding ambulance.  There are some gruesome moments and fun action beats to be had here.  It’s just a shame Banks couldn’t pepper the rest of the film with the same kind of kinetic kick.  

The cast is also a mixed bag.  Alden Ehrenreich is great as the drug dealer with a conscience.  He’s had the misfortune of starring in a couple of box office misfires, so maybe this flick will help put him back on the map.  O’Shea Jackson Jr. is pretty good too as his partner in crime and Margo Martindale is fun as a trigger-happy park ranger.  Although it was nice seeing Liotta one last time, he isn’t given a whole lot to do.  Russell in particular is left out to dry essaying the generic mom role.  

Overall, Cocaine Bear is fun in fits and starts.  Most of the time, it feels like Banks is holding back as the gore isn’t quite as nasty as it could’ve been, given the premise.  Hopefully, somewhere down the road we’ll get a release that’s totally, ahem, uncut.

FRANCO FEBRUARY/TUBI CONTINUED… CROSSOVER: DOWNTOWN HEAT (1994) * ½

Maria (Josephine Chaplin) is a cop looking for the man who murdered her husband.  Tony (Steve Parkman) is a jazz musician searching for his girlfriend’s killer.  They learn the same man, a Mob boss named Don Miguel (Craig Hill) is responsible.  Maria and Tony team up with a tough American cop (Mike Connors from Mannix) to bring the Don down.  They even stoop to the gangster’s level by kidnapping his daughter and forcing him to play hardball.  

Downtown Heat finds Jess Franco working a bit out of his comfort zone.  He’s not the world’s greatest action director, so he’s not really the best man to helm a generic cop thriller.  In other hands, it might’ve worked, but then again, the action, plot, and drama are so dull that it makes it hard to care either way.  Maybe if Jess tossed in some of his patented sleaziness, we might’ve had a winner.  Still, it’s hard to say if anything could’ve saved this slow-moving bore.

The movie does momentarily come to life in the third act when the cops realize the only way they can catch the bad guy is to stop playing by the rules.  This blurring of morality is interesting, but it occurs too late in the game for the message to have its intended impact.  While this part of the film is mildly entertaining, it’s not nearly enough to salvage the dreary first two acts.  

Connors is top billed, but he doesn’t even show up until about the halfway mark.  Even if he is a little long in the tooth for a role like this, he at least seems to be having fun.  Lina Romay injects the movie with a little spark as a punk rock gang leader who turns her back on her fellow druggies to help the cops.  Naturally, it doesn’t end well for her.  It’s a shame Romay wasn’t in it more because when she’s on screen, Downtown Heat does have a little bit of sizzle.  

As for touches only Franco could bring to a motion picture, he gives us yet again his trademark lazy camera zooms.  This is also another Franco movie (like Death Whistles the Blues) where one of the characters is a jazz musician, and there’s a jazz performance to pad out the running time.  And like Commando Mengele:  “Angel of Death” and Esmerelda Bay, everything ends with a big helicopter explosion.  As for Franco repeat offenders in front of the camera, we have Romay, Hill, and Robert Foster all popping up yet again. 

FRANCO FEBRUARY: THE HOUSE OF LOST WOMEN (1983) *** ½

A family lives alone on an island like a horny version of the Swiss Family Robinson.  Father (Robert Foster) is a former actor hiding from the spotlight.  Since they are all alone on the island, there is nothing for them to do except masturbate and fuck.  Mother (Carmen Carrion) is a pent-up dominatrix who whips her daughters, Desdemona (Lina Romay) and the mentally challenged Paulova (Susanna Kerr) whenever they get out of line.  The dynamic on the island soon changes when a poacher (Tony Skios) shows up and lights a fire in the ladies’ panties.  

The first fifteen minutes of Jess Franco’s The House of Lost Women is fantastic.  First, Lina walks around the beach naked.  Then, she comes home and starts playing with herself.  Next, she lights a cigarette and smokes it with her pussy.  Finally, she fucks a bowling trophy.  

No wonder Jess Franco took one look at her and thought, “Marriage material.”   

Other everyday household objects that are used as masturbatory materials:  Decapitated doll heads and sliced oranges.  I guess if you’ve been alone on an island for twenty years, you’re bound to try just about anything once.  

Now, the first fifteen minutes may be some of the greatest shit Jess ever committed to celluloid, but the rest is a little on the uneven side.  While there is no doubt some good shit here (like the scene where Carrion goes to town on Kerr with a bullwhip), it still lacks the charm and thrill of the first reel or so.  The film also loses a little spark once Skios enters the fray.  That said, there is plenty here to enjoy.  I mean Lina Romay smokes a cigarette with her pussy.  What more can one ask for?

Of the Franco signatures, there are of course, many lazy camera zooms and pans, several of which occur during a gorgeous sunset.  His penchant for shooting Romay in the nude (half his filmography is devoted to it) crops up again as well as his use of a traditional family dynamic being shown as a hotbed for perversion and sadism (see also Sinfonia Erotica and countless others).  As for his stock players, Romay and Foster are frequent Franco flyers, Carrion was in The Sexual Story of O, Kerr also appeared in Black Boots Leather Whip, and Skios was in Franco’s Sex is Crazy.

AKA:  Perversion on the Lost Island.

FRANCO FEBRUARY/TUBI CONTINUED… CROSSOVER: ESMERALDA BAY (1990) *

Traditional action has never been Jess Franco’s strong suit.  Esmeralda Bay more or less sinks because the action is so lousy.  The opening action sequence is so dark that it’s hard to tell what’s going on, the slow motion is often laughable, and there’s a car crash and explosion that has got to go down as the worst in screen history.  What’s worse is that the finale is a non-stop barrage of stock footage taken from various decades, wars, and sources, rendering the last battle scene virtually incomprehensible.  It’s enough to make Ed Wood’s use of stock footage look downright competent.  

There’s a lot of stuff going on in this movie, but never ever happens.  Fernando Rey is the President of a small country who is under the thumb of his war-happy Colonel, played by Robert Forster (seven years before revitalizing his career in Jackie Brown).  Ramon Sheen (from Franco’s Night of the Eagles) is a revolutionary who buys weapons from an arms dealer (George Kennedy).  There are setbacks, betrayals, and double-crosses, but most of it is too dreary to even care.  

Forster’s performance is kinda fun.  There’s a scene where he gets a new gun and goes running all over the house pretending to shoot it like a kid with a BB gun.  This was made during the time he was still stuck playing ethnic villain roles (see also The Delta Force, which also coincidentally featured Kennedy).  He shouldn’t be confused with Franco mainstay, Robert Foster, who also appears as a priest.  

Speaking of other members of Franco’s Stock Company, Craig Hill and Daniel Grimm were also in Night of the Eagles.  Rey was also in Commando Mengele:  “Angel of Death”, and it looks like they once again shot all his scenes at his home.  Oh, and Franco’s muse, Lina Romay has a small role as a madam too.  

The only worthwhile part in this boring mess is the final scene when Kennedy goes mano y mano with a helicopter.  I won’t tell you if he wins or loses, but I will say that when the scene was all over, I laughed for about three straight minutes.  That amazing minute of insanity is not enough to make anyone sit through the other ninety-four minutes of Esmeralda Bay.  However, the scene taken on its own accord, is a ripe slice of WTF cinema. 

AKA:  Countdown to Esmeralda Bay.  

FRANCO FEBRUARY/TUBI CONTINUED… CROSSOVER: NIGHT OF THE EAGLES (1989) *

The same year Harrison Ford fought Nazis in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, his Star Wars co-star, Mark Hamill starred as a Nazi in this dull WWII drama directed by Jess Franco.  Yes, you read that right.  Mark Hamill starred as a Nazi in a Jess Franco movie six years after Return of the Jedi.  Read it again.  Mark Hamill stars as a Nazi in a Jess Franco movie.  You might as well read it again, because the fact that Mark Hamill starred as a Nazi in a Jess Franco movie is about the only memorable thing this boring ass turd has going for it.  

I guess if Hamill starred in a Jess Franco movie that was more… Jess Franco-y, it might have worked.  I mean, Jess has made countless Nazi flicks, so what could go wrong by bringing Luke Skywalker into the mix?  Unfortunately, Jess was going for a prestige picture with Night of the Eagles.  Instead of Nazi sex, Nazi experiments, and Nazi sex experiments, we get a boring love triangle between Mark Hamill and Ramon Sheen.  

That’s right.  Ramon Sheen.  They couldn’t even get Charlie Sheen, let alone Emilio Estevez for this thing.  Heck, even Joe Estevez wouldn’t have been caught dead in this.  

They might not have been able to get Joe Estevez for this thing, but lo and behold, Luke Skywalker was ready and willing.  This has got to be his all-time worst.  Man, if you thought Time Runner was bad, wait till you see this one.  

Hamill kind of phones it in, and I guess I can’t blame him.  He sort of hides inside his Nazi uniform, thick glasses, and oversized hat.  He’s probably hoping Indiana Jones doesn’t punch his lights out.  His awful deathbed marriage scene has to be his career low point.  

I think the biggest problem (aside from… well… EVERYTHING) is that Franco completely misread the audience.  Does he really think we’d want to see a Nazi love triangle movie?  Especially one that fails so spectacularly at being “respectable”.  At least Franco’s Naziploitation flicks had some stripping and whipping.  This feels like a bad Masterpiece Theater episode, but… you know… with swastikas.  

There are ways this resembles other Franco movies.  Chief among them is the recycling of footage.  This time, the action and battle scenes come from other (much older) war movies and the seams are obvious as the film grain, vehicles, and uniforms don’t really match the new material.  Franco’s use of the slow, lazy zooms and camera pans are kept to a minimum this time out (again, he was trying to be “respectable”), but he does give us a lot of padding in the form of nightclub numbers.  

At least the participation of Franco stalwart Christopher Lee prevents it from being a total debacle.  He plays a sad banker who is devastated when his daughter (the object of the love triangle) enlists in the Third Reich.  He gives a fine performance, which is easily the best thing about the movie.  Honestly, the only thing of note here is, of course, LUKE SKYWALKER STARRING AS A NAZI IN A JESS FRANCO MOVIE.  I guess if they knew Lee would go on to become Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels, they could’ve had them do a Jedi battle or something.  As it is, they share no scenes together, which is a shame.  Oh well.  

Sheen (who looks and sounds like his old man), along with co-stars Robert Foster, Daniel Grimm, and Craig Hill all reteamed with Franco for Esmerelda Bay the next year.

AKA:  Fall of the Eagles.

FRANCO FEBRUARY/TUBI CONTINUED… CROSSOVER: COMMANDO MENGELE: “ANGEL OF DEATH” (1985) ***

I’ve been running a bit behind on posting reviews for both the Tubi Continued… and Franco February columns, so I figured I would kill two birds with one stone and check out a few of the Jess Franco movies Tubi has to offer.  He only co-directed this one as he apparently quit before filming was complete.  The producers brought in Andrea Bianchi, the madman who gave the world Burial Ground, and the results are a bit of a mess, but it is a fun, and sometimes surreal mess.  

Fernando Rey and Jack Taylor are Nazi hunters looking for the vile Nazi Josef Mengele (Howard Vernon) in South America.  Robert Foster’s girlfriend gets killed by the Nazis who patrol Mengele’s fortress, and he teams up with her best friend (Suzanne Andrews) to get revenge.  The Nazi hunters accept them into their fold with the provision they gather evidence to bring Mengele to trial, but he decides to blow him the fuck up instead.  

Here's the thing, though.  Mengele isn’t exactly hiding.  I mean his guards patrol his fortress wearing red armbands in broad daylight and fly around in helicopters with “4R” painted on the side of them.  (You know, for “Fourth Reich”.)  It’s shit like this that endears crappy movies like this to me.  

Even if you didn’t know the behind the scenes drama, Commando Mengele:  “Angel of Death” looks like a cut-and-paste affair.  (I mean, the title has two titles for God’s sake.)  There are scenes that are played silently while narration tries to explain what’s going on, the same random insert shots of Andrews’ shocked face are reused a couple of times, and some plot points (like Andrews being artificially inseminated by Mengele) are haphazardly (or never) resolved.  However, when it’s Franco doing the cutting and Bianchi doing the pasting, the results are entertaining more often than not.  

This movie has a lot of movie for your movie dollar.  It has Chris Mitchum sleepwalking through his performance as Mengele’s top bodyguard who walks with a limp, but can still snap into action for slow-motion, echoey Kung Fu fights.  Foster’s “Dirty Dozen” style team are also a lot of fun (even though there are only four of them).  There’s a Bud Spencer looking guy who uses knives and crossbows, an acrobat, a computer geek, and a Kung Fu master who’s always exuberantly practicing his karate chops and kicks in the background (who also gets his share of slow-motion, echoey Kung Fu fights).  Then, of course, there’s Howard Vernon chewing the scenery like only Howard Vernon can as Mengele.  I think my favorite moment came when he shows Andrews his big experiment and it’s nothing but a room with a monkey lying in bed next to two half-human/half-monkey freaks.  Most movies would make this a major plot point, but for Commando Mengele:  “Angel of Death”, it’s just a random WTF throwaway scene.  

Speaking of which, the final siege on Mengele’s fortress is a head-spinning onslaught of “…HUH?!?”  There’s badly choreographed action (including more slow-motion, echoey Kung Fu fights), bizarre plot twists, and one of the worst model explosions of all time.  I think I laughed six times and said, “Wait… WHAT?” at least twice in the last three minutes.  A lot of the movie never comes close to matching the weirdness of the final reel.  There are a few moments along the way though that flirt with being totally bonkers, but ultimately wind up being completely bananas.  And I’m not saying that because of the scene where the monkey and its half-human brethren are liberated by the Nazi hunters.  

It's kind of easy to tell what scenes Franco was responsible for thanks to the slow zooms and pans.  Also, the flick is chockfull of his regular stock players like Taylor, Foster, Vernon (the De Niro to Franco’s Scorsese), and Mitchum.  I’m not sure if he was responsible for the monkey business (pun sorta intended), or if that was Bianchi’s doing.  All I know is that when the WTF is flying freely, Angel of Death is heavenly.  

AKA:  Angel of Death.  AKA:  Commando Mengele.  

TUBI CONTINUED… CAROUSHELL THE 2ND (2021) ** ½

Duke, the killer carousel unicorn (voiced by Steve Rimpici) returns in this uneven, but sporadically hilarious sequel.  This time out, he learns he has a half-human son named Robbie (B. Barnabei) that he never knew about.  Duke tries to put killing behind him in order to make up for lost time with his son, unaware that the Nazis who created him during WWII are hunting him.  When they learn Duke has a son, they kidnap Robbie to ensure his cooperation.  Of course, that just makes Duke even madder, and he goes after the Hitler-loving bastards.

The addition of Nazi villains seems a little desperate.  It’s like the filmmakers are trying to do the Don’t Breathe 2 thing where they take the series’ bad guy (or in this case, unicorn) and make him a de facto hero by pitting him against a more sinister evil.  I guess it might’ve worked had the Nazis not been so overly cartoonish.  They make the Nazis in Hogan’s Heroes look like the Nazis in Schindler’s List by comparison.  I mean the sight of a talking (and killing) carousel unicorn is already WTF enough.  We really didn’t need a bunch of comic relief Nazi villains constantly mugging and shit.  

Fortunately, the rest of the film is just as funny as the original.  The father/son bonding scenes with Duke and Robbie hit the sweet spot between absurdist humor and Z horror moviemaking at its finest.  These scenes almost play like a surreal version of an After School Special.  If there was more of this sublime silliness throughout the rest of the picture, it might’ve been a classic.  As it is, it falls just short of the inspired zaniness of the original.  Even if CarousHELL the 2nd was a bit spotty in places, I am still anxiously waiting to see Duke’s next go-round. 

AKA:  CarousHELL 2.  

ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA (2023) ** ½

Ant-Man and the Wasp:  Quantumania is definitely the least of the three Ant-Man movies and would land in my Bottom Five MCU films overall.  I’m not saying that it’s bad exactly.  It just felt like they were trying to shoehorn Ant-Man into a mold made for the Guardians of the Galaxy.  If anything, it’s proof that the concept and the character work best on a… ahem… smaller scale.  

This time out, Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) looks on as his brilliant daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) opens up a portal to the Quantum Realm.  It doesn’t take long before the both of them, not to mention the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) and her parents (Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Douglas) get sucked into the Realm with no way to return home.  The Quantum Realm is also home to a nefarious villain named Kang the Conqueror (Johnathan Majors) who takes Cassie hostage and coerces Ant-Man into helping him escape so he can go off and rule the galaxy.  

The Quantum Realm looks like a cheesy, overly CGI-ed version of the Cantina scene in Star Wars on steroids.  In fact, every frame of the film that takes place in the Quantum Realm feels like Greenscreen City.  Everything has a loosey-goosey computer animated feel that makes the effects and creatures in Avatar (or heck, even The Phantom Menace) look startlingly realistic in comparison.  That is to say, it looks like a Guardians of the Galaxy sequel.  Heck, even the humor is more in line with the Guardians than Ant-Man (like the little comic relief blobby dude), which is OK, I guess, but I came to see an Ant-Man movie, dammit.

It's telling that the best sequence in the movie comes when Ant-Man must rely on his thieving skills to steal a vital piece of machinery for Kang.  This is the only time the flick really feels like it belongs in the Ant-Man series.  The ensuing “Probability Storm” scene is a lot of fun too.  However, the film really needed two or three more scenes of this caliber to make it a worthy successor to the previous Ant-Man entries.  

The cast is a mixed bag.  The most rewarding dramatic scenes revolve around Rudd and Newton.  Rudd excels at being a likeable goofball, and their scenes together hit the right blend of sweetness and believability.  Their scenes together give the film the only moments of grounded human emotion.  Douglas gets a few laughs, but mostly, he’s just along for the ride.  The biggest laughs come courtesy of M.O.D.O.K. and a special guest star playing a sinister space gangster.  

Pfeiffer gets more screen time here than before, but she’s pretty much wasted as her character is little more than a walking exposition dump.  And for a movie with her character’s name in the title, Lilly isn’t given a whole lot to do.  Majors is a disappointment as the villain too.  He’s much better here than he was in the dreadful Loki series, but he’s a bit of a bore, which is alarming since he’s supposed to be the next Big Bad for this “Phase” of the Marvel franchise.  It doesn’t help that he says all his dialogue in the same disinterested, half-yawning manner.  I guess he was trying to underplay the character’s villainy, but he ultimately winds up not feeling like a genuine threat.  

Marvel Cinematic Universe Scorecard: 

Spider-Man:  No Way Home:  ****

Avengers:  Age of Ultron:  ****

The Incredible Hulk:  ****

Iron Man:  ****

Thor:  Ragnarok:  ****

Avengers:  Endgame:  ****

Ant-Man and the Wasp:  ****

Spider-Man:  Homecoming:  ****

Iron Man 3:  ****

Captain America:  Civil War:  *** ½

Ant-Man:  *** ½

Guardians of the Galaxy:  *** ½

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2:  *** ½ 

Avengers:  Infinity War:  *** ½

Black Panther:  *** ½ 

The Avengers:  ***

Captain America:  The First Avenger:  ***

Captain America:  The Winter Soldier:  ***

Thor:  Love and Thunder:  ***

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness:  ***

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings:  ***

Captain Marvel:  ***

Spider-Man:  Far from Home:  ***

Thor:  ***

Thor:  The Dark World:  ***

Iron Man 2:  ***

Ant-Man and the Wasp:  Quantumania:  ** ½ 

Doctor Strange:  ** ½ 

Black Widow:  ** ½  

Eternals:  * ½  

TUBI CONTINUED… TWITCH: YOU ARE MY TOY (2004) **

Minori (Yumeka Sasaki) is a photographer with a bad habit of getting involved with unavailable, married, and/or attached men.  Her latest assignment has her working alongside a reporter named Shinichi (Mikiya Sanada) on a story about a reclusive manga artist (Fuyu Ooba).  When the interview proves fruitless, their editor (Masahiko Hori) forces Shinichi into forging a fabricated article.  This action sets into motion a chain of romance and heartbreak between the two co-workers.

Twitch:  You are My Toy is certainly an odd title for such a small, forgettable, and if we’re being completely honest, unsexy movie.  Nobody twitches and I don’t remember anybody getting treated like a toy.  It’s a Japanese flick, so maybe something got lost in translation along the way, but I still kinda doubt it.  

Even though this is technically a Japanese “Pink” movie, it feels more like a cheap soap opera with an occasional dash of T & A and softcore sex scenes here and there.  All the characters are vaguely interconnected and have thinly sketched backstories.  The details of their various histories with one another are slowly doled out throughout the film, but it ultimately never comes together in a meaningful way.  Since we only know fragments of where the characters have been and never get a chance to see where they are going (thanks to the abrupt ending), it’s hard to care very much about them.  It winds up feeling like we’ve caught an episode of a soap opera midway through a season and there’s no real way for us to catch up.  The short running time (it’s only forty-seven minutes long) only adds to the TV soap feeling.  

As far as the sex scenes go, they are OK, I guess.  I would’ve like to have seen more of them, but the ones we do get aren’t bad.  However, they’re not nearly steamy enough to compensate for the lackluster melodramatics.  

TUBI CONTINUED… CURSE OF THE REANIMATOR (2022) ** ½

Curse of the Reanimator is the third and final chapter in Full Moon’s Miskatonic U trilogy.  Brilliant college student Crawford Tillinghast (Dane Oliver) makes an uneasy alliance with the evil Dean (Michael Pare) to restart the dangerous Resonator.  Complicating matters is a grieving mother (Kate Hodge) who wants to use the machine to revive her dead son, and a sexy lesbian witch (Amanda Jones) that wants to control it and bring about the end of the world.  Meanwhile, Herbert West (Josh Cole) continues to attempt to perfect his reanimation serum, with deadly results.  

As you could tell by that plot description, Herbert West doesn’t get a lot to do this time out, despite what’s implied by the title.  Although the film is much more of a conclusion to Tillinghast’s story arc, it does leave things open-ended for more West adventures down the road, which is a good thing.  It does seem like a missed opportunity not to intersect Tillinghast and West’s storylines in a meaningful way, but overall, Curse of the Reanimator remains a decent enough flick.  It just doesn’t quite live up to the promise of the first two movies in the series.  

Cole is once again the reason to watch it as he injects a shot of adrenaline (in more ways than one) into the film whenever he’s on screen.  If Jeffrey Combs refuses to do any more Re-Animator movies, then I’d say Cole is a fine substitute as he is able to breathe new life into the beloved character.  He captures Combs’ voice and mannerisms quite well, but still puts his own spin on things, which helps make it feel like a separate entity from the original Re-Animator series.  I also liked that they gave him a sex assistant (Christina Braa) this time out.  Too bad they don’t get an opportunity to flesh out their relationship more.  Hopefully, they’ll reunite somewhere down the road for future installments.  

FRANCO FEBRUARY: BLACK BOOTS LEATHER WHIP (1983) ** ½

Robert Foster stars as a washed-up private detective who is about to go on the lam to get away from some pesky loan sharks when he’s hired to by a sexy femme fatale (Lina Romay) to retrieve her purse from a junkyard in exchange for a big payday.  He gets more than he bargained for when he goes to get the bag and is jumped by two goons.  Naturally, he kills them in self-defense, but the cops come looking for him anyway.  He changes his appearance, and eventually gets embroiled in a scheme to rub out his new lover’s enemies.

Jess Franco’s Black Boots Leather Whip starts out like a sexy version of a private eye movie before slowly morphing into a hitman drama.  The film’s best scenes are its early ones where Romay (ideally cast as the femme fatale in a bad blonde wig) is luring Foster into her web of deceit.  The ensuing sequences of Foster setting up Romay’s husband’s underworld associates to be murdered are less effective, although there are some decent moments along the way.  (Like the scene where a dominatrix gets the upper hand on Foster.)

Black Boots Leather Whip is surprisingly progressive for an exploitation movie in 1983.  Romay’s husband in the film is trans, and one of his illicit businesspeople is a blind woman.  That doesn’t necessarily make it “good”, but it makes it memorable.  

Lina is sexy as always and is the main draw.  Her best scene comes when she performs in a live sex show and runs Christmas tinsel all over her partner before blowing him.  I think my favorite moment though is when our hero changes his identity so the cops won’t find him, and he goes from looking like Magnum P.I. to a secret agent in a ‘60s spy movie.  I have to wonder since the hero’s appearance and the plot changes so drastically after the first act if this was actually two unfinished movies loosely stitched together.  

Like all the movies featured for Franco February, Black Boots Leather Whip has plenty of scenes where the camera wanders aimlessly around and zooms in on seemingly inconsequential things.  It’s also yet another film where Romay is saddled with a terrible blonde wig.  Of Franco’s usual stock players, Romay and Foster are the two most notable names yet again.

TUBI CONTINUED… BEYOND THE RESONATOR (2022) ***

After college student Crawford Tillinghast (Dane Oliver) and his friends experimented with the “Resonator” at Miskatonic University, they have been having weird dreams and strange hallucinations of a sexy squid woman beckoning to them.  She corrupts one of Crawford’s friends into committing suicide, which spurns him into trying to shut down the Resonator once and for all.  Meanwhile, a new student named Herbert West (Josh Cole) arrives on campus and starts conducting experiments to bring the dead back to life.  

Beyond the Resonator is a solid continuation of the surprisingly enjoyable The Resonator:  Miskatonic U.  It’s basically Charles Band’s MCU-inspired reboot of From Beyond and Re-Animator placed under the umbrella of one cinematic universe.  (In this case, the “MCU” doesn’t stand for “Marvel Cinematic Universe”, but “Miskatonic Cinematic Universe”.)   It’s not a patch on the originals (I mean, you can’t top the classics), but it is nevertheless a fun, breezy good time.  It’s certainly a lot better than the usual Full Moon offerings, that’s for sure.  

Writer/director William (Baby Oopsie) Butler does a good job honoring what came before while at the same time creating something new and giving this series its own distinct identity.  While it never quite attains the madcap fun of From Beyond or Re-Animator, it does feature what I believe to be the screen’s first zombie koala attack.  That alone is enough for me to hold it in high esteem.  

Cole has some pretty big shoes to fill in the Herbert West role, but I’ll be damned if they don’t fit him like a glove.  He does a dead-on Jeffrey Combs impression and is a lot of fun to watch while conducting his unspeakable experiments.  Although no one else in the cast comes close to matching his intensity (the From Beyond segments are noticeably weaker than the Re-Animator stuff), I’d recommend the film based solely on his perfectly pitched performance.  Whenever he’s re-animating, the movie really comes alive.

SINISTER CINEMA CLASSIC SCI-FI TRAILERS VOLUME 1 (199?) ***

After tearing through the Sinister Cinema Classic Horror Trailers compilations a while back, I thought it was finally time for me to start checking out their Classic Sci-Fi Trailers collections.  While Classic Sci-Fi Trailers Volume 1 features a lot of trailers you’ve probably seen elsewhere (particularly in the Something Weird compilations), there’s still a lot to admire here.  It will be just the thing for movie fans looking for a quick fix of sci-fi classics (The Time Machine and Creature from the Black Lagoon), cheesy B-movies (Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine and Horror of Party Beach), and straight-up schlock (Phantom from Space and Night of the Blood Beast).

The first thing you notice is that many of the trailers are shown more or less in chronological order.  That way, you get to see how the various trends came and went throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s.  Films about alien invasions, like those found in Invaders from Mars and Robot Monster give way to the giant atomic monsters of Attack of the Crab Monsters and The Monster That Challenged the World.  Mad scientist movies such as The Brain That Wouldn’t Die and The Unearthly are replaced in favor of creatures run amok flicks like The Monster of Piedras Blancas and Revenge of the Creature.  It’s also fun seeing such lowbrow schlock like The Hideous Sun Demon, The Brain Eaters, and Attack of the Giant Leeches, rubbing elbows with big budget studio fare like Barbarella, Planet of the Apes, and 2001:  A Space Odyssey.   

At nearly two hours, it does feel a little on the long side.  Fortunately, the inclusion of vintage concession stand ads and drive-in snipes helps prevent things from feeling stale.  I kind of wish there were more of them (they pretty much dry up in the second half), but the ones we do get are pretty great.  I can’t wait to check out further volumes in the series (of which there are many).

The complete trailer round-up is as follows:  Flight to Mars, Invaders from Mars, Phantom from Space, It Came from Outer Space, Robot Monster, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Killers from Space, Attack of the Crab Monsters, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Man Who Turned to Stone, The Monster That Challenged the World, The Vampire, Return of the Fly, The Colossus of New York, Monster on the Campus, Terror from the Year 5000, Night of the Blood Beast, The Monster of Piedras Blancas, The Time Machine, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Beyond the Time Barrier, The Leech Woman, Crack in the World, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, a double feature of Die Monster Die! and Planet of the Vampires, Planet of the Vampires, Fantastic Voyage, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Them!, Revenge of the Creature, This Island Earth, It Came from Beneath the Sea, The 27th Day, a double feature of The Crawling Eye and Cosmic Monsters, The Land Unknown, Enemy from Space, The Giant Claw, The Cyclops, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, The Unearthly, 20 Million Miles to Earth, The Brain Eaters, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Hideous Sun Demon, Satellite In the Sky, Gorgo, Valley of the Dragons, Mysterious Island, The Horror of Party Beach, Barbarella, Thunderbirds Are Go, Five Million Years to Earth, Planet of the Apes, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

WINNIE-THE-POOH: BLOOD AND HONEY (2023) *

Soon after A.A. Milne’s beloved Winnie-the-Pooh lapsed into the public domain, this horror movie based on the character was announced.  I have to admit, it was a pretty great idea.  Unfortunately, that’s about all writer/director Rhys (Firenado) Frake-Waterfield had:  An idea.  He just never bothered to build a movie around the idea that was worthy of the initial inspiration.  

The opening animated segment held a lot of promise.  Christopher Robin finds, feeds, and nurtures a group of anthropomorphic animals hiding out in the Hundred Acre Wood.  When Christopher grows up and takes off for college, he leaves the animals to fend for themselves.  They turn feral and cannibalistic, and wind up eating poor old Eeyore.  The shot of Eeyore’s tail attached to his tombstone billowing in the breeze gave me a hearty chuckle.  Once it switches over to live-action, it’s all downhill from there.  

Christopher (Nikolai Leon) returns to the Wood years later with his new bride (Paula Coiz) in tow.  Of course, he doesn’t realize the animals have become cannibal killers, and is shocked when they kill his wife and take him prisoner.  Meanwhile, a group of friends gather in the woods nearby for a girls’ weekend and they are eventually menaced by the deranged Pooh and Piglet.  

Frake-Waterfield may have started out with an ingenious idea, but he seems to have little understanding how films in general work.  Scenes just sort of happen at random and peter out with little consequence.  Scenes that in most movies would’ve been short and sweet, seem to go on forever here.  Scenes that in other pictures would’ve been allowed to breathe in order to flesh out the characters or mount suspense end abruptly or are awkwardly edited.  

Likewise, the horror sequences lack build-up, momentum, or even a satisfying payoff.  Take for instance the scene where one of the women takes selfies in the hot tub.  You would think Pooh and Piglet would either use the pool to their advantage and drown her, or maybe even use the phone as a weapon of death to make a commentary on today’s overreliance on technology.  What do they do?  Tie her up and run her over with a car!  I mean, I didn’t know Pooh had his driver’s license (or even a learner’s permit), but okay.  

While there is some gore here, it’s poorly lit, and the effects are inconsistent.  I suspect they blew must their budget making the Pooh and Piglet (who has a set of humorous looking tusks protruding out of his maw) costumes and there wasn’t much left for anything else.  That might explain why there’s no Owl, Rabbit, Kanga, or even Tigger.  (Unless they are saving them for the sequel.)  

Oh, don’t bother with this steaming pile of Pooh.

FRANCO FEBRUARY: SEX IS CRAZY (1981) **

Jess Franco’s Sex is Crazy is an almost unclassifiable film.  I guess you could call it a sex comedy, but that still wouldn’t do it justice.  It has a freewheeling, madcap, almost Monty Python style of irreverence.  (Just don’t mistake “irreverence” for “funny”.)  Scenes start out like a drama, and then the director (Franco, of course) does a second take where the actors play it like a comedy.  There are scenes of an alien gangbang where a human woman is impregnated over and over again in a matter of minutes.  This is eventually revealed to be nothing more than a live sex show.  Then, there are parts that play out like a spy movie where Lina Romay is tortured with utensils up her hoo-hah by Argentinian secret agents looking for microfilm.  She gets over that very quickly and runs off and has sex with her boyfriend while he’s driving.  There are also constant cutaways to the “producer’s girlfriend” who is only there to provide the film with gratuitous nudity.  

We also get a group marriage and a Satanic ceremony.  Oh, and it MIGHT be all a dream.  Or a movie.  Or a videotape.  And the aliens might’ve been real all along.  I don’t know.

One thing is for sure, the movie lives up to its title.  Sex is Crazy is crazy.  There’s a lot of nudity, a wild anarchic spirit, and jaw-dropping absurdity here.  That might seem like high praise, but I assure you that words like “good”, “entertaining”, and “coherent” were at no time found anywhere in this review. 

As far as Franco’s signatures go, his use of long, wandering camera pans and zooms matches the wandering, aimless plot to a tee.  His penchant for showing Romay in the nude also crops up once more.  In addition to Romay, co-stars Robert Foster and Tony Skios were also in Franco’s Night of Open Sex.    

TUBI CONTINUED… BABY OOPSIE PART 3: BURN BABY BURN (2022) **

Doll collector Sybil (Libbie Higgins) tries to make things right by stopping the demonic toy Baby Oopsie from opening the gates to “Toy Hell”.  She and her pal Ray-Ray (Justin Armistead) are too late, however, and the toys bring forth a giant clown monster from the depths of Hades.  It’s then up to Father McGavin (LeJon Woods) to perform an exorcism and send the creature back to Hell.

Part 3 is a slight improvement over Part 2, but it still falls well short of the heights of the original Baby Oopsie.  The biggest stumbling block is that Oopsie, who was a lot of fun to watch in the original, is never given a whole lot to do.  Her partners in crime, the cowboy and clown toys, are similarly wasted.  (Although the cowboy gets some good one-liners like, “Adios, motherfucker!”)  The giant toy Big Bad (who kind of reminded me of the giant Ghoulie from Ghoulies 2) is pretty cool, but he doesn’t get much screen time.  

That said, Burn Baby Burn still has its moments.  The exorcism scenes feature all the green puke you’ve come to expect from the genre, and the kill scenes are solid (if limited).  The best moments belong to Madison Pullins as the corporate toy spy, Skipper who is revealed to be a (SPOILER) living Barbie Doll.  The scene where her wiring malfunctions and she goes nuts is a lot of fun.  I can only hope she gets her own spin-off somewhere down the line.  

Like most of these Full Moon movies, Burn Baby Burn feels much longer than its scant running time implies.  In fact, it has more endings than fucking Return of the King.  However, at forty-seven minutes, you could watch this back-to-back with Part 2 (which is only fifty-five minutes long) and their combined running time would still be shorter than your average Hollywood sequel.  I’m not exactly recommending you do that, but you COULD do it if you felt so inclined.

TUBI CONTINUED… BABY OOPSIE PART 2: MURDER DOLLS (2022) **

Lonely doll collector Sybil (Libbie Higgins) is now under the spell of her Satanist priest neighbor Ray-Ray (Justin Armistead) who makes her find victims for the demonic baby doll, Baby Oopsie.  A toymaker in China wants Sybil to create a new line of Baby Oopsie toys for the worldwide market and gives her designs to make two new dolls, a cowboy and a clown.  Eventually, Sybil breaks the spell, comes to her senses, and tries to stop the killer dolls.  She turns to a priest (LeJon Woods) for help, and when he turns her down, she sets out to face the dolls down alone.     

The opening in which Higgins and Armistead dress up in S & M gear and lure unsuspecting swingers to their demise is great.  It’s almost like Eating Raoul by way of Chucky.  Sadly, this sequence is just kind of a one-off.  It’s similar to the sort of completely unrelated opening pre-title sequences you’d see in a James Bond film.  The problem is it outshines everything that follows.

It’s a shame that the rest of the film falls into the typical cookie-cutter killer doll formula Full Moon is known for.  As someone who thought the first film was a lot of fun, I was a little dismayed to see this one going back to the overdrawn well.  It doesn’t help that the two new dolls are forgettable and feel more like something out of a Puppet Master sequel than the Demonic Toys series.

Higgins gives yet another fun performance, which helps somewhat, but there isn’t a whole lot of killer doll carnage this time out, and the kills we do get are kind of odd.  (Death by Crisco?)  The biggest problem is that there is no real climax as the movie is essentially a table-setter for the third part of the trilogy.  Even if it had a strong finish, it would’ve still paled in comparison next to the fun and entertaining first film.  

TUBI CONTINUED… BABY OOPSIE (2021) ***

Sybil (Libbie Higgins) is a sad, lonely loser who lives with her overbearing stepmother (Lynne Acton McPherson).  Her only comfort comes from making YouTube videos where she shows off her massive doll collection.  When one of her fans sends her the remains of the Demonic Toy, Baby Oopsie in the mail, she painstakingly restores it to its former glory.  Naturally, Baby Oopsie comes back to life and goes after everyone who’s wronged Sybil.  

I was not a fan of the Demonic Toys movies, but this spin-off really worked for me.  The secret to the film’s success is the deft way writer/director William (The Resonator) Butler grafted the loser’s revenge narrative to the typical killer doll shenanigans.  (Think Carrie Meets Child’s Play.)  By making you sympathize, like, and even root for Sybil (which is a testament to Higgins’ excellent performance), it takes some of the heavy lifting off of Oopsie.  That way, the doll is less the centerpiece slasher of the film and more a foulmouthed instrument of revenge.  (Also, with the doll not being front and center so much, it doesn’t wear out its welcome, which tends to happen in these sorts of things.)

That little twist on the usual formula made all the difference.  Instead of going after stupid stoners or horny teenagers, Oopsie’s targets are bullies, bitchy bosses, and wicked stepmothers.  It’s just more fun that way.  (To me, at least.  Your mileage may vary.)  After sitting through so many bad killer doll flicks from Full Moon, this felt like a breath of fresh air.  

Sure, the finale is a bit rushed, and the last twist feels kind of forced.  However, it’s really not such a dealbreaker when the rest of the movie is so much fun.  Naturally, Oopsie gets the best line of the film when she sizes up a doll that looks like Annabelle and says, “Conjure THIS!”

TUBI CONTINUED… IT KNOWS YOU’RE ALONE (2021) ** ½

While walking on the beach, Natalie (Brandy Dawley) finds an old nautical phone from a derelict ship awash on the shoreline.  She brings it back to her house, polishes it up, and puts it on display in her home.  Pretty soon, the phone begins ringing, and when Natalie answers, the phone is abuzz with ominous, indecipherable gibberish.  Before long, Natalie begins having nightmares about a faceless specter stalking and seducing her.  Things become complicated when her ex-girlfriend Sasha (Ali Chappell) shows up.

It Knows You’re Alone contains scenes of beautiful women walking around aimlessly, colorful psychedelic sequences, random solarized shots, and a cast of TWO.  That can mean only one thing:  It’s a Chris Alexander movie.

Fortunately, it’s a huge improvement over the last Alexander flick I watched, Space Vampire.  This time out, he imbues the film with a surprising amount of atmosphere and even a touch of dread.  While it’s far from perfect, he does a better job here capturing the surreal feeling of a waking nightmare than he did in his previous attempts.  There are even moments here where I would be so bold as to say they felt like something out of a no-budget Jean Rollin movie.  The sequence where Natalie pursues the faceless specter through the woods is particularly well executed.  

I'm not saying It Knows You’re Alone is great or anything.  There are stretches that feel padded out (even though the film is only forty-six minutes), and the identity of the ghost is a foregone conclusion.  However, I like the fact that Alexander keeps essentially remaking the same movie again and again.  He’s got a passion for dreamlike scenes of hot babes wandering around in a trance, and by God, he’s gonna keep making pictures that reflect that obsession.  I admire that.  I guess if he keeps making them, I’ll keep watching them.  

THE 16TH ANNUAL VIDEO VACUUM AWARDS

Well, folks.  It’s Valentine’s Day.  And what better way to celebrate our love of the movies than to announce the nominees for The 16th Annual Video Vacuum Awards.  It was a pretty wild year at the movies, filled with many highs and several lows.  Who will take home the gold this year?  Let’s take a look at the nominees…

BEST MOVIE

The Banshees of Inisherin

Crimes of the Future

Elvis

Pearl

Top Gun:  Maverick

WORST MOVIE

Amityville Karen

Call Me Emanuelle

Femalien:  Starlight Saga

Hellraiser

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair

BEST DIRECTOR

David Cronenberg for Crimes of the Future

Joseph Kosinski for Top Gun:  Maverick

Baz Luhrmann for Elvis

Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Insherin

Ti West for Pearl and X

BEST ACTOR

Austin Butler in Elvis

Tom Cruise in Top Gun:  Maverick

Colin Farrell in The Banshees of Inisherin

Brendan Gleeson in The Banshees of Inisherin

Viggo Mortensen in Crimes of the Future

BEST ACTRESS

Kerry Condon in The Banshees of Inisherin

Mia Goth in Pearl

Kristen Stewart in Crimes of the Future

Anya Taylor-Joy in The Menu

Naomi Watts in Goodnight Mommy

BEST ACTION MOVIE

The Batman

Bullet Train

The Northman

Thor:  Love and Thunder 

Top Gun:  Maverick

BEST COMEDY

Attack of the 50 Foot Camgirl

Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe

Clerks 3

Day Shift

Giantess Battle Attack!

BEST DIRECT TO VIDEO/STREAMING MOVIE

Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe

Dark Glasses

Dashcam

Day Shift

Piranha Women

WORST DIRECT TO VIDEO/STREAMING MOVIE

Amityville Karen

Call Me Emanuelle

Femalien:  Starlight Saga

Hellraiser

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair

BEST HORROR MOVIE

Crimes of the Future

The Menu

Pearl

Smile

X

WORST HORROR MOVIE

Amityville Karen

Hellraiser

Puppet Master:  Doktor Death

Terror Train 2

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair

BEST HORROR SEQUEL

Halloween Ends

Jurassic World:  Dominion 

Orphan:  First Kill

Scream

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

BEST HORROR LEGACY SEQUEL

Halloween Ends

Jurassic World:  Dominion

Scream

Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama 2

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

BEST SEQUEL

Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe

Clerks 3

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Thor:  Love and Thunder 

Top Gun:  Maverick

WORST SEQUEL

Call Me Emanuelle

Femalien:  Starlight Saga

Giantess Attack vs. Mecha-Fembot

Puppet Master:  Doktor Death

Terror Train 2

BEST SEQUEL SUBTITLE

Do the Universe

First Kill

In the Multiverse of Madness

Plantasm

Vs. Mecha-Fembot 

BEST DIALOGUE 

Crimes of the Future for “I found her attractive… in a bureaucratic kind of way.”

Crimes of the Future for “I’m sorry.  I’m not very good at the old sex.”

Crimes of the Future for “Surgery is the new sex!”

Crimes of the Future for “There’s no crime like the present!”

Crimes of the Future for “Watching you filled me with the desire to cut my face open.”

I hope to reveal the winners on or around March 1st.  Remember, it’s not all about winning.  For many, it’s a thrill to be nominated.  But, yeah, it’s kind of all about winning.  Check back soon for the results!

TUBI CONTINUED… SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMEBALL BOWL-O-RAMA 2 (2022) ** ½

Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama is one of my favorite cult classics of the ‘80s.  There have been rumors of a sequel for years (Sorority Babes in the Dance-A-Thon of Death was more of a rip-off than a true sequel), but after more than a third of a century, it’s finally here.  (Behind the scenes problems ranging from everything from COVID to original director David DeCoteau quitting pushed the release date back even further.)  Was it worth the wait?  Yes and no.  

A new crop of sorority girls are being initiated on pledge night.  Their task is to steal the same bowling trophy from the same bowling alley that the sorority babes tried to steal thirty years ago.  It doesn’t take long for history to repeat itself as the sisters (along with some nerdy boys who’ve tagged along) accidentally break the trophy and unleash an evil Imp (along with two sorority girl ghosts who’ve been trapped in there for three decades).  The mischievous menace promises to grant them all wishes that predictably backfire with deadly results.  

Let’s start with the unfortunate news first.  (I hesitate to say, “bad news” because the movie itself isn’t “bad”, it merely fails to live up to the lofty heights of the original.)  DeCoteau’s absence behind the camera is felt as the film lacks the loosey-goosey charm and anything-goes vibe of the first film.  Original starlet, Brinke Stevens is at the helm this time, and while I’m glad she is getting an opportunity to direct, she doesn’t quite have the same magic DeCoteau had.  

Speaking of Stevens, it’s fun to see her and Michelle Bauer returning from the original as sort of badly green-screened Jedi Force Ghosts who hang around the bowling alley and make snide commentary on the action.  I wish they were utilized a bit more, but I loved having another opportunity to see them in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama again, however briefly.  Unfortunately, the presence of original star, Linnea Quigley is sorely missed.  Stevens, Bauer, and Quigley are the ultimate triumvirate of 80’s Scream Queens, and to break up the trio is kind of a bummer.  While I enjoyed seeing Kelli (Night of the Comet) Maroney showing up as Quigley’s sister, it’s obvious the role was written with Quigley in mind.  

Another debit (which isn’t Stevens’ fault) is that the version I saw on Tubi had most of the nudity obscured or cropped out.  I hate it when Full Moon does this.  While it kind of recreates the experience of watching edited-for-television B movies on USA’s Up All Night or Commander USA’s Groovie Movies, it’s still kind of a bummer.  Honestly, there’s no reason to show edited movies on a streaming service.  

Okay, now I got all that off my chest, Sorority Babes 2 is still kinda fun.  It’s about 50% remake and 50% sequel, which is more of an observation than a criticism.  I mean, if you already did it perfectly the first time, there’s no reason to fuck with the formula.  

Like most of the recent crop of Full Moon movies, it’s only an hour long.  The best thing I can say about Brinke’s direction is that she paced this sucker like lightning.  She wastes no time getting the Sorority Babes to the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama and once they arrive there, the shit hits the proverbial fan soon after.  The scenes where the sorority babes’ wishes backfire are hit-and-miss, but when they do hit, the results, while predictable, are still very funny.  (Like when the one guy wishes for a “shit ton of money”.)  

As far as thirty-four-years later legacy sequels to ‘80s cable staples go, I’m sure you could do a lot worse than Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama 2.  While it may not live up to the original, it’s pleasantly diverting enough.  I just hope they don’t wait another thirty-four years to make the next one.

THE FRENCH DISPATCH (2021) **

I’ve been a Wes Anderson fan ever since I first saw his debut feature, Bottle Rocket on cable back in the ‘90s.  Although that film remains my personal favorite, I’ve loved each and every movie he’s made since.  Until now.  I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.  

That’s not to say The French Dispatch is necessarily bad.  In fact, there is a lot to like about it (especially in the first half).  However, once the movie goes off the rails, it never recovers.  

Anderson has a wonderfully idiosyncratic style.  The best thing I can say for The French Dispatch is that no one else would’ve ever thought to make a movie like this.  Every bit of every frame just screams, “Wes Anderson” (in neatly typewritten font).  Since he is one of the most unique directors working today, it seems less than chivalrous to call the film “self-indulgent”.  I mean, why become a filmmaker if the films you make don’t allow you to indulge yourself creatively?  

I guess what I am getting at is that this is, for good or ill, the most Wes Anderson movie Wes Anderson ever made.  That sounds like a good idea, and I’m sure there were many other people that were a lot more taken with it than me, but this is the first time his precious style, just-so dialogue phrasings, and delicate set design made me want to pull my hair out.  I think if someone reigned him in a bit and tightened up the film, stripping it of its more Andersony-for-Andersony’s-sake passages, it might’ve worked.  

The French Dispatch is essentially an anthology movie.  Like most anthologies, the quality of the stories varies.  That said, this might be the most uneven anthology ever made.  

Essentially, the film is a filmed version of three stories (plus a prologue and an epilogue) appearing in the final issue of the titular magazine.  The prologue, featuring Owen Wilson is a lot of fun and sets things up on the right note.  (I especially liked the part with the roving gangs of choirboys “half-drunk on the blood of Christ”.)  The first story, in which a prisoner (Benicio del Toro) becomes an art sensation when he paints a nude portrait of his guard (Lea Seydoux), is charming enough, if a bit slight.

The last two stories, on the other hand, are a chore.  The second tale, in particular, is deadly dull and devoid of laughs, heart, or charm.  It’s in this section where a reporter (Frances McDormand) falls for a teenage rebel (Timothee Chalamet) and helps him to rewrite his manifesto.  It doesn’t help that Chalamet’s acting style is an ill fit for Anderson’s dainty form of world-building, or that McDormand (who is usually brilliant), just sort of sits there stone-faced without much of a character to play.  

The final story, which involves Jeffrey Wright relating his coverage of a kidnapping plot, is only slightly better.  However, Anderson’s constant digressions, arbitrary switching of styles (from color to black and white to animation), and odd framework choices (Wright tells the story verbatim while appearing on a talk show) strangle the life out of the tale before it can ever really begin.  It’s also unfortunate that the cast (save for Bill Murray as the editor, Tilda Swinton as an art critic, and Wilson) are mostly wasted.  

Wes Anderson apparently modeled The French Dispatch on The New Yorker.  If the film was indeed a magazine, I would cancel my subscription.  

AKA:  The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun.  

TUBI CONTINUED… SPACE VAMPIRE (2020) NO STARS

A sexy Space Vampire (Ali Chappell) comes to Earth and slowly (emphasis on SLOWLY) walks around in a skintight black latex catsuit, taking in her new surroundings.  Sometimes she walks around outside in the snow.  Other times she ambles inside a mansion.  When she does finally chow down on a victim, she must wash all the blood off her by taking a shower.  (Nothing is shown, dammit.)  Eventually, she goes home.

Space Vampire was released in 2020.  I don’t know if it was made during the early days of COVID and director Chris Alexander only had himself, one actress, and a camera at his disposal and decided, “Pandemic be damned!  We’re making a movie!”  If that was indeed the case, I applaud him for trying to produce a movie in one of the most trying times in human history.  Sadly, this is one of the most trying movies ever produced in human history.

The music in the opening is really annoying.  It sounds like a dot matrix printer running off an end-of-the-year report while sitting on top of an overloaded washing machine with the drum missing.   During the scenes of the Space Vampire wandering around, the music becomes a series of long, droning sounds that would be the perfect soundtrack to cure insomnia.  

Space Vampire is pointlessly slow and needlessly arty for something called Space Vampire.  (Alexander did a much better job with the whole grindhouse meets arthouse thing the next year with Scream of the Blind Dead.)  Then, there are the shots that are so overly solarized that you can’t tell what the hell you’re looking at.  It almost looks like Alexander filmed his computer’s screensaver and tried to pass it off as scenes for a movie.  

The shots of Chappell sitting on a couch while pink and red light flashes on her go on forever too.  It’s here where you can kind of see what Alexander was going for:  A zero-budget version of Neon Demon.  It’s a good idea, but it totally doesn’t work.

It's hard to screw up a movie called Space Vampire, but somehow Alexander did it.  I guess the problem was it’s closer to Under the Skin than Lifeforce.  Mathilda May would not approve.

FRANCO FEBRUARY: SINFONIA EROTICA (1980) *** ½

Lady Martine (Lina Romay) comes home to her mansion after an extended stay in the nuthouse.  Upon her return, she is shocked to learn her husband, the Marquis, has now shacked up with a young man who caters to all his whims.  One day, the duo finds an unconscious nun on the road, and they bring her home and have their way with her.  When the Marquis spurns his wife’s advances, she runs to seek solace in the arms of the nun.  Once the Marquis learns from his wife’s doctor that any kind of excitement will further disturb her and sex will probably kill her, he and his two lovers set out to drive her out of her mind.  

With Jess Franco at the helm working from a story by Marquis de Sade, you know you’re in for a good time.  Sinfonia Erotica contains all the ribaldry, debauchery, and just plain sleaze you’d expect from a de Sade adaptation directed by Franco.  Sure, it’s another one of those “Let’s Drive Someone Crazy and Steal Their Money” movies, but it’s got to be the kinkiest one I have ever seen in the subgenre.  It even contains some surprising gay and bisexual scenes, which are only fitting, I suppose.  I mean Franco had directed hundreds of lesbian scenes by this point in his career.  Fair is fair.  What’s good for the gander is good for the goose, after all.

Romay is excellent as the mentally unstable lady of the house.  (Who unfortunately is saddled with a bad blonde wig.)  The scene where she prays to Jesus (Christ, not Franco) that her husband will finally fuck her is especially powerful.  Hemingway is also captivating as the young nun who is slowly transformed into a manipulative nympho.

What makes Sinfonia Erotica an upper-tier Franco offering is that it even manages to keep your attention during the smut-free sections.  Franco employs effective use of long shadows, odd camera angles, and echo-y sound effects to enhance the feeling of Romay’s fragile state of mind.  He also gets a lot of mileage from the Franz Liszt score, which evocatively sets the mood. Sure, the ending is predictable, and the pacing drags here and there, but the sex scenes (especially the ones featuring Romay) are steamy.

We have a few Jess signatures at play here.  There are all the slow camera pans and zooms to nothing in particular that you’ve come to expect.  This was also yet another movie based on a story by Marquis de Sade (see also Justine and Eugenie) and there’s a bit of nunsploitation in there too.  As far as Franco’s stock player company, there’s of course, his muse, Lina Romay as well as Susan (Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun) Hemingway, who yet again plays a sexy nun.  

AKA:  Erotic Symphony.