TUBI CONTINUED… DEEP IN THE VALLEY (2009) **

Perpetual loser Lester (Chris Pratt) wins a vintage porno booth in a contest and invites his buddy Carl (Brendan Hines) over to check it out.  When they go inside the booth, they are magically whisked away into an old porno movie.  While the uptight Carl tries to find a way out, Lester sets out to make the best of the situation by trying (and failing) to hook up with as many hot sorority babes, sexy cheerleaders, and naughty nurses as he can.  

Despite the fact that the characters find themselves in an old porno, the movie itself is strangely chaste.  There’s no nudity (except for Pratt’s butt) and the innuendo would feel at home on a sitcom.  In fact, with a few slight edits, it probably could’ve been PG-13.  

Pratt is kind of funny and gives the best performance of the movie, but I can’t help to think he’s probably embarrassed by the film given his conservative lifestyle.  Denise Richards looks foxy as ever as the sorority house’s den mother and Christopher McDonald (looking like a gaunt Ron Jeremy) is the porno director/inventor of the nudie booth.  Scott Caan is amusing as the detective trying to bust our heroes.  It’s just a shame he wasn’t given any funny lines.  

The whole film is like that though.  There’s a good idea for movie here.  (It’s kind of like Delirious, except with a porno instead of a soap opera.)  I mean, who wouldn’t want to be sucked in a porno flick?  Let me rephrase that.  Who wouldn’t want to find themselves transported into a porno?  However, the filmmakers never really take full advantage of the admittedly solid premise. 

It feels like a case where they had a solid first draft of the script where they mapped out the plot, situations, and character development, and assumed they could always go back and add more jokes later.  Except, they kinda forgot to do that by the time the cameras rolled.  The jokes that are there are obvious (people have sex at the drop of a hat, the cops wear tight uniforms that show off their cleavage, etc.) and aren’t especially funny.  

The biggest problem is the lack of T & A.  I could’ve been more forgiving of the lame humor if there were scads of nudity about.  (You know, like a real porno.)  Sadly, that wasn’t the case.  Overall, Deep in the Valley is rather shallow.

AKA:  Hot Babes.  AKA:  American Hot Babes.

JANUA-RAY: BLOOD SHACK (1971) *

“The Chooper” is a vengeful Native American spirit that haunts a dilapidated old shack in the middle of nowhere.  He’s so famous that people come from miles around to spend the night in the shack just so they can get offed by the killer “ghost”.  The caretaker, Daniel (Jason Wayne) keeps warning people to stay away, and when they wind up dead, he dutifully buries the bodies.  Eventually, Carol (Carolyn Brandt) inherits the shack and right away, a local fat cat (Ron Haydock) wants to buy the place from her.  She refuses, and he gets increasingly violent every time she shoots him down.  Hmmm… Could HE be The Chooper?  

If you ever saw an episode of Scooby-Doo, you probably already know the answer.

Like many of Ray Dennis Steckler’s previous films, his family members have big parts.  This time out, his wife and daughters (who play the only game of Musical Chairs in cinematic history that only has one chair) comprise half the cast.  The other Steckler mainstay, Rat Pfink himself, Haydock also co-wrote the script.  Blood Shack is also similar to Steckler’s other works as an ominous dude with a red face appears to terrorize people, and the killer wears a black hoodie just like Cash Flagg did in The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.  

It's only fifty-five minutes long, but it feels like an eternity.  If you thought Sinthia:  The Devil’s Doll was dull, you haven’t seen anything yet.  The long, drawn-out, pointless dialogue scenes go on forever.  Combine that with Brandt’s weird, echo-y voiceovers, and some extremely gratuitous rodeo footage, and the results resemble a snuff movie version of an ASMR video.  

Wayne’s final moments are good for an unintentional laugh, but that isn’t worth sitting through fifty-four minutes of insomnia-curing cinema just to see it.

Even with the short running time, this version is Steckler’s preferred cut.  However, he struggled to find distribution with a movie that was so short, so he added fifteen more minutes to the movie to get it up to feature length.  That version is called The Chooper, and it is also included on the Blu-ray.  The funny thing is, even though Ray liked his original version better, The Chooper cut FEELS more like a Steckler movie because it has at least two of his trademarks that aren’t found in the Blood Shack version.  First, is a great colorful title sequence done in the same art style as The Incredibly Strange Creatures (complete with close-ups of a bulging eyeball).  There’s also a scene of Shameless Self-Promotion where Wayne shows off posters of The Thrill Killers and The Incredibly Strange Creatures to “Carol”, who we learn “starred” in those movies, which means she’s playing a thinly veiled version of herself.  These additions don’t necessarily make The Chooper cut “better”, but they do make it feel more Steckler-y.

AKA:  The Chooper.  AKA:  Curse of the Evil Spirit.

BLADE OF THE 47 RONIN (2022) ** ½

I wasn’t a fan of 47 Ronin.  I found the mix of samurai action and fantasy elements to be clunky at best.  It was definitely one of Keanu Reeves’ weakest action efforts.  

Now, nine years later, comes the DTV sequel, Blade of the 47 Ronin.  If it didn’t have the words “47 Ronin” in the title, I probably would’ve never known it was a sequel.  The fantasy elements are a lot more subdued, it’s set in modern-day Budapest (!?!), and there are no dragons.  Bummer.  

Yurei (Dan Southworth) is an evil magician who is trying two reunite two magic swords in order to fulfill an ancient prophecy.  Naturally, one of the swords is in the possession of a street smart, wiseass American thief (Anna Akana).  The samurai brotherhood sends Kung Fu Master Shinshiro (Mark Dacascos) to protect her from Yurei’s army of Ninjas and prevent him from obtaining the blade.  

Blade of the 47 Ronin is better than the original, mostly because it’s a down and dirty Samurai vs. Ninja flick, and I’m a sucker for those.  It’s not a patch on the grandaddy of the genre, 1995’s The Hunted, but there is a good Samurai vs. Ninja battle on a subway car that echoes the train battle in that film.  The rest of the action is solid throughout, and the choreography and camerawork are better than you would expect from this sort of thing.  

The performances are pretty good too.  It’s nice to see Dacascos maturing into the “wise old master” phase of his career.  Akana makes for a likeable leading lady, and it was fun to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s Mike Moh as a young upstart ronin trying desperately to win the approval of his master.  

While this is a sequel to 47 Ronin, the main inspiration seems to come from another Keanu Reeves movie, John Wick.  The fight scenes are often bathed in neon purple and blue lights, the assorted samurai clans have distinct styles, and there’s a little bit of oddball worldbuilding (like, why are there samurai clans warring in modern day Budapest?).  One character even calls Dacascos a “John Wick fanboy”, which is funny because he had a supporting role in John Wick 3.

Ultimately, this is probably too long, with too many unnecessary characters and subplots to be truly effective.  Plus, all the plot twists seem to be there just for the sake of having plot twists.  It’s a DTV Samurai vs. Ninja movie.  You don’t have to try to pull the rug out from under us at the end of each act.  Still, as far as Universal’s DTV productions from their 1440 company go, you can certainly do a lot worse.

TUBI CONTINUED… L.A. AIDS JABBER (1994) ****

Well, if that title doesn’t draw you in, nothing will.  The crazy thing is this movie lives up to its jaw-dropping title.  It is without a doubt one of the scuzziest films I have ever watched.  It is depraved, demented, deplorable, appalling, foul, insidious, and disgusting.

After about five minutes, I wanted to take a shower.  After about ten minutes, I needed another.  After about twenty minutes, I wanted an enema for my soul.  

This movie makes Driller Killer look like Barney’s Great Adventure.  

If you can’t already tell, this movie is about a guy who finds out he has AIDS.  He’s already off his rocker to begin with, and the news sends him over the edge.  The unhinged psycho then sets out to get revenge on the people who wronged him by filling a syringe with his blood and jabbing them with it, infecting them with the deadly virus.

Make no bones about it:  This movie is in extremely poor taste.  That said, stuff like this has happened in real life.  Today’s audiences will likely be offended by this film, but if you weren’t there in the ‘80s, you wouldn’t know how scary the AIDS epidemic was.  A good horror flick reminds you of your fears.  A great one preys upon them.  L.A. AIDS Jabber is a case of the latter.

Granted, the stuff with the detectives investigating the Jabber isn’t nearly as effective as the Taxi Driver-esque scenes of him alone in his shithole apartment or the jabbing scenes themselves.  However, they offer the viewer a welcome respite for the overall air of grime and depravity.  When he is front and center, it’s truly skin-crawling.  

This is probably the best Shot on Video movie ever made.  It will not be for everyone.  Heck, the audience for it will be rather fucking slim.  If you aren’t the kind of person who would watch a movie called L.A. AIDS Jabber, then what the hell are you even reading this review for?  However, if you are the kind of person who would watch a movie called L.A. AIDS Jabber, it delivers exactly what it promises.  And then some.  I have to cut this review short.  I’ve got to take another shower.

AKA:  Jabber.

TUBI CONTINUED… IN SEARCH OF ALL AMERICAN MASSACRE: THE LOST TEXAS CHAINSAW FILM (2022) ** ½

In 1999, William Tony Hooper, the son of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre director Tobe Hooper, began filming All American Massacre.  It was to be a part-sequel, part-prequel to Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 focusing on the character of Chop Top, memorably played by Bill Moseley.  After months of on-and-off filming, the release date came and went, and fans have been wondering ever since why it vanished and remains unreleased.  This documentary sets out to find out what happened to the film and provide insight into what could’ve been.  

Right away, the filmmakers hit a roadblock when Bill Moseley declines to be involved with the production.  I know they probably weren’t going to score an interview with Buckethead (who played Leatherface in All American Massacre), but it’s a shame they couldn’t get Moseley.  They do track down the guy who played Grandpa in the movie, and his recollections and photographs at least give you a glimpse of what was like on set.  However, this really isn’t enough to base a whole documentary on. 

So, the filmmakers pivot and get more into the various conspiracies surrounding why All American Massacre was never released.  Honestly, the most obvious answer is that the studio/rights holder sent Hooper a cease-and-desist order.  All American Massacre more or less started as an effects reel to show off what Hooper could do before it grew to be something more ambitious.  It’s possible he gave up on the flick just because he didn’t want the hassle of a lawsuit.  That doesn’t stop the movie from spinning various unlikely scenarios as to why it was never completed. 

In Search of All American Massacre:  The Lost Texas Chainsaw Film is just over an hour long, so it goes down rather smoothly.  If you’re a fan of the series and the overall What If? factor of what could’ve been, you will get some enjoyment out of this, even if you probably know all this info already.  If you’re unfamiliar with the lost sequel, you may dig it too, although you could probably find out all you needed to know about All American Massacre from a YouTube video that’s a third the length of this documentary.  It also doesn’t help that they talk to the same five or six talking heads.  

It's clear director Edward Payson was passionate about this project and the subject.  I just think once he knew Moseley wouldn’t be interviewed that he should’ve packed it in and left the documentary unfinished.  Just like All American Massacre. 

JANUA-RAY: SINTHIA: THE DEVIL’S DOLL (1970) *

(Originally reviewed September 1st, 2021)

When Sinthia (Shula Roan) was just twelve years old, she caught her parents making love.  Since she had an unnatural sexual attraction to her father, she stabbed both of them to death and burned the house down.  Years later, a psychiatrist tries to help her before she gets married and potentially snaps again.  

 

Sinthia:  The Devil’s Doll was co-written and directed by one of my favorite cult directors, Ray Dennis Steckler.  After his career in campy B movies like The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies dried up, he was forced to make nudies like this.  At least his backyard bargain basement productions like Rat Pfink a Boo Boo had a certain charm about them.  This one is just torturous.  It’s not even fun in a cheesy way.  The repetitive scenes of Sinthia hysterically yelling, “Daddy.... Daddy… Daddy!” over and over again will be an endurance test for even the most jaded exploitation fan.

 

The poorly framed sex scenes make it hard to tell who’s doing what to whom.  Steckler also overdoes it on the psychedelic imagery, with all the blue, orange, and red lights only adding to the visual chaos on screen.  The long dream sequences get on your nerves too.  In most movies, they are usually there to help us understand the character’s psychosis, but here, it just feels like a cheap and easy way for Steckler (who was using his “Sven Christian” pseudonym, the tip-off that he was trying to pass this off as an “arty” Swedish movie) to pad out the running time.  (The repeated sequences are another tell-tale sign Steckler’s trying to milk the running time for all its worth.)  What’s worse, the constant roller rink music is enough to drive you certifiably insane.  There are also beach scenes that look like leftover footage from Incredibly Strange Creatures.  

 

We do get one good sequence where Sinthia goes to Hell and is forced to “love herself” and masturbates until she brings herself to a chest-heaving climax.  This scene is solid, but it’s way too brief, lasting only about a minute.  The other seventy-six minutes are often hellish.

 

AKA:  Where the Devil Tolls.  AKA:  Teenage She Devil.

JANUA-RAY NOTES:  

1) With Sinthia:  The Devil’s Doll, we have Ray Dennis Steckler’s first foray into the world of adult moviemaking.  He’s made just about every other kind of movie, so why not give skin flicks a try?  After this film, he would spend the next decade or so toiling away in the adult cinema scene.

2) I think some of the music in the opening scene was later used in Doris Wishman’s Love Toy.

3) Director’s Signatures:  A freak-out scene featuring people in red face paint (also a factor in The Incredibly Strange Creatures That Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies), dance numbers, beach scenes (Wild Guitar, Incredibly Strange Creatures), long chase scenes, long chase scenes on a beach, and like Rat Pfink a Boo Boo, there are scenes that are tinted different colors.

4) Steckler’s Stock Player Round-Up:  Gary Kent, Herb Robins (who also co-wrote the script), and E.M. Kevke (who played the Grasshopper in The Lemon Grove Kids).

5) At one point, a character says, “Oh, come on!  Let’s get this show on the road!”  I couldn’t agree more.  This is one slow, sluggish, and boring movie.  

6) Co-star Maria Lease went on to direct the XXX classics Expensive Tastes and Little Girls Blue.  

7) Seriously, how can you make a skin flick about incest and devil worshipping this damned dull?

8) This is the only dirty movie of Steckler’s I’ve seen so far.  They all can’t be this bad… Can they?

M3GAN (2023) ****

Thanks to some truly awesome trailers, M3GAN has arrived in theaters fully formed as the next great horror icon.  Before the film even premiered, the normally fickle horror movie community had embraced M3GAN as her dance numbers and catchphrases had gone viral.  Our household was no different.  We have been stoked to see it for months.  My daughter was so excited for it that she made M3GAN buttons for our family and friends to wear opening night.  

Let’s just say M3GAN did not disappoint.  In fact, it’s fair to say, it exceeded our already lofty expectations.  I already want to see it again.  

Right out of the gate, from the very first frame, director Gerard (Housebound) Johnstone had the sold-out audience eating from the palm of his hand.  I haven’t heard such rapturous applause from an opening scene since The Phantom Menace on opening night.  For the next hundred minutes or so, there were several instances of howling, laughter, screams, and clapping.  The movies are back, baby. 

Allison Williams stars as Gemma, a toymaker who must care for her orphaned niece, Cady (Violet McGraw).  Since she’s no good with kids, Gemma pawns off her latest creation, the eerily lifelike, artificially intelligent robot doll, M3GAN (herself) on the grieving kid.  Once they are paired, M3GAN exceeds the confines of her programming to terminate all those who may cause Cady harm, even if that means ripping ears off, power washing faces at close range, or chopping people up. 

M3GAN, like the titular character, is a movie that does everything it’s programmed to do and then some.  It very much knows what it is and has no qualms delivering exactly what its audience came to see.  It stays in its lane and keeps its foot on the gas the entire running time.  Plus, it doesn’t hurt that it has a wicked sense of humor to match its funhouse/rollercoaster-style thrills.  

Chucky better watch his back.