THE BLOODY EXORCISM OF COFFIN JOE (1974) ***

For whatever reason, The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe was omitted from Arrow’s Coffin Joe Blu-Ray box set.  Fortunately, I was able to track it down.  Oh, and get this… it’s also a Christmas movie!  (There’s a great bit where a little girl sees snakes and spiders in the Christmas tree.) 

Director Jose Mojica Marins holds a press conference and proclaims, “Coffin Joe does not exist!”  He then heads to a secluded house to spend Christmas with his friends and write the script for his next picture.  It doesn’t take long before a bunch of weird shit starts happening (chairs move around by themselves, toy pianos play ominously, etc.).  It seems a witch has it out for the family and is determined to make their life a living hell.  Marins is horrified to learn that it is actually his alter ego Coffin Joe who is pulling the strings. 

For the first hour or so, the film plays more or less like your typical horror flick.  It’s only in the final act where Marins comes face to face with his on-screen character does it start feeling more like your average Coffin Joe installment.  It’s here where topless dancers perform Satanic rituals while people are chained to the wall and wail helplessly.  It’s not quite as wild and inventive as Marins’ best work and some of the gore looks really fake (fingers, tongues and ears are cartoonishly hacked off and eaten), but the close-ups of the possessed family members are quite effective.  

Despite its uneven nature, The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe remains fun, if only to see Marins once again playing with the possibilities of cinema.  It’s always interesting when he blends “real” and “reel” horror, and the outcome is almost always entertaining.  I mean who wouldn’t want to see an actor square off against his most famous character? 

AKA:  The Black Exorcism of Coffin Joe.  AKA:  The Black Exorcism.

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SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY (2026) *** ½

Spider-Man: No Way Home was the ultimate Spider-Man movie.  It had three Spider-Men, five villains, and offered up a Multiverse of possibilities.  The question is, what do you do for an encore?  I guess it’s admirable that Brand New Day doesn’t try to top the previous film.  When it is content on delivering a (relatively) low-stakes Spider-Man adventure, it shines.  It’s only when the picture starts bending over backwards to set up the next big Marvel tentpole that it loses its luster. 

Granted, this is a Marvel-wide problem.  Most of these things suffer from a Ponzi Scheme style of storytelling.  “If you like what you’re seeing, just wait till the NEXT movie!”  This continuous plate-spinning of ongoing narratives often shortchanges the story at hand.  Brand New Day is no exception. 

Web-slinging crime fighter Spider-Man (Tom Holland) is busy keeping his nose to the grindstone.  While battling baddies in New York City, he encounters his friends MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon), who both have forgotten he even existed.  As Spider-Man wrestles with the temptation of reintroducing himself into their lives, he must also contend with a body-hopping villain threatening the city.  There’s also the pesky matter of his spider DNA trying to take over his body.  What’s a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to do?

The first two-thirds of Brand New Day offer fans a fun and exciting time.  Holland once again essays the role of Spider-Man with heart and warmth, and the enormous goodwill he’s generated over the years helps the film over some of its bumpy moments late in the game.  If anything, Brand New Day is the realization of what producer Kevin Feige was aiming for back when Iron Man was released in 2008; a cinematic comic book.  If you’re making a Spider-Man movie and Spider-Man needs to ask a scientist a question, why get a random actor from Central Casting when you can have Dr. Bruce Banner, AKA:  The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo)?  If a shady government agency needs a security detail, why give them a bunch of interchangeable guys in SWAT team uniforms when they can bring in The Hand?  

So, in that respect, the film is a crackling good time.  Director Destin Daniel Cretton nails every Spidey aspect of the movie (even if he cribs a bit from the Sam Raimi classics).  It’s when the script reveals a character (whom I won’t spoil) from a different franchise as the Big Bad that the feeling of cinematic hopscotch begins to set in.  It’s especially disappointing considering Spider-Man has the best rogues’ gallery in the Marvel universe.  (The fact that many of them show up early on in a brief montage only compounds that fact.)  Why bring in someone from an adjacent franchise unless you’re using them as a springboard to launch another MCU installment? 

Other than that, this is still a strong, funny and robust Spidey adventure.  In some ways it feels like a soft reboot, and if you go in with that mindset you may enjoy it more.  Brand New Day remains a good time, even if nothing about it feels exactly “Brand New”.

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

Spider-Man:  Brand New Day:  *** 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  

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CURSE OF THE PINK PANTIES (2007) **

You have to hand it to the filmmakers.  Curse of the Pink Panties is a helluva title for a movie.  I saw the sequel, Snatched!  Curse of the Pink Panties 2 a while back, and it was awful.  So, why did I backtrack and watch the original?  Am I that much of a glutton for punishment?  Well, let me answer that query:  It’s called Curse of the Pink Panties.  How am I NOT going to watch it? 

Women enter a contest where they film themselves wearing pink panties in an effort to win a lifetime supply of underwear.  To increase their chances of success, they hold a seance and ask the spirits for guidance.  Meanwhile, across town, a back-alley diamond sale goes awry and leaves a bunch of small-time criminals dead.  Thanks to the girls’ seance, their spirits possess the panties.  The ladies then resort to any means necessary to remove the unwanted ghosts from their undergarments. 

This is not a good movie by any means, but it’s miles better than the sequel.  The scenes of the ladies in their cast twitching and itching and wiggling and jiggling in their underwear aren’t exactly sexy, nor are they laugh out loud funny.  That’s almost a moot point when half of the movie is devoted to scenes of ladies in their underwear itching and twitching and wiggling and jiggling. 

Much of the film is repetitive, which is the real nail in its proverbial coffin.  I think the filmmakers had a very specific fetish they were exploiting here.  If you enjoy scenes of women in their underwear itching and scratching their nether regions and/or guys shouting into their bikini area, you’ll probably enjoy it.  Ultimately, it’s just one of those one-joke movies where the joke wasn’t particularly funny the first time around and they perpetually beat it into the ground for seventy-seven minutes.  Still, if you’re like me, and you’ll check out anything as long as it has a great title, you’ll probably find yourself watching Curse of the Pink Panties at some point in your life. 

AKA:  The Curse.

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PLAYBOY’S ROLLER DISCO AND PAJAMA PARTY (1979) ****

I hope I live a long, healthy, and happy life here on Planet Earth.  It is my sincere wish to continue to elude the Reaper’s grasp for as long as possible.  If, for whatever reason, I slip from this mortal coil, I hope Heaven is at least half as awesome as Playboy’s Roller Disco and Pajama Party.  

Family Feud’s Richard Dawson is our host for the show.  He basically just stands around, delivers cheeky commentary on the action, and tries to get a kiss from Dorothy Stratten.  During the roller disco portion of the program, we marvel as celebrities like James Caan schmooze with Playmates on roller skates while dancing to such disco hits as “Bad Girls”, “Ring My Bell”, and “Move on Up”.  Meanwhile, Hugh Hefner steals the headdress off the Indian from The Village People and leads a roller disco conga line with Jim Brown in tow while Robert Culp ogles Playmates as they seductively eat popsicles. 

Trust me, it’s heavenly. 

Halfway through, the party switches gears to a pajama party where The Village People perform inside the Playboy Mansion for guests (including Marjoe Gortner!) dressed in their jammies.  Then Dawson interviews several Playmates who are due to appear in the magazine (including Jeana Tomasina and Victoria Cooke).  Next, we are treated to behind-the-scenes footage of the Playmate Centerfold shoots, along with more interviews with the Playmates.  These moments feel like a pilot for what would later become the Playboy Video Centerfolds.  However, since it aired on ABC, there’s no nudity.  Other than that, the construction of these sequences is nearly identical. 

Back at the party, while people disco to “Makin’ It”, there’s a jaw dropping bit where the puppet Madame is dressed in blackface and tries to goof around with Jim Brown, who is clearly not amused.  Finally, Dawson gets a kiss from Dorothy while Chuck Mangione plays in the background. 

Strictly speaking as a time capsule, Playboy’s Roller Disco and Pajama Party is rather incredible.  It is a perfectly presented package that showcases the allure and sheer fun of the Playboy brand.  The scenes with Stratten are a bit sad though knowing her husband would brutally murder her less than a year later.  That said, this serves as a nice reminder of a career that could’ve been. 

Tomasina and Cooke later hosted the Playmate Workout. 

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KING FRAT (1979) * ½

King Frat was one of the first college comedies to be released in the wake of the success of National Lampoon’s Animal House.  It’s also one of the worst.  It’s full of sub-sophomoric hijinks and unfunny shtick.  You also have to endure the annoying theme song which is repeated several times throughout the movie. 

The members of Pi Kappa Delta get their kicks from driving around in a hearse and mooning people, filming girls changing in the locker room, drinking beer, and farting.  In fact, the plot revolves around the frat brothers trying to get enough money so they can enter a farting contest.  (No, really.)  Meanwhile, the uptight dean tries to get the frat kicked out of school.  It all ends with a brawl with the rival preppie fraternity. 

Directed by Ken Wiederhorn, King Frat is a pathetic xerox of Animal House.  The main character Gross Out (John DiSanti) is our Bluto substitute, but he looks more like Flounder.  His only redeeming quality is that he wears a cool Howard the Duck T-shirt.  His drunken behavior never comes close to scoring a laugh, which is a bad sign since he’s basically front and center for the entire movie. 

The film consists of little more than a bunch of obnoxious vignettes (like spreading marijuana smoke into a funeral home, holding costume parties, and spying on co-eds changing) with the barest wisps of a plot.  The only remotely funny bit is when a couple gets stuck together while fucking.  There’s also just enough T & A to keep you watching, but not enough to make it worthwhile. 

Oh, and a woman wins the fart contest (spoiler), which I guess was the filmmakers’ halfhearted attempt at Women’s Lib. 

It’s pretty incredible that Wiederhorn, who did such a great job on the atmospheric Nazi zombie movie Shock Waves, would churn out such a nothing of a movie.  He later went on to direct Meatballs 2 and Return of the Living Dead 2, which look like Shakespeare compared to this shit.  Speaking of sequels, screenwriter Ron Kurz would later write Friday the 13th Part 2. 

AKA:  Campus King.  AKA:  Delta House.  AKA:  King *@#!! Frat. 

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NATIONAL LAMPOON’S DIRTY MOVIE (2011) * ½

The National Lampoon brand stopped being relevant somewhere around Christmas Vacation.  Van Wilder was probably the last good movie under the Lampoon moniker.  That hasn’t prevented producers from trying to wring more money from the empty shell that was once an admired and respected American institution. 

Dirty Movie is kind of like a throwback to the ‘70s era of sketch comedy movies like If You Don’t Stop It… You’ll Go Blind!!! and Can I Do It Till I Need Glasses? as it’s full of skits that are more or less filmed versions of dirty jokes.  (The title makes me think it was meant to cash in on those awful early 2000s parodies like Epic Movie and Disaster Movie.)  It also kinda reminded me of Playboy’s Private Party Jokes, except not nearly as good. 

The wraparound scenes of a producer (Christopher Meloni, sporting a bad wig and even worse dentures) pitching the movie to the CEO of the company (Robert Klein) is similar to Movie 43 (which came out two years later).  At least that movie had an incredible cast.  The biggest celebrities they could find to cameo in this were Cyndi Lauper and Larry Holmes.  Honestly, these scenes just feel like an attempt by the filmmakers to let themselves off the hook for the shoddy way everything has been cobbled together.  (That goes double for the scenes where the director questions Meloni if the movie will work since it doesn’t have a story.)

A movie like this is bound to be uneven given its very nature.  The only way to really rate something like this is if you laugh or not.  Well, I think I may have laughed about one and a half times.  That works out to be about One Star a joke.  There is some gratuitous nudity here and there, although not enough of it to really earn the “Dirty” in Dirty Movie.  Heck, it’s barely a “Movie”.

If you ever owned a dirty joke book in your time, you’ve probably heard many of these jokes before (or at least variations on them).  Lots of the punchlines are predictable and even more reek of desperation.  A sequel followed, which is pretty crazy seeing how there was hardly enough here to make one movie, let alone two. 

AKA:  Dirty Movie.

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SEXY TIMETRIP NINJAS (1984) ***

Hisayasu (Naked Blood) Sato was the assistant director for this nutty but fun “Pink” film.  In the 17th century, Lady Ninja Kagero tries to steal a scroll from a Ninja named Sasuke.  During their battle, an earthquake occurs and they fall into a timeslip which sends them to present day Japan.  Sasuke winds up on a commuter train where he discovers the joy of groping strange women.  Meanwhile, Kagero finds work in a brothel and quickly becomes popular among the clientele, mostly because she uses her Ninja skills in the bedroom.  Separately, they begin looking for a cache of treasure while having increasingly dirty encounters.  Eventually they agree to put their differences aside in order to find the treasure. 

Director Yojiro Takita made dozens of “Groper Train” movies.  I’m guessing this is part of the series as there are plenty of scenes of women being fondled on public transportation.  However, the addition of time traveling Ninjas gives it its own unique vibe.  The “fish out of water” scenes, while never quite laugh out loud funny, are amusing for the most part.  The scenes of groping and softcore sex aren’t exactly sexy either, but that’s perfectly acceptable since many of them are humorous and/or have a goofy tone.  Because of that, they are enormously fun to watch. 

Any movie that features a mix of time travel, Ninjas, and public groping is bound to be uneven.  Even with a relatively scant running time of sixty-six minutes, the film runs out of steam before it crosses the finish line.  (The abrupt ending is the biggest debit.)  It’s crazy to think that after decades of directing Pink movies, Takita later won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film!  However, I think some of the dialogue in this was Oscar worthy too.  (“So… this is a Ninja’s pussy?”)

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EVIL DEAD BURN (2026) *** ½

The Evil Dead franchise is kind of like that old family summerhouse.  The owners, producers Rob Tapert, Sam Raimi, and Bruce Campbell, really don’t have any use for it anymore, so they occasionally rent it out to others as a way to make passive income in their twilight years.  The previous tenant (the makers of Evil Dead Rise) really stunk the place up.  Fortunately, the new folks who are taking care of the property are much more fun to be around. 

Now I enjoyed the 2013 remake for what it was, namely an Evil Dead movie without Bruce Campbell.  Evil Dead Rise on the other hand was pretty abominable in just about every regard.  The new film, Evil Dead Burn is a nice amalgam of the new school Evil Dead aesthetic and the grueling terror that made the old films classics. 

A family is mourning the death of their son along with his battered wife Alice (Souheila Yacoub) in their decaying country home.  Pretty soon, the family members become possessed and start trying to kill each other.  It’s eventually up to Alice to send them all back to Hell. 

Director Sebastien Vanicek injects some humor into the film, which helps break up the tension.  It’s needed too as the Deadite carnage is often harrowing and gory as Hell.  In fact, this is probably the goriest major release in some time.  (Consider that Obsession had to be cut for a similar scene involving someone’s face getting smashed in, but this one looks like it came out unscathed.)  There’s some gnarly stuff here.  Fishhooks, car seat headrests, pens, weed whackers, and jackhammers are all used to ghoulish effect.  There’s even a Dog-ite in there too.  The ickiest scene might be when a Deadite takes an old woman’s upper plate out of her mouth and sticks it in hers.  We’re talking Puke City.  This film is also notable for featuring the first instance of twerking in Evil Dead movie, so that’s cinematically important. 

Yacoub is solid in the lead.  This is one of those “trauma horror” movies, so the fact that her character is fighting her dead husband is meant to be a metaphor for the lingering effects of her abusive relationship.  While it doesn’t quite land perfectly, it’s not as clunky as some of these movies.  Hunter Doohan is the MVP though as he takes a beating and then some.  I’m sure Bruce Campbell would be proud. 

Sure, Evil Dead Burn is far from perfect.  It’s way too long (nearly two hours) and the final showdown with a CGI baddie (which is reminiscent of the ending of both the Evil Dead remake and the original Terminator) is unnecessary.  (If the film ended ten minutes earlier, it possibly could’ve scored Four Stars.)  Those qualms aside, Burn shows there’s still life in the old franchise. 

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LILI’S WEDDING NIGHT (1952) * ½

Renowned burlesque stripper Lili (Varitease) St. Cyr headlines this dreary burlesque movie from director Lillian (Too Hot to Handle) Hunt.  It’s essentially a filmed burlesque act for 90% of the running time until the final fantasy sequence featuring St. Cyr.  It’s pretty rough going until then too. 

The show kicks off with chorus girls performing a few cowgirl themed numbers, including one where a dancer uses a lasso.   Next, we have a painfully unfunny skit about a guy getting his buddy’s help to ask for his girlfriend’s hand in marriage.  Then the Countess Vera Richkova, a blonde with a thick French accent, does a song and dance number in which she produces a cigarette from her brassiere as smokes it while strutting around the stage.  That’s followed by another dance routine where the chorus line supports a singer doing a number called “Goodbye Mary”.  Then the emcee for the show comes out and does an unfortunate number in blackface.  Next there’s a song and dance routine about a couple with a big age gap. 

Things switch from black and white to full color for the next segment in which the countess encores for another dance.  The color motif continues into the final sequence, which features the headliner Lili St. Cyr in her bedroom on her wedding night.  She eventually changes out of her wedding gown and takes a bath.  This is the only sequence worth a damn and that’s not just because it’s the only one that shows the faintest glimpses of skin.  It’s because this is the only portion of the film that looks like any thought was put into it, even if the gimmick wasn’t explored to its fullest potential. 

As far as the genre goes, Lili’s Wedding Night is pretty lifeless.  The numbers are staged rather indifferently, and the point-and-shoot style is cut and dry.  The numbers and routines leave much to be desired too, and the comedy sections are even worse.  In short, this is one wedding night not worth remembering. 

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SEXCULA (1974) ***

A female Frankenstein creates a man (naturally named “Frankie”) in her mad scientist lab.  The first order of business is to suck his dick.  When she realizes he can’t get it up, she calls on her vampire cousin Count Sexcula to teach him the art of lovemaking.  When that fails, she goes out to collect “sex cells” from her various conquests to transplant into Frankie’s body. 

This is one wacky horror themed porno comedy.  If you’re hoping for a straight-up horror skin flick you may be a tad disappointed by the film’s “everything but the kitchen sink” approach.  However, the humor lands more often than not.  There’s some truly funny dialogue too (“The stories of this place would curl your pubes!”), and some of the sex scenes are surprisingly kinda hot. 

The film takes advantage of the monster motif for most of the running time.  The doctor has a sexy robot love slave who communicates telepathically, there’s a horny hunchback assistant, and a gorilla who forces himself on strippers.  Most of this is pretty amusing too.  Heck, even the sex scenes that don’t feature monster-centric action still manage to be rather entertaining.  The highlight is the porno-within-a-porno about a couple who can’t wait for their vows to be exchanged to celebrate their wedding night and begin boinking at the altar while priest is in the middle of the ceremony!  Here comes the bride indeed!

I’m not saying all the sex scenes are winners.  The lesbian lovemaking session during a claustrophobic coach ride goes on far too long and the ending suffers from too much cutting back and forth between the various couples.  The wraparound scenes of a couple exploring Frankenstein’s castle just sort of feel like filler too.  That said, there is plenty of fun to be had here.  A few wonky bits aside, I can assuredly say that Sexcula doesn’t suck. 

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THE ASTROLOGER (1976) ***

The Astrologer is an odd and uneven disasterpiece/egoploitation drama that will have you scratching your head and chuckling to yourself for much of its seventy-seven-minute running time.  It satisfies the primary function of an egoploitation film in that it is the brainchild of an actor/director who had no business in front of or behind a camera.  It also helps that the audience for said film was primarily the man who made it.  In this case it was Craig Denney. 

Denney stars as an astrologer in a carnival who is tired of eking out a living reading palms.  He goes for the big score of smuggling diamonds and uses the profits to fund his astrology organization who counts the U.S. military among its clients.  His downfall begins when he sinks his fortune into movies and tries to make his wife a star. 

While this never quite hits the heights of say a Neil Breen picture, Breen and Denney seem to be kindred spirits when it comes to unconventional storytelling techniques.  Denney has created a film in which mere edits and simple scene transitions seemingly don’t exist.  One minute, he’s hanging out drinking wine in an American graveyard and the next, he’s in a Kenyan prison.  A precious few seconds are devoted to a major character dying in quicksand while minutes are spent on a montage of Denny aboard a boat while The Moody Blues’ “Tuesday Afternoon” plays on the soundtrack (totally unauthorized no less).  Then of course, there’s the totally random ending that will leave you asking yourself, “Huh?”

There are some lulls in between the WTF moments of inspiration.  However, the film’s reckless headlong spirit is a sight to behold.  The way it hops from genre to genre (it goes from carny drama to jungle adventure to a rags to riches story at a breakneck pace) is inspired, and the slight detour into meta territory is kind of bonkers.  (At one point, Denny’s character makes a movie about himself called… what else?  The Astrologer!)  

In short, fans of oddball ego-driven independent maverick moviemaking will undoubtedly find something to enjoy here. 

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BETTY’S REVENGE (2026) *

After a slew of Winnie-the-Pooh and Mickey Mouse horror movies it was only a matter of time before low-budget filmmakers set their sights on making Betty Boop into a public domain slasher.  Too bad they do next to nothing with the concept.  In fact, you have to wonder if the filmmakers just took a pre-existing script and just slapped the character of Betty Boop in there just to cash in on her public domain status. 

Three friends go to an old mansion to investigate an urban legend.  Betty (Hannah Fierman), their strange host, gifts them a diary linked to the house’s shady past.  Before they can even finish perusing the book, they wind up locked inside the spooky mansion.  Eventually, they discover Betty has a serious axe to grind. 

Betty’s Revenge is maligned almost from the get-go thanks to the aggressively annoying performances by the three leads.  The scenes of them bickering, wandering around the mansion, and talking about the weather grinds everything to a halt even before the film has a chance to gather momentum.  This is one slow-moving movie.  It’s only seventy-four minutes long but it feels twice that length.  Plus, the ending really sucks, and the last-minute flashback feels like it was only tacked on to further bloat the running time.  

The most egregious parts are the long scenes of the Final Girl reading excerpts from Betty’s diary.  They are a chore to sit through and seemingly go on forever. It’s almost like watching a movie version of Audible. 

It also doesn’t help that the Betty character is underused.  She basically just stands in the shadows and remains silent for most of the movie.  You’d think Betty’s squeaky voice could be used to creepy effect, but the filmmakers don’t even try.  Adding insult to injury is the fact that the body count is low and the gore is weak.  (There are some eyeballs that get ripped out, but that’s about it.)

There is a clip from a public domain Betty Boop cartoon, but it’s almost tossed in there as an afterthought.  In fact, the whole movie feels like it was made as an afterthought.  Actually, I don’t think the filmmakers put any thought into this mess at all. 

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DETROIT 9000 (1973) ** ½

Aubrey Hale Clayton (Rudy Challenger) is a black politician who is making a run for governor.  On the night of his big fundraiser, armed thieves storm the ballroom and steal his campaign donations.  The whole thing becomes a political powder keg when public opinion believes the crime was racially motivated.  Bassett (Alex Rocco), a white detective, is assigned to the case, but fearing a PR nightmare, the department partners him with a black cop named Williams (Hari Rhodes) to find the crooks. 

Directed by Arthur Marks, Detroit 9000 isn’t exactly a Blaxploitation flick, although it contains many of the same elements found in those pictures.  While there are various Blaxploitation staples like smooth black detectives, pimps, and prostitutes in the mix, it’s really more of your standard cop thriller set in the black community.  Rhodes even gets his own Dirty Harry-style introduction scene disarming a gunman and goading him to draw his weapon.  Honestly though, the movie needed more hardboiled action beats like this to qualify it as a Blaxploitation actioner. 

The “a dash of this and a dash of that” philosophy of the screenwriters ultimately doesn’t work as a whole.  Since it’s neither fish nor fowl, it doesn’t really satisfy the demands of either the cop or Blaxploitation genres.  There are also touches of political thriller, and stabs at social messaging that sort of get lost in the shuffle. 

Even though nothing quite gels, Detroit 9000 is nevertheless engaging for the most part, and that’s largely due to the performances.  The scenes with Rocco are the best parts.  Whether he’s dealing with his mentally unstable wife in a sanitarium, bedding hookers, or befriending his new partner, his charisma helps keep the film afloat.  So much so that when he disappears from the action in the third act, his presence is sorely missed.  Rhodes is quite good too, especially in his scenes with Vonetta (The Great Silence) McGee.  Challenger also fares well as the crooked politician, but sadly, the great Scatman Crothers is woefully underutilized as a priest. 

Marks went on to direct such Blaxploitation classics as Bucktown, Friday Foster, and J.D.’s Revenge. 

AKA:  S.O.S. Black Guns.  AKA:  Call Detroit 9000.  AKA:  Detroit Heat.  AKA:  Police Call:  9000.

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THE LONG, SWIFT SWORD OF SIEGFRIED (1972) ***

David F. (Blood Feast) Friedman wrote this English version of Adrian (Mark of the Devil Part 2) Hoven’s Swedish sexploitation swashbuckler.  The Swedes have always been known for their skin flicks and speaking in terms of spectacle, this one is hard to beat.  In fact, the lavish production values look more sophisticated than some of Hollywood’s “A” pictures from the same era. 

Siegfried (Raimund Harmstorf) is a daring knight who plans to retire and take a wife.  He has his sights set on Kriemhild, and since she’s played by a young Sybil Danning, who can blame him?  Of course, he won’t make any rash decisions until he beds down a bevy of other beauties first.  Since Kriemhild is the sister of King Gunther (Carlheinz Heitman), he won’t betroth her to Siegfried unless he helps him score with the witch Brunhild (Heidy Bohlen) with the help of his magic invisible cap.  When Brunhild realizes she’s been hoodwinked, she sets out to get revenge on Siegfried. 

Even though this is primarily a skin flick, the scale of the production remains impressive.  The special effects are quite good (like the queen’s burning “purgatory”) and the whole thing plays like a bawdy version of a ‘60s kiddie matinee movie.  (Think The Sword and the Dragon, but with boobs.)  You can see why Friedman would want to release it as it’s basically a higher budgeted and more sophisticated version of the same kind of costume softcore films he was making at the same time.  

While the film has considerable production values for this sort of thing, I still say the real reason to see it is for Sybil Danning.  Throughout the movie she is seen receiving sponge baths from her naked handmaidens, engaging in lesbian trysts, having gratuitous disrobing scenes, and of course, getting it on with Siegfried.  Even the sex scenes that do not feature Sybil are fairly steamy, and some contain a few near hardcore moments.

The anticlimactic ending is really the only issue I have with the film.  It’s almost as if they wanted to end things on a cliffhanger, but got cold feet at the last second, so they just cut to an on-screen narrator wrapping up the story for us.  Up until then, it’s pretty much a rollicking good time. 

Brunhild gets the best line when she feels Siegfried’s invisible member and exclaims, “It’s like an iron salami!”

AKA:  Maiden Quest.  AKA:  The Erotic Adventures of Siegfried.  AKA:  The Lustful Barbarian.  AKA:  The Terrible, Swift, Sword of Siegfried.  

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AMITYVILLE BACKPACK (2024) ** ½

A loser named Luther (Mike Hartsfield) buys a backpack at a garage sale in Amityville.  The first day, it kills his cat.  Then a janitor.  Then the girl he has a crush on who won’t give him the time of day.  Then his boss.  Finally, the demented backpack comes for Luther. 

The backpack itself is kind of cool.  It looks like a homemade version of a Loungefly bag.  It’s shaped like the famous house and is adorned with little plastic sleeves that are shaped like the iconic windows.  (Flames are seen inside of it when it gets angry.)  When it transforms, it even grows the house’s chimney too. 

As Luther the loser, Hartsfield looks like an amalgam of Fred Armisen and David Cross.  He delivers a tour de force performance.  Many scenes hinge on his ability to rant and rave to no one in particular (or at least to a backpack).  The surprising thing is, these moments (while they aren’t exactly laugh out loud funny) are amusing more often than not. 

Amityville Backpack proves that sometimes the dumbest ideas can be the most entertaining.  I mean I can’t quite in good conscience call this a “good” movie, but when you’re dabbling in the world of fake Amityville flicks, you take what you can get.  For example, I found myself genuinely amused when the backpack took a break from its rampage to lounge by the pool and drink a beer.  Or the part where it rides around the city on its skateboard.  Touches like this is what separates it from something like Amityville Scarecrow. 

Yes, as with the recent rash of Amityville movies, there are still too many cheap looking scenes of news anchors delivering updates on the crime spree that act as padding.  These little deterrents are to be expected as they come with the territory.  As a viewer, you have to ask yourself, “Am I the kind of person who wants to see a backpack shoot a guy point blank in the face?” 

Since I gave this ** ½, you can probably guess what kind of person I am.

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WINTERBEAST (1992) **

Winterbeast has a weirdly misleading title.  For one, there are multiple beasts, each one as improbable and silly looking as the next.  For another, it doesn’t even look like it takes place in winter.  There’s not one flake of snow to be found nor do you see anyone’s breath during the outdoor scenes. 

The plot has a forest ranger looking for some missing campers.  When he finds a dead body on a totem pole, he tries to shut the mountain down.  Naturally, the local bigwig doesn’t want to scare off the tourists, so he tries to keep a lid on it.  Eventually, the ranger and his buddies try to put a stop to the goofy looking monsters who are stomping around the woods. 

The film is really uneven and choppy.  One minute the ranger and his pal witness somebody’s face exploding (it looks like some third graders tried to recreate the face melting scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark) and the next, they’re back at their post like nothing happened.  The film stock also changes numerous times, which makes me think this was piecemealed together over several years. 

The Jaws-inspired subplot with the monsters ruining the tourist trade really bogs things down.  However, the film has enough odd moments sprinkled about to keep you watching.  The scene where the ranger stumbles upon a character wearing a clown mask and dancing around some corpses is surprisingly effective. 

The monsters are easily the most amusing thing about the movie though.  One looks like an alien made of bubblegum, another resembles Groot on steroids, and there’s a giant chicken that looks like a close cousin to the bird monster in The Giant Claw.  The final demon is just a guy wearing not-bad devil appliances, but he’s the least memorable creature in the cast.  The effects seen in the opening dream sequence are pretty cool too. 

Ultimately, this is a hodgepodge.  If you enjoyed something like Equinox, you might not mind sitting through this just to see the silly-looking stop-motion monsters.   Those fun special effects aside, Winterbeast is bound to leave you cold. 

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DOWN TWISTED (1987) **

Cinematography that’s too dark?  Check.  Muddled sound that makes the dialogue hard to hear?  Got it!  Confusing plot?  Yup.  Must be an Albert Pyun movie. 

Thieves steal an ancient relic and head to LA.  Carey Lowell, two years away from becoming a Bond girl, gets roped in by her roommate into going along with her to a drug deal.  Well, wouldn’t you know it?  The roommate (Trudy Dochterman) winds up dead and Carey, along with a wimpy lawyer (Charles Rocket) gets kidnapped by a colorful gang of punks.  They are both soon embroiled in the search for the priceless artifact and grudgingly have to work together in order to stay alive. 

I think Down Twisted could’ve worked, but the script was just far too disjointed.  This is one of those movies that relies on opening crawls, radio announcements, and obvious ADR to convey plot information to the audience.  Not that any of it is really all that helpful.  

The ending is weak too as things just sort of peter out.  Afterwards, there’s a long montage set to UB40’s cover of “Suspicious Minds” that looks like it might’ve been meant for a closing credits spiel, but someone forgot to put in the actors’ names.  If anything, it helps to pad things out. 

The first act is the best.  It’s here where Pyun seems to be trying to turn the usual action trope on its ear by making the actress a capable action hero while turning the lead actor into the whiny sidekick character that’s usually reserved for women in these kinds of pictures.  However, since the movie hinges on characters not being who they seem, that dynamic quickly shifts.  Before long, Carey is back to playing the more typical character of the girl who’s just along for the ride. 

Down Twisted also suffers from a muddy look.  Even the daytime scenes look too dark.  The script is as muddled as the cinematography.  It tries to pull the rug out from under you every twenty minutes or so through characters double crossing each other or revealing their true nature.  This all seems superfluous though as the big reveals ultimately just boils down to another scene of Lowell and Rocket being chased. 

This is far from Pyun’s worst, but I don’t think it will win over anyone unfamiliar with his work.  The cast helps to keep you invested, even when the plot is spinning its wheels.  Lowell is quite good, and you can tell the Bond producers probably saw this when they were casting Licence to Kill as she handles herself exceptionally well in the action scenes.  Rocket has some nice moments too, especially later on when his character shows signs of being a competent action hero.  Fans of Pyun will enjoy seeing his usual cast of characters such as Thom Mathews, Linda Kerridge, and Norbert Weisser popping up in there as well.  You’ll probably also get a kick out of seeing Courteney Cox in her film debut.  It’s just a shame that Down Twisted’s plot is so twisted that it leaves its leads in the lurch for much of the running time. 

AKA:  Treasure of San Lucas.

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MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (2026) ***

Travis Knight’s Masters of the Universe reminded me of Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger.  Both movies unwisely spend an inordinate amount of time treating its main character like a dork.  Like that film, once it stops seeing its hero as a joke and embraces the source material in the correct spirit, it kicks a lot of ass.  If the screenwriters didn’t try to beat the critics to the punch by poking fun at He-Man instead of properly propping him up as the iconic character that he is, this could’ve been a classic.  Fortunately, the last act is a legitimately great Masters of the Universe adaptation.  Maybe if there is a sequel (although the low box office receipts suggest otherwise) the filmmakers can use the momentum they gained in the last twenty minutes and carry it into the next movie. 

Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) is stuck in a dead-end job on Earth.  When his home world of Eternia is threatened by the evil Skeletor (Jared Leto), his childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes) brings Adam home to save the day.  When he wields The Sword of Power, Adam becomes the super-strong He-Man and does battle with Skeletor’s legions of minions.

I could’ve done without some of the dopey humor in the early going, but once the action switches over to Eternia, the film gets markedly better.  The humor is actually funny in this section too, especially when it leans into the campy gay innuendo between He-Man and Skeletor, which is often priceless.  (I especially liked the scene where Skeletor gets inside of He-Man’s head and they lift weights in a gym.)  

Say what you will about Leto, but he is uproarious in this.  He takes the character of Skeletor and amps things up to Frank N. Furter levels of campiness.  He deftly walks the tightrope of the character we know and love from the cartoon with the modern-day meme version.  Idris Elba is also quite good as Duncan, He-Man’s teacher, and gets the best-defined character arc of the film.  As He-Man, Galitzine is solid for the most part.  It’s just that the movie does him a disservice by turning him into a total cheeseball for half the running time.   

Coming from someone who had all the toys and playsets as a kid, I enjoyed seeing that world realized on the big screen.  I got a kick out of seeing guys like Trap Jaw, Moss Man, and Ram Man in a big-budget epic.  I did however feel bad for poor Fisto.  Yes, he has a funny name.  We get it.  This is one joke that the movie runs into the ground.  It almost felt like the film was trying to make an over/under Kalshi bet of how many Fisto jokes it could squeeze into two hours. 

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HOT SPUR (1968) **

There had been nudie westerns in the past (most notably Russ Meyer’s Wild Gals of the Naked West), but I think Lee (Chain Gang Women) Frost’s Hot Spur might’ve been the first roughie western.  Written and produced by Frost’s usual collaborator Bob Cresse, it tells the story of Carlo (James Arenas), a Mexican stable boy who is roughed up by two cowpokes.  Later, he gets a job working at a ranch where the surly cowboys happen to rope cattle.  After the rancher O’Hare (Joseph Mascolo) catches him making eyes at his wife (Virginia Gordon), he kicks Carlo off his property.  He then sets out for revenge by kidnapping the rancher’s wife and raping her.  See, O’Hare raped his sister years ago and Carlo’s just been waiting to pay him back. 

The fiery opening credits are the best part.  They play like the credits featured in Bonanza except played in reverse.  There’s also a fun scene where a cowboy is going at it with a gal in the floor of the stable.  One of the other dudes gets the bright idea to put a saddle on his back and has another woman ride him like a horse while he is having sex.  I’ve heard of horseplay before, but this is ridiculous. 

Other than that amusing bit, this is pretty rough going.  That’s not only due to the rapey subject matter, but because of the fact that it’s pretty repetitive and the attack scenes are all rather rote.  The western setting, while novel, doesn’t really add anything to the proceedings either.  There are scenes of whipping and rope bondage, although they are nothing that really takes advantage of the surroundings.  I give Frost and his crew credit for making it look like a legitimate B western.  Ultimately, the fact that this was filmed in the great outdoors rather than an NYC apartment is the only real selling point. 

As the rancher O’Hare, Mascolo has a Ben Gazzara type of quality about him.  He gives the best performance of the entire film as everyone else in the cast is rather weak.  He later went on to a memorable appearance as the human villain in Jaws 2. 

AKA:  Fiery Spur.  AKA:  The Longest Spur.  AKA:  The Naked Spur.

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THE LUSTFUL TURK (1968) * ½

Unconfirmed sources state that at the time, this was the most expensive nudie ever made.  I don’t know, it looks pretty cheap to me.  The costumes and sets feel like they came from a community dinner theater.  It also features wall to wall narration, which means the production saved money on sound equipment.  Much of the narration comes in the form of people sitting around and reading letters.  This is a good way to pad the scenes out.  Also, if the plot calls for a boat crossing the ocean or something, the camera just cuts away to a painting of a boat and hopes the audience puts two and two together.  Heck, it’s so cheap that they couldn’t even afford to show a cutaway to the sun setting.  Instead, we get a shot of a construction-paper sun setting that looks like a fourth grader’s art project.

Maybe I was just expecting more from writer/producer David F. (Blood Feast) Friedman and director Byron (The Head Mistress) Mabe. 

The plot is simple.  In the 19th century, a sultan (Tom Ato) buys a virginal young Englishwoman named Emily (Abbe Rentz) and her servant Eliza (Gee Gentell) for his harem where he forcibly indoctrinates them into womanhood.  However, the constant narration is needlessly wordy and overly flowery.  It also suffocates the action.  The awkward structure that revolves around people sitting and reading letters does it no favors either.  In fact, I found my attention starting to wander by the time we get to the scene where there’s a flashback inside of a letter. 

The softcore action itself is rather tepid.  It’s almost like Friedman and Mabe were so enamored with the idea of making a “legitimate” smut movie that they forgot to make it smutty.  Even the light bondage and S & M scenes fall flat.  The sequences of fair maidens being ravished get repetitive too.  I guess if you’ve seen one deflowering you’ve seen them all. 

There is at least one line of dialogue that had me cracking up though.  It’s spoken by the title character when he realizes someone other than himself has taken a slave girl’s virginity and he asks her, “How long have you been joined to the uncircumcised pig?”

KNOCK AT THE CABIN (2023) ***

I make no secret about my disdain for M. Night Shyamalan’s movies.  I’ve never liked one of his films.  Usually, when the premise is good, the ending is either predictable (The Sixth Sense) or just flat-out sucks (Signs).  The ones I’ve come closest to enjoying are the ones that are consistently goofy throughout (like The Happening and Old).  Then, there’s the ones that are terrible all the way through (like Unbreakable and The Village).   Well, I guess the law of averages dictates I’d be bound to like a M. Night joint at some juncture. 

Dave Bautista approaches a little girl (Nikki Amuka-Bird) playing in the woods and begins acting super creepy.  She runs and tells her two dads (Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge) who lock the cabin door.  Soon, Dave’s “friends” show up to the cabin stating they have important “work” to do.  They eventually break in, tie the family up, and tell them they have to make a sacrifice in order to save the world. 

Knock at the Cabin starts off like a siege movie with the dads doing everything they can to stop the intruders, which isn’t much since the cabin isn’t exactly Fort Knox.  I don’t want to spoil the best parts, which tend to be a tad philosophical, but the central crux of the story is quite compelling.  Most of Shyamalan’s work has a great beginning and a crummy ending or vice versa.  I guess the surprising thing here (there isn’t really a “Shyamalan Twist” in this one) is that the film is at its best when it’s just a bunch of people sitting around and talking. 

M. Night gets a lot of mileage out of Dave Bautista.  He plays a gentle giant that sometimes borders on Lenny from Of Mice and Men, but there’s always a possibility he could snap at any point.  Groff and Aldridge are quite good too, as is Amuka-Bird (although she isn’t given much to do besides cower in fear for the last two acts). 

So, chalk this one up as the first M. Night movie I enjoyed.  Maybe he’s got another winner up his sleeve.  Despite his track record with me, he still displays enough potential in his films that keep me (sometimes foolishly) coming back for more.  I guess whenever M. Night knocks, I’ll still answer. 

ALL WOMEN ARE BAD (1969) * ½

A door-to-door salesman comes home early one day to find his wife in bed with another man.  Devastated, he runs off to New York City where he rents a seedy apartment and starts peeping on women.  Wherever he goes, he sees his wife’s face in the women he ogles, which slowly sinks him into madness.  

Directed by Larry (Beware the Black Widow) Crane, All Women are Bad is only an hour long, but it suffers from way too much padding.  If Crane cut out the scenes of our hero getting lost in the woods, taking slow moving ferry boat rides, and wandering around Chinatown, the film would’ve been a helluva lot shorter.  The unnecessary recap of events at the very end further helps to pad things out to an interminable length. 

Maybe my issues with the film could’ve been overlooked had the softcore sex scenes been decent.  However, Crane gives them a listless quality that is decidedly unsexy.  Sometimes, Crane begins a scene with promise (like the stuff with the fortune teller or the weird undertaker), but the follow-through is weak or ends abruptly.  Even the lesbian bondage scenes squander much of their potential.  Crane also delivers one of the most cut-rate “trip” scenes in screen history.  (It’s nothing more than a woman posing in front of a slideshow projector.)  The unending stream of useless narration grates on the nerves too. 

There’s an occasional bright spot to be found amid the malarkey.  We get an odd scene where our main character peeps on two guys getting it on.  I guess if the title of the film is All Women are Bad then that means these men are good?  Either way, this bit is certainly progressive for the times.  The most memorable moment though comes when our hapless hero looks down and imagines he has his wife’s breasts!  Also, I can’t completely hate any movie whose title inspired a Cramps song, but that morsel of goodwill only goes but so far.  For the most part, All Women are Bad just ain’t very good. 

That’s future Deep Throat director Gerard Damiano as the talent agent (he was responsible for the “special effects” too). 

BAD, BAD GANG! (1971) **

Two couples named Adam and Eve and Jane and Abel head to the “Garden of Eden” campsite for a vacation.  While Adam and Abel are busy fishing and playing cards, Eve and Jane sneak off to the camper to bone.  Eve and Jane then go down to the lake for some sunbathing where they are kidnapped and raped by some bikers.  As Adam and Abel stand by powerless to do anything, the jealous biker mamas decide to rape them too. 

Not to be confused with The Hard Riders, another biker skin flick starring Rene Bond, Bad, Bad Gang! was directed by Jon Donne AKA: Donn Greer.  His handling of the porn scenes leave something to be desired as they are indifferently filmed for the most part.  Although the grungy feel is perfect for a biker-themed roughie, most of the hardcore scenes are a bust.  The lesbian scene in the camper between the two leading ladies is decent, however. 

I had a little trouble trying to figure out the whole religious angle.  Okay, our main characters are called “Adam” and Eve”, and the campsite is called the “Garden of Eden”, right?  So, if that’s the case, then who are the bikers supposed to represent?  The snake?  Or are they meant to be the apple?  If so, having Eve being taken against her will goes against the whole idea of Original Sin.  (If that’s indeed what’s intended.).  A Christian scholar I am not, but sheesh.  Maybe I should just repeat to myself “It’s just a crummy fuck flick from the ‘70s and I should really just relax”. 

The use of an instrumental of “Amazing Grace” in some scenes is pretty hilarious too.  Donne might’ve thought added to the religious symbolism, but it just seems goofy more than anything.   Still, fans of Bond (I’m including myself here) will probably check it out just to see her in action. 

Greer later made the incredible WTF classic, The Rare Blue Apes of Cannibal Island. 

STARLET! (1969) **

Starlet! was written by legendary exploitation producer David F. (A Smell of Honey, a Swallow of Brine) Friedman.  The film sometimes feels like an attempt by Friedman to break out of the nudie business and make a “real” movie.  He used the old Hollywood axiom of “write what you know” and wrote a story about making low-budget skin flicks.  The results are quite uneven. 

Carol (Dee Lockwood) is an aspiring actress working in softcore nudies who hides her profession from her roommates.  Linda (Chris Mathis) is uptight, and Allison (Shari Mann) will practically jump anything that moves.  Linda’s director boyfriend Forrest (Victor Brandt) is appalled when she is raped at a Hollywood party by a producer but is powerless to do anything for fear of losing his big break.  Meanwhile, Allison strikes up a romance with aging starlet Maxine (Kathi Cole) while Carol begins sleeping her way to starring in a sleazy producer’s big budget epic. 

Some of this plays like a half-assed version of Valley of the Dolls, but it’s all pretty cheap.  The scenes set inside Friedman’s own studio feel like a cost-cutting measure more than anything.  Even though Starlet! is more serious than most of his efforts, there’s still people with names like “Phil Latio” running around, which seemingly runs against the grain of his dramatic intentions. 

I admire the fact that the opening scene shows the skin flick world in an unflattering light, or at the very least, depicts it in a realistic manner.  The director constantly yells at the actress while she’s just going through the motions with her co-star in bed.  Had the screenplay concentrated more on this sort of behind-the-scenes minutia than the standard cliched dramatic tropes, it might’ve worked. 

While there’s enough T & A here to pass it off as a skin flick, Friedman’s strive for legitimacy takes some of the fun out of the proceedings.  It’s also severely lacking the charm of his more disreputable efforts.  Still, there are some memorable moments (like the Pilgrim-themed bondage movie) and a few legitimately funny lines.  (“Be obscene and not heard!”)  It also benefits from the presence of Stuart (Faster, Pussycat!  Kill!  Kill!) Lancaster as a sleazy producer.  Oh, and Friedman even shows up playing himself!  

Ultimately, the film suffers from a needlessly bloated running time.  It probably also has too many unnecessary supporting characters.  Because of its ambling nature, Starlet! never quite reaches the top. 

AKA:  Hollywood Sex Slaves. 

AMITYVILLE BACKROOMS (2024) **

Hey guys, have you heard about this Backrooms movie everyone is talking about?  Well, it was all sold out at the theater, so I watched this one on Tubi instead.  I admit I’m not all that familiar with the whole “Backrooms” concept.  The only Backrooms I’ve ever been to were located behind the beaded curtain in the back of the video store.  But I digress. 

Anyway, an unscrupulous realtor strongarms his client into buying the old Amityville house.  After he closes the deal, the realtor finds himself trapped inside the house with no way to escape.  Later, his boss arrives at the house to check on him and gets lost inside too. 

I guess the whole Backrooms deal involves someone being trapped inside an endless loop of liminal spaces.  I suppose the mundane look and long static shots are part of what goes into making a Backrooms thing work.  However, there were times I thought my Tubi had frozen up on me because the takes were held so long. 

I can’t say the Backrooms concept works for me as a whole, but I can see how it could appeal to some people.  I can certainly understand why the idea of combining a Backrooms video with an Amityville movie would appeal to indie filmmakers with limited means.  It shows you can take a simple premise and make a watchable movie with a minimum number of locations, a small cast (there are no women to be found in this one) and mere pocket change at their disposal.  That said, this never really approaches becoming a “good” movie.  The acting is bad and the ending is awful.  Still, it’s all downright Shakespearean compared to some of the other low-budget Amityville flicks that are out there.  You also have to deal with a lot of cheap-looking news reports that help to pad out the running time.  (These kinds of scenarios are almost a given in fake Amityville rip-offs nowadays.)

The burly realtor gets the best line of the movie when he says, “Amityville sucks!”