TUBI CONTINUED… OOGA BOOGA (2013) **

In circumstances too contrived to reveal, the soul of a young African American med student (Wade F. Wilson) is transferred into the body of a racist looking African tribal doll.  The doll then teams up with his former girlfriend (Ciarra Carter) to get revenge on the crooks, cops, and politicians responsible for his demise.  

Director Charles Band must’ve seen Black Devil Doll from Hell and tried to remake it in the typical Full Moon/Puppet Master style.  The end results aren’t nearly as memorably offensive as that cult item.  Although it never quite crosses into full-blown offensiveness, the whole thing is tonally out of whack.  The oddest scene comes when Carter takes a shower after being gang raped.  What does the doll do?  Jerk off while watching her suds up.  

I’m not sure how they roped Stacy Keach into this mess.  He plays the crooked judge who secretly runs meth on the street.  He chews the scenery gamely, but it looks like he filmed all his scenes in one day as he spends all his screen time behind a desk in his office.  I did enjoy seeing Karen Black here though, although her presence is more of a wink to her role in Trilogy of Terror than anything else.  It’s buxom porn star Siri who makes the most memorable impression as a topless party girl.  

I’ve seen so many sixty-minute Full Moon movies lately that one that runs eighty-six minutes feels like a five-part mini-series in comparison.  After watching this one, I appreciate those short and sweet features a lot more.  Since Ooga Booga is rife with too many subplots and extraneous characters (the drunk kids’ show host being the most egregious), it often feels a lot longer than it actually is.  It also features less doll attacks than you might want/expect from a Full Moon flick.  It’s watchable, sure, but it never quite lives up to its potential. 

TUBI CONTINUED… SCREAM OF THE BLIND DEAD (2021) **

Scream of the Blind Dead is Full Moon’s reboot of Amando de Ossorio’s Blind Dead series.  As far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with the OTHER Blind Dead reboot, 2020’s Curse of the Blind Dead.  As a die-hard Blind Dead fan, all I can say is the more the merrier (or scarier).  

We begin with a cool scene where a woman is chased through a field by an undead Templar knight and killed.  Then, the focus switches to a woman who seems to be in a daze when she steps off the train.  She wanders around for a little while before she stumbles into a church where she plays the organ, masturbates, and falls asleep.  When she awakes, she too is menaced by the Templar knight.  

I’ve seen some short Full Moon movies over the course of this column.  This is the shortest one yet.  It’s only thirty-nine minutes long.  I know what you’re asking:  If it’s so short, does it really count as a movie?  Well, if you’re like me and you’re trying to watch 365 movies on Tubi in 365 days, then the answer is a resounding, “Hell yeah.”

Scream of the Blind Dead FEELS like a short.  It’s often experimental, dreamlike, and surreal.  Some sequences look like something out of a silent movie.  Some of the extreme lighting resembles a giallo.  The resurrection of the zombie knight would right look at home in a heavy metal music video.  Most viewers will probably be confounded by it.  Speaking as a fan of the original series, I’m not sure I liked it, but I know at the very least I didn’t not like it.  

There’s a lot of stuff here that will please fans of de Ossorio’s original series.  There are slow-motion attack scenes (in fact, if it wasn’t for all the slow motion, the movie would probably be twenty-five minutes instead of thirty-nine), a gory heart-ripping, and suspense sequences where the heroine must remain perfectly quiet so the Blind Dead (who hunt by sound) won’t find her.  Unfortunately, there are no slow-motion horse riding scenes, which is a bit of a bummer.  Also, the budget was so low they could only afford ONE Templar knight instead of a whole platoon of them.  If only writer/director Chris (Necropolis:  Legion) Alexander gave us a third act (or at least another twenty minutes or so of footage), this might have felt like an honest to goodness continuation of the Blind Dead legacy.  As it is, it just feels like a slightly more expensive fan film.

JANUA-RAY: DR. COCK-LUV (1973) * ½

Three American women are kidnapped by Germans and taken to a Nazi experiment camp ran by the crazy Dr. Cock-Luv (Jerry Delony).  He hooks up the first woman to a “vibration machine”, and when that fails, he orders an SS soldier to bang her.  The next woman is threatened with a cattle prod before another officer has his way with her.  The final captive is oiled up by Nazis with a Spanish Fly ointment before yet another solider plows her.  Eventually, the camp is liberated by American G.I.’s who only have one thing on their mind.

The alternate title for Ray Dennis Steckler’s Dr. Cock-Luv was Nazi Sex Experiments.  If that puts you off, you should know that the movie is neither graphic enough to live up to that title, nor does it have the humor of Steckler’s Nazi Brothel to compensate for its overall lack of titillation.  As it is, it’s just a dull, unpleasant slog.  Heck, it’s not even up to the low standards of Steckler’s The Strange Sex Life of Hitler’s Nazis.  

The sex scenes are short, repetitive, and not very sexy.  The constant German marching band music on the soundtrack doesn’t exactly help either.  The only scene that shows any sign of passion is the lesbian pairing where two of the American prisoners use a double-edged dildo on each other.  Too bad the rest of the movie was sorely lacking this kind of heat.  

Delony overacts to the hilt, but he isn’t given any funny lines or memorable shtick to deliver.  (He was probably ad-libbing the whole time anyway.)  Other actors flub their lines and look at the camera.  At least Steckler sprang for some sets this time.  (They’re cheap, but they’re a lot better than the ones found in his other Nazi pornos.)

As far as Steckler signatures go, this is yet another Nazi porno movie.  (I guess when you find your niche, you’ve got to really stick with it.)  It also features some kaleidoscope effects during the sex scenes, just like Count Al-Kum.  Delony is the only member of Steckler’s Stock Players, having previously co-starred in Count Al-Kum.  The absence of Carolyn Brandt’s Nazi Buster is definitely felt this time around.

AKA:  Nazi Sex Experiments.  AKA:  Sex Slaves of the SS.  AKA:  Slave Girls of the SS.  

TUBI CONTINUED… DON’T LET HER IN (2021) ***

Don’t Let Her In is like a mash-up of Single White Female, Rosemary’s Baby, and your average Witchcraft sequel.  Amber (Kelly Curran) and Ben (Cole Pendery) get more than they bargained for when they accept Serena (Lorin Doctor) into their apartment as their new roommate.  At first all her New Agey crystals, knickknacks, and chanting seem cute, but before long, she reveals herself to be a witch that turns into a demon while having sex.  Eventually, Amber discovers she’s pregnant and predictably, Serena has sinister plans for the unborn baby.  

Written and directed with great efficiency by Ted (Subspecies) Nicolaou, Don’t Let Her In is only an hour long and moves right along like gangbusters.  He has a slick, workmanlike style that isn’t obtrusive to the narrative.  The script may be a tad predictable (not to mention derivative), but it hits all its marks, and the plot has no fat on it whatsoever.  That means we don’t have to suffer through any useless subplots, superfluous scenes, or extraneous characters.  When you strip a horror/thriller of that kind of baggage, you’ll be surprised just how well it works without all that excess nonsense to bog things down.  Although the ending is unceremoniously abrupt (and feels like a set-up for a sequel), it’s a relatively minor quibble in the long run.  

The casting certainly helps to mask any flaws the story may have.  Doctor (who kind of looks like Morena Baccarin’s evil twin) is an enchanting (no pun intended) presence as slinky, witchy roommate from Hell.  She’s just as much fun to watch when she’s talking in tongues and writhing out incantations as she is seducing the hapless couple.  Curran (who resembles a mash-up of Elizabeth Banks and Drew Barrymore) is a perfect foil for Doctor as her innocent beauty and overall wholesomeness makes for an ideal leading lady.  

In short, let Don’t Let Her In into your Tubi watchlist.  

TUBI CONTINUED… HALLOWEEN PUSSY TRAP KILL! KILL! (2017) **

Halloween Pussy Trap Kill!  Kill! is kind of like Killer Barbys Meets Saw.  An all-girl punk rock band is on their way to their next gig on Halloween night.  They stop at a gas station in the middle of nowhere owned by a creepy grease monkey named Dale (Richard Grieco).  He knocks them out cold and tosses them into his underground lair where an unseen “Mastermind” (voiced by Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine) pits them against one another in deadly games full of heavily moralistic do-or-die situations.  The booby traps and games include a gas that makes their worst fears come to life, acid in the sprinkler system, and forcing them to decide the fate of another group of people trapped in the lair.  

The traps and do-or-die scenarios are rather generic, but director Jared (After School Special) Cohn handles the execution about as well as you could expect.  The problem is the band members are thinly sketched and have interchangeable personalities.  They all look hot though and wear an assortment of sexy punk rock outfits, so that does help take some of the sting out of it.

There was a kernel of a good idea here, but even at a relatively scant eighty-two minutes, Halloween Pussy Trap Kill!  Kill! feels heavily padded.  Although the scenes of greedy trick-or-treaters coming to the door and getting killed by the Mastermind’s twisted wife are kind of funny, they feel like they came out of an entirely different movie.  The opening sequence featuring soldiers being captured in the Middle East also feel more like a way to pad out the running time than actual important backstory.  

Halloween Pussy Trap Kill!  Kill! may be a little on the uneven side, it still remains the best Saw rip-off starring Richard Grieco and Dave Mustaine you’re likely ever to find, so that is worth something at least.  

TUBI CONTINUED… THE NIGHT BEFORE (1988) **

The Night Before is one of those movies that was in constant rotation on cable back in the early ‘90s.  Although I caught bits and pieces of it here and there during that time, I never actually sat down and watched it all the way through.  Thanks to Tubi, I can play catch-up and plug one of my Keanu Reeves’ blind spots. 

Keanu plays a dorky teenager who wakes up in an alley with no recollection of how he got there.  He soon remembers that he and his date (Lori Loughlin) got lost on the way to the prom and wound up on the wrong side of the tracks.  One thing led to another, he got slipped a Mickey, and accidentally sold her off to a pimp named Tito.  Now, it’s up to Keanu to get her back.  

The Night Before has an OK premise for an ‘80s comedy, although some of it hasn’t aged very well.  (Ha, ha!  Sex trafficking is funny!)  It wasn’t quite as funny as I remembered it, but to be fair, the parts I remembered were weighted towards the third act.  It’s the first act that is the big problem, as it’s mostly a bunch of scenes of Reeves stumbling around and trying to remember what happened to Loughlin.  The flashback structure is really awkward and some of the ADR is painfully obvious.  Once Reeves sets out on his quest to get her back, things improve, but not enough to make it worthwhile.  

Reeves does what he can.  It’s just that his exasperated nerd character is a little bit out of his wheelhouse.  Loughlin fares better as the bitchy rich snob who lost a bet and had go on a date with him.

The Night Before was directed by Thom Eberhardt, who also made Night of the Comet, a personal favorite.  Like that flick, there are a lot of scenes of characters wandering around deserted city streets.  Unfortunately, The Night Before is sorely missing the sense of fun that made that film a classic.  

TUBI CONTINUED… THE BEAST INSIDE HER (1996) ** ½

They don’t make too many werewolf-themed Skinamax movies.  The only ones I can think of are Meridian and Tomb of the Werewolf.  Knowing that they are such a precious commodity, you have to watch these things when you can, even if the results are usually uneven.  Such is the case with The Beast Inside Her.  

Tara (Jenna Bodner) is an American who returns to her ancestral estate in Wales after the death of her father.  One night, she finds a naked girl in the wine cellar who curses her with a low-grade strain of lycanthropy.  Soon after, Tara begins developing superhuman reflexes and an insatiable appetite (both for food and for sex).  Slowly but surely, she gives into her newfound animal instincts.  

The Beast Inside Her is an odd, but not entirely engaging amalgam of traditional gothic horror flick and ‘90s erotic thriller.  While there are some atmospheric moments to be found (like the impromptu photo shoot in a cave), the film never truly embraces its horror elements, which will probably leave most horror fans a bit unsatisfied.  Luckily, the generous helping of Skinamax scenes and gratuitous nudity helps to alleviate the boredom during some of the clunkier passages.

Despite its many shortcomings, the movie has what has to be one of the most jaw-droppingly weird werewolf curse scenes in horror history.  In most werewolf flicks, the werewolf bites you and you become a werewolf.  End of story.  Here, when Bodner encounters the naked wolf girl, a giant ball of light shoots out of her, chases Jenna around her wine cellar, rips off all her clothes, and enters her.  You don’t see shit like that every day, that’s for sure.

The subplot about Bodner’s childhood friends trying to fleece her of her family fortune kind of feels padded out.  The complete non-ending/set-up for a sequel is rather underwhelming too.  Another problem is the fact that Bodner never becomes wolfy enough to label this as an out-and-out werewolf flick.  Her eyes turn black, she sprouts fangs, and runs around on all fours, but that’s about it.  (The werewolf scenes mostly seem inspired by Mike Nichols’ Wolf.)    

On the plus side, Bodner is quite good, especially during her many nude and sex scenes.  She’s equally fine when she begins embracing her newfound animalistic powers.  If only the movie truly embraced its animal nature, The Beast Inside Her could’ve been a howling good time.

AKA:  Huntress:  Spirit of the Night.  AKA:  Spirit of the Night.