65 (2023) ** ½

Adam Driver stars as a spaceman whose ship crash lands on an uncharted planet.  We soon learn that the mysterious planet is none other than our own and that the time is 65 million B.C.  That means in order to survive, Adam has to fight off dinosaurs using space guns and shit. 

An eight-year-old probably could’ve written 65.  In fact, I’m sure that several thousand eight-year-olds have drawn pictures of spacemen fighting dinosaurs on the back of IHOP placemats in the midst of a sugar rush fueled by chocolate chip pancakes and Mountain Dew over the years.  These drawings probably could’ve been used as storyboards for the movie.  Sure, large portions of the film are pretty dumb, but that’s part of the charm.  It speaks to the eight-year-old in all of us. 

65 starts off like gangbusters, but it loses a little something when Driver finds a young girl (Ariana Greenblatt) he must protect from the prehistoric beasts.  It’s here where it starts putting out After Earth kinds of vibes.  That’s not a harsh criticism or anything because I don’t exactly hate that dorky movie.  It’s just that the film worked better when Driver was… ahem… solo. 

Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the team who wrote A Quiet Place, 65 never quite lives up to the potential that lies within its premise.  (It needed one or two more dino battles for my tastes.)  I will say it’s a big improvement over their previous directorial effort, the lame Haunt.  It was also produced by none other than Sam Raimi.  In fact, you almost wish he had helmed the film as Beck and Woods’ direction is competent but lacking pizzazz.  To their credit, they keep the action moving and the breezy ninety-two-minute running time flies by.  Driver is also to be commended for taking the potentially ridiculous premise as seriously as one could expect as he admirably sells his character’s predicament. 

TWISTERS (2024) **

Twister was one of those movies that played like gangbusters opening night in the theater with a packed house that didn’t hold up to close scrutiny at home on the small screen.  Maybe that’s why it took Hollywood… (pulls out my abacus) … 28 years to come up with a sequel.  Now, I didn’t get a chance to see Twisters in theaters this summer.  Since it plays just about as well at home as the original did (which is to say it’s merely okay), I can only surmise it must’ve been a real corker on the big screen. 

Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) invents a doodad that causes tornadoes to evaporate.  However, when she tests it out, something goes wrong and her whole team winds up dead.  Suffering from PTSD (Post Twister Stress Disorder), she quits storm chasing for a desk job at a meteorological center.  Five years later, her former colleague Javi (Anthony Ramos from Transformers:  Rise of the Beasts) lures her back into the tornado chasing game.  Kate soon realizes they are working for a bunch of greedy corporate fat cats and then decides to throw in with Glen (Top Gun:  Maverick) Powell, a hotshot rival tornado “wrangler” and YouTuber to stop an impending storm. 

The lamest part about this sequel is the fact that Edgar-Jones has a sixth sense sort of deal where she can feel tornadoes forming better than any weather map.  That’s basically a lazy screenwriting way of having your main character always be right.  Edgar-Jones is fine in the role, but she isn’t exactly memorable either.  The same can be said for Ramos as her second in command whose main character trait is to cheer her on.  (Suggested Drinking Game:  Take a shot every time he tells her, “You got this”.)  At least Powell injects the proceedings with a little bit of swagger. 

The fatal flaw of the film (like the original) is that bad weather doesn’t exactly make for a good villain.  I know the old man vs. nature trope is as old as time, but there are only so many scenes of people running from tornadoes you can take.  (For a movie about so-called “storm chasers” they sure do spend a lot of the time running the other way.)  As in the original, it mostly fails because the characters are wafer thin and the drama is nominal.  I did like the part where people took shelter in an old theater playing the original Frankenstein though.

THE DEAD DON’T DIE (2019) *** ½

When Jim Jarmusch makes a zombie movie you know you’re in for something special.  Well, “special” might not be quite the right word for it, but it’s definitely unique.  Well… unique, as in it’s just like every other Jim Jarmusch movie, except… you know… with zombies. 

The Earth shifts on its axis, causing the dead to rise from their graves.   Small town sheriff Bill Murray and his deputy Adam Driver are more perplexed by the chain of events more than anything.  Eventually, they have to contend with the ever-increasing zombie outbreak. 

Jarmusch didn’t reinvent the wheel or anything, but his deadpan handling of the material and idiosyncratic dialogue is enough to breathe new life into a rather (un)dead subgenre.  Unlike his other foray into horror, the uneven vampire flick Only Lovers Left Alive, he seems to be embracing the conventions of the genre instead of resisting them, and the result is a damn good time. 

It also helps that he assembled an amazing cast.  I didn’t know I needed to see Iggy Pop as a coffee-drinking zombie.  Or Tilda Swinton as a samurai mortician.  Or RZA as a wisdom-spouting UPS driver.  Or Steve Buscemi as a redneck MAGAt.  There’s also Tom Waits as a grizzled mountain man, Chloe Sevigny as a deputy, Danny Glover as a world-weary local, indie horror mainstay Larry Fessenden as a motel owner, Rosie Perez as a newscaster, and Selena Gomez and Austin Butler as victims. 

It’s Murray and Driver who really make it work.  Their nonplussed reactions and nonchalant acceptance of the situation provides the film with some of its biggest laughs.  (I also like how they casually let the audience know that they know they’re stuck in a movie.)

Sure, not all of it clicks.  The stuff with the juvenile delinquents in a detention facility kind of falls flat and never really intersects with the main plot.  The CGI is a little wonky in spots too.  (Dust spews out of the zombies when they are killed rather than blood.)  Fortunately, whenever Murray and Driver are front and center, The Dead Don’t Die really comes to life. 

PLAY DEAD (2009) **

Chris (Street Fighter:  The Legend of Chun-Li) Klein stars as Ronnie Reno, the washed-up star of a Power Rangers-style TV show who bombs an audition and then heads out into the desert to clear his head.  When his car breaks down, a creepy dude named Ledge (Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst) gives him a ride.  Almost immediately, he becomes mixed up with Ledge’s drug lord brother in-law (Paul Francis).  He orders Ledge to kill Ronnie, but he convinces the slowwitted Ledge that his old show is real, and he can call in the other stars to help stop the bad guys. 

This is the kind of movie where you want to criticize it because of what it doesn’t do.  Had Klein brought in his friends, and they were dressed as their pseudo-Power Rangers to fight crime, it might have been fun.  Think a low-rent version of Three Amigos. 

Sadly, that’s not what happens.  Instead, what happens is that when Klein’s two actor friends show up, they basically just pose as DEA agents (badly), which causes the plan to go south in a hurry.  The potential was there for this to be something more than your average low budget crime flick, but that’s unfortunately all it winds up being.  It’s not bad or anything as it remains watchable throughout.  It just doesn’t really find its footing or know when to get things in gear. 

Klein fares well in the lead.  You can easily buy him as an actor who just isn’t quite good enough to pull off his charade.  It’s odd seeing Durst in this.  With his salt and pepper beard, scraggly hair, and buck teeth he seems to be doing a direct-to-video version of Billy Bob Thornton in A Simple Plan.  While he doesn’t quite make the character believable, he is definitely the most memorable thing about the movie, so I certainly give him points for trying.  We also have Jake Busey on hand, but he’s really nothing more than the bad guy’s right-hand man and he isn’t ever given anything worthwhile to do.  Likewise, Michael Beach is left high and dry as Klein’s co-star who has now become a soap opera actor and is ill-equipped to tangle with drug dealers.

THE MOUSE TRAP (2024) * ½

The idea of turning beloved characters who have recently entered the public domain into generic slashers in horror movies is a new trend.  And a rather dumb one too.  It’s so dumb, in fact, that I feel compelled to watch them.  Last year, it was Winnie the Pooh.  Now, it’s Mickey Mouse’s turn to become a horror icon.  While this isn’t as out and out bad as Winnie the Pooh:  Blood and Honey, it is one of the most inexplicably dumb slashers I’ve seen in some time. 

The Mouse Trap starts with a Star Wars-inspired crawl to assure the audience (and the Disney lawyers) that this in no way has anything to do with any of their trademarked characters.  That’s a roundabout way of saying even though Mickey Mouse is in the public domain, we still don’t want you to sue us.  They even use clips from Steamboat Willie in the opening credits because… well… they can.  What better reason, right?  This opening is about as clever as the movie gets, I’m afraid. 

A girl working at an arcade parties with her friends after hours.  Before long, they are menaced by a killer in a Mickey Mouse mask.  After a few kids are bumped off, the surviving friends form a tight group to put a stop to the killer.  To make matters worse, he also has the power to teleport (!?!), which makes trapping him extremely tricky. 

The big problem is it takes forever to get going.  Once it finally does, the stalking and slashing scenes are decidedly ho-hum, and the kills are mostly bloodless and bland.  Mickey Mouse as a killer isn’t the worst idea in the world.  (I did like the way they used the whistling music from Steamboat Willie as a horror theme, although they kind of forget about it pretty quickly.)  It’s just a shame that the filmmakers forgot to make an actual movie to go along with the idea.  The notion that he can teleport from place to place is never expanded upon or properly explained.  He can just do it, and the characters all accept it, logic be damned. 

The structure is janky too.  The unnecessary framing device of two detectives questioning a goth girl in a prison cell is pretty useless as it interrupts whatever flow the movie had managed to build up.  My guess is that it was probably only there to pad out the running time.  Even the detectives seem a little suspicious of how she knows things she couldn’t possibly been there to witness.  (“It all sounds like a bad ‘90s movie!”)  These scenes just reinforce the choppy nature of the film and become more grating as things wear on. 

Maybe The Mouse Trap should be seen as an example to future filmmakers.  Just because you CAN use a public domain figure for your horror movie doesn’t mean you SHOULD.  Or at least make something worthy of the name (even if the name is free to all).   Who knows?  One thing’s for sure.  If the filmmakers made a better mouse trap, it might’ve been worth seeing. 

Let’s hope the OTHER Mickey Mouse slasher, the upcoming Screamboat, will be better. 

AKA:  Mickey’s Mouse Trap.

THE FALL GUY (2024) *** ½

Colt Seaver (Ryan Gosling) is a stuntman who survived a terrible accident on a movie set.  Months later, he is lured back to work on a blockbuster under false pretenses.  The producer (Hannah Waddington) is worried because the leading man (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has vanished, and she wants Colt to find him.  Since the director is his ex-girlfriend Jody (Emily Blunt), Colt agrees because he doesn’t want the studio to shut the production down.  Before long, Colt is accused of a murder he didn’t commit and must use his stunt background to overcome the bad guys. 

Directed by David (Deadpool 2) Leitch, The Fall Guy is first and foremost a love letter to the stunt community.  Leitch was a long-time stuntman, and he brings his years of experience, as well as a sense of humor to the proceedings.  Because of that, the behind-the-scenes moments of Blunt and company shooting the various stunt scenes have an authentic and lived-in feel. 

As expected, he also delivers on the action.  In addition to many terrific stunts, he also gives us a wild drug-fueled fight scene where someone slips Colt a Mickey, and he takes out several bodyguards while drug-induced hallucinations swirl around the action. 

If you go in expecting a 1:1 adaptation of the old TV show, you might be disappointed.  I mean you would never see Lee Majors sitting in his truck listening to Taylor Swift and crying over a break-up.  That wounded hangdog look is perfectly suited to Gosling though, who is immensely likable and funny throughout.  He also brings the physical comedy chops that made The Nice Guys such a classic, and makes Colt a unique, funny, and lovable loser.  Gosling and Blunt have tremendous chemistry, and the way they trade romantic barbs is one of the movie’s many joys. 

I also liked the way they incorporated KISS’s “I was Made for Loving You” into the score.  The subtle nods to the other great Lee Majors show, The Six Million Dollar Man were also welcome.  All in all, I’d say anyone who enjoys old fashioned Hollywood escapism will fall in love with The Fall Guy. 

THE RETURN OF SUPERMAN (1979) ***

I have seen some cheap shit in my time, but the opening of this Turkish rip-off of Superman has to take the goddamned cake.  The narration tells us that in the farthest reaches of space, there is the planet Krypton.  When we finally see it, Krypton is... I shit you not… a Christmas ornament hanging from the ceiling!  It’s enough to make the hubcap UFOs in Plan 9 from Outer Space look like the work of ILM in comparison. 

It gets worse.  Then, the John Williams theme kicks in and we see the Superman crest, which looks like it was drawn by a third grader.  I live for shit like this, folks. 

When the movie finally begins, it’s so cheap looking that it looks like a '70s porn parody.  Minus the porn.  Or the parody. 

The nerdy Tayfun learns from his parents that they found him in a rocket ship when he was a baby.  They give him a stone that was in the ship, and it guides him to a cave where he learns from the ghost of his father that he is Superman.  Working as a mild-mannered reporter, Tayfun learns of a plot by a villain to turn “Krypton stone” (it’s never called Kryptonite) into gold.  He kidnaps a professor, who happens to be the father of the Lois Lane substitute, Alev.  It’s then up to Tayfun/Superman to save Alev’s dad and stop the bad guy. 

The scenes where Superman fights crime lean closer to the George Reeves TV show than the Christopher Reeve movie, but they are still quite entertaining.  Thugs break chairs over our hero’s head, stab, and shoot him with no effect.  It also steals some bits from the old Captain Marvel serial too.  (The scene where his father gives him his powers, the guillotine cliffhanger, etc.), but that only adds to the fun.  

The flying scenes are hysterical too.  In some shots, it looks like a Superman doll being held up in front of someone’s vacation home videos.  Oh, and in addition to stealing cues from John Williams’ Superman score, it also swipes bits from the soundtrack of the James Bond movies. 

As cheap as most of this is, I will say the scene where Superman prevents two trains from colliding is well done.  Well… in comparison to everything else in the movie.  The scene where he saves Alev from a runaway truck is OK too. 

One power this Superman has that his American counterpart doesn’t is the ability to type up his stories telepathically.  Let’s see Clark Kent try that!  He also uses his X-Ray vision to see a woman in her underwear, but it appears this happened accidentally, so we will give him a Mulligan on that one. 

As far as Turkish rip-offs go, this is one of the more entertaining ones.  It has a nice mix of touches from its American inspiration as well as its own brand of WTF silliness.  If you’re a fan of bad superhero movies and wacky world cinema, by all means, check it out. 

THOROUGHBREDS (2018) ***

Olivia Cooke stars as Amanda, an emotionally disturbed young girl who reconnects with her former friend Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy).  As their bond strengthens, they eventually hit upon a plan to take out Lily’s intolerable stepfather (Paul Sparks).  Together, they blackmail a small-time drug dealer (the late Anton Yelchin) into abetting them in their plot. 

Thoroughbreds is a witty and darkly humorous comedy thriller that gets a lot of mileage from its pitch-perfect performers.  The chemistry between Taylor-Joy and Cooke is palpable, and lot of the fun comes from watching them bouncing morbid niceties off one another.  (Some of the sardonic dialogue and deadpan delivery is reminiscent of Heathers.)  Anya is quite good as the rich girl who thinks she can get away with murder.  Her waifish appearance and sad eyes suggest she’s hiding something sinister.  Meanwhile, Cooke is excellent as the disturbed girl who uses her emotionless coldness to her advantage.  Yelchin is a hoot too in one of his final roles as the clueless dolt who quickly finds himself in way over his head.  Sparks is also well cast as his character is less a wicked stepfather and more of an insufferable twat waffle whose banal veneer is sometimes unsettling. 

Speaking of unsettling, I will say the graphic discussion about Amanda’s past deeds makes for some truly creepy stuff.  While nothing is explicitly shown, the suggestion is more than enough for you to paint a pretty nasty picture in your mind.  I won’t spoil it for you, but if you are in any way sensitive when it comes to animal mutilation, you might want to hit the mute button during this scene. 

Thoroughbreds is kind of talky and a little slow at times.  In fact, it probably would’ve felt like a three-character play in some spots had it not been for the cool camerawork, which is full of long steady cam tracking shots.  The pulsating percussion-based score is also quite good.  The ending is predictable too, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t well executed. 

All in all, Thoroughbreds crosses the finish line in style. 

THE HITMAN NEVER DIES (2017) * ½

Michael Ironside stars as a small-time kingpin who hires a recently released jailbird named Gus (Michael Eklund) to pull one last job for him.  He needs Gus to recover an incriminating videotape from a porn set before the cops get there and raid the place.  Naturally, other interested parties come looking for the tape too.  Our hero then must make an uneasy alliance with a sexy Asian assassin (Bernice Liu) to get the tape and worm his way out from under his boss’ thumb once and for all. 

This low budget crime comedy was a Chinese and Canadian co-production (you don’t get too many of those).  It tries way too hard to be a clever Tarantino riff, and it’s rarely, if ever, successful.  It’s also chockfull of cliches (a title card with the character’s name pops up on screen every time someone new is introduced, tired narration that works overtime trying to sound hardboiled, a structure that relies heavily on flashbacks inside of flashbacks, porn star characters, criminals that live by a strict code, etc.) and doesn’t  find  anything new or interesting to add to them.  Also, the title makes no damn sense, which is a little irksome. 

The flick thinks it’s hip and edgy, but many scenes are more cringeworthy than anything (like when a hitman is waving around a tentacle dildo).  In fact, there’s a lot of octopus-oriented sex talk here, which makes me ponder if the screenwriters weren’t working out some of their own fetishes here.  It would be one thing if it had a good twist or memorable characters.  However, the weak script wraps itself up way too neatly and often leaves its cast in the lurch. 

Ironside is ideally cast as the crotchety kingpin, but he’s never given much more to do other than sit behind a desk and grumble.  Lui cuts a dashing figure as the sexy assassin in short booty shorts, although she never quite becomes a real character, thanks to the flimsy script.  Both of them fare better than Eklund, who just doesn’t have the screen presence to carry the movie. 

One of Ironside’s dimwitted sons gets the best line when he says, “I think I just figured out how to uncluster this fuck!”

AKA:  Stegman is Dead. 

GLADIATOR II (2024) *** ½

I’m not sure why it took Ridley Scott two decades to come up with a sequel to Gladiator, especially when the plot is essentially “The Same Shit That Happened to Maximus Happens to His Son”, but we finally got one.  I guess Hollywood didn’t have the balls to go with that Nick Cave script where Maximus literally goes to Hell.  Oh well. 

Paul Mescal stars as Lucius, the son of Maximus, who is imprisoned by the Roman Empire and is made a slave.  He impresses slave master Macrinus (Denzel Washington) in his first fight where he battles a CGI monkey to the death.  Macrinus buys him and puts him in the Colosseum to fight for his freedom and a chance to kill the man who murdered his wife.  Problems arise when he learns his sworn enemy has married his mother (Connie Nielsen).  Eventually, Lucius learns that Macrinus is using him as a pawn in a grander scheme. 

Mescal is OK in the lead.  He registers just fine during his action scenes, but overall is kind of bland.  I’ll resist the temptation to compare him to the original’s Russell Crowe as those are some big shoes to fill.  It’s just that for a movie so wild and colorful, he kind of gets lost in the shuffle.  Pedro Pascal (doing a Mark Ruffalo impression) fares slightly better as the Roman general who has taken Lucius’ mother’s hand in marriage.  Nielsen is also quite good.  It looks like she hasn’t aged a day since her appearance in the first film. 

It’s Denzel though who steals the movie.  He’s highly entertaining and looks like he’s having a ball playing such a heel.  He stops short of chewing scenery and mustache twirling, but his sinister energy is a huge boost to the film. 

The scenes in the Colosseum are over the top and sometime borderline ridiculous.  That by the way, is not a critique.  It’s as if director Ridley Scott is nudging the audience and saying “Hey, remember the scene with the tiger in the first one?  Guess how we’re gonna top that?  How’s a pack of wild monkeys sound?  A charging rhino?  I KNOW!  What about SHARKS!?!”  Clearly, Ridley took Maximus’ maxim, “Are you not entertained?” to heart when it came up to dreaming up ludicrous bullshit for this sequel.  But what highly entertaining ludicrous bullshit it is. 

Washington gets the best line when he says, “Rage pours out of you like milk from a whore’s tit!” 

FORTY ACRE FEUD (1965) ** ½

Ron (If Footmen Tire You What Will Horses Do?) Ormond directed this corny country fried musical starring just about every Country and Western guest star from Hee Haw that you’d ever want to see.  In fact, Hee Haw’s Minnie Pearl also appears in a supporting role! 

The nominal plot involves an election being held in a small hick town.  Some radio bigwig thinks that's the perfect time to hold a big country music jamboree, so he plans to put on the concert and the election all in the same spot.  The two candidates are patriarchs of families that have a longstanding backwoods feud, and the election (not to mention the concert) is certain to bring tensions between the two clans to a head. 

There were about a hundred different ways this could’ve gone wrong, but Forty Acre Feud remains watchable just for the music, which contains more hits than misses as many of the artists sing some of their best-known stuff.  Even if you’re not a fan of old timey country music, you still may enjoy such acts as Bill Anderson (“Three A.M.”), Skeeter Davis (“The End of the World”), Ferlin Husky (who also appears as the slow-witted town shopkeeper), The Willis Brothers (“Six Foot Two by Four”), George Jones (“Things Have Gone to Pieces”), Ray Price (“The Other Woman”), and Loretta Lynn (“Blue Kentucky Girl”). 

Back in the day, poor folks in the south weren’t able to afford to see big country acts in concert.  However, for a quarter or two, they could see something like this or Hootenanny Hoot and watch a dozen or so bands with only the barest wisp of a plot to get in the way.  It’s not exactly great or anything, but it remains a harmless little time capsule. 

Speaking as an Ormond connoisseur, Forty Acre Feud is an agreeable middle tier entry in his filmography.  It might not have the same kick as The Monster and the Stripper or the WTF goodness of his later religious pictures, but it’s decent enough.  In fact, it feels kind of like a country music offshoot of his early burlesque movie, Varieties on Parade as it’s essentially a series of filmed performances.  The fact that he started his career making many low budget westerns also meant he probably knew a thing or two about country and western music too. 

Husky later starred in the immortal Hillbillys in a Haunted House. 

STREET TRASH (2024) ***

Street Trash wasn’t exactly the greatest cult movie to come out of the ‘80s, but the scenes of homeless people melting certainly made it one of the most memorable.  Since it was always one of those “close but no cigar” kinds of flicks, the prospect of it being remade and/or sequelized doesn’t seem all that sacrilegious.  The fact that the remake was written and directed by Ryan Kruger, the man behind the equally spotty, but highly entertaining Fried Barry, made it feel like a match made in Heaven. 

Kruger transplants the action from Skid Row Los Angeles to South Africa in the not-too distant future.  In an effort to clean up the city, the totalitarian government is cracking down on the ever-growing homeless population.  They have turned the Tenafly Viper compound into aerosol form and plan to use drones to unleash it on the bums and melt them down into pools of multicolored goo.  It’s then up to the homeless people to band together and rise up against their oppressors. 

Even though the setting has been changed, and the themes have been updated for the modern era, this is more of a sequel than remake.  Whatever you want to call it, it still delivers on what you want to see from a Street Trash movie, namely lots of scenes of homeless guys melting.  I mean a guy melts into a puddle of purple goo before the opening titles (which proudly proclaims to be “A Ryan Krueger Thing”).  Along the way, dicks are chopped off, ears fall off, faces melt off, and people explode.  You know… good shit. 

I will say that it sometimes feels like Kruger is trying a bit too hard.  It’s also less successful in the third act once it becomes a quasi-action movie.  The humor can be uneven too.  While some of the comedy bits fall flat, when Kruger finds the sweet spot between extreme gore and surreal silliness, it works.  Plus, it was also good seeing Fried Barry himself, Gary Green as a homeless man who has an imaginary friend that looks like a Smurf version of the guy from Everclear. 

TOMIE (1998) ** ½

I watched some of the later sequels in the Tomie series a while back and found them to be wild and entertaining for the most part.  When I discovered the original flick, based on the Junji Ito novel, was streaming on Shudder, I knew I had to check it out.  While It’s not nearly as crazy or memorable as some of the sequels, I have to say it definitely has its moments. 

A crazy one-eyed student keeps the mewling puking head of a girl named Tomie (Miho Kanno) in a box.  She gets better (that’s a simple way of stating she her body grows back) and goes out for revenge on the one who decapitated her.  Meanwhile a young woman named Tsukiko (Mami Nakamura) is undergoing hypnotherapy to recover repressed memories of an accident that took the life of her parents.  Little does she realize she’s the next one on Tomie’s hit list. 

Tomie grabs your attention right from the get-go with a fun opening where the dude is carrying Tomie’s head around in a bag.  Later, he upgrades to a box, and the scene where he feeds her is reminiscent of Basket Case.  Once she grows her body back, the film turns into more of a slow burn.  The stuff with the chain-smoking detective is hit and miss too. 

I did like the way the director Ataru Oikawa showed the carnage from a crime scene in such an offhand manner.  I’m specifically thinking of the way the camera casually panned to show coroners moving a guy with an umbrella shoved down his throat in the background while the detective walks around.  I also dug the way he avoided showing Tomie’s face for much of the movie.  

While Oikawa delivers a few offhand moments of occasional creepiness, he doesn’t quite know when to kick things up a notch.  The finale isn’t bad by any means, but it certainly suffers in comparison to the film’s opening moments. Still when it works it’s a reasonably effective flick.  Ultimately, the highlights are just too few and far between for me to give it a hearty recommendation.   

Oikawa later went on to direct Tomie:  Beginning and Tomie:  Revenge. 

WEREWOLVES (2024) ** ½

Werewolves is kind of like The Purge but with werewolves.  A year ago, a supermoon turned thousands of people into werewolves, causing untold destruction.  Tonight, the supermoon is back, and people have to fortify their homes and stay out of the moonlight to prevent becoming a lycanthrope.  Meanwhile, scientists led by Lou Diamond Phillips and Frank Grillo (a veteran of the Purge franchise) work round the clock in an underground bunker looking for a cure.  Naturally, something goes wrong, and their werewolf test subjects break loose. After the place is soon overrun by ferocious fur balls, Grillo has to make his way back home to protect his family. 

Werewolves is gloriously dumb, but the cast wisely plays things with a straight face, which is the secret to make it work.  It almost feels like a SyFy Channel Original from the ‘00s with a slightly higher budget, and I mean that as a compliment.  The CGI transformation effects are OK, but the practical werewolves are well done.  The gore is solid too as there are ripped out backs, clawed off faces, and a memorable bit where a werewolf pulls off another werewolf’s head with its spinal cord flapping in the breeze a la Predator. 

Most of the fun comes from watching Lou Diamond Phillips trying to keep a straight face while spouting massive amounts of exposition early on, including explaining to the audience about the benefits of “moonscreen”.  (It’s like sunscreen, except instead of protecting you from getting a sunburn, it prevents you from becoming a werewolf.)  Director Steven C. (Silent Night) Miller also shows a knack for some punchy action scenes, despite the film’s smallish budget. 

Sadly, the fun begins to dwindle around the time the third act rolls around.  The finale isn’t a complete washout or anything.  It just pales to the stuff we saw earlier in the film.  (The abrupt ending doesn’t help much either.)  Still, if you’re looking for a moderately entertaining horror romp, you can certainly do a lot worse. 

THE WATCHERS (2024) **

Dakota Fanning stars as an American girl working in a pet shop in Ireland whose car breaks down in the woods while delivering a bird.  She winds up bumping into a few other lost travelers who we learn are being watched by… uh… “The Watchers”.  These Watchers are unseen entities who live in the woods and keep people hostage in “The Coop”, which looks like a high school theater stage.  During the day, Dakota and the others are free to roam around the woods, but at night, they have to be centerstage for the Watchers’ entertainment.  Eventually, Dakota and company stage a daring escape. 

The Watchers was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter, Ishana, who isn’t very subtle.  She gives us a lot of symbolic closeups of lizards in glass aquariums and birds in cages early on to foreshadow our heroine’s plight.  Also, the only DVD that’s in “The Coop” is a Big Brother-style reality TV show, which further hammers home the film’s themes. 

Like her old man, Shyamalan has a knack for creating an intriguing set-up.  Sadly, like her dear old dad, she doesn’t have much follow-through.  Even though the set-up is kind of original, it quickly descends into a bunch of tired cliches, including the tried-and-true scene where someone comes knocking at the door and begs the characters to let them in, causing someone to shout, “It could be one of them!  Ask it something only your husband would know!”

It doesn’t help that the Watchers themselves are kinda weak looking (they resemble the offspring of Groot and Slender Man) or that much of the lore comes courtesy of huge exposition dumps.  It might’ve worked better had Shyamalan parceled out the backstory slowly or better yet, left things up for the audience to decide.  Like her old man, she also fumbles the ball when trying to deliver a big “twist” at the end.  I will say she does orchestrate a solid jump scare about halfway through, so I will give her that. 

Fanning keeps the movie from completely falling apart around her.  She definitely has leading lady chops.  It’s just a shame the script lets her down.  Olwen Fouere, who played the Sally Hardesty in the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, is pretty good too as the old lady who runs the Coop and knows all about the Watchers.  

While it’s marginally better than much of the senior Shyamalan’s films, ultimately, these Watchers are only worth watching once. 

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL (2023) ** ½

Joel Kinnaman is on his way to the hospital to be with his wife who is in labor.  While in the parking garage, he is carjacked by a psycho played by Nicolas Cage who forces him at gunpoint to drive around Las Vegas.  On the road, the pair engage in cat and mouse mind games as Joel tries to keep his cool and outwit his wily captor so he can see his wife and baby. 

Sympathy for the Devil is essentially a two-character movie, but it helps that its two leads are well cast.  Kinnaman does a fine job as the squirrelly, mild-mannered family man who is under the thumb of an unpredictable nut job.  As unpredictable nut jobs go, you can’t do much better than Nicolas Cage.  Sporting a bad red dye job and a crimson velvet jacket to match, he’s a tad restrained.  Since this is Nicolas Cage we’re talking about here, “a tad restrained” means he speaks in an overblown Boston accent, randomly imitates Edward G. Robinson, has a weird soliloquy where he attributes his lifelong sinus problems to a literal childhood boogeyman he calls “The Mucus Man”, and sings and dances to “I Love the Night Life” in a diner. 

While there are sparks here and there between Cage and Kinnaman, there aren’t exactly any fireworks on display.  The are moments where the movie threatens to catch fire (the aforementioned impromptu disco dance scene), but for the most part, the drama is surprisingly inert.  There’s obviously a big secret Cage is holding back and it’s plain to see that Kinnaman isn’t exactly the family man he claims to be.  Unfortunately, the film drags its feet when it comes to doling out its characters motivations.  Because of that, it just boils down to a bunch of scenes of Cage verbally abusing Kinnaman. 

And for a while, it works.  After two solid acts, the final half-hour is a bit of a washout.  It doesn’t help that the big secret is predictable and the reveal lacks punch.  For a movie that’s essentially two guys in a car for most of the running time, the ride is smooth enough, even if the destination leaves something to be desired. 

NIGHTBITCH (2024) *** ½

Amy Adams is stuck in a rut.  She put her career as an artist on hold to raise her kid while her husband (Scoot McNairy) is out on the road working.  Increasingly frustrated by her predicament, the frazzled housewife begins noticing some odd changes.  She’s getting hair in weird places, her sense of smell is becoming acute, and her teeth are now razor sharp.  Dogs also start following her around and she gets weird looks from customers when she frantically stuffs her face with meatloaf in the middle of Trader Joe’s.  Is she becoming a dog, or is it all in her head?

This is one of those moves where some of the imagery is a little too on the nose.  (Housewives, like dogs, are both domesticated, don’t you know.)  However, since the performances are great and the social commentary is sharp, it’s really a moot point. 

The body horror stuff works quite well too.  The scene where Adams finds a bunch of dog hair in a giant zit would look right at home on an episode of Dr. Pimple Popper.  Then of course, there’s the scene where she takes off her blouse and finds… well… I won’t spoil that one for you. 

Adams is excellent, especially in the scenes where she lashes out and unloads all her deep, depressing thoughts at random people (which turns out to be all in her head.)  The scenes of her home alone with her son hit the right notes of pointed realism and hilarious farce.  I’m sure anyone who ever had to raise their child alone for long stretches at a time will be able to empathize with Adams in this, and even root for her when she snaps and snarls at people.  McNairy is equally good in a trickier role.  He’s not exactly a bad person or an uncaring husband.  He’s just oblivious to his wife’s needs and is slightly confused by the “new” her.  I also enjoyed seeing Suspiria’s Jessica Harper as a librarian who recognizes what Adams is going through and tries to lend a helping hand. 

Not all of Nightbitch works.  The flashbacks of Adams’ mother just kind of feel like filler, and they aren’t really fleshed out all that well.  It probably makes all its points early on and plays its cards too soon.  That should in no way deter you from checking it out though, especially if you’re a fan of Adams. 

SUPER MARIO BROS.: GREAT MISSION TO RESCUE PRINCESS PEACH (1986) ** ½

Before Hollywood brought the Super Mario Bros. live-action movie to the big screen, Japan made an hour-long animated feature starring the beloved video game characters.  While Mario is playing a video game, Princess Peach leaps out of the screen and tells him she’s being kidnapped by King Koopa who whisks her back into the television set.  Mario immediately tells his brother Luigi, who thinks he dreamt the whole thing.  Later, the brothers follow a dog down a sewer pipe to the Mushroom Kingdom where the King sends the duo on a quest to find the Princess.  Along the way, they must collect three power-ups (a mushroom, a flower, and a star) in order to defeat the evil Koopa. 

Some of the origin stuff is kind of weird and not in line with the games.  I mean the brothers’ profession is changed from plumbers to grocers.  Why?  Did the animators feel it was unsanitary to base a kids’ movie around two plumbers?  Also, Luigi (who is depicted as being skinnier and taller than Mario for the first time) is kind of an asshole who only goes along on the adventure so he can collect coins and freakout when he eats bad mushrooms.  Speaking of mushrooms, Toad is a woman in this, which is a little odd, but at least her design is more faithful to the game than Mojo Nixon’s character in the live-action movie. 

Despite all that, it’s a fairly decent adaptation.  I especially liked how they used the same sound effects from the game along with a few musical cues.  The way the adventure was broken up into different levels was cool too, although I could’ve done without some of the soft rock musical interludes.  It’s also interesting to note how some of the touches in this movie would go on to be incorporated into later games (like Mario being able to hop into the cloud and drive it around). 

As for the animation itself, it’s fine.  I’ve always been a fan of the Super Mario Bros Super Show, so for me, it pales in comparison to that incarnation.  However, Super Mario Bros.:  Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach remains an interesting, if not entirely successful first attempt to render Mario and company into another medium. 

THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1981) *** ½

1981 was the unofficial start of the erotic thriller boom.  Movies like Body Heat and The Postman Always Rings Twice were throwbacks to the film noir thrillers of the ‘40s, only with steamy sex scenes the films of old could only hint at.  The genre would go on to be perfected over the years (READ:  The filmmakers added more sex), but the big sex scene in Postman, while not exactly explicit, certainly got people talking. 

Jack Nicholson plays a drifter named Frank who wanders into a cafe and is unable to play his tab.  The owner is an agreeable Greek immigrant (John Colicos) and offers him a job, complete with room and board.  Frank gets one look at the guy’s wife, Cora (Jessica Lange) and decides to stick around.  It doesn’t take long before they are bumping uglies and plotting to run away together.  Of course, it would be easier for everybody if her husband was out of the picture.  Permanently. 

This was Jack’s third collaboration with director Bob Rafelson.  (Or, fourth, if you count The Monkees movie, Head.)  One of the common themes of their work together is that their pictures tend to focus more on characters than plot.  Most film noir thrillers depend on a lot of twists and turns.  With Postman, the twists don’t come from the screenwriters pulling the rug out from under us, but from the way the schemes of desperate people don’t always go as planned. 

Jack is excellent here and he’s especially memorable when he furrows his brow.  It’s a poker face style of acting where you’re not sure if he’s plotting murder or just coming to terms with how his life has turned out.  Thanks to her performance in this and All That Jazz, people began taking Jessica Lange seriously as an actress after the snobby critics dismissed her debut in King Kong.  She has a lot of smoldering intensity and is Jack’s equal in every way.  The memorable supporting cast also includes bits by Christopher Lloyd, Angelica Huston, Don Calfa, and John P. Ryan. 

This was also the first screenplay by playwright David Mamet, who would go on to an impressive film career both behind and in front of the camera.  (He would later write Hoffa starring Nicholson.)  Does it maybe drag a bit in spots?  A little.  Could it have been trimmed down a bit?  Sure.  However, when the two leads are cooking, Postman delivers. 

POSSESSION: KERASUKAN (2024) **

It seems like everyone has been having Possession on the brain lately.  Early in 2024, we had a nice little homage to it in The First Omen.  Hollywood has also announced an American remake announced directed by Smile’s Parker Finn starring Robert Pattinson.  Somehow, this Indonesian remake of Andrzej Zulawski’s classic of paranoia managed to beat that project to the punch when it was unceremonious dropped on Netflix. 

A navy sailor returns home to find his wife wants a divorce.  He suspects her of cheating and goes to find out what she’s been up to.  He soon learns she’s been cursed by a sex demon. 

The 1981 original was a slower-than-slow burn.  I’m glad to say this version picked up the pace quite a bit.  (It’s a good half an hour shorter than the original, too.)  The most interesting thing about Possession:  Kerasukan though is how it adapts the material for Indonesian culture.  I liked how the filmmakers took the original premise and infused it with aspects of their religion and folklore.  Another big difference is the color palette.  Whereas the original had a lot of cold blues, this one is filled with warm red tones. 

That said, you still have to say Zulawski did it better, at least where the shocks are concerned.  Yes, it’s neat that the filmmakers substituted a monster that’s more in line with Indonesian folklore, but that that doesn’t mean it’s very effective, especially when the demon just looks like a mummy hiding inside a throw pillow.  Some of the CGI touches are less than convincing too.  It’s also odd that the filmmakers opt for an Exorcist-style finale.  I guess something may have gotten lost in translation there as they seemingly took the title too literally. 

Let’s face it. It would’ve been hard to top the shocking shit from Zulawski’s film.  I guess armed with that knowledge, the filmmakers instead were content to take the movie’s themes and adapt them and update them for a modern Indonesian audience.  And for a while, it sort of works.  It’s just a shame that it goes completely off the rails in the third act once it stops stealing from Zulawski and starts ripping off William Friedkin.  Still, I have to say it’s far from the worst horror remake I’ve sat through this year. 

ANORA (2024) *** ½

Anora is kind of like Pretty Woman on meth.  A sexy stripper named Anora (Mikey Madison) meets a spoiled rich Russian kid named Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn) in the club and gives him a lapdance.  Before long, he’s paying her a little extra for some sexy fun time on the side.  That eventually leads to shelling out big bucks for a week-long arrangement.  During that time, they fly to Vegas for some ketamine and after a bout of lovemaking, they decide to get married.  What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas though when the kid’s furious parents send their bodyguards to break up their wedded bliss. 

The set-up is simple.  The resolution is predictable.  However, everything that occurs in between is a goddamn rollercoaster.  There’s a stretch of about a half-hour there where writer/director Sean Baker builds up a level of concentrated intensity where you honestly have no idea what’s going to happen next.  The way Baker juggles the prospect of violence with black humor, sustained suspense, and manic performances ranks up there with the final scene in Boogie Nights. 

The film is a terrific vehicle for Mikey Madison.  She showed lots of promise in her supporting roles in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Scream.  Here, she’s given centerstage and she really makes the most of it.  Madison’s completely unleashed here and gives a performance that’s equal parts exhilarating and heartbreaking.  You really take the ride along with her and her reaction shots are often priceless. 

Baker also earns points for resisting the temptation to deliver a false Hollywood ending.  Instead, he gives us something that while wholly believable, is tinged with a bittersweet sadness.  The film is close to two-and-a-half hours, and I can’t help but think there couldn’t have been a tighter version of the same material somewhere in the editing room.  (The nighttime search for Ivan drags in the third act.)  That’s a minor quibble in the long run because when Anora cooks, it gives you one of the purest hits of adrenaline you’ll get from a movie all year. 

THE CREW (2000) ***

Some movies have a premise so thin that you can almost hear the screenwriters pitching it to the execs at the studio.  With The Crew, it’s easy to imagine a screenwriter sitting down and saying “Hey, do you know what’s making a lot of money?  Those Grumpy Old Men movies with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.  And you know what else is raking in the dough?  Those mobster comedies like Analyze This and Mickey Blue Eyes.  What if we combine the two?  Let’s make a mobster comedy about grumpy old men!”

The thing with these kinds of films is that it can work as long as you have the right cast.  A good cast of seasoned pros can take a thin script that is little more than a fleshed out “elevator pitch” and wring laughs out of it if the chemistry is right.  The Crew has not one, but four ringers in the form of Richard Dreyfuss, Burt Reynolds, Dan Hedaya, and Seymour Cassel.  They keep you watching, even when it feels like the script is running on fumes. 

The quartet play aging monsters who have retired to Miami and have grown discontent by their surroundings.  They set out to get their mojo back, but in the process, they accidentally start a war with a South American drug lord (Miguel Sandoval).  Things get complicated when they learn the cop on the case (Carrie-Ann Moss) could possibly be Dreyfuss’ long-lost daughter. 

There are plenty of highlights along the way.  My favorite bit was the amusing scene where Burt is working at Burger King and tells an annoying customer what everyone in the service industry has always thought, but never said aloud:  “Special orders upset us.”  There’s a pretty funny parody of the famous Copa shot from Goodfellas too.  I also liked that former wise guy Hedaya took a job as a mortician and tried to make up for his past misdeeds by putting smiles on all the deceased’s faces. 

Sure, not all of it works.  Some of the subplots feel a little too much like a sitcom (like when the boys are forced to kidnap Lainie Kazan), but the film coasts on the performances.  Again, it might have been dire if everyone wasn’t on their game.  Luckily, it’s an agreeable way to kill an hour and a half, especially if you’re a fan of Dreyfuss or Reynolds (or Jennifer Tilly who appears as a sexy stripper who worms her way into the gang). 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: GET CRAZY (1983) *** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Directed by Rock n’ Roll High School’s Allan Arkush, Get Crazy is similar in tone to that classic (just imagine if it had just taken a handful of amphetamines).  Allen Garfield stars as a theater owner putting on a big New Year’s Eve show with a half-dozen rock and blues acts.  (I was originally going to watch this on New Year’s Eve to close out the Let’s Get Physical column, but it just didn’t work out that way.)  Ed Begley Jr. is a sleazy record producer who wants to buy the building out from under him.  When Garfield refuses, he plans to blow the place up at midnight.  Meanwhile, the stage manager (Daniel Stern) tries to wrangle all the performers backstage and get the show on the road. 

Get Crazy lacks the cohesive center that made Rock n’ Roll High School such a classic.  However, the film’s freewheeling anarchic spirit is infectious.  Much of the movie feels like a filmed Mad Magazine parody.  Some of the random bits of craziness are truly inspired.  My favorite character is the extraterrestrial (?) robot (?) drug dealer named Electric Larry.  Arkush’s scattershot approach sometimes yields less than hysterical results though.  (Stern’s romantic daydreams are especially unfunny.)

That said, it’s worth watching for the music, as well as the amazing cast.  We have Lou Reed as a reclusive folk singer, Malcolm McDowell doing a spot-on Mick Jagger impression (McDowell once told me at a horror convention that Jagger refused to speak to him after he saw the movie), Fear’s Lee Ving as a headbanging punk rocker, and The Doors’ John Densmore as McDowell’s drummer (who plays the drums with chicken drumsticks in one scene).  Roger Corman regulars Mary Woronov, Paul Bartel, Dick Miller, and Jackie Joseph also pop up, and Linnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer appear briefly as groupies.  Underrated hottie Anna (More American Graffiti) Bjorn also puts in a memorable turn as McDowell’s main squeeze.  The soundtrack is worth picking up too, and the title tune by Sparks is a straight-up banger. 

Well, that wraps things up for the Let’s Get Physical column.  It was kind of exhausting at times, but it was a lot of fun.  I don’t plan on doing another daily watching column this year, but I probably will do the 31 Days of Horror-Ween this October (which went by the wayside in 2024 since I was so preoccupied with Let’s Get Physical).  I hope you all have a great New Year!

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: BIKINI PLANET (2002) **

FORMAT:  DVD

It’s easy to see why this movie was paired with Voyage to the Planet of Teenage Cavewomen as part of a DVD double feature.  Both movies are ‘50s Sci-Fi spoofs about astronauts visiting two planets that have fused together.  Only in this one, the two planets are made to look like a pair of giant tits, and instead of a planet populated by cavewomen, it’s a planet full of sexy babes in bikinis.  Bikini Planet isn’t nearly as successful as Voyage though, despite the benefit of having a few familiar faces in the cast.  (And by “familiar faces”, I mean Conrad Brooks from Plan 9 from Outer Space plays the Vice President.)

Although the movie tries to replicate the look of the old ‘50s Sci-Fi flicks, it all feels kind of halfhearted.  The interiors of the rocket ship look like something from the old space operas (the astronauts sit in office chairs), but the exteriors are done using cheap looking CGI.  Had the filmmakers used a simple spaceship model, it would’ve felt a lot more authentic.  The crappy CGI asteroid effects look awful too.  No matter how bad practical effects look, they are always preferable to computerized ones, especially for a spoof like this. 

It does have a neat gimmick where it’s black and white during the spaceship scenes but switches over to color once the astronauts arrive on the planet.  I also liked the explanation as to why all the women on the planet had big boobs.  (The atmosphere has a high concentration of silicone.)  Stephanie Beaton (a veteran of many Witchcraft sequels) is also pretty good as the sexy bikini princess. 

The big problem is that the alien babes never slip out of their bikinis.  A little T & A would’ve gone a long way to salvage much of the dumb humor.  It also doesn’t help that the sex scenes are only there for comedic effect.  Naturally, they aren’t very funny (or sexy).  There are also lots of jokes about Beanie Babies and one character is supposed to be a spoof of Monica Lewinsky (played by porn star Jacklyn Lick), which really makes it feel dated.  We do get a couple of alien bikini pool party scenes, although it just looks like the director just shot footage of the wrap party and put it into the movie. 

SATURDAY NIGHT (2024) ***

Ivan Reitman made a lot of movies starring Saturday Night Live cast members.  I guess it was only fitting that his son Jason (who had already picked up the reigns to his father’s Ghostbusters franchise) would make a movie about SNL.  As expected, there’s a lot of hero worship at play here.  If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll probably enjoy it. 

The film chronicles the chaotic struggle to get the show ready for its premiere episode.  Facing enormous pressure from the network, producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) has to wrangle wild cast members, a less than enthusiastic crew, and pestering censors to bring to show to air. 

If you are familiar with the events surrounding the first taping, you might have a leg up on casual viewers as Reitman drops you into the thick of things with little background or set up.  He plows forward full steam ahead and never looks back.  The long takes and overlapping soundtrack are at times reminiscent of a Robert Altman movie.  Unlike Altman films, the characters never really stand out.  That’s mostly due to the ticking time bomb nature of trying to get the show on the air.  However, it’s a tad disappointing considering how colorful the characters were in real life. 

Only Michaels and Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman) really feel like fully developed characters as they are constantly at odds at what the show should be about.  The cast members who essay the roles of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players do a fair job playing their well-known counterparts.  It’s just a shame that they are mostly kept on the periphery of the film’s drama. 

Overall, I enjoyed Saturday Night, but I can’t help but think what Reitman might’ve been capable of if he had given the script another polish.  Still, it’s fun seeing who is going to pop up in small roles (like J.K. Simmons as Milton Berle).  Plus, it makes for a fine vehicle for LaBelle, who is quite good at keeping the film from spinning off the rails (much like what Michaels did for the show).

ZILLAFOOT (2019) * ½

Some nerds witness a meteor crash on Earth.  It turns out to be a spaceship, and the evil aliens inside unleash their monster, ZillaFoot on the populace.  The government scrambles to stop it and eventually, “Ultrasquad”, a giant superhero is called in to help fight the monster. 

ZillaFoot is a Polonia Brothers movie.  It’s obvious they have a lot of love for the giant monster genre as there’s a lot of Godzilla posters and T-shirts sprinkled throughout the film.  However, the budget just wasn’t there to pull off the needs of the genre in a convincing way. 

ZillaFoot himself is a pretty terrible creation.  The idea of a monster that’s essentially a cross between Godzilla and King Kong sounds cool, but the execution leaves something to be desired.  The monster is essentially a guy in a bad gorilla suit with lizard hands and feet.  That’s it.  Along the way, he smashes a few tanks, battles Ultrasquad, and… well… that’s about it.  The character of Ultrasquad is executed slightly better as he is an obvious homage to Ultraman.  Even then, he’s not especially well made as he’s just a guy in a red spandex suit with a lame alien mask over his head. 

There are some decent ideas and a few OK moments.  That’s not nearly enough to save the movie though.  There’s also a lot of padding that comes in the form of news broadcasts (with a reporter wearing a Lucha Libre mask for some inexplicable reason), Zoom calls between government officials, and annoying guys making YouTube videos.  If you cut out all that crap, ZillaFoot still wouldn’t have been much to write home about, but at least it would’ve been a hell of a lot shorter. 

The most infuriating thing about the flick is the ending, or should I say, the lack of one.  The fight between ZillaFoot and Ultrasquad just sort of fizzles out, and when the aliens announce the arrival of ZillaFoot 2.0, the filmmakers likewise announce a sequel, and the movie ends.  I for one will not be chomping at the bit for the second film, that’s for sure. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF TEENAGE CAVEWOMEN (2012) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Two planets fuse together and hurtle across the galaxy on a collision course with Earth.  A team is assembled to go into space to intercept the planets in a rocket ship.  They land on one of the planets and learn it is ruled by… oh just read the title.  The astronauts must then rescue the teenage cavewomen from their evil rivals before Earth’s missiles destroy the planets for good. 

Considering the fact that the budget was pretty much nonexistent, the filmmakers do a good job of spoofing the old B films while still making the movie feel like a modern updating of one.  It has an amusing opening (similar to The Mole People) where a scientist explains how this all could actually happen.  Also, much of the music is lifted from old Sci-Fi flicks (most notably This Island Earth) and it uses a lot of the same stock footage you would see from an old space picture from the ‘50s.  Heck, there’s even some footage taken from films like Phantom Planet in lieu of actual effects.  I also liked how the cavewomen were badly dubbed on purpose.  (Not to mention the fact that all the so-called “teenage” cavewomen looked much older.)

Voyage to the Planet of Teenage Cavewomen is only thirty-five minutes long, which is about the expiration date for a spoof such as this.  It might’ve been better if there was some actual T & A to speak of.  The cavewoman catfights that we do get aren’t bad though. I did like the giant spider monster which was a nice homage to Cat-Women of the Moon.  (The less said about the monster that’s essentially a guy wearing a green tarp, the better.)  And the final nod to Teenagers from Outer Space was well done too. 

All this looks like it was filmed in someone’s basement and/or backyard.  That’s kind of the charm though.  The aluminum foil budget for the interior of the spaceship alone must’ve set the filmmakers back a pretty penny.  I can’t say Voyage to the Planet of Teenage Cavewomen is great or anything, but I challenge anyone to do better using the same limited means. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (1964) ***

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on December 16th, 2007)

Concerned that Martian children "are no longer children" because they get information plugged through their skull helmet antennae nonstop and sit around watching "meaningless Earth programs"; a group of Martians head down to Earth to kidnap Santa Claus (!) so he can spread cheer and goodwill to all the Martian children. With a little help from a robot, and with two Earth children in tow, the Martians succeed in hijacking Santa (John Call) from his workshop on the North Pole and take him to Mars, where they quickly get him set up with a more efficient automated workshop that he can control with just the push of a button. But there's a faction of Martians that don't want Santa spreading good cheer and they set out to RE-KIDNAP Kris Kringle. Luckily the reigning Martian nincompoop Droppo (Bill McCutcheon), "the laziest man on Mars" happens to be wearing a Santa suit and they think that HE'S Santa, despite the fact that he's got a green face and a skull helmet antennae sticking out from under his cap. Everything get sorted out after the kids pelt the bad guys with toys and the "evil" Martians are reduced to tears. Eventually they realize that Droppo would make a good Martian Santa, and they give Santa and the kids a one way ticket back to Earth.

Fewer movies boggle the mind with such ferocity than this one. Who was this movie made for? Seven-year-olds on LSD? Star Trek nerds that needed a Christmas themed movie in outer space? No, the real audience for this flick is die-hard fans of bad movies. You could never in a million years take this thing seriously, but a lot of eggnog will allow you to laugh your ass off and help you discover the true meaning of Christmas. Most bad movies have certain requirements: crappy special effects, inexplicable performances, glaring continuity mistakes, stunningly campy dialogue, and preferably a star of some middling degree earning a paycheck before they were famous. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is chock full of all of them.

Consider the not-so special effects. If the robot looks like a guy walking around wearing a cardboard box with a crab pot on his head that's because it's a guy walking around wearing a cardboard box with a crab pot on his head. If the polar bear looks like a guy walking around in a polar bear suit with the seams of the mask clearly showing it's because it's a guy walking around in a polar bear suit with the seams of the mask clearly showing. And if the spaceships look like a cheap model rockets it's because... well you get the idea.

And how about the performances? As Droppo, Bill McCutcheon proves to be one of the lamest "comic relief" sidekicks in the history of film. Whether pretending to be zapped by a "tickle ray", swallowing "food pills", or prancing around in a Santa suit, he achieves something incredible. His "comedy" is so UNFUNNY that you have to laugh at it. He's like a blueprint for Chris Kattan. And where do I begin with John Call as Santa? Sure he looks the part (any dime store Santa could've pulled THAT off), but what's with his laughter? He doesn't say "Ho, ho, ho!", rather he has laughs that sounds scary and maniacal; like a cross between a Batman villain and a seriously disturbed individual. What's more is that his laughter inspires others to laugh along with him. You won't be laughing WITH him, but you'll certainly be laughing AT him.

And then there's the theme song (by Milton DeLugg) that just about throws all laws of reading, writing and pronunciation out the window in favor of a cheap yuletide jingle. I quote: "You spell it S-A-N-T-A C-L-A-U-S! Horray for Santy Claus!" Umm, excuse me Mr. DeLugg, but S-A-N-T-A actually spells SANTA. DeLugg also must have been the fellow who typed up the opening credits, as there is a credit for "Costume Designer" that is spelled "Custume Designer".

And then there's the dialogue. Ahh, the dialogue. Some of what comes out of these people's mouths will have you doubting your sanity until the next Christmas. There are the classics "You won't get away with this you... MARTIAN!", "All this trouble for a fat little man in a red suit!", and "Right now is the middle of Septober!", but my favorite dialogue exchange comes after Santa tries his new Martian automated workshop. Someone asks Santa if he's tired and he replies, "No, but my finger is!" That's a mental picture and a half for you.

But the most fun comes from seeing "star" Pia Zadora as one of the Martian children. She looks pretty much out of it most of the time, which is a technique she would later go on to perfect. If you don't count her cameo in Naked Gun 33 1/3, this is by far the best movie she ever starred in. She shoulda quit when she was ahead.

In short: this should be a Christmas tradition in every household.

Lucky kids in the ‘60s could've bought the comic book adaptation (!) or the theme song, which was available as a single.

AKA: Santa Claus Defeats the Aliens.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: YEAR END WRAP-UP

In 2024, I challenged myself to watch and review 366 movies on physical media in 366 days.  (Goddamn Leap Year.)  If you were playing along at home, you would’ve known I fell short of my goal.  I got pretty close though as I was able to watch 364 movies and review 362 of them.  As Maxwell Smart would say, “Missed it by THAT much!”  I plan to finish the final couple of reviews by the end of the week, just to see the challenge through.  

On a side note, I don’t think I will attempt to do another daily movie watching challenge this year.  After Tubi Continued… and this, it’s a bit exhausting, especially when my work/family life begins ramping up.  However, I still plan on watching as many weird and wild movies as humanly possible in 2025.  I just will refrain from using a yearly theme and posting on a daily schedule.  So, here’s to another year at the movies!  Happy New Year!