STUCK! (2009) * ½

Daisy (Starina Johnson) comes home to find her ailing mother attempting suicide.  She tries to stop her, with tragic consequences.  A neighbor witnesses their altercation and thinks Daisy was trying to kill her mother.  She calls the cops, and Daisy is tried and sentenced for murder.  Once in the big house, she tries to adjust to her new life.  Eventually, she forms a family unit with her fellow inmates as they stand united against the lecherous guard (Stacy Cunningham) who sets out to make her life a living hell. 

On the surface, Stuck! looks like a throwback to the women in prison films of the ‘50s.  It boasts a cool supporting cast that features Karen Black, Mink Stole, and The Go-Go’s Jane Wiedlin.  All of them are pretty much wasted in one way or another, however. Wiedlin in particular is given absolutely nothing to do as she plays the childlike “Princess” whose only dialogue is repeating the last few words her girlfriend says.  Black’s character is kinda superfluous too.  It seems like the part might’ve been a lot smaller, but once they realized they had a name star in the role, they decided they needed to give her something to do. 

Despite appearances, Stuck! Is low on exploitation elements, which is disappointing.  It might’ve been a fun send-up of WIP movies, but other than one gratuitous disrobing scene, the nudity is pitifully low.  We do get a shower, gangbang, and mutual masturbation scene, although all of them occur fully clothed and/or happen offscreen.

The drama is really amateurish too.  With its minimalistic sets, it often feels more like a filmed Off-Broadway play than an honest to goodness genre flick.  Even the black and white photography is kind of crummy.  (It looks like it was filmed in color and then changed in post-production.)  I mean it just sort of fails on every level. 

Even when the movie starts to show promise, it almost immediately drops the ball.  There’s an interesting plot wrinkle about halfway through when Daisy survives her first execution and seemingly takes on a new identity.  This threatens to put a little spark into the proceedings, but it’s pretty much forgotten as soon as it’s introduced.  In short, Stuck! deserves a stiff sentence. 

DRAGON AGAINST VAMPIRE (1985) * ½

Three bumbling, dog-eating graverobbers accidentally awaken a vampire who kills the fat guy and the annoying dude.  That leaves the least irritating guy in the bunch to find a Kung Fu master in an underground cave.  He begs the master to train him, and he eventually agrees to teach him the art of Kung Fu sorcery necessary to defeat the bloodsucker in the final showdown. 

Dragon Against Vampire is one of those Joseph Lai and Godfrey Ho joints.  Usually, Ho likes to cut and paste two movies together and call it a new feature.  This just feels like it was just cut.  Very little of it makes sense and the plot jumps around an awful lot.  Even though it feels like whole chunks are missing from this thing, it still feels maddeningly long.  It may only clock in at 77 minutes, but you’ll swear it’s the same length as the director’s cut of Titanic. 

The erratic editing really does it in.  Whole sections are nothing more than dream-within-a-dream sequences that are more confusing than anything.  The horror elements are really loose too as you have to wait a long time before anything remotely horrific happens.  When the horror stuff finally does kick into gear, it’s crammed together in a perplexing fashion.  This movie also features a record number of jump scare scenes where a villain hiding just offscreen clamps their hands on someone’s shoulder, and boy, it sure gets annoying fast. 

Speaking of annoying, the comic relief shit will get on your nerves almost immediately.  I guess that was to be expected in a movie like this, but even the Kung Fu elements are sloppy and rushed.  The big training montage is abrupt and the climactic duel between good and evil is completely unsatisfying.  I mean for a movie called Dragon Against Vampire, they sure do wait long enough to show the titular confrontation.

It may sound like I’m doing nothing but ragging on Dragon Against Vampire, but it does have one interesting aspect, and that is the vampire is clearly modeled on the western interpretation of the creature.  Usually in these things, the vampire hops around in accordance with traditional Chinese folklore.  Having a vampire that is more Christopher Lee than Bruce Lee is enough to make it at the very least memorable.  That doesn’t make it good though.

PLAN 9 (2016) **

They always say you should only remake bad movies.  While Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space has been clichély called “The Worst Movie of All Time”, I think time has proven otherwise.  Unlike many similar B pictures of the era, it is full of personal, odd touches that only an auteur like Wood could’ve added.  Strip all that away and what you’d be left with is a serviceable flick, but one without the longevity and following that cult classic has. 

Which brings us to this remake.  I think the best thing I can say about it is that it works up to a point, which in itself is a surprising feat.  Once it goes beyond that point, it becomes more than a little frustrating. 

It starts with a fun conceit, which I will not spoil.  From there, it doesn’t necessarily remake the original, but instead asks the question, “What would happen if an alien invasion via the resurrection of the dead happened today?  What would that look like?”  I have to say it’s an interesting enough of an idea to at least make you curious and somewhat hopeful. 

The problem isn’t so much the idea, but the execution.  After the promising set-up, the film splits its focus on two sets of survivors.  One group is comprised of locals who hole up in a liquor store.  The others are a bunch of cops and scientists in a lab.  Often times it feels like we’re watching two totally different movies.  The humorous scenes set inside the store scenes feel like a real-world scenario.  Unfortunately, that means it’s just like every other low budget zombie movie you’ve seen in the past fifteen years.  It’s not bad, however.  It’s certainly a lot better than the lab scenes, which feel like they’re trying to be bad on purpose, complete with comic relief cops and fast-talking scientists spouting improbable nonstop gobbledygook. 

Some of the casting is inspired.  Horror host Mister Lobo has fun in the Criswell role and I Spit on Your Grave’s Camille Keaton plays the Vampira character.  The rest of the cast is pretty bland, although I will say Brian (Sleepwalkers) Krause does his best to preserve his dignity while essaying the Gregory Walcott role.  The original film’s Conrad Brooks also has a small part, but he really isn’t given a whole lot to do. 

Not content to just have fun with Plan 9 (I liked the nods to the original that occur early on), there are also tips of the hat to other cult classics such as Troll 2 (the town is called “Nilbog”), The Monster Squad, and Return of the Living Dead.  There are even a handful of genuine laughs too.  Once it switches gears and becomes a “real” zombie movie, the fun pretty much dries up.  The gratuitous nudity helps a bit too, but honestly, there was no reason this needed to be 103 minutes.  (The ending sucks.)  However, as far as remakes to beloved cult classics go, you can definitely do a lot worse. 

AMERICAN GUINEA PIG: SACRIFICE (2017) ****

I’m a fan of the original Guinea Pig series from Japan.  I thought the American spin-off, American Guinea Pig:   Bouquet of Guts and Gore was pretty good, mostly because it got Deadbeat at Dawn’s Jim Van Bebber in front of the camera again.  This one is even better.  By a lot.  In fact, I’d go so far as to call it an undisputed modern classic.  

Gorehounds, if you wanna see some sick shit, here you go. 

Daniel (Roberto Scorza) goes into the bathroom and mutilates himself.  The more he slices and dices, the more glimpses of the beautiful goddess Ishtar (Flora Giannattasio) he gets to see.  Uh… that’s about it as far as the plot goes. 

If you are turned off by self-mutilation, steer clear.  This is basically an hour’s worth of sick, nasty autoerotic pain self-infliction.  For those looking for disgusting thrills, this one is hard to beat. 

In one scene, the dude slices his hand open and proceeds to eat it.  And I don’t mean “eat it”.  I mean “eat it”.  That’s right, folks.  We’re talking cut-alingus here.

That’s just foreplay though.  Next up, he carves a butthole in the center of his forehead and jams a screwdriver in there.  Then… well… let’s just say this is the first movie I’ve seen where a guy gets to third base with his own forehead.  Or should we say he gave himself head?  Either way, he enjoys it so much that after he’s done, he’s gotta have a smoke. 

Then things get REALLY gross. 

In fact, I won’t discuss it any further.  If your stomach is already turning just hearing about some of this stuff this guy does to himself, you definitely won’t want to watch it.  Just heed this warning:  American Guinea Pig:  Sacrifice is not for all tastes.  This was made for strong stomachs only.

However, if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool gorehound who’s thought they’d seen it all… trust me, you haven’t.

AKA:  American Guinea Pig 3.

DRAGON LIVES (1976) ** ½

Bruce Lee is born on a rainy night.  As a kid, he gets in trouble for fighting and is publicly spanked by his teacher.  Angry, he throws a flying kick at the camera and the opening credits begin.

The credits sequence, it must be said, is a thing of beauty.  It’s nothing more than a collection of scenes of Bruce Li as Bruce Lee doing Kung Fu while a disco song (“He’s a Dragon, He’s a Hero”) about Bruce Lee plays.  In my humble opinion, more movies should start this way.   

Anyway, Bruce (Bruce) goes to America to find work in the movies.  Almost immediately, he is disgusted by the stereotyped roles that producers want him to play and he walks off the set.  Frustrated by the lack of roles in Hollywood, Bruce returns to Hong Kong to make movies and becomes an overnight sensation.  He then begins a rivalry with an American boxing champion while continuing to push himself (too far) to be the best. 

Not to be confused with The Dragon Lives Again (which for me, is the high-water mark of Bruceploitation genre), Dragon Lives isn’t as wild and crazy as some Bruceploitation movies, which is simultaneously refreshing and disappointing.  I will give it credit for going a bit deeper than most Bruceploitation flicks.  It may be factually inaccurate a lot of the time, but at least it addresses the issue of racism that Bruce fought so hard against.  While it comes up a little short in the weirdness department, you have to respect the artistic license it takes to have Bruce sport a mustache mid-movie (even while recreating some of his most iconic moments) with no explanation given whatsoever.  The disco song is pretty catchy too, which is good because they play it a lot.

Dragon Lives is similar in many respects to Dragon:  The Bruce Lee Story as there are scenes with Bruce, his wife Linda, and their son Brandon.  Although the weird stuff is kept to a minimum, you can appreciate the scenes where he spurns his family to achieve physical perfection by locking himself in his green-tinted home gym (it looks more like a dungeon) where he practices against a machine that’s just arms that come out of holes in the wall.  It also earns points for addressing his relationship with Betty Ting Pei.  The ending is good for a laugh when Bruce and Betty bang while a coffee pot symbolically fills up in the foreground.  Then after he does the deed, Bruce gets up, there’s an earthquake (or something), and he dies.  What?

That might be enough weirdness for a regular movie.  For a Bruceploitation flick, it’s somewhat lacking.  Still, I unabashedly love the genre, so I more or less got what I was hoping for. 

AKA:  King of Kung Fu.  AKA:  He’s a Legend, He’s a Hero.

SCARY STORIES (2019) **

Like many, I grew up reading Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books.  I was already a young horror fan and a big reader when I discovered the books, but I credit the series for helping cement my love for both reading and horror.  Schwartz and his books were a big inspiration to people my age, so this should’ve been a can’t-miss combination of informative documentary and childhood nostalgia.  Too bad its focus is so scattershot that it fails on both counts. 

Early in the film, we learn Schwartz died thirty years ago, and that illustrator Stephen Gammell only ever gave one interview.  So, up front we know that whatever insight into the creation of the books we get is going to be very slim.  Schwartz’s son, Peter is interviewed, but he didn’t have the best relationship with his dad, so he winds up not being much help either. 

Coming to the realization you can’t get blood from a stone; the filmmakers should’ve turned this into a short subject and moved on.  Instead, they keep going.  They then turn their focus on the books being banned, which isn’t the worst angle to work with.  Even then, the info on that is somewhat limited, so they start focusing on how the books inspired another generation of artists to paint, sculpt, and photograph their interpretations of the books’ illustrations. 

I did like the little animations that were inspired by the illustrations that are used occasionally as segue ways or recreations.  However, there are not enough of them to make up for the dull talking head interviews.  Heck, info on the books is so skimpy that we wind up learning just as much about the creation of Goosebumps from interviewee R.L. Stein as we do the Scary Stories series! 

The ending is weak too.  The face-to-face sit down between Schwartz’s son and the woman who tried to ban the books decades ago is awkwardly staged, uncomfortably forced, and rings hollow and false.  Most of the Scary Stories had some kind of twist ending.  I guess the twist to this ending is that it’s completely unsatisfying.

Do yourself a favor and skip this lifeless documentary and stick with the books (or even the 2019 movie) instead. 

GIRL FROM TOBACCO ROW (1966) * ½

After thoroughly enjoying Ron Ormond’s White Lightnin’ Road, I figured I’d give another one of his Hicksploitation flicks a chance.  I was excited to see Girl from Tobacco Row because it features much of the same cast as White Lightnin’ Road.  Some actors even play characters that have the same name (or close to it), although they don’t seem to be playing the same exact character.  Whereas that minor classic was heavily padded with genuinely exciting stock car racing scenes, all this one has to offer is some boring gospel tunes, slow country numbers, and lethargic fiddling to tie the thin narrative together.

Snake (Earl “Snake” Richards) escapes from a chain gang and goes on the lam.  Tim (Tim Ormond, Ron’s son) is a young boy who urges his preacher papa (former cowboy star and father of John, Tex Ritter) to take Snake in.  After some churching up, Snake starts taking a shine to the preacher man’s daughter (Rachel Romen).  Little does the family know, Snake is only sniffing around to get a suitcase full of loot that one of his late compatriots hid on the premises.  After being privy to a loving home for the first time in probably forever, the question soon arises, will Snake take the money and run, or will he try to make a fresh start with his new makeshift family unit?

Girl from Tobacco Row has some of the same kind of overcooked southern melodrama White Lightnin’ Road had, but the difference is that this one is deadly dull.  Although the opening escape sequence isn’t too bad, things quickly bog down once the preacher character is introduced.  His endless sermonizing ensures the movie will stop on a dime every time he opens his pie hole.  Without a strong hook (like the stock car racing angle), it all just sort of dies on the vine. 

The performances also lack the spark of White Lightnin’ Road.  Snake (who also performs a rather tepid number) isn’t too bad in this, but he did a much better job when cast as the antagonist.  Only young Tim Ormond seems to retain his enthusiasm from film to film.  Fans of the old Nashville Network will get a kick out of seeing Ralph Emery as a hitman, although that’s hardly a ringing endorsement.    

Ormond made this the year before White Lightnin’ Road and the difference is night and day.  (It almost feels like a dry run for that movie.)  Instead of the plot threads coming to a head at the big stock car race, it climaxes at the annual “Tobacco Festival” where a bunch of shitty country and western acts play.  While there are some thematically similar sequences (like Snake getting caught making time with a hot to trot southern belle), everything Ormond tried to do here is pretty much a bust, especially compared to White Lightnin’ Road. 

Things improve somewhat when the flick starts heading into the homestretch.  The performance by a couple who do not one, not two, but THREE harmonica solos are an unintentional laugh riot.  They’re easily the best part of the movie, but for all the wrong reasons.  I mean get a load of the guy playing the oversized harmonica.  He looks positively batty, and the faces he makes while watching Snake’s big fistfight while not missing a beat on his harmonica provides the second biggest laugh in the film. 

The biggest laugh, it should be said, comes when the preacher’s horny daughter lusts after an older man and says, “When you see snow on the mountaintop, there’s always fire in the furnace!”