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.