TUBI CONTINUED… VAMPIRE ON BIKINI BEACH (1988) * ½

There’s been a rash of vampire-like killings in a seaside community.  Meanwhile, a beach bunny’s budding romance is interrupted when she comes into possession of the Book of the Dead.  Naturally, the vampire wants it too so he can create an army of undead vampire minions.  Will the beach bunny and her bikini-clad friends be able to stop the nefarious bloodsucker from taking over the world?

Vampire on Bikini Beach should’ve been called How to Pad Out a Bikini because it contains a shit-ton of padding.  There are gratuitous radio broadcasts, a five-minute long opening credit sequence, random shots of people surfing and windsurfing on the beach, nightclub performances (one tune is appropriately titled “Sucker”), and montages of beach bunnies trying on swimsuits (which is the only acceptable form of padding in a movie like this).  It also contains an awkward flashback structure complete with random bits of narration and long stretches where people are so far away from the camera that the filmmakers can loop in additional dialogue to clarify what the hell is going on.  Combine that with the abrupt ending, and it’s enough to make you suspect that this was either abandoned or unfinished, and an editor made an extra $50 doing a patch-up job to get this looking close to something approximately a releasable picture.   

Also, I’ve got to wonder if the version that was uploaded to Tubi was a rip from the film’s broadcast on USA’s Up All Night as the curse words are muted out.  Then again, there’s a brief post-coital butt shot in there about halfway through the movie.  Still, this marks the first time since the inception of this column that I’ve watched a flick that’s been edited for language but not nudity.  

The horror elements are weak, which I guess is to be expected from a horror movie with the words “Bikini Beach” in the title.  The stalking scenes feel rushed and most of the killing occurs offscreen or via POV camerawork.  I will say, the make-up on the vampire’s half-man/half-bat assistant is pretty good though.

AKA:  Vampires on Bikini Beach.

TUBI CONTINUED… MONSTERLAND (2009) ** ½

When Jorg Buttgereit, the man who gave the world Nekromantik 1 and 2 makes a horror documentary, you just expect more.  Although it goes through all the proper motions and boasts a strong list of interviewees (John Carpenter, Rick Baker, Kim Newman, Joe Dante, Greg Nicotero, and more) and subjects (Frankenstein, Godzilla, King Kong, etc.), Monsterland kinda falls flat.  Don’t get me wrong.  It’s perfectly watchable.  It’s just not very thorough.

While I applaud Buttgereit for some surprising inclusions (like Tetsuo:  The Iron Man), the bulk of the documentary plays like an old hat.  The most irritating thing about it is that they couldn’t get the rights for some of the clips, so they are forced to play snippets from other movies to illustrate their point.  For example, when talking about the original King Kong, scenes from the Peter Jackson remake are shown.  Or when scenes from Godzilla vs. Destoroyah are played during a discussion of the 1954 Godzilla.  And don’t even get me started on the scene where they show clips from a Frankenstein “fan film” in lieu of footage of Boris Karloff in the 1931 Frankenstein.  Seriously.  What the fuck?

Now that I got that off my chest, I will say there are some good moments here.  The highlight is the interview with H.R. Giger who discusses designing the Alien and shows off some sculptures, artwork, and movie props.  I also enjoyed the little sidebar that focused on “G-Fest”, the Godzilla convention where fans make their own homemade kaiju costumes.  

Despite that, there were still a few things that stuck in my crawl.  Like the weirdo guy who was obsessed with Ed Gein.  I know they had to get this thing to the hour mark, but this crap could’ve easily been excised.  Oh well.  I guess if you want to hear John Carpenter talk about Halloween AGAIN, you should enjoy it.

TUBI CONTINUED… LOW RIDERS VS. ZOMBIES FROM SPACE (2018) **

The opening scene of Low Riders vs. Zombies from Space is kind of fun as a Latino car enthusiast spots a meteor crashing to Earth.  I only wish the rest of the movie lived up to this sequence, which is a nice mix of ‘50s sci-fi and 21st century muscle cars.  Heck, it even has a hard time living up to its title.  

A mechanic who owns a low rider equipped with a snazzy hydraulic system picks up his sultry firecracker of a girlfriend for a date at the local VFW.  Meanwhile, two valets smoke weed contaminated by the fallout of the meteor and turn into zombies.  Eventually, they crash the venue and turn more people into zombies, leaving our heroes to fight for their lives.  

Low Riders vs. Zombies from Space is long on Low Riders and short on Zombies from Space.  In fact, the zombies don’t even show up till the last twenty minutes of the movie.  Before that, a lot of the running time is devoted to long scenes of people driving around, which is little more than an excuse to show a bunch of hot-waxed hot rods bouncing up and down and profiling along the strip.  These scenes go on forever and feel like a low rider version of Manos, the Hands of Fate.  At least the cheesy rap songs that accompany these sequences are good for a laugh.  

A lot of the time, you’ll swear someone just filmed footage from a car show and made it into a horror movie.  One long sequence involves car club members lining up their cars in a parking lot and showing off their hydraulics.  Still, even with a running time that’s relatively scant (fifty-seven minutes), these scenes go on forever and are ultimately kinda pointless.  By the time the finale does roll around, it feels rushed and anticlimactic.  There are one or two amusing moments here and there (like when a car bounces around and squashes a zombie), but honestly, it’s not quite enough to make it worthwhile.

AKA:  Lowriders vs. Zombies from Space.  AKA:  Lowriders vs. Zombies.

TUBI CONTINUED… SATAN’S BLADE (1984) ** ½

Satan’s Blade kicks off with a neat opening sequence that would make for a fine short film.  It has a cool double twist and really sets up the movie with style.  Sure, everything that comes after this sequence is a bit on the uneven side, but overall, it’s a shade or two better than your average low budget slasher.  

A couple comes to a mountain resort where there has just been a double homicide.  The crazy lady who runs the place thinks it’s the work of the local legend, an insane mountain man who stalks the woods with a big ass hunting knife.  Meanwhile, a gaggle of hot-to-trot coeds also come to the resort looking for a good time, and one of them even tries to seduce our married hero.  Will he be able to keep it in his pants and save his marriage?  Or will the killer ruin his chances to score?  

Satan’s Blade contains lot of scenes of cars driving on mountain backroads while dubbed-in dialogue fills in the character’s backstories.  Although this process is technically crude, it’s rather economical from a storytelling point of view.  It doles out vital plot information, and once the car finally gets to its destination, the audience is caught up to speed with everything it needs to know about its characters.  

In fact, the whole movie is kinda cheap and crude.  There are visible boom mikes, long scenes of people walking slowly through the snow that pad out the running time, and less than stellar acting.  However, that all sorta adds to the fun.  Heck, there’s even some legitimate laughs to be had, like when our recent law school grad hero tries to seduce his wife using an unending series of lawyer-related innuendos.  Couple that will a good amount of T & A and a handful of decent kill scenes and you have yourself an A-OK slasher.

TUBI CONTINUED… VAMPYRZ ON A BOAT (2022) * ½

A crew of seamen take a job driving a top-secret research team around in circles in the middle of the ocean.  Seems the scientists are performing experiments on a vampire… er… vampyr who is being kept below deck.  Naturally, it doesn’t take long for most of the crew to become vampires… er… vampyrs… er… vampyrz… er… VampyrZ too.  

Goofy title aside, VampyrZ on a Boat (I have no idea why it’s spelled that way or why the “Z” is capitalized, so I’ll just move past it) does at least contain one novel scene as the vampire outbreak occurs in an unexpected and fun way.  Instead of the vampire getting loose and biting people, a mosquito bites the vampire and then flies into the kitchen and bites the cook, effectively turning him into a vampire.  Vampire mosquitoes.  I think that might be a silver screen first.  That’s worth an extra ½ * right there.

Unfortunately, after an OK set-up, it’s all downhill from there.  The attempts at humor are downright painful (the guy with the ventriloquist dummy being the main offender) and the vampire attacks quickly become repetitive.  (They move fast because the editor put in a lot of jump-cuts.)  The oddest element is the whole Groundhog Day/Happy Death Day/Edge of Tomorrow time loop subplot where our hero perpetually wakes up with a hammer in his head and keeps on ticking.  This plot device is clunky at best and slightly incoherent at worst.  The ending is awful too and pretty much sucks the life (no pun intended) out of the whole deal.  

VH-1’s Carrie Keagan co-stars as a sexy and feisty reporter who becomes prisoner of the main vampire.  She’s the only bright spot in the movie as just about everyone else in the cast is irritating.  Too bad she never gets anything worthwhile to do, even though she TryZ her best.

BIRDEMIC 2: THE RESURRECTION (2013) ****

The birds are back in this incredibly awful and frequently hilarious sequel to the WTF classic, Birdemic.  

I knew I was in for a good time when the film opened with a five-minute long sequence of our hero Bill (Thomas Favaloro) casually walking down Hollywood Boulevard.  He’s a producer who’s casting a movie and turns to the hero from the first flick, Rod (Alan Bagh) to finance his dream project.  Naturally, they decide to cast their girlfriends in the movie.  All is going swimmingly when a red rain descends on Hollywood.  The precipitation soaks into the La Brea Tar Pits, resurrecting flocks of killer prehistoric birds who rise out of the muck and converge on Hollywood, pecking and killing everyone in sight.  Our heroes must band together once more, pistols and clothes hangers in hand to fend off the undead bird menace.  

Both Birdemic movies have been about wildly successfully and blissfully dumb white people being wildly successful, blissfully dumb, and incredibly white for no reason whatsoever for about half the running time.  I’m not sure if this is some sort of social commentary on writer/director James Nguyen’s part or not.  Either that or he’s just too lazy to think up any problems, drama, or obstacles to put in front of them, except for the killer birds, of course.  At any rate, the scenes of the character acting awfully white are downright hysterical as the acting and dialogue often exceeds the jaw-dropping idiocy of the original film.

Yes, all the stuff you loved about the first movie crops up again.  Awkward love scenes in which the participants keep their underwear and pants on?  Check.  Random dance sequences?  Got ‘em.  Editing that starts to fade in or out and then doesn’t at the last second?  You bet.  Passionate speeches about global warming?  Uh-huh.  (Tree Hugger Guy returns!)

There are also new elements here that help to increase the hilarity.  Like the fact that not only are birds attacking this time around, but also cavemen and zombies.  What makes the zombie attack scene so funny is that they emerge from their graves wearing jeans and T-shirts.  I mean, shouldn’t they have been buried in… you know… a suit and tie?  But by far the funniest sequence is when our heroes band together and look for survivors.  They cruise around the city checking the pulse of EVERY SINGLE body they come across before solemnly announcing, “He’s dead.”  It was funny the first time it happened.  It was gut-busting the tenth time.  By the fifteenth time, I was wiping tears of laughter out of my eyes.

And what would a Birdemic movie be without horrible special effects?  In addition to the shitty CGI birds, we also get a laughably bad CGI jellyfish attack.  That’s pretty funny on its own merits, but hearing the characters alliteratively refer to it as a “giant jumbo jellyfish” over and over again in like, the span of a minute is fucking hysterical.  The truly perplexing addition of a crappy CGI ambulance that drives off at the end of the scene is the perfect cherry on top of what was already an absolutely bonkers sequence.  

Once again, Nguyen has made a movie that is distinctly his own.  He really put his heart and soul into this thing and we as a moviegoing audience are all the better for it.  Because his heartfelt sincerity is felt in every scene, the sequel blissfully contains the same Ed Wood-type vibe that made Birdemic a camp classic.  (There’s also a scene where characters drive around Hollywood and their sunglasses disappear and reappear within alternating shots, which I’m sure would’ve made Wood envious.)  

Probably the most amazing thing about the movie is they actually got permission to film inside Universal Studios.  (At the now defunct Jaws ride, no less.)  The best part is when the bird battle is over, the characters conduct a monotone discussion about the Jaws franchise.  I love it.

This is one sequel that surpasses the original.  It's rare when it happens, but you love to see it when it does.  Oh, and by “surpasses the original”, I mean, “it’s even more gloriously stupid and jaw-droppingly unhinged”.

TUBI CONTINUED… AMITYVILLE EMANUELLE (2023) **

I’ve been saying this for a while now:  Hollywood should be making as many fake Emanuelle movies as they do fake Amityville movies as both titles are public domain and can be used by anybody.  Leave it to the good folks at Cinema Epoch, who have made their share of both, to combine the two franchises into one and unleash Amityville Emanuelle on the world.  

Things start off with a depiction of the DeFeo murders before flashing forward to the present.  It seems that after Ron DeFeo died in prison, his now-grown son begins having horrifying visions.  The daughter of George Lutz receives DeFeo’s ashes from a cuckoo friend of the family, and she too begins experiencing nightmares.  The ashes then turn her into a complete horndog as she starts banging guys at the drop of a hat.  (She even has a threesome with two random dudes she meets at a bar.)  It’s then up to DeFeo Jr. to help her exorcise the evil spirits once and for all.  

You know, it sort of makes sense to combine both Amityville and Emanuelle franchises from a financial standpoint.  However, if you dive a little deeper, you’ll notice they sort of fit together rather well.  Consider the original Amityville murders took place in November of 1974 and the first official Emmanuelle movie came out just a few weeks later.  Makes you think, don’t it?

Speaking of thinking, I honestly think this might’ve worked better had the filmmakers called it “Amityville Legacy” or “Ashes or Amityville” or something along those lines.  When you start putting “Emanuelle” in the title, it brings along a certain set of expectations, and if you can’t deliver on those expectations, then why even bother?  I mean, no one is even called “Emanuelle” in the movie!  Sure, the ashes turn our heroine into a sexually liberated woman, but she doesn’t do nearly as much humping as Emanuelle.  So, that is a bit misleading.  It also doesn’t help that she keeps her clothes on the whole movie, and that a lot of the sex scenes occur off screen, which is definitely not a good thing when you’re talking about an Emanuelle flick.

While it fails miserably as a fake Emanuelle movie, Amityville Emanuelle surprisingly isn’t too shabby of a fake Amityville movie.  It contains at least one semi-effective scene where the ghost of DeFeo interrupts a group of friends who are playing with a Ouija board and blows them away.  Also, bringing members of both the Lutz and DeFeo families together to stop the Amityville curse was a nice touch.  Having sat through over twenty-five fake Amityville flicks in the past few weeks, you can trust me when I tell you this is far from the worst one out there.  It’s just a shame the ending sucks.

TUBI CONTINUED… LINGERIE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIPS 21: NAUGHTY ‘N NICE (2016) ****

Sometimes when I’m flipping through Tubi looking for something to watch, I stumble across something so bizarre that I must simply hit “PLAY” and drop the remote.  Such was the case with Lingerie Fighting Championships 21:  Naughty ‘N Nice.  I usually try to only watch actual movies (or something approximating an actual movie) for this column.  However, when the Tubi Gods drop something like Lingerie Fighting Championships 21:  Naughty ‘N Nice in your lap, you just gotta dive in with both feet.

For context, I had no idea going in that Lingerie Fighting Championships even existed.  Just looking at the thumbnail though, it seemed like the sort of thing that would be right up my alley.  (Boy, the Tubi algorithm knows me pretty well by now.)  And… well… Lingerie Fighting Championships is exactly what you would expect it to be.  It’s sexy women in lingerie fighting in a cage, UFC style.  Sadly, this is the only LFC special available on Tubi, which is a bummer.  I’m not saying I would watch all twenty of the previous LFC specials, but I’m not saying I wouldn’t either.  

Oh, and the LFC’s motto is, “A Little Bit of MMA.  A Little Bit of Wrestling.  A Little Bit of Clothing.”  It’s like Dana White and Hugh Hefner had a baby.  That is to say, it’s awesome.

There are eight bouts in all, featuring sexy fighters with nicknames like “The Lotus”, “The Mongoose”, and “Rattlesnake”.  My favorite grappler was Serina “Honey Punch” Kyle who looks like the girl next door but can really scrap when the chips are down.  I also enjoyed the presence of Jolene “The Valkyrie” Hexx, a statuesque, fiery redhead who dominates in the ring.  A quick Google search tells me she is now the current LFC champion, and no wonder, as she has all the making of a champ from the footage shown here.

The ladies are a good mix of personalities.  Some look just as you would expect:  Lingerie models.  Others are tough brawlers who would give men in the UFC a run for their money.  Likewise, the matches have a nice blend of cheesecake jiggling and legitimately badass wrestling.  The camerawork is stellar too as the cameramen have a sixth sense as to the most optimal place to put the camera while the ladies are locked in battle.  (That’s a diplomatic way of saying, “There’s a lot of butt shots.”)

The matches themselves are a lot of fun.  It’s easy to pick a favorite before the bout starts and root them on.  One of the biggest upsets occurs when Cali Cat fights with an injured ankle and still somehow makes her opponent tap out.  There’s nothing like a good underdog comeback to get your blood pumping.  The same goes for Maine “The Main Event” Morgan who defies the odds and somehow escapes the jaws of death to gain a submission victory.  The final match-up, between challenger Allie “Babydoll” Parks and the champion, Feather “The Hammer” Hadden is a lot of fun too.

One of my favorite aspects of the fights is when the ladies walk down to ringside, there is a little chair they can sit in to take their heels off before entering the cage.  I mean, you just don’t get that in the UFC.  (I do wish the “Backstage Cam” segments were longer though.)  Oh, and when there is a “wardrobe malfunction” in the ring, the uncorralled body part is pixelated out.  You know, just to remind you that you’re watching a classy event.   

If the goal of putting exactly one LFC special on Tubi was to convert new fans, then I would say, “Mission Accomplished”.  I hope more are added in the near future.  If not, I will definitely be keeping tabs on the sport for years to come.

TUBI CONTINUED… THE ONE ARMED EXECUTIONER (1983) ***

The director and star of Devils Three, Bobby A. Suarez and Franco Guerrero reunite for another fun Pilipino actioner.  This time, Guerrero stars as Ortega, an Interpol cop who just got married to a hot babe.  Naturally, when he tries to bust some bad guys, they retaliate by killing Ortega’s wife and chopping off his arm.  To make matters worse when he tries to go back to work, his boss takes him off the case and insensitively tells him, “Hands off!”

Ouch.  

The One Armed Executioner may not be as outlandish as Suarez’s other action flicks like They Call Her… Cleopatra Wong and Devils Three, but it does start off with a scene of a little person being locked in a phonebooth and thrown off a pier.  Like Cleopatra Wong, it takes an old school martial arts template and transposes it to a modern-day setting.  (This time the inspiration is obviously The One-Armed Swordsman.)  There’s even a training montage where a wise old karate master teaches Ortega how to overcome his handicap that would look right at home in a Kung Fu flick.  

Even if Suarez doesn’t lean into the zany aspects of the plot the way he did in previous efforts, this is nevertheless a solidly enjoyable revenge picture.  It’s straightforward for the most part, but it has just enough odd touches (like the homemade shooting gallery in the woods) to make it memorable.  Guerrero makes for a strong hero too and reminded me a little of Sonny Chiba at times.  (I mean, praise doesn’t come any higher than that.)

I will say the film slows down a bit in the second act when Ortega is stumbling around drunk and feeling sorry for himself.  While this certainly works for his character, it kind of takes the wind out of the movie’s sails.  The good news is that once Ortega finally becomes the One Armed Executioner and starts kicking ass, things improve greatly, and the finale contains enough exploding bamboo huts, guard towers, and speedboats to make it more than worthwhile.

TUBI CONTINUED… DEVILS THREE (1980) ***

This fun and surprising sequel to They Call Her… Cleopatra Wong kicks off with a blisteringly awesome theme song followed by one of the greatest lines ever uttered on the silver screen:  “Imbeciles!  How are we going to push drugs if we don’t have any pushers?”  This line of dialogue is spoken by the evil drug dealer who has one of the best names in cinema history:  Lucifer Devlin (Johnny Wilson).  AKA:  “The Devil”.  Devlin barks orders at his men so much that they finally have enough of his shit and kidnap his daughter.  If he doesn’t cough up a million dollars and fork over his entire drug operation to them, they will kill her.  Naturally, there’s only one person Devlin can trust to get his daughter back:  His arch nemesis, the badass Interpol agent Cleopatra Wong (Marrie Lee)!

Cleo makes Devlin agree he’ll turn himself over to the authorities once his daughter is home safe and sound.  Cleo can’t do the job alone though, so she turns to Tony (Franco Guerrero), a cop who was kicked off the force for being gay, and a three-hundred-pound psychic named Madame Rotunda (Florence Carvajal) for help.  The unlikely trio make a great and unique team as everyone underestimates them at every turn.  However, the question lingers, will Devlin renege on his agreement once the job is done?

Devils Three is surprisingly inclusive for what on the surface looks to be a mindless made-in-the-Philippines actioner.  Not only is our heroine an ally to the LGBTQIA+ community, but she also spreads the message of body positivity as well.  You go, girl!  

Despite the addition of Cleo’s unorthodox compatriots, the action in Devils Three isn’t quite up to snuff with what we saw in They Call Her… Cleopatra Wong.  Still, there’s plenty of good moments here to keep you completely entertained.  There’s a fight in an ice factory, a briefcase that doubles as a bazooka, and an unlikely stunt when our three heroes hop on a motorcycle, give chase to the bad guys, and jump over a speeding car on the highway.  I mean, you don’t see that every day.

There’s a wealth of great dialogue too, with my favorite line being, “How would you like to get fingered by Captain Hook?”

AKA:  Mean Business.  AKA:  Pay or Die.  AKA:  Devil’s Three:  The Karate Killers.  AKA:  The Devil’s Angels.  AKA:  Devil’s Angels/Devil’s Three.

BIRDEMIC: SHOCK AND TERROR (2010) ****

Usually, I will take bad practical effects over bad CGI effects any day.  Birdemic:  Shock and Terror is the one exception to the rule.  Imagine if The Birds was remade with birds that looked like something out of a Nintendo 64 game.  Now imagine that they can only move in the same three or four motions throughout the whole movie.  (Hovering, flying left, flying right, and kamikazing into the ground and inexplicably exploding.)  To continue the Nintendo theme a bit further, the scenes where our heroes find a random cache of weapons and shoot the birds out of the sky play like a cinematic version of Duck Hunt.  

Now, being the bad movie connoisseur I am, I had heard of Birdemic for years and years, but I never sat down to watch it because I was afraid it wouldn’t live up to the hype.  I am a mature individual, and I can admit when I am wrong.  I say this with utmost sincerity… I was wrong.  Not only does Birdemic:  Shock and Terror live up to its Z-Grade legend, it exceeded my expectations.  This is one of the best bad movies I’ve seen in a long time.  (And of course, by “bad” I mean “entertainingly awful”.)

We’re talking Troll 2 levels of goodness (badness) here.  

What’s wacky about the movie is that the first half plays like some sort of creepy ass rom-com with one of the sketchiest meet-cutes in screen history.  Then, almost exactly halfway through, the birds attack and it becomes a no-budget Hitchcock riff.  Surprisingly enough, I found the first half to be slightly stronger as it emits a jaw-droppingly bizarre yet sincere depiction of a thoroughly unlikeable character and expects us to root for him.  Oh, and did I mention this section of the movie also contains a hilarious dance number set to the tune of the incredible “Just Hanging Out”?

I know there’s a big debate raging about ChatGPT, and whether or not it should be used to create “content”.  Well, this movie is thirteen years old, and it often feels like the dialogue was written by AI.  The “hero” Rod (Alan Bagh) almost always yammers on and on about his job while his date Nathalie (Whitney Moore) talks about how her mom wants her to go into real estate, even though she’s a highly successful Victoria’s Secret model.  Now don’t get me wrong.  The stuff with the shoddily rendered killer birds is hilarious.  It's just that I found the bafflingly constructed dialogue scenes in the early going to be even more compelling.  

Honestly, these scenes contain some of the worst stilted dialogue and horribly wooden acting I’ve even seen in a motion picture.  That is no hyperbole.  That is a fact.  It also contains some of the worst editing of all time.  Nearly every fade-out or transition scene is botched, and there are cuts that are just downright perplexing.  The sound is also inconsistent, which I guess happens when you are making a low budget movie, but it’s inconsistent within the SAME SCENE.

What makes the movie WORK is the fact that writer/director James Nguyen’s heart is in it.  He’s sincere.  He wants to save the environment.  That’s why he wrote approximately four hundred speeches about global warming into the screenplay.  You got to appreciate a filmmaker who wears his heart on his sleeve like that.  In fact, I’m reminded of another filmmaker lacking in talent who similarly wore his heart on his sleeve.  That’s right, I’m talking about Ed Wood.  Yes, I would mention Birdemic:  Shock and Terror in the same breath as Glen or Glenda.  Both are just dripping with the directors’ passion.  They are as different as night and day in a lot of regards, but one thing is certain:  Only their respective directors could’ve ever concocted that story and brought it to the screen with such sincerity.  

Sure, it may feel a tad too long in places.  However, that feeling might just come from the fact you’re getting too much of a good (bad) thing.  Could it have been… say… ten minutes shorter?  Possibly.  Then again, what would you cut?  I wouldn’t want to miss the iconic tree hugger scene.  Or the double decker bus scene.  Or the random tribute to “Imagine”.  I wouldn’t trade those moments for the world.  In fact, I’m already kinda itching to see it again.  

TUBI CONTINUED… THEY CALL HER… CLEOPATRA WONG (1978) *** ½

Cleopatra Wong (Marrie Lee) is a badass Interpol agent out to bust a counterfeiting ring.  She finds out the bad guys are smuggling the phony dough in strawberry jam and use a Christian monastery as a front.  Cleo then assembles a crack team to infiltrate the monastery and bring the villains to justice.  

They Call Her… Cleopatra Wong is an awesome hybrid of spy flick and Kung Fu actioner.  It plays like an Asian version of an American Blaxploitation action flick with Marrie Lee playing the Cleopatra Jones type of role.  It’s full of funky wah-wah guitar music on the soundtrack, snazzy ‘70s fashions, and frequent Kung Fu battles.  The fight choreography isn’t exactly great, but the editing is dynamic enough to make the brawls and battles pop with pizzazz.  Oh, and they occur at nearly every reel change, which is also a big plus.  The best thing though is that the while the action occurs in a modern-day setting, the fights are all staged like a traditional period Kung Fu flick.  Seeing that style and energy transposed into the groovy world of bellbottoms and blue jeans, and blended with the globetrotting intrigue of a Bond adventure (or at least the low budget knockoff version of a Bond adventure) makes it a real treat.

The film really takes flight once the action switches over to the monastery.  It’s here where Cleo and her team dress as nuns to infiltrate the holy place of worship.  What I loved about this sequence was the fact that the guys on Cleo’s team don’t even try to hide their beards and thick, bushy handlebar mustaches while disguised in their nuns’ habits!  In fact, They Call Her… Cleopatra Wong proves the rule that any movie can be made better with the addition of nuns brandishing machine guns.

There’s enough violent, slow motion, bloody exploding squib carnage in the third act to make Sam Peckinpah proud.  Then, the action culminates with Cleo hopping on her jet-powered dirty bike with rear-mounted machine guns and using arrows with exploding tips to take out the bad guys seven years before Rambo made it fashionable.  If that isn’t enough to make you want to watch it, the scene where the villain, dressed like a monk, yells as his nun henchwomen and says, “That better be the gospel truth, or I’ll send you straight to Hell!” will.

AKA:  Cleopatra Wong.  AKA:  Female Big Boss.  

TUBI CONTINUED… STALE POPCORN AND STICKY FLOORS (2023) ** ½

Stale Popcorn and Sticky Floors is director Dustin Ferguson’s tribute (I hesitate to call it a “documentary”) to the grindhouse horrors and drive-in fare of the ‘70s and ‘80s.  Lynn Lowry talks about working on I Drink Your Blood and The Crazies.  Camilla Carr discusses Don’t Look in the Basement.  John Dugan appears and reflects on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  John Russo gabs about Midnight.  Kevin Van Hentenryck relives the making of Basket Case and takes us around to a few of the original filming locations.  Brinke Stevens tells us how she came to appear in The Slumber Party Massacre, which launched her career as a Scream Queen.  And so on and so on…  

Some of the interviews are entertaining (especially Lowry’s) and I commend Ferguson for seeking out lesser-known stars to talk about some deep grindhouse cuts that aren’t usually covered in something like this.  I just wish the whole thing looked a little more professional.  Some segments resemble Zoom calls while others look like they were culled from a cheap behind the scenes special features off a DVD.  Other times, the subjects are framed awkwardly on camera and sometimes even have half their head cropped out of the picture.  I don’t know if they filmed the pieces themselves and sent them into Ferguson or what.  It just gives the whole thing an inconsistent look.

Still, there are some good moments here, and lots of solid clips from movies like I Spit on Your Grave, Last House on the Left, Hellhole, Re-Animator, and Street Trash (although many times they are taken from the theatrical trailers).  The segments on low budget horrors like Microwave Massacre, Force of Darkness, and Spookies are fun too, and it was cool seeing the prop maker from Halloween 3 showing off the Silver Shamrock masks.  So, overall, Stale Popcorn and Sticky Floors isn’t bad; it’s just a little uneven in terms of both content and quality.

TUBI CONTINUED… RETURN OF THE WITCH (1952) ***

This just in from the “You Just Never Know What the Hell Will Show Up on Tubi” Department.  Here’s a ’50 Finnish horror flick called Return of the Witch.  Now, I’m no scholar on Finnish horror movies.  In fact, I think this is the first one I've seen.  What is interesting about it is that it predates a lot of similarly themed American horror films by several decades.  For example, Witchouse 2, which I reviewed a little while ago for this column, could play as virtual remake of this flick if you squint hard enough as the set-up is nearly identical.   

A husband-and-wife team of scientists are brought in to excavate a swamp that backs up to an old wealthy guy’s mansion.  They do some digging and uncover the body of a witch that had centuries before been staked inside her grave.  They foolishly remove the stake, much to the locals’ protests, and before long, a naked, raven-haired beauty named Birgit (Mirja Mane) is found wandering near the grave.  The team brings her inside and gives her shelter, and she in turn causes the men to become a bunch of horndogs.  She also causes a several calamities among the locals (although to be fair, most of them are just strange coincidences) who come to believe that she is the reincarnation of the witch.

Again, I’m not a scholar when it comes to Finnish horror movies, but I do know for a fact that us prudish Americans did NOT have scenes of nekkid women running around in our horror movies during the ‘50s.  While it’s far from a T & A parade, Return of the Witch is much more blatantly sexual than anything Hollywood would dare try to get away with at the time.  Heck, there’s even some choice four-letter words here too (in the subtitles at least).  I’ll admit, I kinda wished it went a little further with the nudity than it did, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t surprising, and most of all, fun.  I mean, you’ve got to wonder if Lifeforce and Species didn’t take a page out of this flick’s “Naked Woman Turns Men into Brainless Victims” playbook.

Mane is feisty and frisky in the title role.  While the rest of the film is a tad uneven and perhaps a bit creaky at times, her performance is easily the best thing about the movie.  It’s always a blast to watch her whenever she’s on screen.  Mane’s vivacious screen presence is so enchanting that it’s no wonder all the men in the movie fall all over her.  I also thought it was neat that her character is less a malevolent temptress and more of a carefree cutie-pie who just so happens to accidentally curse you.  

In short, Return of the Witch is sure to cast a spell on you.

AKA:  The Witch.  AKA:  The Witch Returns to Life.

BODY FLASH (1984) ****

This is the kind of ‘80s erotica I enjoy.  We live in an age where you can find virtually any XXX movie on your phone.  However, I’d rather dig up and revisit relics like this from a bygone age of simpler, cheekier smut.  One thing is for sure:  They don’t make them like this anymore.

Body Flash was made for the Playboy Channel, and it is a mash-up of the music video, dance, and workout video formats.  (When it was released on home video, it was sometimes paired with the lame sketch comedy special, The Sex and Violence Family Hour, which starred a young Jim Carrey.)  It was meant to capitalize on MTV and the workout video crazes while simultaneously giving the viewer lots of T & A.  It’s only a half-hour long, but it sure packs a lot into that small time frame.

First up is Kim Morris, who does a sexy dance in heels to Taco’s cover of “Puttin’ on the Ritz”.  Kim is interviewed afterwards about her taste in men (“To me, a sexy man is Mick Jagger!”) and her first sexual encounter.  She then drinks fizzing champagne suggestively until it foams all over her and she is forced to do the rest of the interview in the nude.  This is by far the longest segment (about twice the length of the other sequences on the tape), but it kicks things off in fine fashion and sets a pretty high bar for the rest of the performers.  

Yazoo’s “Situation” accompanies the next segment, where Toni Allessandrini appears in a geisha outfit.  Before anyone can make claims of cultural appropriation, she sheds the kimono in favor of a skimpy black leotard and starts to strut her stuff.  When she’s interviewed, Toni talks about her love of dance and sex.  (“Making love is a dance.  The dance of life!”)  

Return of the Living Dead’s Jewel Shepard is next, dancing to Tim Scott’s “Swear”.  She’s kinda dressed like a tomboy (except for her legwarmers) until she strips down to her Flashdance-inspired get-up of a ripped black T-shirt and sexy yellow thong.  Just when you think this segment can’t get any better, she seductively eats a banana.  

Afterwards, Cheryl Baker does an aerobics number while dressed like Olivia Newton-John in the “Physical” video.  This one is set to the tune of another Yazoo song, “Sweet Thing”.  She talks about her love of dancing before stripping down and telling the story of how she banged a rich German dude.  

Tamarah Park is the final dancer.  She does a wild and frenzied number set to Madonna’s “Burning Up”.  She then discusses fantasizing about dancing naked in a room full of strangers and talks about what she likes in her men.  Although this segment feels a little rushed compared to the other dances, Tamarah is hot, sexy, and feisty, and she ends the tape on a high note.  

TUBI CONTINUED… VIDEO VIOLENCE PART 2 (1988) ***

I reviewed the first Video Violence a while back for my collection of horror movie reviews, Bloody Book of Horror.  (Available on Amazon as we speak.)  That flick was all about a video store employee who found snuff movies returned in the overnight drop box.  Part 2 is a natural progression of that idea.  In addition, we get lots of T & A and blood and guts.  Heck, there’s even a few legitimate laughs this time around.  Overall, it’s a marked improvement over the original in just about every way.  As low budget, shot-on-video horror films go, this is one of the best.

Two sickos jam a local cable access channel and broadcast their own demented talk show over a pirate signal.  They encourage viewers to make their own snuff tapes and send them into the show with a chance of watching their videos on live TV.  They also lure unsuspecting actresses on the show to “audition” for a movie, unaware that they’re actually auditioning for a snuff flick.  

If Herschell Gordon Lewis was making movies in the ‘80s, I have a feeling the results would’ve looked something like Video Violence Part 2.  (I mean that as a sincere compliment.)  The flick opens with a great sequence where an actress working on a vampire movie complains to the director that the heart she just staked doesn’t look realistic.  He then stakes her to show her what a real heart looks like.  

Along the way, the film is peppered with amusing commercial breaks that deftly parody the low budget local commercials of the era.  My favorite was for a pet named “Wilbur” (he looks like the love child of the Grinch and a Ghoulie) who eats a kid under the tree on Christmas morning while his mother looks on approvingly.  There’s also a Ron Popeil-inspired guy who demonstrates handy kitchen implements that will help you off unwanted dinner guests.  

The snuff videos themselves are really enjoyable too.  An ex-cop and his ditzy wife make a homemade electric chair to fry a mugger.  A group of college girls grow weary of watching horror movies where the women are helpless victims, so they decide to lure an unsuspecting pizza boy to his death.  There’s also a fun sequence where an out-of-towner realizes just how hard it is to rent from a locally owned mom and pop video store.  (Titles like I Spit on Your Grave, The Gore Gore Girls, and the original Video Violence are proudly on display on the shelves.)  

One of the college girls gets the best line of the movie when she says the snuff TV show is, “The best thing to hit cable since Fraggle Rock!” 

AKA:  Video Violence Part 2:  The Exploitation!

TUBI CONTINUED… ALL JACKED UP AND FULL OF WORMS (2022) NO STARS

In 1977, Herb Robins directed The Worm Eaters.  It was one of the worst movies ever made.  It was so bad that I thought no one would dare to make another film in which worms were ingested ever again.  I was wrong.  

Forty-five years later, here comes All Jacked Up and Full of Worms.  Incredibly enough, it is so monumentally bad that it makes Robins’ film look like Citizen Kane.  This is without a doubt one of the most loathsome movies I have seen in quite some time.

The plot (such as it is) follows a bunch of losers who get high from eating worms.  That’s about it as far as the plot goes.  In fact, I’m not even sure what was going on besides the worm eating as the film is so ineptly and incoherently put together.  

If the movie was nothing more than a series of scenes of people getting high from eating worms, it would’ve been stupid, sure.  Then, a scene so tasteless came along that I was almost tempted to turn the whole thing off.  Said scene involves a guy receiving a sex doll in the mail.  That doesn’t sound all that bad, does it?  That is, until it’s revealed that the sex doll is in fact, a baby doll.  Ugh.  What’s worse is that later in the film, we see him having… uh… “relations” with it.  Sigh.  I guess worm eating alone wasn’t enough shock value.  The filmmakers had to drag this disgusting subplot into the mix to further add to the air of griminess.  

I think the “filmmakers” (note I put “filmmakers” in quotation marks) were going for a David Lynch Meets Troma vibe.  That sounds good in theory, but the rampant unpleasantness and awful acting sinks it before it can even get out of the gate.  I don’t want to overhype this by saying that it's the worst film I’ve seen on Tubi after five months of watching movies almost exclusively on the streaming service.  If I say that, then I know some of you who read this will be tempted to actually go out and watch it.  But yeah.  It’s even worse than Bikini Hackers.  

This worm will undoubtedly turn your stomach.