TUBI CONTINUED… AMITYVILLE: NO ESCAPE (2016) * ½

A guy takes his friends on a road trip to Amityville so he can film his college thesis on fear.  He also watches a videotape made by the former resident of the haunted Amityville house as she films her new home as a video diary to show her husband, who is deployed overseas.  Our fledgling filmmaker and his makeshift crew eventually head out into the woods to confront the Amityville evil, and they wind up getting more than they bargained for.

Writer/director Henrique Couto cuts back and forth between the Amityville home movies and the present-day stuff with the college kids interviewing people and traipsing through the woods.  Basically, it’s one part Paranormal Activity rip-off, one part Blair Witch rip-off, and one part Amityville rip-off.  None of the parts are very good.  At least the gratuitous nudity helps keep it from being a One Star slog. 

The scenes of the Amityville housewife constantly filming herself is slightly less annoying than the shit with the college students in the woods.  However, the so-called “paranormal” shit she captures on film is pretty weak.  I’m sure if you really lived in a haunted house and your coffee cup moved around on its own, it would freak you out.  Unfortunately, an audience member watches horror movies to see some scary shit and moving coffee cups just ain’t gonna cut the mustard.  On the plus side, at least the home movie sequences don’t have nearly as much shaky-cam nonsense of the Blair Witchy scenes.  (I’ve had my fill of shaky-cam horror movies where characters go off into the woods, get lost, and argue, thank you very much.)  Too bad after such a long build-up the payoff is rather miniscule.   

Even the most die-hard Found Footage horror fan will probably have a tough time making it through the end of this one.

THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE (2023) *** ½

I got a Nintendo for my tenth birthday, and from then on, I was a die-hard video game nerd.  Much of the reason for my gaming addiction was because of Super Mario Bros. (and then later, Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3).  After the disastrous 1993 adaptation starring Bob Hoskins, I didn’t think anyone would attempt to make another movie based on the property again.  Thanks to Illumination Entertainment and directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, The Super Mario Bros. Movie should be a blast for fans of all ages.  

Now, anyone who wasn’t practically born with a Nintendo controller in their hand or isn’t under the age of ten will probably remain befuddled by all this.  The Super Mario Bros. Movie isn’t out to court new fans or win over critics.  It’s a nostalgic, fast, and fun tribute to one of the greatest video game icons of all time.  

Mario (the voice of Chris Pratt) and Luigi (the voice of Charlie Day) are a pair of plumbers who start their own business.  On their first day on the job, they are sucked down a pipe and wind up in the Mushroom Kingdom.  The evil Bowser (the voice of Jack Black) wants to marry Princess Peach (the voice of Anya Taylor-Joy) and take over the kingdom.  When he kidnaps Luigi, it’s up to Mario and the Princess to rescue him.

The only real change from the video games is that Luigi is the one who is captured by Bowser instead of the Princess.  I guess they had to make at least one 21st century concession.  Fortunately, turning the Princess from a damsel in distress to a capable badass who teaches Mario the ropes of the Mushroom Kingdom wasn’t such a bad idea.  The only problem is that it keeps the brothers apart for the bulk of the picture.  This is really my only qualm about the movie.  Thankfully, once they are reunited, they kick ass like only the Mario Bros. can.  

One of the best sequences is when Mario is forced to fight Donkey Kong (the voice of Seth Rogen).  It’s scenes like this that breathlessly capture the fun of the games and remind us why we fell in love with them in the first place.  My favorite part though was the extended Mario Kart sequence that plays like a kid-friendly version of Mad Max.  The action in this sequence is fast-paced and fun.  If you’ve ever played Mario Kart, you’ll enjoy seeing it fleshed out and projected bigger than life on the big screen.  The score is great too as the orchestrated versions of the familiar and beloved Mario themes sound like a million bucks.  

The film is also rife with Easter eggs and in-jokes for Mario fans.  Horvath and Jelenic were also the ones responsible for the terrific Teen Titans GO! series, and this flick shares a lot of that show’s anarchic DNA.  Hopefully, they’ll return soon with a sequel.  I can’t wait to see what they’ll have up their sleeves next time.

TUBI CONTINUED… THE AMITYVILLE MOON (2021) ** ½

A church in Amityville runs a halfway house for wayward girls.  When the various delinquents, runaways, and junkies begin disappearing, a detective (Trey McCurley) is called in to investigate.  He figures out all the disappearances have occurred during a full moon.  Could a werewolf be responsible for the missing girls? 

Other than the opening title card that states the location of the church, there’s nothing here connecting The Amityville Moon back to the other Amityville movies.  Really, it feels closer to an unrelated Howling sequel than an unrelated Amityville sequel.  If we were judging this on the merits of an unrelated Howling sequel, it would earn relatively high marks (as far as Howling sequels go, that is).  The central premise is similar to Howling V (it’s a whodunit movie where a werewolf is the culprit), and the effects aren’t too bad.  While the werewolf make-up isn’t exactly great, I always prefer seeing a guy running around in a scruffy wolf suit rather than some shoddy CGI shit, so I’ll take what I can get.  We only get one werewolf transformation scene (which makes sense since the werewolf’s identity is kept secret until the end), but it’s a decent throwback to the old school days of werewolf filmmaking.  Crepe hair grows, rubbery fingers stretch out and extend, ears become pointy… shit like that.  The gore is OK too. 

The acting ranges from passable to solid.  The actresses that make up the residents of the halfway house do a fine job, especially in their group therapy scenes.  McCurley makes for an acceptable hero too, all things considered. 

I can’t quite go to bat for this one.  That’s mainly because it runs out of steam before it crosses the finish line.  I do have a tendency to grade these fake Amityville movies on a curve.  If it was a “regular” horror flick, it probably would’ve gotten **.  When watched within the confines of a month-long fake Amityville sequel marathon, you realize it’s not too shabby.  Since it’s certainly more competent than your average Amityville rip-off, a ** ½ rating is more than justified.

TUBI CONTINUED… AMITYVILLE IN THE HOOD (2021) * ½

A couple of gang members find a stash of possessed weed in the old Amityville Horror house.  Dollar signs in their eyes, they sell it on the street, and their customers soon become kill-happy possessed zombies.  Now, this certainly sounds like a can’t-miss scenario.  Somehow, writer/director Dustin (Zombi VIII:  Urban Decay) Ferguson manages to screw up a potentially great idea (Okay… “great” for a fake Amityville movie) in record time.

The set-up is silly, but fun, which is really all you can hope for from a fake Amityville movie.  Although some of it feels a little rushed, there’s no denying the potential of a plot about weed that’s been laced with Amityville evil and turns its users into zombies.  The problem is that once the boring detective character is introduced, everything stops on a dime(bag).  By the time he starts interviewing suspects and witnesses and they start relating flashback after flashback, it just sucks all the fun right out of the picture.  It takes seemingly forever for the film to get back on track with the killer weed plotline, and once it finally does, it craps the bed in spectacular fashion.  To make matters even worse, the editing during the final confrontation is nearly incomprehensible.  

I didn’t realize it when I put this on, but Amityville in the Hood is actually a sequel to Amityville Toybox and Amityville Clownhouse.  If I had known that beforehand, I would’ve watched them in order.  Scenes from both those films are recycled and reused as flashbacks to fill out the second act, and one clip even includes a cameo by A Nightmare on Elm Street 2’s Mark Patton.  If you ask me, the flick needed less scenes from other movies and more of the Amityville ghost ganja shit.  

Despite the plethora of missed opportunities, I still say that any movie that features a homage to the awesome Amityville 3-D poster in the pre-title sequence can’t be all bad.

TUBI CONTINUED… AMITYVILLE IN SPACE (2022) ** ½

A priest performs an exorcism at the Amityville Horror house.  When he realizes he can’t destroy the evil, he banishes it “away from the Earth”, which causes the house to uproot itself and fly off into outer space.  Prospective filmmakers take note:  THIS is how you start a movie!  

A thousand years later, a spaceship stumbles upon the house floating in space.  The crew boards the ship and find the priest who performed the exorcism centuries ago still alive.  They bring him aboard their ship, but the evil entity that possessed the house also sneaks on board and begins to play mind games with the crew.

Amityville in Space is proof that the spirit of Ed Wood is alive and well.  Writer/director Mark (Amityville Island) Polonia didn’t have a dime to make this movie with, but he made it anyway, and some of his… shall we say… “inspired” methods of creating futuristic art direction are downright hilarious.  For example, the walls of the spaceship are nothing more than trash bags that have been spraypainted with glitter.  Also, the “cyborg” wears a costume that looks like it came directly from the Halloween clearance rack at Kmart.  The dialogue is rather choice too.  When the crew finds a Satanic pentagram floating in space, one astronaut quips, “I almost got a tattoo of that!”

Essentially, Amityville in Space is like a no-budget riff on Event Horizon, which was already kind of like a haunted house movie in space.  The opening strikes the right balance of tongue in cheek camp and outright goofiness.  However, things are noticeably less successful whenever Polonia tries to play it straight.  While he wrings as much from the premise as he can with the limited means available to him, the fun does dry up around the halfway mark.  

Although this was leagues better than I expected, I still can’t quite recommend it.  One of the biggest stumbling blocks is the villain, whose voice is so overly synthesized it’s hard to make out what he’s saying half the time.  (He sounds like Darth Vader speaking in slow motion.)  On the plus side, the final monster is quite hilarious looking.  After sitting through Polonia’s Amityville Island and Amityville Exorcism, I never would’ve guessed he could’ve made a movie called Amityville in Space this almost-but-not-quite worthwhile.  Hats off to him for proving me wrong.  

TUBI CONTINUED… AMITYVILLE COP (2021) **

What do you get when you cross Beverly Hills Cop with Maniac Cop?  You get this odd horror comedy from Gregory Hatanaka, the director of Samurai Cop 2:  Deadly Vengeance.  In fact, I’m pretty sure the production company wanted to call this Beverly Hills Maniac Cop, but they probably didn’t want to get sued.  Instead, they just slapped the public domain “Amityville” label on it and called it a day.  (Although there’s nothing that connects the plot back to the famous haunted house as everything takes place in Los Angeles.)  

Miller (Jason Toler) is a wisecracking cop who has a habit of getting in trouble with his superiors.  His latest assignment finds him investigating a series of homicides where all the victims have had their throats torn out.  Turns out, twenty years ago, a devil cult imbued a rookie cop with supernatural powers.  Now, he’s back on the streets killing people.  Eventually, the psycho supernatural cop crashes the New Year’s party at the stationhouse and starts picking off the detectives one by one.  

Since Hatanaka is drawing from such diverse inspirations, the film never quite gels overall.  That said, it isn’t boring, and it’s certainly a lot more fun than his recent spate of Emanuelle rip-offs.  The scant running time (it’s only sixty-nine minutes) also helps things go down smooth.    

Toler’s Eddie Murphy Lite antics aren’t exactly laugh out loud funny, but he has a reasonable amount of charisma, which compensates for some of the jokes that fall flat.  (Sample dialogue:  “You have the right to remain dead!”)  I’ll admit, it was fun seeing Laurene Landon (who was also in the Maniac Cop movies) popping up as the leader of the devil worshipping cult, even though it’s more of a glorified cameo.  Hatanaka regulars like Nicole D’Angelo, Chris Spinell, and Lisa London round out the cast, all of whom do what they can with the uneven, yet fitfully entertaining material.

TUBI CONTINUED… AMITYVILLE CHRISTMAS VACATION (2022) ** ½

Amityville Christmas Vacation is barely a movie.  It’s only forty-seven minutes long.  It’s shot in mostly one location using only a handful of actors on the lowest of budgets.  There’s almost enough of an idea here to fill a fake three-minute Grindhouse style trailer, and even then, that’s being somewhat generous.  

Some fake Amityville movies play it straight.  Some intentionally go for laughs.  Most of the time, the ones that play it straight end up getting more laughs than the ones that intentionally go for them.  This one has charm to spare, and even an occasional (intentional) laugh or two.  I guess what I’m getting at is that it’s far from the worst fake Amityville movie out there.  

Wally Griswold (writer/director Steve Rudzinski, the man who gave us CarousHELL) is a cop who wins an all-expense paid vacation to a B & B in Amityville.  The only other tenant is a ghost who must haunt and kill him.  Naturally, they wind up falling in love, because, after all, it’s Christmas.  

I’m kind of a fan of Rudzinski’s films.  If we are setting the bar at CarousHELL, then Amityville Christmas Vacation falls short of that marker, but it’s about on par with CarousHELL 2, which isn’t too shabby.  Sure, it has its fair share of gags that fall flat.  However, it remains relatively entertaining throughout, especially during the scenes that parody Hallmark Christmas movies. 

Rudzinski is basically a one-man show in this.  He gamely carries the movie while tossing off one-liners to no one in particular.  He kind of has a Bruce Campbell quality about him.  You know, the ability to be the only one on screen, and while utilizing little more than his plucky spirit, is able to successfully sell the cheesy dialogue and effects and make them work.  While I can’t say this is overall his best effort, I will be the first one in line should he choose to direct and star in Amityville Vegas Vacation. 

AMITYVILLE APRIL

Hey, Vacuumers!  This month’s theme is going to be Amityville April.  My task is to watch as many fake Amityville movies Tubi has to offer (and maybe even one or two “official” sequels).  I know I’m already running behind schedule, but I hope to post all my reviews by the end of the month.  So, pack your bags, folks!  We’re going to Amityville!

MILLIGAN MARCH: TOGA PARTY (1977) *

According to the opening crawl accompanying the Blu-ray, Toga Party was originally filmed as a softcore comedy called Pelvis.  Distributor William Mishkin then changed the title to Toga Party to cash in on the popularity of Animal House and hired Andy Milligan to shoot some new inserts to spice things up.  The original cast, unaware of the new scenes, caused an uproar at the premiere, and the film faded into obscurity.  

Farm boy Pervis (Luther “Bud” Whaney) leaves home to go to New York and become a country star.  He only has one song (about fucking a chicken) and can’t seem to get his foot in the door.  Eventually, he becomes a singing sensation, but drugs threaten to derail it all.  Fortunately for Pervis, his gal from back home, Betty Lou (Mary Jenifer Mitchell) shows up to snap some sense into him. Porn star Bobby Astyr (the only actor who appears in both the new and old footage) stars in the Milligan-lensed framing sequences as Pervis’ former manager, Snake who reminisces about Pervis during the titular toga party.  

The cast of the original film, Pelvis might’ve been upset that the newly shot material sucked, but it’s honestly just as bad as the old footage.  There’s just enough toga partying in the new scenes to justify the title, but it’s all ill-fitting to say the least.  It’s obvious this was a hatchet job as the linking material to the new and old footage is tenuous at best.  The new scenes have an OK amount of T & A, although that’s about all it has going for it.  (Comedy is not Milligan’s strong suit.)  

The old footage is often a chore to sit through.  The humor is lame, forced, or just plain unfunny.  If you laugh at pie fights, fast-motion chase scenes, and Wizard of Oz references you may enjoy it, but it’s all pretty dire for the most part.  (I did like the Iron Eyes Cody gag though.)  It doesn’t help that Pelvis’ faux-Elvis demeanor is paper-thin and can’t sustain an entire movie (or even half of one).  Heck, the movie is so bad, it can’t even manage to play out the tried-and-true rise-and-fall-of-a-popstar cliches in a coherent manner.

Milligan Motifs:  Since Milligan was only responsible for the wraparound sequences, there’s none of his typical touches here.

Milligan Stock Players:  Milligan mainstay Hal Borske appears in one of the Milligan-shot scenes.

AKA:  Pelvis.  AKA:  Disco Madness.  AKA:  All Dressed in Rubber.  

Well folks, we’ve finally reached the end of Milligan March.  (I’ve been running late posting these reviews as I took a little sabbatical from reviewing over Spring Break.)  Here is my ranking of the Milligan movies I’ve seen:  

MILLIGAN MARCH MADNESS RANKING

1. Fleshpot on 42nd Street ***

2. Nightbirds ***

3. Blood ** ½ 

4. Seeds ** ½ 

5. The Man with 2 Heads ** ½ 

6. The Body Beneath ** ½ 

7. Carnage **

8. Vapors **

9. Legacy of Blood * ½ 

10. Torture Dungeon * ½ 

11. Bloodthirsty Butchers * ½ 

12. The Ghastly Ones *

13. Guru the Mad Monk *

14. Toga Party *

15. The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here NO STARS

Next (this) month’s theme will be another crossover with the Tubi Continued… column.  It’s called Amityville April.  I’ll be trying to watch and review all the fake (and maybe a few official) Amityville movies Tubi has to offer.  See you then…

TUBI CONTINUED… BITE ME! (2004) ***

A shipment of “killer” marijuana is delivered to a struggling strip club owner.  Little does he know there’s a nest of deadly spiders lurking within the wacky weed.  Soon, the place is infested with big ass bugs.  Whenever they bite a dancer, their venom acts as sort of an ersatz Spanish Fly, turning them into complete nymphos.  

Bite Me! is one of those movies that proves The Video Vacuum Rule that any movie can be made better if you set it in a strip club.  I’m sure a flick about giant bugs could’ve worked in a shopping mall, the suburbs, or on a nuclear test site.  It just hits different when the ginormous spiders invade a strip club.  It also helps that there are some genuine laughs to be had, thanks to the fun special effects and game performances.  Sure, there may be a couple of gratuitous characters (like the annoying DEA agent who keeps popping up) and unnecessary subplots, but whenever writer/director Brett (The Screaming Dead) Piper is showcasing the big bugs and bodacious babes, it often works like gangbusters.

Misty Mundae is top-billed and gets a fun Rambo parody scene that allows her to show off her comedic chops.  Julian Wells is also a lot of fun as the sexy Mafioso who wants to shut the club down so she can buy it.  She has a great scene where she gets bit by a spider and then hops on stage and struts her stuff on the stripper pole.

However, it’s Caitlyn Ross who steals the movie as the lethargic stripper, Amber.  She gives what has to be one of the most memorable stripteases in cinema history when she falls asleep on the stripper pole in mid-performance.  Too bad she only starred in a handful of films because based on her ability to combine comedy with sultry sex appeal, she could’ve been top notch B-Movie Queen.

MILLIGAN MARCH: BLOOD (1973) ** ½

I originally reviewed Andy Milligan’s Blood back on May 15th, 2018.  Here’s my initial thoughts on the film, followed by some notes I made for Milligan March:

BLOOD  (1973)  ** ½

Blood is one of Andy Milligan’s best movies, which is telling.  It’s a slapdash, low budget horror flick set primarily in one location that features crummy effects and inconsistent acting.  Some parts are out of focus.  Others are too dark to see.  Sometimes the actors flub their lines.  Other times their dialogue doesn’t match their lip movements.  All this makes the film more enjoyable, not less.  If you’ve ever sat through Milligan’s atrocious The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here, this will seem like Citizen Kane by comparison.

Lawrence Orlofsky (Allen Berendt) moves his wife Regina (Hope Stansbury) and his gaggle of assistants into his ancestral home.  Almost immediately, they begin performing experiments on bloodthirsty plants to keep Regina looking youthful and vibrant.  When Lawrence starts making eyes at a pretty secretary (Pamela Adams), it sends Regina into a jealous rage.

Milligan’s Everything but the Kitchen Sink method is admirable.  Just when you start to get restless, he’ll toss in another improbable (but amusing) plot wrinkle.  (I wouldn’t dream of revealing why Orlofsky had to change his name.)  No matter how shoddy the production looks, I can’t in good conscience dismiss a movie that features mad scientists, vampires, AND man-eating plants.

Even at a relatively scant 69 minutes, the pacing starts to sag about halfway through.  The claustrophobic location doesn’t help matters either.  That said, there’s at least one memorable moment involving a mouse that will make your jaw drop.  While most of the performers are wooden and/or stilted, Stansbury is rather charming as the vampiric lady of the house.  The ending, though brief and anticlimactic makes me wish it had been on a double feature with Al Adamson’s Dracula vs. Frankenstein instead of the crappy Legacy of Satan.

MILLIGAN MARCH NOTES:  

1) As cheesy as most of the movie is, the initial reveal of the vampire lady’s decrepit face is effective.  

2) I wasn’t particularly taken with Hope Stansbury’s work in Milligan’s The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here, but she is a straight-up fox in this movie.  I know she’s high maintenance and all (you’ve got to keep her supplied with fresh blood on a daily basis), but I think she’d be worth it.  

3) The pacing is rather erratic.  There are stretches where not much happens and then when something does, it occurs so fast that it’s enough to give you whiplash, which at least keeps you on your toes.  

4) The brief, sixty-nine-minute running time certainly helps, but sometimes the editing is so frantic that I have to wonder if there wasn’t a gorier cut at some point as the film (while it still has a couple of memorable gore scenes) isn’t quite as gory as your average Milligan flick.

5) As with many of Milligan’s pictures, things begin to stall the more time that’s spent on unnecessary supporting characters.  When Milligan is focusing on sexy vampire women, werewolves, and man-eating plants, it’s good, cheesy fun.  

Milligan Motifs:  This is yet another period costume drama/horror movie Milligan made in Staten Island that uses a lot of library music as part of the score.  Like many of his films, someone inevitably gets a meat cleaver to the skull and/or has their hands hacked off.  As with The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here, there’s a scene where a mouse is killed. 

Milligan Stock Players:  In addition to starring in The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here, Hope Stansbury also wrote Vapors for Milligan.  

AKA:  Black Nightmare in Blood.

TUBI CONTINUED… THE SCREAMING DEAD (2003) ** ½

A kinky photographer (Joseph Farrell) makes his sexy subjects pose for controversial pictures.  He brings his latest batch of models to a supposedly haunted mansion/former insane asylum for his next shoot.  Once on the grounds, the frantic photog sets about playing mind games with the models to mentally torture then so he can capture them in the appropriately frightened state of mind he wishes them to convey.  Unfortunately, the models’ fear awakens the malevolent spirit of the sadistic former owner of the house who sets out to torture and kill everyone unlucky enough to be trespassing on his property.  

Written and directed by Brett (A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell) Piper, The Screaming Dead boasts a solid set-up, and the haunted sanitarium makes for an atmospheric location.  The inclusion of Seduction Cinema starlets like Misty Mundae and A.J. Khan help add to the fun.  However, once the models begin being subjected to the photographer’s mental degradation, things sort of stall.  It also takes an inordinate amount of time before the supernatural elements start falling into place.  The scenes of the beefy security guard (Rob Monkiewicz) butting heads with the freaky photographer have a tendency to get repetitive too.  While there are still a number of neat moments (like when a face gets pushed through a wall), and some of the torture sequences are reminiscent of the old Corman/Poe movies from the ‘60s, the finale ultimately feels rushed and a little unsatisfying.  

Monkiewicz makes for a good upstanding square jaw hero.  Rachel Robbins is also quite strong as the secretary who puts up with Farrell’s increasingly cruel demands and manipulations.  Farrell is a bit grating as the human villain, although I guess that’s kind of the point.  Still, a little of his performance goes a long way.  Misty is the reason to watch it (of course) as she delivers yet another solid performance and looks great during her various nude scenes.

MILLIGAN MARCH: CARNAGE (1984) **

Here’s my original review of Carnage as it first appeared on November 12th, 2008, followed by some additional notes I made as I watched the film as part of Milligan March:  

CARNAGE  (1984)  **

A couple commits suicide while dressed in their wedding clothes in their new house.  Years later another pair of newlyweds moves in and almost right away, the house starts exhibiting some peculiarities.  Doors don’t stay closed, teacups move around by themselves, and the phonograph ominously plays “Here Comes the Bride”.  Eventually we learn that the deceased couple is haunting the place and they want the latest tenants to die so they can become ghostified and live with them forever.

Low budget horror director Andy (The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here) Milligan was actually working with something of a budget on this film and the results really aren’t too bad at all.  The biggest gripe I had was with the sluggish pacing and the fact that the actors were all amateurish and extremely unphotogenic.  That’s okay though because Carnage had enough (unintentional) laughs to keep me semi-entertained for 90 minutes.

The funniest part comes when the spirits toss a radio into the bathtub on some poor unsuspecting dope.  The fact that he is clearly wearing underwear during this scene is funny enough but the fact that the radio is playing an all-accordion version of Elvis’ “Now or Never” makes it that much more bizarre.  I also highly enjoyed the scene where the cleaning woman gets pelted with a whole bunch of supernatural Silly String for no good reason whatsoever.  

The main “scary” thing the ghosts do is make things move around by themselves.  It looks as stupid as it sounds, but at least when the ghosts starts levitating axes, pitchforks and meat cleavers, people end up losing body parts left and right.  (The decapitation scene is particularly shitdiculous).  There’s also a juicy self-induced throat slashing in there too for good measure as well.

Yeah the effects are terrible (the ghosts appear via jump cuts and the levitating objects are obviously being held up by strings), but that doesn’t make the flick altogether unwatchable.  While parts of the film WERE a chore to sit through, it did feature enough gore to justify its title.  It’s far from the worst Milligan movie I’ve seen, that’s damn skippy.  

MILLIGAN MARCH NOTES:  

1) The opening murder/suicide scene is semi-effective and feels much more like a “real” movie than many of Milligan’s homegrown productions.

2) The scenes where the everyday household objects move around on the new homeowners to mildly inconvenience them are kind of funny.  I feel like this is the kind of shit real ghosts would do.  You know, like hide the new tenant’s car keys just long enough to make them late for the dentist and force them to reschedule.  Got to love petty poltergeists.  

3) The scene where the bloody bride randomly appears and sprays the housekeeper in the face with cobwebs (it looks like Silly String) are semi-amusing, but not quite laugh-out-loud funny.

4) The gore is decent, but the transfer on the Blu-ray is so good that you can see the seams of the make-up during the throat slashing and the visible wires when the guy’s guts are being ripped out by the “invisible” ghost.  

5) While the stuff that takes place inside the house is semi-entertaining, whenever it cuts away to other family members squabbling about their own problems, the pace slows down to a crawl.

6) So far, I’ve referred to Carnage as “semi-effective”, “semi-amusing”, and “semi-entertaining”.  That about sums it up.  Close, but no cigar.  However, when Andy Milligan is making horror movies, close, but no cigar is about nearest he can get to a bull’s eye.  

Milligan Motifs:  Carnage is yet another Andy Milligan production that was filmed in Staten Island that's filled with library music on the soundtrack.  The gore is consistent with other Milligan films as it features all the pitchforking, hacked off hands, and meat cleavers to the skull you’ve come to expect from the man.  The concept of three married couples staying in a spooky old house is a theme that constantly recycles throughout Milligan’s work and the death in the bathtub owes a debt to the one in Seeds.

Milligan Stock Players:  Leslie Den Dooven was later in Milligan’s short, Adventures of Red Rooster.  

TUBI CONTINUED… CHANTAL (2007) *** ½

Would-be starlet Chantal (Misty Mundae) arrives in Hollywood with stars in her eyes, ready to make her big break in the movies.  Immediately, she encounters various scumbags and sleazoids who trick her into attending fake auditions.  She then falls in with a nest of lesbian photographers (Andrea Davis, Darian Caine, and Julie Strain) who wind up exploiting her just as much, if not more than the creepy men.  Chantal eventually shacks up with a call girl (Julian Wells) who promises to help her out, but she predictably uses her too.  

Sure, Chantal is little more than a cliched expose on the sordid world of starlets trying to make it in Hollywood, but when it’s Misty Mundae playing the starlet, it just hits different.  Now, we all know Misty is beautiful and sexy and fun in her B movies.  With Chantal, she gets to prove she is a fine actress as well.  She hits the sweet spot between naïve and stupid, and makes you care about her character even when she’s making increasingly bad (and dumb) choices.  Misty’s really put through the wringer in this one as she’s forced to strip, gets pissed on, and resorts to eating trash.  Misty also has a lot of chemistry with Wells, who plays the hooker with a heart of tarnished gold.  Their scenes together really work, even if it’s a foregone conclusion that she’s going to break Misty’s heart.  

Caine, Davis, and Strain are equally good as the evil lesbians who corrupt Misty.  We’re all used to seeing Mundae, Caine, and Wells appearing in these Alternative Cinema films, but Strain is a welcome addition to the formula.  She really commands the screen, especially during her scenes where she demeans the struggling starlets.  

It's Misty who gets the best line of the movie when she says, “Why does everything get reduced to sucking and fucking in this town?”

TUBI CONTINUED… CURSE OF THE SNAKE WOMAN (2013) ** ½

After loving Veronica Ricci’s performance in Ouija Nazi, I decided to check out another one of her films.  Tubi’s algorithm has been recommending this one to me a lot, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to pull the trigger.  While it’s missing the all-out fun and campy atmosphere of something like Ouija Nazi, Ricci’s presence makes it a sporadically amusing good time.

A thief steals a sacred snake statue and is shot by the cops while fleeing the museum.  While hiding out in a strip club (called “Eden”), his blood mixes with the statue, which brings the snake to life.  The snake bites a dancer named Trinity (Ricci), turning her into a bloodsucking snake woman.  She then goes around sinking her fangs into the customers and turns her fellow strippers into her bootlicking minions.  

Curse of the Snake Woman is an interesting if not entirely successful variation on the vampire genre.  (It certainly mixes snake and vampire mythologies better than the awful Lady of the Dark:  Genesis of the Serpent Vampire.)  I will say that the cheap strip club set kind of takes some of the fun out of the whole thing.  (It looks more like an Arby’s employee break room with a stripper pole set up in the middle of the room than an actual strip club.)  It also doesn’t help that this is one of those edited-for-Tubi movies that have all the nudity scissored out.  (Although according to the IMDb Parents Guide, it doesn’t look like I missed a whole lot.)  Even then, the Tubi censors must’ve been asleep at the wheel because there are a few glimpses of skin here and there.

The subplot with the two brothers trying to get their hands on the statue eats up a lot of screen time too.  They spout off a lot of exposition about the myth of the snake woman and the history of the statue, and it bogs things down after a while.  The make-up on the snake woman in the end is pretty good though and is reminiscent of Salma Hayek in From Dusk Till Dawn.

The film benefits from yet another fun performance by Ricci.  She’s not nearly as over the top as she was in Ouija Nazi, but she breathes a little life into her snake woman role.  I wish the movie itself was worthy of her talents, but I enjoyed watching it just to see her strut her stuff.  She gets some pretty good lines too, like when she rips out a guy’s guts while going down on him and quips, “I love it when a guy sprays all over my face!”  Or when she tears out a customer’s tongue and says, “Keep your tongue to yourself!”  She’s so hot in this that you can’t blame the dudes for falling under her spell.  I know I would be helpless if she told me things like, “Can you take a shower with me?  I am like, soooo dirty!”

AKA:  Snake Club:  Revenge of the Snake Woman.  AKA:  Snake Club.

MILLIGAN MARCH: VAPORS (1965) **

Vapors is Andy Milligan’s first film.  It’s a gay-themed short set in a New York bath house populated by men who are on the make.  A lonely man named Thomas (Gerald Jacuzzo) hangs out in one of the rooms where he meets the married Mr. Jaffee (Robert Dahdah).  Together, they sit and talk about their lives and occasionally are interrupted by the customers who are looking for a quick place to hook up.

Although the customers who roam the halls are portrayed rather broadly, the interactions between Thomas and Mr. Jaffee seem genuine and well-intentioned for the most part.  I’m sure this felt revelatory at the time just for because it showed gay men being gay men.  Despite there being a nice moment or two, the whole thing just never quite gels.  

The film was based on a play by Hope Stansbury (who also appeared in Milligan’s The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here), and it feels very stage bound and talky at times.  What might’ve worked on stage for an act, just isn’t compelling as a short.  While Jacuzzo and Dahdah have chemistry together, Stansbury’s dialogue often lets them down.  Jacuzzo is strong, but Dahdah is merely adequate, and he doesn’t quite sell his longwinded story about the death of his son, which robs the ending of its potential impact.  The scene where they play “This Little Piggy” is rather awkward too.  I don’t know if Milligan was trying to make this scene flirtatious or what, but it just comes off as a cringey interaction.  Maybe that was the intention all along.  I’m not sure.  

Milligan does capture the atmosphere rather well.  The performers seemed game enough too.  Maybe if the material had been better fleshed out, it would’ve stuck the landing.  As it is, it remains an interesting, if only fitfully successful curiosity.   

Milligan Motifs:  Milligan would make movies with gay themes on and off for the entirety of his career.  

Milligan Stock Players:  Dahdah had a small role in The Body Beneath, Jacuzzo was in several Milligan productions (most notably Torture Dungeon), Hal Sherwood also turned up in The Ghastly Ones, and Hal Borske appeared in a bunch of Andy’s stuff.

MILLIGAN MARCH: SEEDS (1968) ** ½

The old, horrible, alcoholic, wheelchair bound matriarch (Maggie Rogers) of a family of no-good louts goes ballistic when she learns her scheming children (whom she calls “bad seeds”) will be visiting her for Christmas.  After a thoroughly unpleasant dinner, the children retire to their rooms where we see that their mother has good reason to be upset as they basically act like sex-mad degenerates.  Before long, family members wind up being bumped off by an unseen killer, adding to the familial strife.   

Seeds is essentially the prototypical Andy Milligan movie.  It has a lot of the themes that would permeate his work, namely domineering mothers, incest, and a family with a checkered history gathering under one roof, only to be stalked by a killer.  When Milligan worked through those themes later in his career, it was usually in films full of garish color, cheesy costumes, and cheap gore.  What makes this one work slightly better than his later stuff is that the gritty, handheld, black and white aesthetic of Seeds feels better suited to the themes Milligan is exploring.  Whereas his later pictures felt like amateurish home movies parading around as horror, this feels like underground cinema that was mis-marketed as sexploitation. 

For example, the scenes of Candy Hammond (Milligan’s wife) taking a bath, reading muscleman magazines in the nude, and seducing her own siblings is the sort of thing you would expect to see in a New York skin flick at the time.  However, the fringy touches Milligan lends to these sequences sometimes makes it feel closer to Andy Warhol than Michael Findlay.  The acting is better too (for the most part), even if most of the cast is prone to over-the-top histrionics.  

Seeds still suffers from many of the same flaws that mar many of Milligan’s pictures.  Namely, the pacing drags considerably thanks to the overly talky nature of the film.  While it might not be up to snuff with his sexploitation work like Nightbirds or Fleshpot on 42nd Street, it’s a little bit more offbeat, interesting, and better than his straight-up horror films like Torture Dungeon and The Ghastly Ones.  

Milligan Motifs:  As far as the story goes, we have a domineering mother figure, incest, a family gathering where a killer begins picking them off one by one, and servants who are secretly scheming against their employer.  On the technical side of things, it was yet another one of the films that Milligan made in Staten Island.  Also, his knack for using library music, allowing his actors to give overly theatrical performances, awkwardly adding in “hot” inserts into the lovemaking scenes, and odd camera placement (sometimes it feels like you’re looking directly up at the actors) crop up again.

Milligan Stock Company:  Hammond was also in Milligan’s Gutter Trash, The Promiscuous Sex, and Compass Rose.  Rogers was also in Tricks of the Trade, The Ghaslty Ones, and most memorably, Torture Dungeon.  Neil Flanagan appeared in a slew of his movies including Guru the Mad Monk, Torture Dungeon, and Fleshpot on 42nd Street.  

AKA:  Seeds of Sin.

TUBI CONTINUED… OUIJA NAZI (2014) ***

A group of sorority sisters throw a party at a supposedly cursed house belonging to their new pledge, Dawn (Kristen Casner).  Before long, the evil spirit of her Nazi ancestor possesses the town idiot and makes him run around hacking up people with a machete.  The sorority sisters fight back and kill him, but the spirit hops into Dawn and she transforms into a sexy psycho Nazi.  (The original title was actually Nazi Dawn… as in Dawn is a Nazi and not like, The Rise of the Nazis or something like that.)

Ouija Nazi is proof that in the world of low budget horror filmmaking, the spirit of Jim Wynorski, Fred Olen Ray, and Kevin S. Tenney is still alive and well.  This movie has just about everything you could want in a movie:  Sorority babes running around scantily clad, sorority babes running around topless, sorority babes being kept on leashes, sorority babes in Little Bo Peep costumes, and sorority babes looking and acting just plain hot.  

In addition to all that, it was quite refreshing to see the actresses being allowed to look and act nerdy.  I’m specifically talking about Veronica Ricci as the geeky gal, Agnes.  She has to be one of the hottest nerdy girls in screen history and her comedic timing is a joy to behold.  I haven’t crushed this hard on an actress in a long time.  I’ll have to check out more of her work in the near future.  Missy Martinez also makes a memorable impression as the bosomy Misty.

When it comes to the horror aspect of the film, things are more than a little uneven.  While Ouija Dawn does contain the best boob chopping scene since Head Cheerleader Dead Cheerleader, the bulk of the kills end abruptly and/or feel watered down.  In fact, the girls don’t even bring the Ouija board out until the last twenty minutes or so of the movie.  The scenes leading up to the finale in particular feel choppy and rushed.  So, if you tune in expecting to see what the title promises, you may feel a little shortchanged.  However, since 75% of the running time is devoted to sexy sorority sister shenanigans, it’s hard to get too upset.

AKA:  Nazi Dawn.

MILLIGAN MARCH: FLESHPOT ON 42ND STREET (1972) ***

Dusty (Laura Cannon) is growing restless from being shacked up with Tony (Last House on the Left), so she robs him blind (but not before balling him first) and splits.  She then hocks his valuables at a pawn shop and proceeds to rob the owner blind (but not before balling him first).  Dusty then bumps into her drag queen friend Candy (Neil Flanagan from Guru the Mad Monk) who lets her crash at her apartment where she turns tricks to help out with the rent.  Things seemingly change for the better when Dusty falls head over heels for a rich Wall Street lawyer named Bob (Harry Reems).  Predictably, her newfound happiness will not last very long.

I don’t know if bleak is the right word for this drama.  Maybe realistic is a better fit.  After seeing so many of writer/director Andy Milligan’s fanciful horror flicks, Fleshpot of 42nd Street is kind of a shock.  I mean that in a good way.  I think it’s funny that he spent so much time and money (OK, maybe not money) making those period horror movies when his real strength seems to be in the gritty sex film market.  As with Nightbirds, he shows he has a knack for capturing the squalor and despair of lost souls living on the fringes of society who use sex as a survival mechanism.  

Milligan’s period horror films are marked by overly theatrical performances and hammy dialogue.  Fleshpot on 42nd Street is proof that when he’s working with naturalistic actors who say dialogue that sounds like actual human conversation, the results can be truly worthwhile.  Make no mistake, this isn’t exactly a classic.  If anything, it’s a better than average sexploitation drama.  However, compared to the majority of Milligan’s other films, it’s some Turner Classic Movies type shit.   

The film also benefits from an interesting cast which is comprised of actors from Doris Wishman movies, porn stars, co-stars from Last House on the Left (which came out the same year), and porn stars that co-starred in Last House on the Left.  Cannon (who also appeared with Reems in Forced Entry) is great in the lead, but it's Flanagan who steals the movie as Cherry, the drag queen with a heart of gold.  As awful as he was in Guru the Mad Monk, he is terrific here as he lends a touch of dignity to what could’ve otherwise been a stereotypical character.  He also provides a gratuitous plug for Milligan’s previous films when he tells Cannon says they should take in a double feature of Torture Dungeon and Bloodthirsty Butchers.

Surprisingly enough, the sex scenes are probably the weakest part of the movie.  There are some hardcore inserts during a couple of the sex scenes, but the camerawork is awkward and the editing is jarring, which ruins the intended impact.  Whenever the characters are conversing in between the sex, Fleshpot of 42nd Street really comes alive.  

Milligan Motifs:  Not many, other than the use of stock library music and the fact it was partially shot on Staten Island.

Milligan Stock Company:  Neil Flanagan was the primary repeat offender.  

AKA:  Erotic Diary of a Happy Hooker.  AKA:  Flashpot on 42nd Street.  AKA:  The Girls of 42nd Street.  

TUBI CONTINUED… HUMANOIDS FROM ATLANTIS (1992) * ½

A fledgling filmmaker (James L. Edwards) gets his first paid gig making a documentary about a local lake.  While shooting scenes for the movie, he captures footage of a slimy monster lurking about the lake.  It turns out that this creature is the last refugee from Atlantis, and a mad scientist (Christine Morrison) wants to use it to help her take over the world.  

Humanoids from Atlantis isn’t nearly as polished (or as much fun) as writer/director J.R. Bookwalter’s other films like Robot Ninja and The Dead Next Door.  He might’ve realized this as well as he used his non de plume “Lance Randas” in the credits.  Speaking of credits, even though the movie runs a mere forty-seven minutes, it is still heavily padded with long opening and closing title sequences and a slow-moving opening crawl that sets up the plot.  

Although Bookwalter made entertaining and fun pictures in the past that transcended their no-budget roots, this one is more or less shot-on-video schlock in just about every regard.  The creature is really cheap too as you can easily spot the seams in the mask and gloves whenever he attacks someone.  The acting is bad as well, and to make matters worse, it's all bloodless and tame, so there’s no real reason to sit through it.  

Bookwalter thinks that by having characters say shit like, “This is like something out of a bad B-Movie!” every ten minutes or so, it lets him off the hook for making an intentionally bad B-Movie.  He even tries for the old “It’s only a movie” twist ending finale to assure the audience that all the acting, effects, and… well… everything was bad on purpose.  That doesn’t give him a pass.  It just makes it that much more annoying.  Oh, and there’s only one humanoid too.  I’m surprised the characters didn’t mention that fact as they are so adept at picking everything else out that’s wrong with the flick.