PARADISE CITY (2022) ** ½

I’ve been kind of avoiding watching Bruce Willis’ final run of DTV films because it’s a little depressing seeing his slow and sad decline due to aphasia.  However, I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to see Bruce teamed with his Pulp Fiction co-star, John Travolta one last time.  Add the always reliable Stephen Dorff in the mix, and I’m all over it. 

Bruce plays a bounty hunter who is killed while trying to bring in a criminal.  His son (Blake Jenner) investigates and teams up with Bruce’s former partner (Dorff) to get to the heart of the matter.  Seems a shady businessman (Travolta) is running islanders off their land so he can make a big real estate deal.  Naturally, it’s up to Jenner and Dorff to stop him. 

Director Chuck (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3) Russell (who also helmed Travolta’s I am Wrath) is a step up from your average DTV hack, so this feels more like a theatrical release than some of Bruce’s other recent flicks.  Russell takes advantage of the sunny Maui locations, which also help enhance the production.  The plot and action lands somewhere between been-there-done that and perfectly acceptable, but the cast keep it afloat for the most part. 

Even though Willis and Travolta are all over the poster, it’s Dorff and Jenner who do the majority of the heavy lifting.  Heck, even Dorff is out of commission for a good chunk of the movie.  That means a lot of the film falls on Jenner’s shoulders, and while he is OK, the scenes where he is front and center are easily the weakest in the film.  It was, however, an unexpected pleasure to see DTV vet Branscombe Richmond popping up as a politician. 

Travolta has fun chewing the scenery.  He seems to be embracing his bald era, and he gives the movie a pulse when he’s on screen.  Bruce is doing the best he can under the circumstances, but he definitely seems to be struggling in some scenes.  He did have more screen time than I was expecting, and it’s fun seeing him interact with Travolta, however briefly. 

The plot twists are predictable, but Russell keeps things moving at a decent clip.  There are enough quirky touches here to keep you amused.  For instance, I liked the fact our hero turns to strippers to see what the word on the street is, seeing how bad guys often blab while getting lap dances.  There’s also nice little nod to Face/Off too.  Whether it was intentional or otherwise, I’m not sure. 

To sum up, if you’re reading a review of Paradise City, then you’re probably the kind of person who would watch it.  As recent DTV action flicks go, it’s a hair better than average.  Viewed as one of Bruce’s last films, it likewise trends higher than the rest of the pack.  Fans of Willis and Travolta who know what they’re getting themselves into should be pleased.

THE CONJURING: LAST RITES (2025) ***

The husband-and-wife team of paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are now retired and trying to devote their time to their family.  They are called out of retirement when a family is tormented by a haunted mirror.  Since Lorraine previously tangled with the cursed object when she was pregnant eighteen years ago, that can only mean one thing:  It wants her daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson). 

This is supposedly the “final” installment of the series, but I’ll believe it when I see it.  While it certainly feels like the end of the Warrens’ story, I have a feeling they will be able to squeeze more blood from this stone, especially considering this was the series’ biggest box office hit.  I mean, it ends with Ed handing the keys to the franchise to his new son in-law, so I imagine they filmmakers will pull some kind of Next Generation-type shit in the near future. 

Director Michael Chaves has been responsible for some of the worst (The Curse of La Llorona and The Devil Made Me Do It) and best (The Nun 2 and this installment) entries in the series.  While it does have more than its fair share of long scenes where people wander down darkened hallways investigating spooky noises and/or scary whispers, the film contains everything from possessions to ghosts to axe murderers, so it keeps you entertained the whole way through.  We also get a great puking scene, a cool bit with a giant Annabelle doll, and a funny moment where the Warrens are giving a lecture and people keep asking questions about Ghostbusters

Chaves also delivers some solidly executed sequences, such as a girl using a VCR to find the ghost in a home movie or when Judy is trying on a wedding gown in a room full of mirrors.  The scenes with the Warrens and their daughter are well-crafted too and give the film an emotional core the previous sequels lacked.  The moments fleshing out her relationship with her and her fiancé aren’t merely filler but help make us care about them.  Ed and Lorraine’s interactions are endearing too.  That’s partially because Wilson and Farmiga have been together for so long in these movies that you almost feel like you’re watching a real married couple by now. 

Like most Conjuring films, Last Rites runs on too long (well over two hours).  There’s also a scene with some CGI blood that looks hella fakey.  However, the dramatic meat is much stronger in this entry, which makes it a shade better than your average installment.  If Wilson and Farmiga bow out and make way for their daughter to take on the franchise, I’d say this would be a fine moment to do so gracefully.  I wouldn’t fault them for returning though. 

The Conjuring Universe Scorecard: 

The Nun 2:  *** ½ 

The Conjuring:  ***

The Conjuring:  Last Rites:  ***

Annabelle Comes Home:  ***

Annabelle:  Creation:  ** ½ 

The Conjuring 2:  **

The Nun:  **

The Conjuring:  The Devil Made Me Do It:  * ½ 

The Curse of La Llorona:  *

Annabelle:  ½ *

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (2025) ** ½

The Silent Night, Deadly Night series has been generally fun, even if it's had more than its fair share of ups and downs.  The first remake was more entertaining than your typical rehashes and I honestly thought that was going to be the final word on the franchise.  Lo and behold, here’s another one, and just in time for Christmas, no less. 

This new Silent Night Deadly Night, is kind of a good news, bad news scenario.  For every thing the movie does right, it inevitably makes a misstep.  However, it has enough highlights to appease horror fans.  It’s not the merriest of Christmases to be sure, but no one should walk away feeling like they got coal in their stocking either. 

The framework of the remake is the same as the original.  When Billy (Halloween Ends’ Rohan Campbell) was a kid, he witnessed his parents murdered by a killer Santa Claus.  He then grows up to be a Killer Santa butchering people he deems “naughty”. 

This remake introduces an odd wrinkle into the proceedings.  This Billy is more like a mix of Dexter and Venom.  You see, in the original, he just “punished” those who were “naughty”.  As in, people who fucked.  In this one, he only murders out and out killers while being egged on by the gravelly voiced ghost of the Santa who also killed his parents. 

Those wanting an honest to goodness Killer Santa movie may be disappointed as there’s a lot of extra rigmarole gumming up the works.  That said, when the movie hits the sweet spot of gory carnage and inspired lunacy, it’s fun.  I’m thinking specifically of the over-the-top scene where Billy crashes a Nazi Christmas party (“Here’s to a white power Christmas!”) and hacks up racists with an axe.  It’s fun, silly, and honestly, I don’t think we’ve seen anything quite like it. 

The rest of the movie is a tad frustrating.  The scenes with Billy’s love interest, played by Ruby Modine (who incredibly enough, matches his crazy) isn’t bad, but you can see where their relationship is heading from a mile away.  The stuff with Billy contending with the voice in his head are hit-and-miss too, and the way they try to make him sympathetic doesn’t always work either.  (As fun as the aforementioned Nazi Christmas party is, it seems like much too easy of a way to have you side with Billy.)

The nods to the original series are fun.  (The use of one of the Christmas songs from the first movie got a big smile from me.)  It’s not great, but it’s ultimately no more uneven than the later sequels.  I guess it just comes down to what you want from a Killer Santa movie and/or Silent Night, Deadly Night remake.  If it wasn’t called Silent Night, Deadly Night or had it been a completely original film, I may have really dug it.  However, when you hitch your star to the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise, comparisons are going to be inevitable.  All that being said, this might be the case where I catch it on TV in a few years and, divorced from my expectations, I wind up enjoying it more the second time around. 

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS (2025) ***

The superhero team The Fantastic Four are about to welcome a new addition to their family when The Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby) finds out she’s pregnant.  The world stops on a dime when the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) arrives and heralds the coming of Galactus (Ralph Ineson), an evil space entity what wants to devour Earth.  Mr. Fantastic (Pedro Pascal) and the team try to reason with Galactus, who offers them a compromise:  Hand over their unborn child and he’ll spare the planet. 

For a movie with the subtitle “First Steps”, it sure gets off to a shaky start.  Since there’s already been four Fantastic Four films, this new version is keen on not rehashing a lot of the previous versions (although it features the same basic story as Rise of the Silver Surfer) or lingering too long on an origin story (which is wrapped up in a brief 60 Minutes-style TV special at the beginning of the film).  That is a bit of a mixed blessing though as the first act often feels like it’s moving in fast forward.  It would’ve been nice to let things breathe a little bit while we were getting to know these iterations of the characters. 

Once the team’s baby Franklin is introduced, the movie improves.  Thanks to the increased stakes, the film becomes rather engrossing.  Kirby is especially good once her motherly instincts kick in, and her speech to an angry mob lands surprisingly well.  Joseph Quinn is solid as The Human Torch, who is allowed to be kind of smart in this one while still keeping his smartass posture.  Ebon Moss-Bachrach is pretty good too as The Thing, and I liked his scenes with Natasha Lyonne, even if they weren’t fleshed out all that well.  Pascal is fine as Mr. Fantastic.  He captures the egghead side of his personality well enough, but he still feels a bit miscast even if he isn’t necessarily bad in the role. 

Despite some quibbles, there is plenty to enjoy here.  The scene where Sue used her invisibility powers to show Reed their baby growing inside her was surprisingly moving.  I also liked how The Thing called Reed “Stretch”.  The retro futurism of the film might be its biggest selling point.  The fact that it’s set in the ‘60s makes the inventions in the Baxter Building look like something out of those old “Kitchen of Tomorrow” cartoons, and the inclusion of the team’s robot pal H.E.R.B.I.E. was an amusing addition.  Not only does the movie take place in the ‘60s, it’s set in an entirely different Multiverse, which allows it to do its own thing without being tied heavily to the MCU stuff. 

Sure, I could nitpick here and there.  I honestly wasn’t crazy about the new Silver Surfer or the fact that Reed sports a Clark Gable mustache, but that’s mere surface stuff really.  I for one missed the goofy tone and humor of the ‘00s versions, but this is a perfectly acceptable redo. 

Marvel Cinematic Universe Scorecard: 

Spider-Man:  No Way Home:  ****

Avengers:  Age of Ultron:  ****

The Incredible Hulk:  ****

Iron Man:  ****

Thor:  Ragnarok:  ****

Avengers:  Endgame:  ****

Ant-Man and the Wasp:  ****

Spider-Man:  Homecoming:  ****

Iron Man 3:  ****

Captain America:  Civil War:  *** ½

Ant-Man:  *** ½

Guardians of the Galaxy:  *** ½

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

Avengers:  Infinity War:  *** ½

Werewolf by Night:  *** ½ 

Black Panther:  *** ½ 

The Avengers:  ***

Captain America:  The First Avenger:  ***

Captain America:  The Winter Soldier:  ***

Deadpool and Wolverine:  ***

Fantastic Four:  First Steps:  ***

Thor:  Love and Thunder:  ***

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness:  ***

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

Captain Marvel:  ***

Spider-Man:  Far from Home:  ***

Thor:  ***

The Marvels:  ***

Captain America:  Brave New World:  ***

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3:  ***

Thor:  The Dark World:  ***

Iron Man 2:  ***

Thunderbolts*:  ** ½ 

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

Doctor Strange:  ** ½ 

Black Widow:  ** ½  

Black Panther:  Wakanda Forever:  **

The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special:  **

Eternals:  * ½  

MITCH APPEARS ON THE DTVC PODCAST!

Once again, I had the pleasure of being a guest on Matt’s DTVC Podcast.  The subject was the Debbie Rochon yuletide horror flick, Santa Claws, but naturally I used the opportunity to talk about my favorite Christmas horror classic, Elves!  Give it a listen here:  DTVC Podcast 241, "Santa Claws… - DTVC Podcast - Apple Podcasts

THE HEAD MISTRESS (1968) ****

An old gardener at an all-girls school retires.  A young stud named Mario (Victor Brandt) replaces him and pretends to be a little on the slow side to get the job.  Really, he just wants to get an eyeful of all the young maidens running around the school grounds.  Meanwhile, the sexy head mistress (Marsha Jordan) is busy making time with the student body… and what a body these students have!

From the kings of sexploitation writer/producer David F. (Blood Feast) Friedman and director Byron (A Smell of Honey, a Swallow of Brine) Mabe, The Head Mistress is an enormously fun bit of ‘60s skin.  From the outset, it looks like it’s going to be one of those “respectable” pictures that actually has a plot and actresses in period costumes.  Fortunately for the audience, those costumes don’t stay on the actresses for very long.  In fact, part of the fun is seeing how thoroughly unrespectable the movie becomes the further it goes along. 

Marsha (Prison Girls) Jordan is a blast as the title character.  She’s great in her tender scenes while she’s seducing her students (we never see anyone attend class, but that’s beside the point), but once she gets all hot and bothered and starts tying them up and whipping them, look out!  Invitation to Ruin’s Julia Blackburn (billed humorously as “Bermuda Schwartz”), Gee Gentell (who has a hot bubble bath scene), and Samantha Scott all make memorable impressions as the nubile coeds. 

The T & A is quite special.  Schoolgirls have sex, take baths, have picnics while topless, take literal and figurative rolls in the hay, and generally spend a lot of time with their goodies on display.  Also, there’s quite a bit of foot stuff here for fans of that kind of action. 

If the movie was merely content on being a skin showcase, it still would’ve been highly recommended.  However, it becomes increasingly unhinged in the second half and it’s here where The Head Mistress really shines.  One insane bit has a co-ed learning she’s pregnant and hanging herself.  Then, one of her classmates finds the body hanging there and… uh… let’s just say she proceeds to get intimate with her.  Fortunately, the camera cuts away before it gets icky, but the mere suggestion of what’s going down is rather jaw dropping. 

There’s even a surprising bit of gore too.  I mean wait till you learn why the movie is called The “HEAD” Mistress.  It might not be what you’re picturing.  I totally didn’t think it would venture into Evil Dead type territory, especially when it played like your average skin flick in the early going.  Then again, that’s one of the many joys of the movie.  You never know where it’s going next.

Also amusing is the fact that the two main male characters are named Mario and Luigi!

In short, fans of ‘60s sexploitation are sure to give The Head Mistress high marks. 

AKA:  The Head Lady.

SCHOOLGIRL REPORT 2: WHAT KEEPS PARENTS AWAKE AT NIGHT (1975) ** ½

A reporter appears on camera and tells the audience the producers had no intention of making a sequel to Schoolgirl Report but the “overwhelming response from viewers” forced them to make another one.   As before, the film is broken up into several “fictionalized” vignettes.  There’s also man on the street interviews sandwiched in between the vignettes where women are asked about their sexual mores and preferences.

Segment  #1 (***):  Sexy schoolgirls tease their science teacher while he does a lesson about how friction between two bodies causes a “tingly sensation”.  They then set out to blackmail and seduce him.  This sequence has a fun and playful set-up, and the ladies are quite sexy (and funny) too.  However, it all ends on a tragic note. 

Segment #2 (***):  Some teens explore their blossoming sexuality in a barn before they get busted by a cop.  This one has a nice blend of the awkwardness and innocence that’s inherent in sexual exploration.  Unfortunately, like young love itself, it climaxes abruptly. 

Segment #3 (** ½):  Two teenage girls say, “Fuck school!  We want to be free!” and run away from home.  They soon learn they have to use their bodies to survive on the streets.  Despite a promising start, there’s not much of an ending to this segment. 

Segment #4 (** ½):  This sequence is a humorous affair.  A young couple try to lose their virginity in the woods when a farmer steals their clothes.  This one is short and sweet.  Maybe too short as the ending just sort of fizzles out. 

Segment #5 (**):  A girl is brought home by two degenerates who shoot her up with heroin and rape her.  This segment is brief and depressing, but there is at least one great line of dialogue when the hoods shoot up smack and say, “Whoever invented this should get a medal!”

Segment #6 (***):  A teen is tricked into posing nude for a photographer.  (“Half-dressed is porn.  Total nudity is natural!”)  Later her friends follow suit.  This one is a return to the more playful segments earlier in the film.  The photo shoot scene is fun and even a bit arty too. 

Segment  #7 (***):  A young girl is set up by her friends to lose her virginity to a real “stud” who winds up being a virgin too.  Meanwhile, the other girls try to bribe a cabbie into stripping.  Here's another sequence that finds the right blend of innocence and sexy fun that I wish was more prevalent throughout the film. 

Segment #8 (** ½):  A teen girl seduces her math tutor.  When her father catches them in the act, he has him thrown in jail.  She then attempts suicide.  While this is the darkest entry, it ends with a plea for tolerance and understanding when it comes to girls experimenting with their sexuality, which softens the blow a bit. 

Segment #9 (** ½):  This one is not exploitative and plays like a German version of an American After School Special.  The parents of a teenage girl freak out when they learn she’s pregnant.  Once the baby comes, they have embraced their role as grandparents.  Although it's kind of sweet, it makes for a disappointing ending.  I guess with so much excess here, the filmmakers wanted to end things on an upbeat note. 

AKA:  Schoolgirl’s Report ’75.  AKA:  Schoolgirls’ Report:  Why Parents Lose Their Sleep.  AKA:  Further Confessions of a Sixth Form Girl.  

WHAT’S LOVE (1987) *

In the ‘70s, porn star Bill Cable started work on a movie called What is Love?, but never got around to finishing it.  A decade later, porn director Carlos Tobalina decided to finally complete the sucker.  It’s not good, but on the plus side, some of the hottest porn starlets of all time like Sharon Kelly and Ginger Lynn show up. The downside is that the sex scenes are all softcore and they are far from their best work. 

A cop (Cable) pulls the Devil (Troy Walker) over for smoking grass.  He gets back at him by making his motorcycle disappear and causes him to have visions of becoming a crucified, pot-smoking Jesus.  After the cop dies, his brother (Tom Byron) becomes a priest.  Meanwhile, his cousin (Ginger Lynn) makes him break his vows by seducing him and together, they enter into a suicide pact.  She leaves all her money to her best friend (Colleen Brennan), who tries to make it with a cop who may be the reincarnation of the cop from the beginning of the movie (also Cable). 

Confused?  Don’t worry.  The jumps in plotlines and switches in characters (not to mention film stocks from the two separate productions) are often jarring and downright perplexing.  Then again, what do you expect from a cobbled together decades in the making non-porno movie from porno filmmakers?  The nightclub act where the music and the performer’s lips never come close to matching is good for a laugh though. 

Considering everybody’s porn background, I’m not sure why they just didn’t make this a XXX picture.  Not that hardcore action could’ve saved this mess, but it couldn’t have hurt.  It doesn’t help that whenever the filmmakers try to get artsy, they wind up falling flat on their face.  Consider the scene where Cable is dressed as Jesus and banging women.  It’s far from titillating and the artistic aspirations are dubious at best. 

Contrast that with the artsy handling of Barbara, which also appears on The Lost Picture Show box set.  That film was experimental and even though it was uneven, when it hit, it worked.  This is just a self-important mess that really has no idea of the message it’s trying to convey. 

I mean, I’ll watch anything that has Ginger in it, but damn… this was bad.  At least Tobalina is smart enough to know if he has to have a dialogue scene between Ginger and Colleen Brennan, you might as well have them both be topless.  I will say the Ginger scenes are… like… 100% more tolerable than the shit with Cable and the Devil.  However, if you really want to see Ginger and Byron going at it, there are dozens of hardcore movies you could watch instead of the simulated scenes in this piece of crap. 

BARBARA (1970) ** ½

After making love on the beach, Leslie (Nancy Boyle) and Tom (Robert McClane) are sexually assaulted by a peeping tom named Max (Jack Rader).  They kind of like it though, and he asks them to come see him at his place up the beach, which turns out to be a tent.  When Leslie finally works up the courage to go there, she finds he’s already balling a jailbait babe named Barbara (presumably played by herself).  Leslie doesn’t seem to care though as she immediately strips down and bangs Barbara too.  Together, the lovers soon turn into a foursome, but boredom eventually dictates they look “outside their circle” for new sexual experiences. 

Gratuitously avant garde, relentlessly artsy-fartsy, and incoherently experimental, Barbara is… well… something.  It’s an alternately frustrating and fascinating film.  It’s uneven as fuck, but it’s pretty interesting and definitely memorable.

Some moments are very of the time.  Some are ahead of its time.  Some moments made me just say, “Time out!”  There are scenes that are purposefully in your face, almost as if to shatter your expectations and/or chastise you for wanting to watch a dirty movie.  I’m thinking specifically of the gay rape scene.  This probably had the raincoat crowd bolting for the exits back in the day, even with the silly subtitles that accompany the dialogue. 

The black and white cinematography is decent, even if they sometimes go overboard with the filters.  The music runs the gamut of monks chanting to the typical hippie flower power folk rock you’d normally hear in something like this to weird tones played in reverse.  The editing is sometimes unnecessarily arty, but it’s occasionally effective. 

Barbara is a mixed bag to be sure, but its depiction of hippie life is probably closer to what the actual hippie experience was versus the idyllic shit you’re used to seeing in movies and TV.  I mean, most hippies really didn’t go to Woodstock and live in communes.  They were probably more like these characters:  Living in a tent, getting high, and fucking. 

All of this is fine in small doses.  However, how much of it you are willing to take probably will depend on the individual viewer.  It’s one thing to show characters broaching taboo (for the time) subjects as homosexuality, interracial sex, and incest, but once they start bringing in shit like breastfeeding and bestiality, I personally had to pump the brakes.  

I can’t say it works.  I can’t say it’s good.  I can say I admire the brazen spirit of the film, even if I can’t follow it down some of the trails it blazes. 

One thing I can say in its favor:  You never know where it’s going next.  Just when you think you’ve seen it all, out comes a random ass Kung Fu training montage.  It’s not “good” in a traditional sense, but to give it anything less than ** ½ would be a crime. 

YOU’RE DRIVING ME CRAZY! (1978) **

Tom (Michael Watkins) is a photographer who has just lost his driver’s license.  He and his wife Jacqui (Lisa Taylor) are looking for an au pair.  They eventually settle on a studly American guy (Steve Amber) who winds up hopping into bed with just about every pretty woman he meets. 

This was the third and final David Hamilton-Grant skin flick that was featured on a bonus disc of the Nightmare 4K UHD release.  Although it was made after The Office Party and Under the Bed! it feels less polished than those other ventures.  The jokes are lame, and the acting is mostly a bust.  (Amber’s American accent is often painful to listen to.)

I was also a little disappointed and confused by the plot.  (Not that the plot is important in these kinds of things but still.)  When I heard the couple was going to hire an au pair, I thought that meant they were getting a sexy babysitter or something.  As it turns out the “au pair” isn’t a nanny, but more of a chauffeur.  To make matters worse it winds up being a dude.  Heck, the couple doesn’t even have any kids to take care of!  Then again, if he wasn’t a chauffeur then I guess the pun in the title wouldn’t work. 

Although it’s easily the weakest of the lot of Hamilton-Grant films in the set, You’re Driving Me Crazy! certainly delivers in the skin department.  Some of the nudity comes courtesy of our main character’s photo shoots with topless models.  (It also helps that they all want to ball Amber too.)  Taylor, who was so memorable in Under the Bed! is a bit muted here, unfortunately.  Still, she looks great au natural.  Suzy Mandel is also fun as a one of Watkins’ models, a British bimbo with a Betty Boop voice.  Pat Astley gets a great skinny-dipping sequence too where she… takes a bath in her swimming pool?!?  Between that and the whole au pair/chauffeur thing, the script feels like it was spat out by AI.  Shit like this won’t drive you crazy, but it may make you scratch your head.

UNDER THE BED! (1977) ** ½

Here’s another softcore sex flick from writer-director David Hamilton-Grant.  It’s basically a sequel to The Office Party.  Remember Sally (Theresa Wood), the gal who was getting married in that movie?  Well, this is her wedding party, except some of the characters and actors have changed.  In fact, an alternate title for the film was “The Wedding Party”, which would’ve helped to keep the party aesthetic going.  (The theme song is even called “The Wedding Party”.)  It’s not a classic of eroticism or anything, but you know you’re going to be in for a good time as soon as the opening credits roll and you see the title card, “And Jayne Lester as The Reluctant Virgin”. 

Under the Bed! follows the same basic framework as its predecessor.  We see characters attending a party, making innuendo, and eventually, various couples sneak off and go have sex.  Heck, before we even get to the party, we get a fun scene where a sexy French maid seduces the milkman.  As in the first film, the plot essentially revolves around Wood being pestered by a horny ex until she finally gives in and balls him. 

While the setting is ideal for something like this (it’s much more open than the claustrophobic office setting of the first movie), the humor isn’t quite as sharp.  The double entendres and repartee are good for a smirk or two, but there aren’t any actual laughs to be had this time around.  Another quibble is that some of the new characters aren’t that much fun (like the mom who is always crying).  Well, except for the Reluctant Virgin, of course. 

While it may fall short of The Office Party, Under the Bed! is still a decent slice of British sex farce hokum.  The ladies in the cast are game, which makes a big difference.  Wood is once again appealing and sheds her wardrobe just as easily as she did in the first movie.  Lisa Taylor is also quite fetching as a catering cutie with a thick Italian accent who gets banged on a boat.  And who could forget the Reluctant Virgin?  Especially during the scene where she predictably loses her stutter once she finally gets taken to pound town. 

AKA:  The Wedding Party.

THE OFFICE PARTY (1976) ***

Remember See You Next Wednesday?  You know, the porno David and Jack were watching in An American Werewolf in London?  Well, I was thinking about that film-within-a-film a lot while watching The Office Party.  It has the same style of flatly filmed softcore scenes mixed with dry humor (although this one is actually kind of funny).  After seeing something like this, you realize what a spot-on recreation that scene was. 

A boss (Alan Lake) and his sexy secretary (Pamela Grafton) are secretly having an affair at the office behind their respective partners’ backs.  A salesgirl named Sally (Theresa Wood) is about to be married, so everyone in the office decides to throw her an after-hours party.  Once the drinks start flowing, the clothes start hitting the floor, and couples go sneaking off for a good shagging. 

From British sexploitation maverick, writer-director David Hamilton-Grant, The Office Party has a decent amount of skin, a handful of respectable laughs, and is less than an hour long.  The setting is fun as the office is a distribution arm for softcore movies.  (The filmmakers probably just filmed the thing in their own office to save money.)  The posters on the wall, both for real and fake movies, are amusing too.  It was fun seeing an ad slick for the Candace Rialson flick Pets (under the title Submission), but my favorite ad was for a film called Frankenstein was a Lesbian!

The sex and nude scenes are somewhat brief, but for something this short, I’d say you get your money’s worth.  The humor works surprisingly well though as some of the banter is genuinely good for a laugh.  I also liked the scene where the staff rode an elevator and imagined their co-workers nude. 

Some may feel shortchanged by the lack of an actual plot.  If you were expecting the plotline with the philandering boss and his cheating secretary to be resolved (either by them being found out by their spouses or running off with one another), forget it.  At fifty-three minutes, this movie doesn’t have time for shit like that.  This is The Office Party and it’s about the office party.  I kind of liked that. 

Hamilton-Grant later landed himself in hot water with the authorities when he released the “Video Nasty” Nightmare in the UK.  (This, along with a few of his other British skin flicks can be found as bonus features on Severin’s 4K UHD release of the film.) 

BLACK MAMBA (2016) ****

Look out, Tommy Wiseau.  Watch your back, Neil Breen.  There’s a new sheriff in town and her name is Belinda M. Wilson. 

Black Mamba is one of the most delirious cinematic experiences I’ve had in my lifetime.  That’s not hyperbole.  That’s just a fact. 

The film is basically a horror anthology with various characters coming to see the eponymous witch (Wilson) and asking her to make them potions so their wishes can come true.  Naturally, they backfire on the poor saps in spectacularly hilarious ways.  It sounds ordinary enough, but it’s Wilson’s completely nutzo handling of the material that makes the movie so special.  If there’s a missing link between Fateful Findings and Black Devil Doll from Hell, this is it. 

The first story is the best.  It is a gleefully deranged tale of an infertile couple trying to conceive.  I laughed so hard and long during some stretches of this sequence that I probably lost some vital bits of dialogue, but that’s okay.  I plan on watching it again very soon.  The conception scene is one for the books.  It will have you splitting your sides in laughter.  There are also moments here that are reminiscent of It’s Alive, Grave of the Vampire, and How to Train Your Dragon.  No, I am not on drugs. 

The next tale just can’t compete with the first, but it’s a really good/bad one any way you slice it.  It centers on a woman who wants to look beautiful.  The scenes of her holding a running commentary on the action (everyone in the movie seems to be incapable of having an interior monologue) are still really funny and the big bathtub scene is a winner too. 

The third tale gets my vote for the second-best sequence.  It’s about a guy who wants to swim with mermaids.  The underwater CGI effects will have you busting a gut, but our hero’s antics and wisecracks are genuinely hilarious, and his scuba diving get-up is priceless. 

Next, we have a story about a woman who wants a love potion to make her doctor fall in love with her.  Things go horribly wrong when her husband accidentally drinks it.  Like the second segment, this one is more of a traditional horror tale.  However, nothing can prepare you for the confrontation between our heroine’s suitors.  You’ll have to pick your jaw up off the floor. 

For the final segment, we get to see what happened to the couple from the first story once they brought their monster baby home.  I kind of wish it had been kept together as one long segment, but hey, that just adds to the overall unpredictable nature of the film. 

The way Wilson uses shoddy CGI with reckless abandon is glorious.  Some scenes look like people standing in front of a green screen while the Sims is playing in the background.  In fact, there are some scenes that feature more effects going on in one single shot than most big budget Hollywood films.  You’ve got to admire that fearless sense of ambition, especially when Wilson’s reach perpetually exceeds her grasp. 

In short, this is a mind-blowing experience.  For bad movie fans, Black Mamba will hit like a pure shot of adrenaline.  This flick contains more WTF moments per minute than just about any I’ve seen.  Connoisseurs of Grade Z cinema, the gauntlet has been thrown down.  Check it out ASAP. 

TWISTED SEX VOL. 3 (1994) ***

The third collection of ‘60s sexploitation trailers from Something Weird begins with trailers for artsy fare like I, a Woman and Therese and Isabelle.  Don’t be alarmed though.  It doesn’t take long before you’re hit with a veritable avalanche of sleazy previews for roughies like Come Play with Me and Olga’s Dance Hall Girls.  Along the way there are ads for nudie cuties (The Beast That Killed Women), Mondo movies (Primitive Love, which features Jayne Mansfield performing a sexy striptease), and films that are sadly lost to time, like the incredible looking Fanny Hill Meets Dr. Erotico. 

Probably the most memorable trailer is for Ravaged (AKA: After Mein Kampf), which mixes sexploitation and stock footage of actual Nazi atrocities.  You know, fun for the entire family.  There are also some great ads for oddities and rare films like The Adventures of Busty Brown, The Diary of Knockers McCalla, and the wonderfully titled Scarf of Mist, Thigh of Satin. 

You know, I like to think I know a thing or two about smut movies.  So, when I come across a trailer for something like Obscene House featuring the unforgettable sight of “Fat Mama”, an overweight madam, it’s nice to know even I can be surprised by some of the shit Something Weird manages to cram into these things.  (See also the amazing trailer for Carny Girl.)

This volume is a tad overlong and begins to run out of steam before crossing the finish line.  Things wind down with hippie movies such as Like It is and Acid Dreams before concluding with an ad for an educational short called The Art of Marriage.  There’s also a random short about a blonde wife who perks up a cocktail party by stripping in the living room that’s just there as filler. 

Fans of tawdry taglines will have a field day with this installment though.  Some of my favorites belong to Therese and Isabelle (“A milestone in motion picture candor!”), The Sin Syndicate (“A frank, uninhibited exposition of the girl racket!”), Prostitutes Protective Society (“Scene after scene of nude violence!”), Unholy Matrimony (“Unholy Matrimony took years to research, months to maintain, and nerves to show!”), Mr. Mari’s Girls (“Obscene and banned by the public!”), and Hot Skin and Cold Cash (“A picture you can’t miss… UNLESS YOU’RE A SISSY!”).  Meanwhile, Meeting on 69th Street promises “Sick sex doings!”

Well, if you’re like me and know am, and sick sex doings are what you crave, you can do a lot worse than Twisted Sex Vol. 3. 

The complete trailer rundown is as follows: Michelle, The Passionate Strangers, The Twilight Girls, I a Woman, Therese and Isabelle, The Girl with the Magic Box, The Beast That Killed Women, Primitive Love, The Soul Snatcher, Fanny Hill Meets Dr. Erotico, The Sin Syndicate, Prostitutes Protective Society, Death of a Nymphet, Come Play with Me, Olga’s Dance Hall Girls, Justine:  The Erotic Excitement of Evil, Mondo Oscenita, Unholy Matrimony, Hot Erotic Dreams, Ravaged, Prowl Girls, The Adventures of Busty Brown, The Diary of Knockers McCalla, Mr. Mari’s Girls, Sex Club International, Infidelity American-Style, Hot Skin and Cold Cash, Scarf of Mist Thigh of Satin, Allison Women are Bad, She Came on the Bus, Meeting on 69th Street, Obscene House, A Taste of Hot Lead, Delilah, Carny Girl, I Want You!, Like It Is, Acid Dreams, The Art of Marriage, and a random short. 

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: SKINNED ALIVE (1990) **

From producers J.R. (The Dead Next Door) Bookwalter and David (Nightmare Sisters) DeCoteau comes this sporadically entertaining low budget horror/action hybrid. 

A crazy one-eyed killer named Crawldaddy (Mary Jackson from Exorcist 3) goes around in a van killing and skinning people with her two psycho kids Phink (the late Scott Spiegel) and Violet (Susan Rothacker) in tow.  When their van breaks down, a kindly old mechanic (Lester Clark) lets them spend the night while he fixes their vehicle.  Unbeknownst to their host, the houseguests murder a delivery boy and a Jehovah’s Witness right under his nose.  When the killers eventually turn on the mechanic and his wife, it’s up to his ex-cop neighbor (Floyd Ewing, Jr.) to save the day. 

Skinned Alive features some Raimi-inspired camerawork and editing (there’s even a scene in a cellar that’s reminiscent of the Henrietta fight in Evil Dead 2), which makes sense since Spiegel co-wrote Evil Dead 2.  The gore is also decent as we get a machete through the chest, hacked off fingers, a gory bullet to the head, a body shot all to hell, gut spilling, a bayonet to the throat, and a bullet through the cheek.  It takes a while before we finally get to all the skin cutting and peeling scenes though.  While the effects of the actual flesh slicing are hit and miss, the reveal of the skinless corpse is effective. 

All of this is kind of fun when it’s focusing on the family of crazies terrorizing people, but the whole thing more or less stops on a dime once the focus switches to the alcoholic neighbor/hero character.  The stuff with his cheating wife and her scumbag lawyer just slows things down to a crawl(daddy) and the odd comic relief sound effects are really out of place with the scenes of divorce and substance abuse.  In fact, the overuse of humor throughout is more of a hindrance than anything.  The filmmakers treat the gags almost like a crutch.  It’s like they thought they could let themselves off the hook for the amateurish production values of no one took it seriously. 

Spiegel is good though.  He seems to be having fun, despite the uneven material, especially during the climax.  Rothacker is amusing too.  She gets a memorable scene where she performs a striptease for her brother where she cuts her clothes off and incorporates flayed skin in her act.  Too bad the rest of the cast overact and/or are kind of annoying. 

Clips from this later turned up in Bookwalter’s Shock Cinema series. 

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE LAST THANKSGIVING (2020) ***

A bunch of surly restaurant employees are grumpy they have to work on Thanksgiving.  Meanwhile, a cannibal family who have a long tradition of capturing, killing, and eating people on Thanksgiving (they even keep the “leftovers” locked up in the closet) show up to the diner and massacre the staff.  They then take the survivors back home for a meal around the dinner table, but who will be on the menu?

If you’ve ever been in the food service industry, you may feel a tinge of recognition here.  Little touches like customers coming in right at closing time really hit home.  It’s not Waiting… or anything, but these scenes are pretty funny.  It also helps to build sympathy for the characters, even when many of them are grouchy, foul mouthed, and bitter.  

Linnea Quigley shows up in a small role as a customer, and even though she’s the only recognizable name here, the rest of the cast are very good.  The film is short and breezy, and it doesn’t waste a lot of time getting down to business, which is appreciated.  It doesn’t set out to rewrite the book on making a holiday horror film, but it is certainly one of the better low budget efforts that have come down the chute in recent years.  The kills are fun too and show some ingenuity on an obviously low budget.  There’s burning, scalping, head splitting, a scythe through the chest, carving knife deaths, and a melting body.  We also get not one but two standout death sequences.  The first is a death by whisk and the second is a decapitation by dishwasher, both of which might be cinematic firsts. 

I will say that some of the editing is a little confusing in the climax, but it’s not enough to ruin the fun.  There is at least one inventive transition scene during this stretch of the film, so that helps.  The twist ending is solid too, even if they don’t have much time to properly flesh it out.  Small quibbles aside, The Last Thanksgiving is a feast for fans of low budget holiday horror flicks. 

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: TRAILERS #20: HORROR/SCI-FI (1992) ***

Here’s yet another in a long line of Something Weird compilations of horror and Science Fiction trailers.  This one focuses on the films of the ‘60s and ‘70s.  Things kick off with an ad for Crazy Music, which is just an odd retitling of Dr. Seuss’s The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.  Fans of weird alternate titles will enjoy the trailer for The 4D Man, which also appears here as Master of Terror. 

The trailer for William Castle’s 13 Frightened Girls is kind of fun as it’s advertised as starring thirteen beauty contest winners from around the world.  Speaking of gimmicks, theater owners force patrons to sign a “Certificate of Assurance” before seeing The Corpse Grinders to state that they are of “sound mind and body”.  (But would you really be of sound mind and body if you were going to see a Ted V. Mikels movie?)  The best gimmick featured here though is the free Rasputin beard giveaway to those who attend a double feature of Rasputin, the Mad Monk and The Reptile!

While we are on the subject of Hammer, they are well-represented with the likes of The Gorgon, Prehistoric Women, Five Million Years to Earth, and Twins of Evil.  On the other side of the pond, AIP has quite a showcase of trailers too, including The Food of the Gods, Squirm, and Futureworld.  There aren’t many Japanese trailers here (although we do get one for Godzilla vs. Megalon), but The Human Vapor gets my vote for best tagline of the bunch with:  “Is he man or astro-man?”  (The Gorgon gets second place with:  “No one looked upon her face and lived!”)

Since the majority of the trailers come from the ‘60s, they are a little on the tame side.  Only The Flesh and Blood Show shows off some skin, and The Gore Gore Girls gives us glimpses of gore.  The previews are shown in chronological order, so they do get a little bit more graphic as they go along.  That said, there are a lot of ads for PG rated flicks here. 

I think my favorite trailer was for Voodoo Heartbeat.  That’s mostly because I just watched the movie earlier in the week.  Still, it was a pretty rad addition. 

The complete line-up is as follows:  Crazy Music, The Dead One, Battle Beyond the Sun, 13 Frightened Girls, The Human Vapor, The Gorgon, Master of Terror, a double feature of Rasputin, the Mad Monk and The Reptile, Prehistoric Women, They Came from Beyond Space, Five Million Years to Earth, Superargo vs. Diabolicus, Nightmare in Wax, Twins of Evil, The Corpse Grinders, Voodoo Heartbeat, Vampire Circus, The Flesh and Blood Show, Werewolf of Washington, The Gore Gore Girls, The Thirsty Dead, Disciples of Death, Old Dracula, The Food of the Gods, Godzilla vs. Megalon, Squirm, Futureworld, At the Earth’s Core, Carrie, King Kong (1976), Rattlers, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Meat Cleaver Massacre, Piranha, Halloween, and Alligator. 

HOW TO SUCCEED WITH GIRLS (1964) * ½

Pete (Paul Leder, who went on to direct A*P*E) is a womanizing asshole.  Harvey (Leon Schrier) is a pushover who is always daydreaming about women.  Pete also happens to be banging Harvey’s wife.  One night, Pete meets Harvey in a bar and decides to take him out for a night on the town to show him how to pick up women. 

I saw a trailer for this a while back on a trailer compilation called Twisted Sex Vol. 2 where it was advertised under its alternate title, The Peeping Phantom.  Well, it’s not twisted and there’s very little sex in it.  There is also no peeping or any phantoms either.  It’s pretty much an overstuffed mess, but it’s the kind of overstuffed mess that makes for a great trailer since you can make it look like a classic by using brief clips of choice moments.  When these scenes play out within the context of the movie though, they kind of get lost in the shuffle since the whole thing is so scattershot. 

The movie is novel in that the “real” segments are in black and white while Harvey’s daydreams are in color.  These daydreams are the only thing worth a damn in the entire movie.  The first and best takes place in a mad scientist lab with Pete wearing masks of various Universal monsters.  The others involve Harvey rescuing his busty secretary from a sultan’s harem, appearing as a cowboy in a Wild West cathouse, and as a United Nations ambassador.  This scene isn’t bad as Harvey watches in delight as all the other ambassadors (all played by hot women) settle their differences with a big clothes-ripping catfight.  However, the movie really needed more scenes of this caliber. 

Even then, the fantasy sequences, while they feature a few scantily clad women, are all tease and no please.  The Benny Hill-style fast-forward and rewind scenes of women running around aren’t very funny either.  The “real” world scenes are a total drag though and are often painful to watch.  It doesn’t help that a little of Leder’s loutish character goes a long way. 

Yes, that’s future Golden Girl Rue McClanahan as Pete’s ex-girlfriend.  She’s one of the few bright spots, even if she isn’t given anything to do.  She does get a skinny-dipping scene, but we only see bits of her bare back and leg. 

Screenwriter (and director of Baby:  Secret of the Lost Legend) B.W.L. Norton later collaborated with Leder for the immortal I Dismember Mama.  

AKA: The Peeping Phantom. 

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: SHIVER ME TIMBERS (2025) **

This is the second public domain slasher flick I’ve seen this year starring Popeye.  Sure, it’s not as consistently entertaining as Popeye’s Revenge, but it has its moments.  

The year is 1986 and people are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Halley’s Comet.  A group of teens hang out and party on the beach hoping to get a glimpse of the comet.  When it finally streaks across the sky, a scrawny old sailor accidentally smokes a bit of the comet in his pipe (I guess there wasn’t any contaminated spinach around) and he turns into a musclebound killer. 

Things kick off with a nice little homage to the opening of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  Characters also quote Ferris Bueller, Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, and Army of Darkness.  However, it takes more than referencing other movies to make a compelling one of your own.  It’s also annoying that the characters talk about horror movies but in the way that today’s kids do.  I mean even though it’s set in the ‘80s, nobody really looks, dresses, or acts like they came out of that decade.  It just feels… off.

Another issue is that the filmmakers don’t really take advantage of Popeye.  He resembles the character we all know and love (although he’s curiously lacking his trademark forearms) and says, “I yam what I yam” and “Well, blow me down”, but that’s about it.  Hell, he doesn’t even eat spinach.  I did like that the hot goth girl was named Olive Oyl though. 

At least the gore is plentiful, which makes it worth sitting through.  Popeye puts his fist through a guy’s face, tosses another into a vat of toxic waste, and crushes a teen’s head.  The standout death comes when he rips off a dude’s head and shits down his neck… literally.  The over-the-top ending that owes more than a little to Army of Darkness is fun, but it’s ultimately too little too late.  It also doesn’t help that the CGI blood and effects are mostly awful.

Even the short running time is a mixed blessing as the film is often choppy, and the pacing is erratic.   You also have to sit through long scenes of the teens partying and tripping balls.  The set-up for a sequel could work though.  That’s only if the filmmakers learn to embrace the quirkiness of the character and utilize him to his full potential. 

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: SCREAMBOAT (2025) ** ½

This is the second public domain slasher flick I’ve seen starring Mickey Mouse.  This one is from Steven LaMorte, the director of The Mean One and features that film’s star, David Howard (Art the Clown) Thornton as Mickey.  While it is a step up from that flick, it never quite lives up to its potential. 

After an inspirational quote from “Walt D.”, the plot begins.  People aboard the Staten Island ferry are being picked off one by one by a whistling minuscule murderous mouse named Screamboat Willie (Thornton).  Among the doomed passengers are a bunch of women having a birthday party who are dressed up as Disney princesses.  This is probably the most inspired touch in the movie, and some of the in-jokes are pretty funny.  (At one point, Ariel says, “I wanna be where the people are!”)

The gore is pretty good too.  A nose is bit off, a person gets stabbed through the head, there are decapitations, a pretty good double kill involving a forklift, a broomstick through the throat, electrocution, head crushing, spearing, face melting, and immolation.  The standout moment is when Willie cuts off a guy’s dick mid-blowjob.  Uncle Walt would be proud. 

All of this is fun up to a certain point.  (I liked the moment that cribbed from Deep Blue Sea.)  The problem is the bloated running time.  There’s no reason a slasher movie based on a public domain cartoon character needs to be one-hundred-and-two minutes long.  Heck, seventy-two minutes would’ve been pushing it.  Having not one but two characters playing up to the title mouse’s affections in the third act was a bit much too. 

Making Willie a small mouse (he’s about the size of a stuffed animal) was kind of an odd choice.  It doesn’t help that some of the forced perspective shots to make him look tiny don’t really work.  They should’ve just made him a human-sized character; logic be damned. 

Day of the Dead’s Jarlath Conroy gets the best line of the movie while relating Screamboat Willie’s origin story:  “Things get recycled over and over again.  It saves money!”

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: SCREAMTIME (1984) ** ½

I always try to sneak in an anthology horror flick during The 31 Days of Horror-Ween/Halloween Hangover.  I’m especially a sucker for one from the ‘80s.  While not exactly a memorable addition to the subgenre, Screamtime is nevertheless a breezy way to kill eighty-nine minutes. 

In the wraparound segments (***) a couple of friends steal some horror tapes from a video store on 42nd Street.  The movies wind up being the “stories” that make up the anthology.  It’s kind of a neat wraparound for something like this.  I just wish the camera stayed a bit longer on the old theater marquees and on the shelves of the video store.  While these segments are short, they manage to tie everything together in a fun way at the end. 

The first tale (** ½) is about an old puppeteer who is perpetually henpecked by his wife and picked on by his crazy stepson.  Shortly after the punk kid sets fire to his puppets, people who’ve wronged the puppeteer begin dying.  But who’s getting revenge?  The puppets, or the puppeteer?  This is a solid if unspectacular little chiller.  The close-ups of the puppets during the murder scenes are fairly effective even if the kills themselves aren’t all that great.  While the set-up is sound, the finale ends abruptly.  Overall, it’s not bad though. 

The next story (** ½) revolves around a married couple who are gifted a rundown old house.  Before long, the wife is seeing ghost kids playing in the backyard and finding bloody knives in the kitchen.  She gets in contact with a kooky psychic (“Some of my best friends are ghosts!”) who unfortunately is unable to help.  This one starts off slow, and while it suffers from some unnecessary stalling tactics, the ending works rather well. 

The final segment (**) is about a young handyman who goes to work for a pair of eccentric old women who have a bunch of garden gnomes in their yard.  When he sees how much money the ladies keep around, the handyman decides to rip the place off.  Little does he know the gnomes also act as a deadly means of home security.  While no means “bad”, this tale suffers from similarities to the first story (young hooligans doing wrong to elderly people who have diminutive creatures defending them).  I’ll admit, the sight of a little person dressed as a garden gnome attacking people is pretty funny.  However, the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink ending (which includes a nod to Carrie and a zombie attack) is way too uneven to be successful. 

Due to their very nature, horror anthologies tend to be uneven.  Screamtime is surprisingly consistent in terms of quality from story to story.  The biggest difference is that the tales feature a British cast and the wraparounds star Americans.  (One of our American couch potatoes says, “This is a British movie!  I can tell by the way they talk!”)