DARK RIDER (1991) **

A small desert town is on the verge of becoming “the next Las Vegas”.  A shady businessman named Sandini (Joe Estevez) comes into town and offers to buy up several local businesses.  When the store owners refuse, they are murdered by Sandini’s thugs.  The sheriff (Doug Shanklin) does what he can, but without proof, he is unable to touch Sandini.  But as a black-clad motorcycle-riding vigilante, he can do plenty to thwart his schemes.  

Dark Rider is one of those movies that is just too low budget to adequately pull off what it’s trying to do.  I admire some of the quirky touches and more outlandish moments, but it almost always comes up short from really delivering, due to the meager finances behind it.  I mean you know you’re in trouble when the sheriff character just has a little tin star pinned to his shirt the whole time and always wears K-Mart brand clothes instead of a policeman’s uniform. 

One of the things I liked about it was that it was a shamelessly modernized western.  Instead of the railroad coming through town, it was the prospect of gambling that caused the money-grubbing villains to stick it to the townsfolk.  Instead of wearing a Lone Ranger mask and riding a white horse, our hero wore a helmet and rode a motorcycle.

There’s an occasionally clever bit here and there, but for the most part, Dark Rider is slow moving.  The action gets repetitive in a hurry and the plot chases its tail for most of the running time.  Because of that, it feels more like a TV pilot than an action movie.  (The toxic waste subplot that crops up late in the game feels like the second “episode”.)

Estevez equips himself as well as can be expected in the villain role.  He’s not exactly menacing or anything, but he certainly tries.  The big problem is that Shanklin makes for a dull hero.  He kind of looks and acts like a less charismatic version of Swayze… Don Swayze.  Probably the best performance comes from Pulp Fiction’s Duane Whitaker who briefly shows up as a crazed motorist who has a run-in with the sheriff in the opening scene.  This sequence has some spark to it, and the rest of the film struggles to recapture that sense of fun.  When it relies heavily on the cat-and-mouse between Shanklin and Estevez, Dark Rider runs out of gas. 

CALIGULA REINCARNATED AS HITLER! (1977) ***

This has always been one of my favorite Naziploitation flicks, mostly because of the title.  It was originally called The Gestapo’s Last Orgy, but it was retitled to cash-in on Tinto Brass’ head-spinning hedonistic hardcore epic Caligula.  No, Caligula doesn’t appear.  Nor does he become reincarnated as Hitler.  However, it’s sort of accurate if you imagine that the same zany spirit the classic Caligula had has been transferred over to your typical Nazi flick.  In fact, I think it’s an overall “better” film than Caligula and certainly one of the most lurid exploitation movies of its day. 

After WWII, Commandant von Starker (Marc Loud) is exonerated for his war crimes and allowed to go free.  His lover, Lise (Daniela Poggi) wants to go on a romantic walk to the place they first met… a concentration camp!  As they walk through the ruins, they reminisce of their first meeting and all the atrocities that occurred there.

Such atrocities include:  Gynecological examinations, orgies, incinerations, menstruating women being fed to dogs, cannibalism, human lampshades, pegging, BDSM, women hung over a pit of hungry rats, a quicklime Slip n’ Slide, and forced felatio on a gun.

The love story angle at the heart of the film is what makes it interesting and memorable (and disgusting).  For me, it works much better than say, The Night Porter.  It certainly helps to grab your attention and announce that this won’t be your average Naziploitation potboiler.  That said, there is plenty of disgusting, depraved lunacy here, so fans of the genre won’t be disappointed.  The framing device works pretty well too, especially once the purpose of their little visit is revealed.  The performances by Loud and Poggi are quite good, but it’s Maristella Greco who steals the movie as Alma, von Starker’s perpetually horny second in command.

If there is a flaw, it’s that the ending is way too rushed.  There’s about twenty minutes of plot crammed into the last two minutes.  The movie is already pretty strong as it is, but I can’t help but imagine how much more powerful it would’ve been if the director Cesare (A Man for Emmanuelle) Canevari hadn’t allowed the final scenes to play out at such a breathless pace.  Still, the final moments are quite shocking and help make Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler! a classic of the genre (even if neither Caligula nor Hitler show up).

AKA:  The Gestapo’s Last Orgy.  AKA:  Last Orgy of the Third Reich. 

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (2020) * ½

Sonic the Hedgehog is exactly the kind of movie you think it’s going to be.  It’s innocuous and harmless to the point that it’s almost insulting.  It’s as if the barest minimum effort was put into every creative decision, which is funny because the filmmakers had to change their release date to fix the special effects once fans derided Sonic’s appearance in the previews.  They should have demanded the screenplay be overhauled too. 

This is one of those movies that milk an IP where you have to wonder if the creative forces behind it ever played a single Sonic game.  Like Masters of the Universe and Howard the Duck, it starts off on the main character’s home planet before finding some bullshit excuse to send them to Earth on an adventure.  You know, because it’s a lot cheaper to film on Earth than another planet. 

Sonic is a speedy alien hedgehog who is trying to find his rings so he can move on to another world.  He enlists the help of a small-town cop (James Marsden, who deserves better) who eventually agrees.  Meanwhile, an evil scientist (Jim Carrey) is hot on their trail as he wants to dissect Sonic and uncover the secret of his power. 

Would it surprise you if I told you this is a road movie?  Or that our heroes get into a bar fight with some bikers?  Or that Marsden has to choose between life in the big city and his small hometown?  If you thought Sonic was fast, you should see how quickly all the cliches pile up.  Even the scenes of Sonic’s fast-motion shenanigans have a feeling of déjà vu about them as they are basically a mash-up of the bullet time sequences of The Matrix and Quicksilver’s antics in the X-Men movies.

This was something of an attempted comedic comeback for Carrey.  I think if this was made in ’94 when he was at his zenith, he could’ve made it work.  As it is, his whole performance sees a bit tired (at least for him) and uninspired.  It doesn’t help that he has virtually no zingers to work with.  In fact, Sonic’s jokes are weak too.  They feel more like filler lines that were put there temporarily until the writers could find something better to write in later… but they never thought of anything.  The guy they got to voice Sonic is pretty terrible too.  He gives Sonic zero personality and strangely, he winds up being the most forgettable thing about his own movie. 

I guess it would help if I actually had any nostalgia for Sonic the Hedgehog.  I’m not saying Sonic was after my time, but he came along just as my time was coming to a close.  Heck, I was always a Nintendo guy anyway.  (In fact, I think this is even worse than the Super Mario Brothers movie.)

THE AGFA HORROR TRAILER SHOW: VIDEORAGE (2021) *** ½

This was a bonus feature on the Blu-Ray for The AGFA Horror Trailer Show.  Like the bonuses found on the Drive-In Delirium trailer compilation series, it is a collection of trailers cobbled together from home video previews.  Many of them are for shot-on-video crap or low budget regional films I have never heard of.  I know when I review these trailer compilations, I usually complain that I’ve seen a lot of the trailers on other collections.  I can’t say that this time around.

That’s not to say they are all obscure.  You’ll also find some of the classics of the SOV horror genre.  Or at the very least, the most well-known.  (The Abomination, The Ripper, and The Dead Next Door among them.)

Things start with a cool bumper for a fake TV station before the transmission is taken over by the “Demon of AGFA”, a hooded horror host, who introduces a deluge of SOV horror trailers.  The full collection includes:  Spiritual Challenge, Horrorscope, Blood Cult, Catacombs, A Night to Dismember, The Burning Moon, Forever Evil, Death Nurse, Enjoyment in Hell (“Go Get UR Copy!”), Mr. Ice Cream Man (which hilariously uses James Horner’s score from Aliens), Jeffrey Dahmer:  The Secret Life (which actually looks disturbing), Evil Island, The Demons in My Head, Evil Night, Blood Massacer (sic), The Long Island Cannibal Massacre, Terror at Tenkiller, and Cannibal Campout.  Then, there is a brief intermission containing some cool horror-themed regional commercials.  (My favorite was a very well-done Night of the Living Dead-inspired commercial for a pizza place.)  The second half then kicks off with The Abomination before being followed by The Battle of the Gods, Woodchipper Massacre, Death Metal Zombies, The Ripper, Hauntedween, Science Crazed, Demons in the Land, Bloody Anniversary, Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell (a Japanese remake of The Evil Dead), The Last Slumber Party, The Dead Next Door, Revenge, Things, Fungicide, Haunted (starring Press Your Luck’s Peter Tomarken!), The Night Marchers, Disembodied, Violent Shit, Zombie 90:  Extreme Pestilence, Things 2, Holla If I Killed You, and Holy Moly.

A common theme is that many of the trailers feature narrators who hilariously over-explain every little blessed plot detail (like A Night to Dismember).  I’m sure if you’ve seen some of these trailers, there’s no point of sitting down and watching the actual movie (although you can say the same thing for a lot of trailers, really).  The most entertaining trailers are the ones for the Nigerian horror movies.  I don’t know where AGFA found them, but they are some absolute gems.

Hopefully, this will be the start of a new tradition for the folks at AGFA.  I’d really love it if they came out with new trailer collections on a yearly basis.  I’d definitely pick up the next compilation if and when they release it. 

THE AGFA HORROR TRAILER SHOW (2021) *** ½

Few outfits have done more for the preservation, restoration, and celebration of exploitation than the American Genre Film Archive.  So, when they release a trailer compilation, you know you’re in for a treat.  The fun begins with a series of great vintage drive-in ads, including commercials for light-up footballs and flea markets.  There’s even the famous short subject, Bambi Meets Godzilla to cap off the pre-show festivities. 

Then, the trailers take center stage.  There are ads for Nightmare Weekend (“You’re about to enter the 21^st century… of TERROR!”), Witchcraft ’70, The Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary (much better known as The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies), Fear No Evil, a triple bill of The Corpse Grinders, The Undertaker and His Pals, and The Embalmer (which makes viewers sign a “Certificate of Assurance” to enter the theater), Scalps, a double feature of Carnival of Blood and Curse of the Headless Horseman, Massage Parlor Murders, Hobgoblins, an awesome double bill of The Vampire’s Coffin and Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy, Splatter University (“Prepare to be pulverized, traumatized, and hospitalized!”), The Velvet Vampire, Magdalena-Possessed by the Devil, Meat Cleaver Massacre (introduced by Christopher Lee!), and an amazing Spanish language trailer for an insane looking movie called Terror Sexo y Brujeria.  Then, we get a short break full of old drive-in intermission ads.  The second half of the show includes the tried and true trailer for the double feature of Blood Spattered Bride and I Dismember Mama, The Slayer, The Brainiac, Drive-In Massacre, Future-Kill, Lurkers, a double feature of I Drink Your Blood and I Eat Your Skin, The Manson Massacre, Three on a Meat Hook, Final Exam, Body Melt, Lucifer’s Women, Demonoid:  Messenger of Death, Demon Wind, Blood Hook, The Man with 2 Heads, Prey, Evil Laugh, Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman, Psychos in Love, The Worm Eaters, and Old Dracula.  (“If you loved Young Frankenstein, you’ll adore Old Dracula!”)

If you’re a fan of Vinegar Syndrome and/or Something Weird, many of these trailers will be familiar to you as both companies have released a lot of the movies featured here.  The best ones are for the double and triple features.  I also really enjoyed the trailers for black and white movies that have been tinted green or purple to give the illusion they are actually in color. 

If you’ve watched as many trailer compilations as I have, you’ve seen more than a few of these trailers before.  That kind of goes with the territory.  What really counts is the number of oddball, obscure, and just plain weird trailers they have dug up.  Also, it clocks in at under eighty minutes, so it moves at a steady clip.  In short, any trailer compilation fanatic will want to add this one to their collection. 

MAYHEM (2017) ** ½

Mayhem covers a lot of the same ground that The Belko Experiment (which came out right before) did.  Both films take place inside an office building on lockdown and feature employees that begin offing their co-workers.  The difference this time is that it is a virus that causes everyone to turn on the guy in the next cubicle and not an overly aggressive psychological experiment.  Another difference is that the office building in Mayhem is a law firm, so there’s a bit of the old anti-lawyer sentiment in there as well. 

Both films are a commentary on the “Dog Eat Dog” mentality of corporate America.  You know, except that the backstabbing co-workers will really stab you in the back.  Neither one of them truly milk their premises for all they are worth, but they at the very least remain diverting entertainment. 

While The Belko Experiment hued closer to Saw, this is more like 28 Days Later.  The infected office workers get a “Red Eye” virus that causes one eyeball to turn red.  It also causes their id to go out of control, which leads to the victim either going kill-crazy or becoming a sex maniac.  Unfortunately for us, 98% of them are of the kill-crazy variety.  I guess if director Joe Lynch went all-in on the sex crazed angle, we might’ve had a movie that was like They Came from Within Meets Disclosure.  As much as I’d like to have seen THAT version, I have to review what we ultimately wound up with… but oh boy, what could’ve been!

Anyway, a lowly employee (The Walking Dead star Steve Yeun) is fired via some cut-throat office tactics.  As he is about to be escorted out by security, there is a viral outbreak of Red Eye, and the government quarantines the building.  He then flies into a killer rage and teams up with a client (Samara Weaving) who also seeks revenge on the suits in the boardroom, and together they make a truce to take down the bigwigs who made their lives miserable.

There is an interesting ticking clock scenario at play as the virus’ effects only lasts eight hours (appropriately enough, the same length of a work day).  Not only that, but Yeun’s character was instrumental in finding a loophole to get a Red-Eye-infected client off who was accused of murder (because it was the virus’ fault, not his).  Since there is a legal precedent set, that means any infected person can’t be held accountable for their actions.  It’s a clever way to get around having the audience root for its main character to become a workplace mass murderer.

While the film works for the first half or so, it quickly becomes repetitive once it starts down the homestretch.  The scenes in which Yeun needs to acquire a series of key cards to gain access to the top floor feel like quests from a video game, and the superiors he has to outwit feel like end level bosses.  Another problem is that even when he’s infected with id-destroying rage viruses, Yeun just seems too nice of a guy to believe as a cold-blooded killer.  I know the point is that he’s the little guy who’s been pushed too far, but even after he’s been pushed, he doesn’t quite pull off the transformation. 

Luckily, Weaving is a lot of fun to watch as his partner in crime.  In fact, you’ll probably wish she was the sole heroine and not just the tagalong female lead/random romantic interest.  She perks up the movie, even when it’s spinning the wheels and once again shows she is one of the most engaging actresses of our day.  She definitely deserved a promotion if you ask me.

NECROPOLIS: LEGION (2019) ***

Necropolis:  Legion is a sequel to 1986’s punk rock witch movie, Necropolis.  It was part of Charles Band’s “Deadly Ten”, a series of films (many of them sequels) crowdfunded by fans and produced by his Full Moon company.  As far as low budget thirty-three-years later witch sequels go, it’s not bad at all. 

An old farmer (Joseph Lopez) finds out his sexy wife Eva (Ali Chappell) is really a witch who likes holding human sacrifices at the local church.  He disrupts her witchcraft ceremony and vanquishes her, but the town continues to feel her evil presence for centuries.  Flash-forward to the present day when an author named Lisa (Augie Duke) comes to the down to write a book on the town.  She goes to stay on the farm where Eva once lived and winds up reawakening her (in a manner cribbed from Hellraiser). 

In the first movie, the witch had six boobs and let zombies suckle curdled milk from them.  In this one, the witch has mouths for nipples, which she uses to munch on sexy sacrificial babes.  There’s one amusing moment where the tit-mouths are slack-jawed and their long, skinny tongues dangle down.  Admittedly, they are not as cool as the monster boobs from Mausoleum, but hey, monster boobs are monster boobs.  We also get a scene that manages to one-up the suckling scene from the original.  I won’t reveal how exactly it raises the bar, because it’s the highlight of the movie!

Even though it runs a little over an hour, Necropolis:  Legion still falls victim to some serious padding.  There’s a long opening credits sequence, a scene where Duke wanders around the farm that goes on forever, flashbacks to shit that just happened ten minutes ago, and the obligatory dream sequences.  Since some of the padding revolves around Duke writhing around the farmhouse in a see-through tank top, I can’t really get too up in arms about it. 

Besides, it’s hard to completely hate any movie that manages to rip off Hellraiser, Mausoleum, Repulsion, AND The Evil Dead.  There are some moments that are reminiscent of Jean Rollin too.  It’s easily one of Full Moon’s best recent offerings.

That said, you could’ve easily cut thirty minutes out of this thing and made a killer half-hour segment of a horror anthology.  Still, there’s plenty to like, even if it isn’t exactly a home run.  Despite the limited budget, director Chris (Female Werewolf) Alexander manages to squeeze a surprising amount of atmosphere from the material. 

The ladies in the cast leave their mark on you too.  Duke makes for a likeable heroine and I enjoyed seeing Lynn (I Drink Your Blood) Lowry as a local who gives Duke the strength she needs to fight the witch.  The movie really belongs to Chappell as the sexy, seductive, and sinister Eva.  She fills her character with a real sense of menace and makes for a formidable foe.  Plus, she rocks a set of monster boobs like few in the business.  I’d let her take a bite out of me any day.