THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #15: DOLLY (2026) ***

Chase (Seann William Scott) and his girlfriend Macy (Fabianne Therese) go hiking in the woods where they encounter a creepy woman wearing a doll mask (Max the Impaler).  She kidnaps Macy and takes her back to her oversized dollhouse in the woods where she dresses her up and forces her to play baby doll.  When she doesn’t comply, her captor gets mad.  REAL mad. 

Dolly is a three-chord horror flick that tries to replicate the look and feel of an old school slasher, and it more or less succeeds.  It’s a slight reworking of the old Texas Chainsaw motif except with infantilism and a killer who wears a doll mask taking the place of cannibalism and a killer wearing a mask made of human skin.  (They also trade out chainsaws for shovels.)  The fact that the filmmakers keep it simple and straightforward is what makes it work so well.  There are no unnecessary characters or subplots gumming up the works.  It’s just Macy trying to elude Dolly and reunite with her boyfriend. 

I was genuinely surprised to see Scott appearing in something like this.  There’s no trace of the old Stifler here.  He does a fine job at playing a grown-up character for a change.  In fact, you’ll probably feel sorry for him most of the time.  Therese likewise puts in a solid turn and gets into her Final Girl role with spunk and fire.  It’s Max the Impaler who makes the biggest impression as Dolly.  She’s a professional wrestler that I’m unfamiliar with, but if this film is any indication she has quite a career ahead of her.  I was particularly impressed how she was able to slip in little bits of humanity into the role which prevented the character from being just another generic hulking slasher. 

No one rewrote the rules with this one.  Nor did they need to.  If you enjoy a good throwback slasher flick, you’re bound to eat this one up.  This is the kind of film where characters go hiking in the woods and discover hundreds of dolls nailed to the trees and they CONTINUE TO WALK ALONG THE PATH.  I mean they pretty much deserve what’s coming to them if you ask me. 

And here’s just a taste of what’s coming to them:  A shovel to the mouth scene (it’s a real jaw dropper), ear ripping, a hand through the chest, skull flattening, and a decapitation.  We also get an icky changing table scene as well as the craziest breastfeeding scene since Barbarian.  If that won’t entice you to watch it, I don’t know what will. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #14: THE DOLL OF SATAN (1969) **

Elizabeth (Erna Schurer from Scream of the Demon Lover) learns her uncle has passed away and that she is set to inherit his castle.  She arrives at the property with her boyfriend Jack (Roland Carey) and soon comes to realize her uncle might’ve been murdered.  Before long, we discover that the help is plotting to drive Elizabeth insane by using a drug so they can disinherit her. 

It’s a tale as old as time.  Or at least as old as movies themselves.  Yes, The Doll of Satan (the only film from one-and-done director Ferruccio Casapinta) is another Old Dark House movie.  They weren’t really making a lot of these things in 1969, and the proof is in the pudding.  It’s a creaky and dull murder mystery.  You know, if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s in color (the gorgeous cinematography is a huge plus) and it contains some brief (very brief) nudity, it could’ve passed for a movie from thirty years earlier.  

I’m a fan of Old Dark House mysteries, and even this one tried my patience.  The set-up takes longer than necessary and the plot plods for nearly an hour as fragments of the killers’ scheme are slowly doled out to the audience.  Once the drug takes effect and our heroine begins to experience sexual dreams/hallucinations, things perk up slightly.  However, the cheesy ending is right out of an episode of Scooby-Doo (complete with heroic canine). 

Schurer is quite good in the lead, but the movie makes a serious miscalculation by keeping her largely absent from the action in the third act.  Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered if Carey wasn’t such a dull leading man.  It also doesn’t help that the torture dungeon in the basement (which figures prominently in the poster art) barely gets any use.  Oh, and despite the title, Satan never once figures into the action.  What the hell.  Oh well, I guess you can get some laughs from the club scenes which feature some of the whitest white people dancing you’ve ever seen. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #13: VIRGIN SACRIFICES (1996) ***

Sal Longo goes down to the South American jungle to find a native method for preserving body parts.  He returns home with his assistant’s head in a box that miraculously can still communicate with him through telepathy.  You see, he was kept alive in a sacred mud that will preserve a man’s life forever.  The only catch is that a virgin woman must be sacrificed in the mud first.  He then sends Sal off to find four virgins to make him whole again.  Predictably, Sal’s own daughter (Laura Giglio) is a virgin too.  Will Sal be able to break the head’s control over him in time to save his daughter’s life?

This is a solid set-up for a horror movie from W.A.V.E. Productions.  While the film doesn’t stray from the company’s tried and true formula, it finds interesting variations of their trademark tropes, which should make it a real treat for fans of this sort of thing.  The death by mud bath scenes are a slight reworking of W.A.V.E.’s typical quicksand deaths.  One of these sequences leads to an enormously amusing inter-gender mud wrestling match between Longo and Tina Krause.  Another twist comes when the decapitated head uses the power of telepathy to drown its victims.  There are so many W.A.V.E. flicks that feature women being drowned by men that having them drown themselves was a unique enough touch to make it feel fresh. 

The usual W.A.V.E. suspects appear and put in fun turns.  Longo is as entertaining as ever playing the possessed papa.  Clancey McCauley is strong too as his ex-wife, Pamela Sutch is great as the leader of a pro-abstinence group, and Giglio is quite good as the virginal daughter.  It’s Tina Krause who takes the acting honors as a sassy stripper who gets the best line of the movie:  “I may have to work in a mud hole, but I don’t have to wallow with the pigs!”

Children of the ‘80s will likely get a kick out of the scene where Sal stalks a victim at a video store.  It’s fun spotting posters for movies like Inner Sanctum, Seedpeople, and Dr. Caligari on the wall.  Ah, those were the days!

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #12: MASK OF MURDER (1988) **

The police are after a serial slasher.  They corner the killer and gun him down, but when the slayings continue, detective Rod Taylor has to find the culprit.  If his plate wasn’t already full enough, Rod also suspects his wife (Valerie Perrine) is cheating on him with his partner. 

You might think you’re in for a goodie when you sit down to watch Mask of Murder as there are not one but two murders before the minute mark.  While there are a handful of bloody slashings sprinkled throughout the rest of the running time, the film is never quite able to recapture the punch of the opening scene.  From then on, it just sort of turns into a plodding police thriller.  Despite the promising start, director Arne (The Doll) Mattsson handles the material rather stiffly, all things considered. 

Christopher Lee is on hand as Taylor’s boss.  Despite having his face on the video box, it’s more of a supporting role.  He gets shot during the scene where the cops try to catch the killer early in the picture, which means he spends most of his screen time in a hospital bed while Taylor runs around and does all the legwork.  It’s kind of a waste of Lee, but you can’t blame him for taking the role.  It must’ve been an easy paycheck for him.  Taylor, it must be said, carries the film as well as could be expected.  It was definitely an interesting role to play, even if it wasn’t particularly well written. 

Another problem is that you can figure out early on who the new killer is.  Although his plan to get away with it isn’t bad, it just feels like he takes a long time to get around to pulling it off.  The subplot with Perrine (who like Lee is more or less wasted) cheating on Taylor, while important, also drags things down considerably.  

The mask the killer wears is pretty cool though.  It’s just a white latex face covering that looks similar to the one in Wicked Wicked.  While the mask is simple, it’s pretty effective.  I wish the same could be said for the rest of the movie. 

AKA:  The Investigator.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #11: THE MUMMY (2026) **

After fucking up the Evil Dead franchise with the godawful Evil Dead Rise, Lee Cronin sets his sight on The Mummy.  Now, the actual on-screen title is Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, but I’m making it a rule that only people who make good movies get their names in the title.  Either that or they just can’t make the same damn movie twice with only slight variations.  I mean after this and Rise, it seems Cronin’s sole MO is to take a family that’s already in crisis and put them through hell.  The good news is this is better than Evil Dead Rise.  Honestly, that wasn’t all that hard to do. 

A young girl is kidnapped while her family is working in Cairo.  Eight years later, she’s found in a sarcophagus and returned to her parents.  The girl has obviously been through a lot, but that’s no excuse for antisocial behavior that includes running around the house like a spider monkey, eating bugs, and throwing your grandma out the window. 

Let’s face it.  There was no goddamn reason this thing had to be one-hundred-and-thirty-four goddamned minutes.  It enjoyed bits and pieces of the film, but honestly if Cronin cut about fifty minutes from this, it would’ve been easier on all of us.  The feeling of déjà vu didn’t help either.  Most of the time it seemed like he was trying to make another Evil Dead movie, but couldn’t get the rights, so he just traded out Kandarian demons for Egyptian ones.  The parts where the girl infects other family members with the evil are also like Evil Dead, and there are other moments that rip off The Exorcist and Patrick. 

Man, if you go into The Mummy expecting to see… you know… a mummy, you’re going to be hella disappointed.  The little girl isn’t really a mummy, but more of a vessel of evil.  While there is a mummy in the movie, it only gets about a minute of screen time. 

At least the gore is good.  We get a hook through the chin, a stick through the eye, a gnarly toenail cutting scene, an abuela getting eaten by coyotes, a pretty funny funeral scene and a cool bit where a woman’s got to stick her fingers down her throat the hard way.  That’s not quite enough to salvage the dreary, sluggish, and unnecessary parts.  It still doesn’t take away the fact that this is a bait-and-switch Mummy movie.  Heck, I might’ve been more forgiving if it was called Egyptian Dead or something.  I mean, to make a movie called The Mummy that barely has a mummy in it feels like some kind of pyramid scheme. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #10: HOLY WEDNESDAY (1974) ***

Snakey (The Slime People’s Les Tremayne) is a crotchety old snake handler who has the local kids round up mice to feed to his pet snakes.  Their schoolteacher Cynthia (Bebe Kelly) really likes Snakey’s pet snake, Lucifer.  And I mean she REALLY likes him!  When the local grocer Sis (Alice Nunn, Large Marge from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure) and her sleazy brother (Bruce Kimball) catch wind of all this, they blackmail Cynthia and force her to call off the illicit relationship.  After they kill Snakey’s beloved snake, he snaps and sets out to use his snakes to get revenge on those who’ve wronged him (which, fortunately for the audience is quite a few people). 

This could’ve been an ordinary snake-themed revenge thriller (like, say… Stanley), but nothing about Holy Wednesday is ordinary.  Just about everybody in this movie is a miserable old cuss.  They almost feel like characters from a Coen Brothers movie, except the writing isn’t as good.  Let’s take our main character, Snakey for example.  He’s a John Philip Sousa super fan that gets drunk and blares “Stars and Stripes Forever” and rants about snakes and band music to anyone who’ll listen.  Only in the ‘70s would you get this kind of psycho character and be expected to root for him. 

The snake fucking scenes are handled with restraint.  In the first sequence, all we see is Cynthia’s shadow on the wall, but we can easily get the gist of what’s going on.  Heck, even the scene where she is gangbanged to death by snakes is tastefully done.  (Now there’s a sentence I’d never thought I’d type.) 

The movie is also surprisingly progressive.  Cythnia’s predilection for snakes is presented without judgment.  There is no kink shaming here, which is kind of refreshing.  (There’s a great scene where we see her lying in bed and looking longingly at pictures of snakes.)

This was director Arthur A. Names’ only film.  He worked in sound most of his career.  He probably knew he couldn’t top this one.  Better to quit while you’re ahead. 

AKA:  Fangs.  AKA:  Snakes.  AKA:  Snakelust.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #9: OTHER MOMMY (2026) ***

From the moment I first saw the trailer for Other Mommy I knew it was love at first sight.  In case you missed it, it featured the reigning queen of modern-day horror, Jessica Chastain acting freaky and twisting herself into a contorted pretzel person.  All I could say to that was, “One, please”.

Chastain has a dual role.  She is the regular mommy to a little girl (Arabella Olivia Clark) and the “other” mommy, which is kind of like a combination of imaginary friend and demon.  The thing longs to be human and the only way to do that is to enter the kid’s heart.  The family then has to come together to stop Other Mommy. 

It sounds simple.  It is simple.  (In more ways than one, really.)  What I enjoyed about it is how straightforward it was.  There were no unnecessary subplots or wasted scenes with people not believing the kid.  Basically, from the first scene on, the family knows the score.  Other Mommy also fucks people up with panache (even if some of the kills use a little too much CGI).  There’s also a funny bit where one of her early attempts to look human is undone because she has too many fingers, a clear jab at AI. 

The movie excels mostly because of Chastain’s commitment to the bit.  Her facial gymnastics and intense teary-eyed stares do and say more than any CGI can.  She also does fine work as the “real” mommy, as she isn’t exactly a goody-two shoes either.  I also enjoyed seeing Karen Allen popping up late in the game as her kooky mother. 

Clark is excellent as well.  She holds your attention during the scenes where she’s interacting with nothing more than shadows, balloons, or plastic balls that may or may not be hiding places for the Other Mommy.  If they hand out acting awards for kids, she’d probably be on the short list this year. 

To sum up, Other Mommy is a solid spook-a-blast.  It’s not going to be mistaken for a classic, but it’s a well-oiled machine featuring plenty of jump scares.  In fact, the most amusing part at my screening was after a jump scare, some dude ripped a big fart, which cracked the entire audience up.  I mean, Other Mommy literally scared the shit out of him.  If that isn’t a recommendation, I don’t know what is. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #8: THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1982) **

Directed by Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter, The Dorm That Dripped Blood is a thoroughly middle of the road exercise in slasher movie filmmaking.  The plot finds a group of college students working together to clean out a decommissioned dorm over Christmas break.  They are soon picked off one by one by an unseen killer. 

The film is most notable for being the debut of Daphne (Spaceballs) Zuniga.  She gets offed pretty early on, but she clearly is the most talented actress in the bunch.  In fact, the film loses a lot of its charm once she exits the picture.  It also happens to feature the first score by Christopher (Hellraiser) Young, although he basically just rips off Bernard Herrmann’s score for Psycho. 

The Dorm That Dripped Blood is a pretty generic slasher in just about every way.  Some fans will undoubtedly enjoy it for that.  My big issue with it was the draggy pacing.  The final confrontation with the killer goes on far too long as well.  It also doesn’t help that half the movie is essentially devoted to characters splitting up to walk down darkened hallways so they can look for other characters.  Plus, the creepy guy with the Art Garfunkel hair has got to be the most obvious red herring in slasher movie history. 

Heck, they don’t even lean into the Christmastime aesthetic, which is kind of disappointing.  If anything, it would’ve given the movie an opportunity to be worth a look during both the Halloween and the Yuletide season.  Other than some tinsel and a few colored lights that are seen in the background early on, you’d never know it was Christmas.  Bummer. 

The good news is the DVD from Synapse reinstates the gore that was cut out in the theatrical version.  It’s clearly the way to go, seeing how the murder sequences are the best thing about the movie.  This version has more hand stabbing, bludgeoning, and head drilling, which almost kind of makes it worth a damn.  It all amounts to about five extra minutes, which isn’t too shabby.  Do yourself a favor and steer clear of the R rated cut. 

Obrow and Carpenter later directed the minor classic, The Kindred. 

AKA:  Pranks.  AKA:  Death Dorm.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #7: SUMMER CAMP NIGHTMARE (1987) ** ½

Chuck Connors stars as the overly strict head of a boys’ summer camp.  The rowdy kids soon grow resentful of his overbearing demeanor.  After he cancels a big shindig between the campers and the neighboring girls camp, a cold, calculating, and charismatic teenager stages a revolution.  With the help of the easily led campers, he locks up Connors and the other grown-ups and takes over the camp.  Predictably, chaos and even murder ensues. 

Well, it happens every year.  I put a movie on my Horror-Ween watchlist that looks like a horror flick and sounds like a horror flick, but it winds up not being the case.  The fact that was co-written by Penelope (Decline of Western Civilization) Spheeris is the first sign that this might not be the kind of movie you’re expecting.  Although it was sold as another summer camp slasher, it’s more like a mash-up of Lord of the Flies and Over the Edge.  That means it hews closer to Spheeris’ films about disaffected youth.  It certainly has more in common with something like The Boys Next Door or Suburbia than The Burning or Sleepaway Camp. 

It’s clear where everything is headed once the plot is set in motion.  It might’ve been nice if it had some weight or grit to it, as it essentially plays like a darker version of an After School Special.  Still, it has just enough of a body count to qualify as a horror-lite film. 

Connors is good at playing a mean son of a bitch.  So much so that the movie loses a little something once he’s out of the picture.  ‘80s connoisseurs will recognize some other faces in the cast like Charles Stratton from Munchies and Tom Fridley from Friday the 13th Part VI.  Fridley is part of the standout sequence when the girls from the neighboring camp put on a pure ‘80s dance routine for the talent show.  Then him and another guy hop on stage and lip sync to Fear’s “Beef Bologna”.  You can safely assume that was a Spheeris touch. 

AKA:  The Butterfly Revolution.  AKA:  Revolution Class.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #6: MOMMY (1995) ***

Poor Jessica Ann (Rachel Lemieux). Wherever her Mommy (Patty McCormack) goes, people seem to die.  Parent teacher conference?  Dead teacher.  Walking down the hallways of the school? Dead janitor.  But who do you turn to when you think your own mother is a murderer? 

The big draw for Mommy is seeing The Bad Seed herself, Patty McCormack all grown up and portraying a similarly sinister kind of character.  She really plays it up to the hilt and gets some great lines.  When she comes into the school after hours and the janitor asks if she has permission to be there, she snaps, “I’m a taxpayer!  I don’t need your permission!”  The term “Karen” hadn’t been invented in 1995, but that’s pretty much what she is.  Except… you know… she’s a killer. 

Written and directed by famed crime novelist Max Allan (Road to Perdition) Collins, this is essentially a low rent but entertaining From Hell movie.  It does suffer from a cheap washed-out look, but what it lacks in polish it makes up for in the acting department.  The supporting cast is an odd but eclectic group that includes The Exorcist’s Jason Miller as the detective on the case, Scream Queen Brinke Stevens as Patty’s sister, Star Trek’s Majel Barrett as a teacher, and Mickey Spillane shows up as Patty’s lawyer (he probably did it as a favor to fellow novelist Collins). 

Because Collins is a crime novelist, the film does lean and twist in ways you might not expect.  Also, the narration by Jessica Ann feels like genuine insight into the character instead of merely a way to keep the plot together.  It will never be mistaken for a classic, but Mommy is always a bit better than you might expect.  The drab cinematography aside (not to mention the cheesy comic sans font used for the credits), it’s a relatively (no pun intended) engrossing psycho-thriller. 

Collins, McCormack, and much of the same cast returned two years later for the sequel, Mommy 2:  Mommy’s Day. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #5: THE BARN (2017) ***

Josh (Will Stout) and Sam (Mitchell Musolino) grab a bunch of friends and head to a concert on Halloween night.  They stop to party at an abandoned barn that the local legend claims is haunted by a miner, a scarecrow, and a pumpkin man.  Eventually, they learn the legend is indeed very real and they soon find themselves up against three supernatural killers. 

The Barn is a nostalgic throwback to the horror movies of the ‘80s.  It’s set on Halloween night in 1989, and it captures the era with a lot more authenticity than many other similar contemporary horror films.  Sometimes it gets a little bogged down with all the “rules” pertaining to its mythology, but that’s easy to overlook considering the filmmakers wear their inspiration (and heart) on their sleeve and have a genuine appreciation and affection for the genre. 

There’s a million different ways a low-budget production like this can go wrong.  Try to make it campy and it just becomes another disposable sub-Troma movie.  Lean too hard into nostalgia and run the risk of alienating modern audiences.  However, writer/director Justin M. Seaman finds the sweet spot more often than not. 

The impressive body count and generous helping of gore doesn’t hurt either.  The highlight comes when the three killers crash a Halloween Hootenanny and make short work of the attendees.  There’s eyeball popping, heart ripping, gut ripping, and a cool bobbing for apples kill.  Elsewhere there’s arm hacking, severed heads, face ripping, and plenty of slashed throats to go around. 

I haven’t seen Musolino and Stout in anything before, but they are quite good.  Of course, my favorite performance was courtesy of Linnea Quigley.  She plays the town’s religious nut who’s trying to ban Halloween.  I also got a kick out of Ari Lehman (Jason from the original Friday the 13th) as “Dr. Rock”, who’s kind of like a mash-up of TV horror host and MTV VeeJay. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #4: BRIDE OF MONSTER MANIA (2000) *** ½

Bride of Monster Mania is the third and final documentary in the Monster Mania series that originally aired on AMC.  Once again, Elvira is our hostess with the mostess.  Unlike the last two entries, she narrates the entire special instead of just appearing for the bookend segments.  It’s only fitting, seeing how this one is a salute to women in horror. 

The first segment is on witches and vampires.  Witches are represented by clips from Haxan, I Married a Witch, Bell, Book, and Candle, and Black Sunday, while Dracula’s Daughter, Blood and Roses, Brides of Dracula, The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire, Twins of Evil, Countess Dracula, and The Lair of the White Worm take care of the vampires.  Then, it’s on to synthetic women in films such as Metropolis, Bride of Frankenstein, She Demons, Frankenstein’s Daughter, The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, Frankenstein Created Woman, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, The Stepford Wives, and Species.  The next segment is on possessed and powerful women and includes clips from White Zombie, The Exorcist, Beyond the Door, Carrie, and Cat People.  Finally, we come to women who are truly out of this world with scenes from Cat-Women of the Moon, Devil Girl from Mars, The Astounding She-Monster, Queen of Blood, Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien:  Resurrection. 

What’s interesting about the final segment is the documentary’s assertion that women were portrayed as a threat to humanity in the films of the ‘50s but when Alien came around, it showed that a woman like Sigourney Weaver could be its savior.  It’s that extra level of insight that makes Bride the best of the Monster Mania specials.  It also helps that some of the interviewees are world-class beauties like Martine Beswick and Ingrid Pitt.  Other interview subjects include women professors who opine that the popularity of female monsters is mostly due to their overtly sexual demeanor. 

I was also pleased that we get a lot more of Elvira this time around.  Her one-liners are pretty funny too.  My favorite jab came when she was talking about “synthetic women” and quipped, “I’m not just talking about collagen and silicone!”

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #3: ATTACK OF THE 50 FT. MONSTER MANIA (1999) ***

Elvira hosts this sequel to the fun documentary/clip show Monster Mania.  Like its predecessor, it originally aired on AMC.  This one, as the title implies, is a salute to giant monster movies.  It’s only an hour long and is a fairly concise history of the subgenre, so fans of monster mashing are likely to enjoy it. 

Narrated by Billy (Lost in Space) Mumy, the special explores early dinosaur films (Gertie the Dinosaur and The Lost World) whose innovations eventually lead to the greatest giant monster movie of all, King Kong.  Other segments are on Atomic Age terrors (like Beginning of the End and Tarantula), giant humans (Dr. Cyclops, War of the Colossal Beast, and Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman), and of course, lots of screen time is devoted to the King of the Monsters himself, Godzilla.  There’s also a bit on British efforts like Gorgo and Konga.  The longest sequence is on Ray Harryhausen’s special effects work for films such as Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, It Came from Beneath the Sea, and 20 Million Miles to Earth. 

This is fun for a while, but by the time the focus shifts to the TV shows of Irwin Allen (Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and Land of the Giants), the documentary starts losing its way.  It also completely glosses over monster movies of the ‘80s (a brief clip of the Alien Queen from Aliens is about all we get) and the then-new ‘90s films like Starship Troopers and Mighty Joe Young don’t get much screen time.  I will give it points for covering a film that is largely ignored in these kinds of documentaries:  Georges Melies’ The Conquest of the Pole, which featured the screen’s very first giant monster (and the first scene of a man getting eaten by a giant monster).

The movies are represented by a good mix of film clips, trailer snippets, and behind the scenes photos.  Interviewees like Donald F. Glut, Bob Burns, and Forrest J. Ackerman lend their expertise and are fun to listen to.  If it wasn’t so rushed near the homestretch, Attack might’ve been better than the original Monster Mania.  As it stands, I’d say they are about even Steven. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #2: HOUSE OF EVIL (1972) **

Women are being found murdered with their eyeballs torn out.  Meanwhile, old Boris Karloff calls his relatives together to read his last will and testament.  Inside his crumbling mansion, Boris keeps a collection of his family heirlooms, creepy life-sized toy dolls.  When Boris passes in the night, the family members grow antsy about the fortune.  The toys then come to life and begin killing off the guests. 

House of Evil is one of four movies that Boris made South of the Border for co-directors Jack Hill and Juan Ibanez.  They proved to be his final features.  This one has an “Everything but the Kitchen Sink” approach that grafts a killer toy movie onto the bones of an Old Dark House mystery (with a serial killer subplot in there to boot).  When you’re making a cluster of movies in Hollywood while another crew is adding footage down in Mexico, films like this are bound to be uneven due to their very nature.  Calling this one “uneven” is extremely generous.  It’s not Karloff’s worst by far, but it is definitely pretty rough in places. 

Although House of Evil has enough ideas for four movies, it really is a slapdash affair.  While the set-up is sturdy enough, the seams really start to show as the film drags on.  The ending especially feels piecemeal and the way the various plot threads are brought together is unsatisfying to say the least. 

It’s not all bad news though.  The close-ups of the toys are fairly effective.  There’s one kind of cool scene where the life-sized automaton kills his dance partner.  The cutaways to the exterior of the mansion, which is clearly just a painting, are good for a laugh too.  

Boris is surprisingly spry as the crotchety old man.  He seems invested in the role and because of that, the film has a pulse whenever he’s on screen.  Conversely, the scenes without Karloff drag and suffer from a lot of dull exposition.  It’s in these long stretches where the market value of House of Evil plummets. 

AKA:  Dance of Death.  AKA:  Macabre Serenade.  

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #1: DARK PLACES (1974) ** ½

A looney in an insane asylum kicks off and leaves Robert Hardy his decrepit mansion.  He quickly settles in and plans to spruce the place up.  Meanwhile, a scheming doctor (Christopher Lee) and his sexy sister (Joan Collins) know there’s a bunch of loot stashed somewhere on the grounds.  They plot to sneak around the property and make off with the money.  That might prove difficult seeing how Hardy is slowly slipping in and out of the gruesome memories of the former inhabitant. 

Directed by Don Sharp, Dark Places is a relatively dry British thriller.  While it’s low on chills, it remains watchable throughout.  In fact, the film actually gets better as it goes along and the twist ending is decent enough. 

The reason it works as well as it does is thanks largely to the cast of old pros.  Lee and Collins are quite good as the duo who are trying to pull the wool over Hardy’s eyes.  Although Lee is top billed, his role is mostly a supporting one.  His performance nevertheless is the chief reason to check it out.  Collins is a treat to watch as the seductive maid who easily gets her hooks into Hardy.  Herbert Lom also has a couple of fine moments as Hardy’s lawyer.  Hardy himself manages to surprise while essaying a dual role. 

Sharp does do a good job during the sequences when Hardy begins experiencing flashbacks of the previous owner of the house.  The way he seamlessly weaves the past and present with some simple editing and camerawork is effective.  These sequences kind of hammer home the fact that this is more of a supernaturally tinged soap opera than an out and out horror film.  (Although the final reel has at least one memorable kill.)

In short, Dark Places is one of those “close, but not cigar” kinds of films.  It has many ingredients for a great movie, but it never quite comes together.  It may have worked better at half the length and/or as part of a horror anthology.  Fans of the cast will no doubt be forgiving of its shortcomings. 

FULL METAL NINJA (1989) *** ½

Ah, the ‘80s.  Now that was a decade.  It was a time when distributors could slap the word “Ninja” on a video box and know that at least one poor schmo out there would rent it.  Some companies would even take the word “Ninja” and stick it into a pre-existing title like it was a game of Mad Libs.  Such is the case with Godfrey Ho’s hilariously titled Full Metal Ninja. 

The opening of the film belongs in a constant loop in the MoMA.  Two Ninjas in black try to mug a Ninja in yellow because as we all know, that’s typical Ninja behavior.  Years of training in the art of silent assassination just to shake down a guy for a few bucks. 

Oh, and how do we know these guys are Ninjas?  Because they all wear headbands that read “NINJA”.  Again, warriors who have devoted their lives to lurking in the shadows running around in broad daylight flagrantly advertising they are Ninjas. 

I love it. 

Oh, it gets better.  A Ninja in pink named Leon breaks things up and shoots one of the black Ninjas… with a MUSKET! 

Seriously, cinema peaked the day this was created. 

The lone survivor runs back to his master and says, “He had a gun.  It was the first time I’ve seen one close up and I don’t mind telling you it was a frightening experience!” 

Sprinkled in between these magnificent feats of moviemaking is the “real” plot.  Since this is a Godfrey Ho flick, the “real” plot is just an entirely different movie that producer Joseph Lai bought, dubbed, and added new Ninja footage to.  According to IMDb that film is called (I shit you not) Konan the Barbarian Swordsman.  It’s a period piece about a Mongol swordsman named Eagle looking for the men who murdered his wife.  

It helps enormously that the filler movie is pretty good.  I mean it’s just a series of scenes of our hero encountering the men who killed his wife and cutting them down.  Revenge flicks are pretty hard to screw up, and these guys did a good job all things considered.  I’m sure they had no idea when they were making this that their work would be slapped in the middle of a movie featuring Ninjas in pink sweatsuits. 

The way Ho integrates the two films is often hysterical.  After Eagle ambushes and kills a bunch of highwaymen, the pink Ninja pops out from behind a bush and says, “Hey, swordsman about teaching me some of those moves?”  The tired looking swordsman then relies, “Some other time” and the movie cuts to a new scene. 

The odd thing is you kind of get caught up with Eagle’s quest for revenge as there are a couple of unexpected twists that muddy the waters for him.  I won’t spoil it, but needless to say, this flick probably worked just as good if not better without the new footage of Leon the pink Ninja and his trusty musket.  However, I wouldn’t want to watch it any other way. 

Oh, but I do have to take a Half-Star off the rating since there are no Full Metal Ninjas to be seen.  Heck, I would’ve been happy with a Half Metal Ninja.  Oh well. 

AKA:  Metallic Fury.  AKA:  Konan the Barbarian Swordsman.

THE MAN FROM HONG KONG (1975) *** ½

Jimmy Wang Yu is an inspector from Hong Kong who comes to Australia to extradite a criminal (Sammo Hung).  Before he can get him on the plane home, the perp is shot dead by a mysterious assailant.  Yu soon becomes obsessed with bringing down the man responsible, the local Mr. Big (George Lazenby) who also happens to be a deadly Kung Fu expert. 

Directed by Brian (Leprechaun 3) Trenchard-Smith, The Man from Hong Kong is a blast of ‘70s goodness from start to finish.  It doesn’t get much more ‘70s than Kung Fu, hang gliding, and the soft rock theme song “Sky High”.  Trenchard-Smith does a great job at blending the action of Hong Kong martial arts films with the Ozploitation antics of his native soil.  Highlights include Lazenby giving Yu an impromptu “Kung Fu demonstration”, Yu single-handedly taking on an entire karate school, and an extended car chase.  I mean how many times do you get to see James Bond fight the One-Armed Swordsman? 

Trenchard-Smith also gives us one of the greatest edits of all time.  After Yu kicks Hung in the nuts, he cuts away to a rack of billiard balls being broken.  This is Cinema of the highest order.  In fact, Yu sets some kind of record for how many times a leading man hits people in the groin in a single movie. 

Yu is great in the lead.  What I liked about his character is that he often got sliced up, mangled, and beaten, but he kept coming back for more.  Some of the dubbing on Yu is hilarious too, especially when he’s mad.  (“Don’t give me any shit!”)  Lazenby is also fun as the sleazy villain who in one memorable scene plays William Tell with his arm candy at a cocktail party.  He even performs a pretty sweet fire stunt during the big climax.  We also have Aussie favorites such as Hugh Keays-Byrne as an undercover cop and Frank Thring as Lazenby’s secretary.  

I will admit some of this could’ve been trimmed back a bit.  The hang-gliding scenes, while picturesque, really drag.  That’s okay though because whenever Yu is busting heads, The Man from Hong Kong kicks ass. 

AKA:  Sky High.  AKA:  The Dragon Flies.

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: PRE-GAME: ANACONDA: DEATH COIL (2026) **

Xumo Play is kind of a lesser streamer but it’s one I still occasionally watch.  Anaconda:  Death Coil is the first Xumo Original I’ve ever seen.  I didn’t even know Xumo did original movies.  I guess they have to keep up with Tubi somehow. 

In case you’re wondering, this isn’t a sequel to the Jennifer Lopez movie.  (Or the Paul Rudd one.)  I assume that since you can’t really trademark the word “Anaconda”, you can make an Anaconda movie without Sony suing your pants off.  Because of this, it’s my sincere wish that Anaconda becomes the next Amityville type of franchise where anyone with a fake snake can make an Anaconda movie.  (Hopefully culminating in a crossover appropriately called Amityville Anaconda.)

Five friends head out into the woods for a girls’ weekend.  The creepy caretaker warns them not to venture into the woods, which of course one of them does.  She becomes Snake Chow and the rest of the gals go looking for her.  The ladies soon realize their haggard host is actually using them as sacrifices for his giant pet snake. 

Anaconda:  Blood Coil is another one of those British horror flicks that have been creeping over onto our shores in recent years like Winnie the Pooh:  Blood and Honey and Amityville Scarecrow.  It’s no Hammer, that’s for sure.  It’s one of those cheap horror films where characters say lines such as, “It’s like a bad movie” to excuse the cliches and its overall chintzy nature. 

The CGI snake isn’t bad exactly, it’s just that the filmmakers reuse the same shot of it slithering about way too many times.  The purple-tinged POV shots are likewise overused.  When it does come time for the Anaconda to get one of the ladies wrapped up in its “Death Coil”, the results are fairly decent, although the film really needed more kills of this caliber to be truly worthwhile.  Also, the climax, which takes place in the heart of the serpent’s lair, lacks… ahem… bite. 

The good news is the running time is a merciful seventy-four minutes.  Anything longer than that would’ve been overkill.  Fortunately, the filmmakers knew when to quit.  More contemporaries could take a page out of their playbook.

Overall, Anaconda:  Death Coil isn’t the first, last, best, or worst low-budget CGI snake movie I’ve seen.  It’s just the first one I’ve watched on Xumo Play.  That makes it at the very least notable. 

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: PRE-GAME: RESIDENT EVIL (2026) ****

Sometimes, if you’re going to reboot a beloved franchise you have to start small.  I think director Zach Cregger knew deep down that the deck was stacked against him.  I mean, how can you possibly make a Resident Evil movie without Milla Jovovich?  Remember Welcome to Raccoon City?  Didn’t think so. 

Here’s how you crack the code:  Make people sort of forget you’re watching a Resident Evil movie.  Follow an immensely likable (if a bit squirrelly) guy named Bryan (Austin Abrams) as he makes his way to deliver a package to a hospital.  Have some very bad things happen to him in rapid succession.  Then… BAM!  Right when the shit starts to hit the fan, splash the Resident Evil title up on the screen.  In fact, the pre-title sequence is some of the best horror shit you’ll see all year.  

And the movie is just getting started.  

The way the film escalates is one of its many joys.  From one crazy infected woman to a squid-faced dog to a Baron Harkonnen-inspired fatty to an acid spewing grandpa, Cregger deftly keeps upping the ante.  He sends Bryan out of the frying pan and into the fire with skill, scares, and plenty of humor to spare.  This is one helluva rollercoaster. 

I didn’t like Cregger’s previous films Barbarian and Weapons, but there was enough there in both pictures that suggested he had potential.  He really shows us what he’s got in Resident Evil.  Cregger blends horror and humor the way guys like Raimi and Dekker did back in the ‘80s. 

He even embraces the confines of a video game movie better than just about anyone.  While not a strict adaptation of the game, the way Abrams looks for keys and ammunition feels very much like a video game.  Even the first-person sequences are well done mostly, because they occur organically in the film and creep in almost subliminally. 

The movie really belongs to Adams.  The Oscar race starts now.  If Cregger got Amy Madigan an Oscar for Weapons, he can get one for Abrams.  He is very nearly the whole show as his reactions are downright hysterical, mostly because they feel genuine.  He never gets “movie scared”.  He acts scared the same way you and I would:  Screeching, jumping, cursing, and sometimes just walking away muttering under his breath.  (“Stupid fucking monster.”)  This is a performance that stacks up there with Bruce Campbell in the Evil Dead movies, but with a style all his own.  I mean some people just shouldn’t have to go through what this poor dope goes through.  Because he’s so likable, the audience’s empathy is squarely with Abrams and we root him on even in the face of certain disgusting, pulsating, slobbery death. 

Resident Evil is a treat.  It’s a goddamn horror fan’s delight.  It’s the best movie based on a video game of all time.  Check it out ASAP. 

THE RETURN OF BRUNO (1987) ***

When I was a kid, one of the first records I ever owned was Bruce Willis’ The Return of Bruno.  He was then (and still) one of my favorite actors and I unironically loved the album, especially “Comin’ Right Up” and “Jackpot (Bruno’s Bop)”.  Somehow, I never saw the accompanying HBO Special.  I guess I always assumed it was just a concert where Bruce plays the songs from the album, but it’s actually a star-studded mockumentary.  This is Spinal Tap it is not, but for fans of ego-stroking vanity projects, it’s a must-see. 

This is essentially a “Where are They Now” type of program hosted by none other than Dick Clark about the rise and fall of a musician named Bruno Radoloni (Willis).  He plays on American Bandstand, performs at Woodstock, experiments with psychedelic music, and sings “Under the Boardwalk” with The Temptations.  He then sort of disappears after the failure of his disco album. 

Guest stars and interviewees include Phil Collins, Elton John, Brian Wilson, and Grace Slick musing about Bruno’s influence on music and pop culture.  Ringo Starr states Bruno had a hand in forming The Beatles, The Bee Gees claim he helped them come up with Saturday Night Fever, and Paul Stanley asserts Bruno was the one who told KISS they should start wearing make-up.  Probably the funniest celebrity is Michael J. Fox who is obsessed with collecting “Bruno-abilia”.  The Return of Bruno came out the year before Die Hard made Bruce a megastar, but the fact that he could land such big names for what is essentially an HBO Comedy Special is pretty impressive. 

The interviews eventually give way to a performance where Bruno performs “Living in the USA”, “Down in Hollywood”, “Fun Time”, “Comin’ Right Up”, and “Jackpot (Bruno’s Bop)”.  What he may lack in musical prowess, he makes up for in stage presence as he leaps, runs, works the crowd, and cavorts with the musicians with boundless energy.  He’s clearly having the time of his life, and that kind of energy rubs off on the audience. 

Oh, and Bruce named his production company Hudson Hawk. 

As far as ‘80s actors-turned-musicians “movies” go, I still think I like Don Johnson’s Heartbeat better.  Still, this is a priceless time capsule anyway you look at it.  Any fan of Bruce (or Bruno) should check it out. 

THE HEAPING BOUNCY BREASTS THAT SMOTHERED A MIDGET (1988) * ½

Before he became best known as John Bacchus and made a bunch of softcore parodies for Seduction Cinema, Zachary Snygg directed a couple of shot on video films with long, outrageous titles.  Sad to say, The Heaping Bouncy Breasts That Smothered a Midget isn’t a patch on The Bloody Video Horror That Made Me Puke on My Aunt Gertrude. 

A teacher snaps and buys a bunch of guns.  He then turns vigilante and goes around killing people.  He even takes to offing the students who disrupt his class.  The kids eventually discover his secret and try to turn the tables on their tutor. 

I might’ve been more forgiving if this was called “Vigilante” or something, but the title is a total bait-and-switch.  At least The Bloody Video Horror That Made Me Puke on My Aunt Gertrude had a plot that matched its title.  (Even if there wasn’t an Aunt Gertrude to be found.)  I mean, not only are there no heaping bouncy breasts in sight; there isn’t even any women in the film!  What a rip off. 

Speaking of rip-offs, Snygg blatantly steals Ennio Morricone’s score from The Dollars Trilogy for the vigilante scenes and even stoops to ripping off the shootout from A Few Dollars More.  (Other scenes swipe Billy Idol’s “Dancing with Myself” and The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go”.)  It should be said that the shootouts are OK, considering the nonexistent budget. 

The budget was so low that there’s only three people in the cast.  In fact, most of the supporting characters are played by Snygg wearing different hats, fake mustaches, and using annoying voices.  None of his shtick is remotely funny, and it doesn’t even look like he tried to hide the fact he’s playing various roles.  Fortunately for Snygg, he got much better as he went along.  (This was his first film after all.)  Heck, in a decade’s time, he would actually be making movies featuring heaping bouncy breasts.  I think I’ll stick with those pictures. 

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN PRE-GAME: MONSTERS AND MANIACS (1988) ***

Hosted by Brinke Stevens, Monsters and Maniacs is an entertaining mix of horror documentary and clip show package.  While I don’t think anyone will glean any new information from the film, it remains breezy fun.  

The early going is especially amusing.  I loved how the filmmakers took the nameplates of the various horror stars from old trailers and edited them together to make it look like one big monster line-up in the opening credits.  From there, we get a brief history of vampires in cinema.  From Max Schreck to Bela Lugosi to Christopher Lee.  Then it’s on to Frankenstein.  What better way to follow that than with a segment on Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi?  The films of the fifties are then featured, and are represented by the likes of The Thing from Another World, It! The Terror from Beyond Space, and Plan 9 from Outer Space.  There’s a segment on future stars getting their start in horror like Dennis Hopper (Queen of Blood), Jack Nicholson (The Little Shop of Horrors), and Steve McQueen (The Blob) too.  Next is a tribute to Hammer with films such as The Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula, and The Mummy.  Slashers and psychos are given their due in clips from Dementia 13, Alice Sweet Alice, and Blood Frenzy (which conveniently was written by Monsters and Maniacs director Ted Newson).  A look at giant apes (King Kong, Mighty Joe Young, and Konga) and lizards (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Giant Behemoth, and Godzilla) round out the collection.  There are also bits on Lon Chaney Jr., Abbott and Costello, Peter Lorre, Vincent Price, Herschell Gordon Lewis, and the immortal trailer for Psycho is shown too. 

Most of the clips are taken from trailers, public domain movies, and behind the scenes footage.  Most of this will be familiar to horror fans, but there are some cool bits along the way that aren’t usually featured in these sorts of things like Bela Lugosi putting the bite on poor Betty Boop.  (“You have booped your last boop!”)  The best parts though are the supercuts of similar scenes that are found across the various genres (like the montage of carriage chases involving Dracula).

Brinke is as fine of a hostess as you can expect.  The puns and banter are mostly kept to a minimum (except for the shtick with the guy in the hockey mask) as the focus is mainly on the clips themselves.  However, my favorite quip was “Gorgo was a tale of a mother’s love.  A very big mother with a very big tail!”

YOUNG WARRIORS (1983) ***

After his sister is brutally raped and murdered by a gang of thugs, Kevin (James Van Patten) gets his friends together and says, “Why don’t we go after them ourselves?  We’re not tied up with red tape and dumb fucking laws!”  They turn vigilante and begin riding around the city in their Jeep looking to keep the streets safe.  Needless to say, Kevin’s mom (Lynda Day George) and cop father (Ernest Borgnine) do not approve. 

This is actually a sequel to Malibu High, but the title was changed by distributors Cannon Films to presumably cash in on the success of The Warriors.  I don’t think it had anything to do with Malibu High anyway, since it takes place in college.  The opening crawl says, “These are the graduates of Malibu High and this is their story”, but there’s no linking characters or conjoining plot lines from that film. 

Like Malibu High it jumps from genre to genre on a dime.  It kicks off like your typical Animal House rip-off.  There’s a great opening graduation scene where a teen rides his motorcycle on stage and grabs his diploma.  We also get the standard tropes of frat boys partying, hazing pledges, and playing pranks.  (Pigs are stampeded through a frat house.)  Then in a blink of an eye, it becomes a Death Wish-style revenge flick. 

What’s refreshing about the movie is that Van Patten and his crew aren’t very good at being vigilantes.  They get beat up, arrested, shot, and one of their members even dies before they make a successful bust.  Heck, things get real dark when (Spoiler) the frat’s mascot Butch (Casper the Wonder Dog) gets killed during a raid.  I mean, they even mow down some kids carrying toy guns and they still keep patrolling the streets.  This eventually leads to a downbeat Peckinpah-inspired slow motion shootout with the gang. 

Then things get REAL depressing. 

Writer/director Lawrence D. Foldes also produced Malibu High, but this is very much its own thing.  Maybe he was going for one of those Halloween 3 deals.  Either way you would’ve never guessed it was a sequel anyway. 

What’s impressive about Young Warriors is the way Foldes keeps doubling down on the message that violence isn’t the answer.  You keep waiting for Van Patten and his crew to… you know… get good at their jobs of being Temu Guardian Angels, but it never happens.  If anything, they make the streets a lot more unsafe.  So, that’s intriguing and helps to separate the movie from countless other revenge films. 

The cast is good.  Van Patten is a bit bland, but that suits the character’s sociopathic tendencies.  Borgnine is fun as his exasperated father and George is solid as his grieving wife.  Richard Roundtree is kind of wasted as Borgnine’s partner though, which is the biggest disappointment.  Anne Lockhart is also in there as Van Patten’s girlfriend and Linnea Quigley has a brief nude scene as a girlfriend of one of the other vigilantes. 

AKA:  Malibu High.  AKA:  The Graduates of Malibu High.

EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE! PRESENTS KIDZ KLUB! (2022) ***

The good folks at Everything is Terrible! continue to do the Lord’s work.  Kidz Klub! is an hour-long compilation of the worst of the worst of TV shows, cartoons, PSAs, and movies aimed at kids.  It goes without saying that any compilation of this sort is bound to be uneven, but this one offers up plenty of amusement and lots of hearty chuckles.  Any fan of kiddie show ephemera will undoubtedly get a kick out of it. 

The clips come fast and furious.  Sometimes they appear in a stream of consciousness manner.  Other times they are connected by a loose theme like religion, the internet, the environment, or the police (which was the funniest).  The most entertaining moments occur when the clips are edited together to form sentences and/or conversations, which are usually punctuated with priceless reaction shots from kids, puppets, or creepy adults. 

Most of the material the video culls from comes from kids shows from the ‘90s.  That was a bit after my time, which helped since I had no clue what the hell about 95% of this shit was.  (I still recognized clips from Mac and Me, Cop and a Half, and Mr. Nanny though.)  Perhaps if you were a child of the ‘90s, more of the material will be familiar to you.  Not that it really matters, I guess.  Being blindsided by the wacky make-up, costumes, and puppets is part of the fun.  The number of stars that briefly pop (including Bill Paxton, Paulie Shore, and Kathy Lee Gifford) adds to the “Anything Goes” vibe. 

If there is a fault, it’s that the editing is a bit too rapid fire for its own good in some places.  Sometimes it goes so fast that it’s hard to catch your bearings and/or fully appreciate some of the whacked-out low-budget kiddie content.  That’s a relatively small complaint since Kidz Klub! keeps the laughs coming at a steady clip, which is what really matters in the end.  It will be a real trip for viewers young and old. 

AKA:  Kidz Klub!

SUMMER NIGHT FEVER (1978) *** ½

Given the title, you might think this would be a Saturday Night Fever rip-off, but that’s not really the case.  (It does have just enough disco scenes to stick into a trailer to make it look one though.)  It’s actually a German sex comedy that plays like a prototype for an American Horny Teenager movie.  The most surprising thing about Summer Night Fever is just how good it is. 

Peter (Stephane Hillel) and Freddy (Claude Obalski) take a trip through Europe hoping to score with as many women as possible.  The only problem is that Freddy has to bring his dorky sister Victoria along.  Since she’s played by Olivia Pascal, you know it’s only a matter of time before she loses her glasses and blossoms into a full-blown sexpot.  Anyway, Peter can’t even seem to make it to first base while the nerdy Freddy is scoring left and right.  It takes a while, but Peter eventually comes to his senses and realizes Victoria is the girl for him. 

Sure, the movie has plenty of T & A to go around, but there’s also a sweet coming of age story wrapped in there as well.  So many of these things get so invested in showing skin that they forget to have actual characters we care about.  I’m not saying character development is essential to a Horny Teenager movie.  What I will say is that I gladly tip my hat to the ones who manage to sneak it in there. 

Even the sexy situations the trio find themselves in help to advance the plot and/or their relationships.  (Like when Olivia finds herself aboard a swinger’s yacht.)  Sure, there are some unnecessary detours (like the scene with Gianni Garko as a man who hides under the bed with Freddy when his lover’s husband comes home early), but they still manage to be funny.  Oh, and for whatever reason the filmmakers forgot to dub one part into English, but it sort of adds to the humor of the scene as it features a couple who come back from skinny dipping to find their clothes have been stolen. 

The movie is a great showcase for Pascal.  She has a sweet scene early on where she makes herself pretty for the first time and flushes her retainer down the toilet.  It also helps that she practically spends the last act shirtless. 

The soundtrack is surprisingly good too.  Trans superstar Amanda Lear’s hypnotic “Follow Me” is used effectively during a party scene.  Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street” is also heard a couple of times too (long before it was used in Good Will Hunting). 

The best line comes courtesy of Peter when sees Freddy’s math teacher on a topless beach and quips, “I bet she knows how to multiply!” 

AKA:  Disco Summer.  AKA:  Hot Summer Night Fever.

THE PINK CHIQUITAS (1987) **

Frank Stallone stars as a private detective who gets into a shootout with some gangsters in a drive-in.  During the fracas, a meteor lands nearby and several townsfolk go to investigate.  The glowing orb soon takes control of the women in town who strip down to their underwear and run rampant.  There’s only one person who can stop them.  You guessed it.  Frank Stallone. 

I’ve had my jaw left agape during many a B-Picture in my time, but my jaw dropped so much during this flick that I got dry mouth.  That sounds like a rave review for someone who likes bad movies.  However, The Pink Chiquitas is kind of frustrating as it bobs and weaves from “So Bad it’s Good" to “So Bad it’s Painful” on a dime.  (Sometimes it happens during the same scene, which is quite a feat.)  A lot of that has to do with the premise, which is a mishmash of ‘40s detective and ‘50s Sci-Fi cliches.  I mean, it was bound to be uneven, but man…  This one will have you shaking your head in disbelief at several junctures. 

The good news is that Frank Stallone is kind of great in this.  The early scenes of the movie in which he picks up a sexy hitchhiker and gets into the shootout at the drive-in are pretty fun.  Once the meteor crashes though, it gets increasingly spotty.  That said, Frank still gets a funny scene where he’s fishing, and he gets pulled off the dock by the fish.  It’s like a live-action Looney Tunes movie or something. 

I think part of the problem is that there are just too many characters that crowd the movie.  Whenever Frank is offscreen, the film really suffers.  The annoying weatherman character is particularly grating and the subplot about a local election just feels like filler.  I think the PG-13 rating was another detriment.  I can’t say the movie would’ve been better had the meteor-controlled women been topless instead of wearing lingerie, but… Ah, who am I kidding?  It would’ve been a lot better. 

As someone who unironically loves “Far from Over”, I have to say the songs Frank contributed to the soundtrack were just OK.  I know they all can’t be bangers, but still.  I'm sure The Pink Chiquitas didn’t set Frank’s acting career on fire the way he had probably hoped.  If anything, Frank can take comfort in the fact that it’s funnier than his brother Sly’s Stop!  Or My Mom Will Shoot. 

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN PRE-GAME: THE BRIDE! (2026) **

After a hundred years of loneliness, Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale) turns to a mad scientist (Annette Bening) in Chicago to create a mate (Jessie Buckley) for him.  After murdering some schmoes in self-defense, they go on the lam.  A pair of detectives played by Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz follow in hot pursuit.  Eventually, the duo becomes a sort of an undead version of Bonnie and Clyde. 

Written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Bride! is a kooky but unsuccessful attempt to modernize the Frankenstein premise with contemporary mores inside of a gangster setting.  I think the problem has more to do with the script than the direction as Gyllenhaal manages to carve out a few memorable sequences within the middle section of the movie.  It’s just that some of the choices that were made are just… oof.

You know you’re in for it though as soon as you see the inexplicably awful prologue featuring Buckley as Mary Shelley (a nod to the 1935 original).  The Bride herself ain’t much to write home about.  With her schizophrenic nature and unruly behavior, this Bride seems to be an attempt by Gyllenhaal to confound expectations of the audience (mostly the males) about how the Bride should look/act.  Or maybe she was trying to give a voice to the original creators who have to suffer through awful Hollywood versions of their character that they never intended.  Whatever the reason, it just doesn’t work.  I can’t exactly fault Buckley as she was just following the script, but the shtick of her going back and forth between the Bride and Shelley’s voice gets tiresome almost immediately.  The subplot where women start cosplaying as the Bride and committing crimes is pretty dumb too.  The fact that the cast is largely comprised of actors who are related to or had previously worked with Gyllenhaal is the tip-off they probably didn’t even read the script and just signed on as a favor. 

Still, there are some nice moments here, most of which come from Bale.  He’s one of our greatest living actors and the prospect of him playing one of the screen’s coolest characters is certainly promising.  I’d say he more or less delivers what you would expect and/or hope for.  Jake Gyllenhaal is also a hoot as a Fred Astaire style movie star that the monster is obsessed with.  I also liked the scene where the monsters are ran out of a theater showing White Zombie (in 3-D).  I wasn’t expecting the tribute to Young Frankenstein either, which was fun. 

Ultimately, The Bride! never really earns its exclamation mark.  You can tell it has an anarchist spirit, but it doesn’t always know how to channel it.  Frankly, it’s a fucking mess.  If it had been a hot mess or even a mildly entertaining one, it might’ve been worth a look.  It’s just that the sparks the title character creates are few and far between. 

BEAVER AND BUTTFACE (1995) **

This is a hit and miss porno parody of Beavis and Butt-Head.  Buck Adams (who directed) is Beaver.  Tony Tedeschi (who wrote) is Buttface.  They go to college and try to score with chicks.  That’s about it as far as plot.

The best part is when Buttface bangs a hot foreign exchange student played by Rebecca Lord in the girls’ locker room.  The rest of the XXX action is pretty ho-hum though.  It doesn’t help that the make-up to make the leads look like cartoons is kind of horrifying.  (They resemble burn victims.)  Because of that, you might have trouble getting in the mood while watching this one.  (Of the two, Beaver looks closest to his cartoon counterpart.)

The most memorable aspect of the film is that the actors stand in front of green-screened hand-drawn backgrounds to approximate the look of the show.  It’s more successful than you might expect too.  Like the show, Beaver and Buttface sit on the couch and watch TV, but since this is a hardcore parody, they make fun of porn clips instead of music videos.  In one scene, Beaver and Buttface make fun of a porno starring Adams and Tedeschi (a XXX gladiator flick called “Done-Her”), which gives it a meta kind of quality.  It’s not exactly laugh out loud funny, but they at least put in some effort into it. 

There’s even a scene where Beaver puts his shirt over his head and imitates Cornholio, except he’s “Suckholio” and demands a blowjob.  Now, I’m no member of the National Lampoon or anything, but wouldn’t it have been funnier if he was Cornholio and wanted the girl’s cornhole?  It especially feels like a missed opportunity, given the fact that he bangs the next chick in the butt.  (Although Buck only lasts about a minute in there, so the whole thing ends kind of abruptly.)

Oh, and one part has a warning that the following sequence had to be edited out.  I’m not sure what that was all about.  Maybe they found out one of the girls wasn’t of legal age.  Or maybe the footage got accidentally erased.  It just seems odd to toss it in there. 

Adams also plays the gym teacher. 

CARTOON ALL-STARS TO THE RESCUE (1990) ****

Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue is kind of like the Toon Town segments of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? cross-pollinated with an anti-drug PSA.  It was funded by McDonald’s Children Charities to warn kids about the dangers of drugs.  The unilateral support from studios and creators is still pretty impressive.  The logistical licensing nightmare is probably one of the major reasons it’s never been re-released. 

A little girl named Corey has her piggy bank swiped by her druggie brother Michael.  Fortunately, Papa Smurf is on Neighborhood Watch, and he gets the Smurfs, ALF, Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Winnie-the-Pooh, Kermit the Frog, and Slimer to help get the kid on the right path.  Meanwhile, Michael heads down to the local arcade where Smoke, an evil puff of smoke in the form of a jazz musician (voiced by George C. Scott!) is pressuring him to try crack.  Bugs Bunny then shows up with a Time Machine to remind him how he got hooked on drugs.  Back in the present, Michelangelo from Ninja Turtles drags him down into the sewer where Kermit, Miss Piggy, and Gonzo take him on a rollercoaster ride through his brain.  Since Michael is so whacked out, that means he can’t even skateboard properly and falls off his board.  Luckily, Huey, Dewey, and Louie are there to help him up, which leads to the biggest laugh:  “Now I’m seeing ducks!  Oh man!  I’ve got to get off these drugs!”

The trio then lead the other cartoons in a show-stopping musical number “Wonderful Ways to Say No” (written by The Little Mermaid’s Howard Ashman and Alan Menken.)  When that doesn’t work, ALF takes Michael through a hall of funhouse mirrors to show him the horrors of drugs.  Meanwhile, Smoke tries to get Corey hooked on drugs while Michael has a bad trip in a scary amusement park.  Daffy Duck then shows up as a fortune teller to show Michael his grim future. 

Other famous cartoon characters that show up include George and Barbara Bush. 

The surprising thing about this special is that all the cartoon pals stay true to their characters, which leads to some funny interactions.  I liked that fact that some of them don’t even want to help.  ALF has to threaten to eat Garfield and Simon and Theodore practically drag Alvin screaming into the caper.  The oblivious dad is pretty funny too.  When Corey says her brother is acting weird, he says, “Being weird is just part of being a teenager”!?!  So, I commend the filmmakers for relaying the “message” with a sense of humor and without sacrificing the characters’ personalities. 

In short, this is a lot of fun whether you’re five or fifty.  It probably plays just as well if you’re clean or tripping balls too.  Not that I would endorse that sort of thing.  Miss Piggy might kick my ass if I did. 

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN PRE-GAME: FACES OF DEATH 3 (1985) **

The third installment of the infamous Faces of Death franchise began life as a Mondo movie called Fear.  It was released overseas first, but by the time it hit our shores, the filmmakers retooled it and retitled it to ride the success of the series.  (The version I’m reviewing is the original “Fear” cut found on the 4K UHD release.)  It’s really fucking uneven, even more so than its predecessors.  That said, some of the shit in this one is downright bananas. 

The early scenes focus on serial killers, murderers, and a guy on PCP.  None of it is convincing and much of it looks like a fake version of Cops.  The part with the political prisoner being tortured is likewise phony baloney and goes on way too long.  Suicides, shark attacks, and even Bigfoot are also covered, with varying degrees of success. 

Much of Faces of Death 3 is a mess.  Some of it is indefensible (like the peek inside the squalid home for the handicapped).  However, on the occasion the flick strikes WTF gold, it’s a lot of fun.  The scene where a parachuter is blown off course and lands in a crocodile pit is exactly the kind of gore scene you hope for from a Faces of Death movie.  The sequence with the German exorcist is downright ludicrous too.  That is to say it’s good for a laugh. 

By far the best bit is on the swingers who eat placentas.  This sequence is fucking bonkers.  It starts with real birth of a baby footage, but the jaw-dropping highlight is the scene where the swingers sit around the dinner table in the nude and say grace before they chow down on placenta.  One of the interviewees says, “Viva la placenta!”  I say, “Viva la bad movies!” 

For every highlight like that, there’s at least two or three sequences that don’t work.  Only you know for sure if that’s an acceptable ratio.  Heck, I even found myself dozing off during one of the repetitive underwater scenes.  Still, you don’t see naked swingers eating placenta every day.  That’s the kind of grade Z shit I live for.  Because of that, Faces of Death 3 is hard to dismiss, even if it’s mostly hit and miss.

AKA:  Fear.  AKA:  Faces of Death:  Junk 3.  AKA:  Faces of Death 3:  The Final Assault.