THE 16TH ANNUAL VIDEO VACUUM AWARDS: THE TECHNICAL AWARDS

Welcome everyone!  The time is almost upon us for The 16th Annual Video Vacuum Awards.  Before we get the show going, we will, as is the tradition, hand out The Technical Awards.  

Sometimes, I don’t get to see enough films in a specific genre in a calendar year.  Because of that, I am unable to make an entire competitive category for that genre.  Instead of letting that film (or films) go unnoticed, I have created The Video Vacuum Technical Awards.  And now is the time to hand those suckers out.  Let’s get started, shall we?

WORST ACTION MOVIE

Blacklight

(RUNNER-UP:  Ambulance)

WORST CHRISTMAS MOVIE

Christmas Bloody Christmas

(RUNNER-UP:  The Mean One) 

WORST COMEDY

The Munsters

(RUNNER-UP:  Bigfoot or Bust)

BEST COMIC BOOK MOVIE

The Batman

(RUNNER-UP:  Thor:  Love and Thunder) 

WORST COMIC BOOK MOVIE

Morbius

(RUNNER-UP:  Black Adam)

BEST COMPILATION

Famous T and A 2

BEST DOCUMENTARY

In Search of All American Massacre:  The Lost Texas Chainsaw Film

BEST DRAMA

The Banshees of Inisherin

(RUNNER-UP:  Elvis)

BEST HORROR REMAKE

Firestarter

(RUNNER-UP:  Goodnight Mommy)

WORST HORROR REMAKE

Hellraiser

(RUNNER-UP:  Terror Train)

WORST HORROR SEQUEL

Terror Train 2

(RUNNER-UP:  Puppet Master:  Doktor Death)

BEST KIDS MOVIE

DC League of Super-Pets

BEST MOVIE BASED ON A TV SHOW

Aqua Teen Forever:  Plantasm

WORST MOVIE BASED ON A TV SHOW

The Munsters

BEST REMAKE

Firestarter

(RUNNER-UP:  Goodnight Mommy)

WORST REMAKE

Hellraiser

(RUNNER-UP:  Terror Train)

BEST SCI-FI MOVIE

Jurassic Park:  Dominion

(RUNNER-UP:  Nope)

WORST SCI-FI MOVIE

Femalien:  Starlight Saga

BEST SEQUEL TO A MOVIE THAT CAME OUT IN 2022

Giantess Battle Attack!

WORST SEQUEL TO A MOVIE THAT CAME OUT IN 2022

Terror Train 2

BEST PREQUEL TO A MOVIE THAT CAME OUT IN 2022

Pearl

WORST SKINAMAX MOVIE

Femalien:  Starlight Saga

(RUNNER-UP:  Call Me Emanuelle)

BEST STEPHEN KING MOVIE

Firestarter

(RUNNER-UP:  Mr. Harrigan’s Phone)

BEST VAMPIRE MOVIE

Day Shift

WORST VAMPIRE MOVIE

Morbius 

TUBI CONTINUED… UFOS INVADE HOLLYWOOD (2021) ***

UFOs Invade Hollywood is a little different than your average sci-fi trailer compilation.  It also acts as a documentary on both UFO sightings and sci-fi movies of the ‘50s.  Each trailer begins with a little introduction where stills, lobby cards, and posters for each film are displayed while a narrator gives us a brief history and random factoids about the movie.  Then, the trailer is shown.  We also get a brief overview of the UFO phenomenon that swept the country in the ‘50s (we’re starting to see a resurgence of that nowadays) and how the movies mirror various sightings and incidents.  

Normally, I would say cut all the informative shit and make with the trailers.  However, the intros are entertaining enough, and the information is a tad more in-depth than just having someone regurgitating tidbits from the IMDb Trivia page.  I also liked how they related things that happen in the movies with actual reported UFO sightings.

One of the highlights is the trailer for The Day the Earth Stood Still.  While this trailer has appeared in many compilations over the years, the one shown here is the uncut version, complete with a film break.  (A news bulletin interrupts the 20th Century Fox fanfare.)  Likewise, the preview for It Came from Outer Space is completely intact as it features a short message before the trailer reminding the audience to put on their 3-D glasses.  

Another plus is the fact that the trailers are in chronological order.  This is fun because you get to see the films become more sophisticated (or sometimes, less sophisticated, depending on the budget) as the decade goes on.  It’s also neat how the documentary charts the history of UFOs from Roswell until America’s first mission into space across the decade.  So, if you’re a fan of sci-fi movies AND history (or at least the history of UFOs), you’re bound to enjoy UFOs Invade Hollywood.

The complete trailer line-up is as follows:  The Flying Saucer (just clips), The Thing from Another World, The Man from Planet X, The Day the Eart Stood Still, It Came from Outer Space, War of the Worlds, Invaders from Mars, Robot Monster, Devil Girl from Mars, Killers from Space, Target Earth, This Island Earth, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, It Conquered the World, Invasion of the Saucer Men, Kronos, The Brain from Planet Arous, The Mysterians, Not of This Earth, The Blob, I Married a Monster from Outer Space, Invisible Invaders, Plan 9 from Outer Space, and Teenagers from Outer Space.  

FRANCO FEBRUARY: BUT WHO RAPED LINDA? (1975) **

A rich asshole (Paul Muller) hires a sexy nurse (Alice Arno) to take care of his paralyzed daughter Linda (Veronica Llimera) and his nympho niece Olivia (Lina Romay).  Before long, she begins to realize the house harbors a boatload of dark secrets.  Olivia’s sexy nightmares could be the key to unlocking the family’s mysterious past.  

Jess Franco’s But Who Raped Linda? seems like a dry run for his 1983 flick, The House of Lost Women.  Both films feature a house brimming with nasty secrets and a family with a lot of kinky hang-ups.  In both movies, the sudden appearance of a visitor changes the family dynamic and ultimately causes their downfall.  I have to say, nearly everything Franco set out to accomplish here was done much better in The House of Lost Women.  

The set-up is promising, but things get bogged down in a hurry soon after Arno arrives at the house.  Dreams, flashbacks, and dreams that contain flashbacks disrupt the flow of the family drama.  Many of these dream sequences are repeated, mostly to pad out the running time.  After about the third time you see the same dream, you start to tune out eventually.  The appearance of a pair of comic relief cops is annoying as well.  (At least one of them is a hot babe who does a striptease.)  

The ending is downright infuriating too.  It’s one thing to be jerked around for eighty minutes if you can stick the landing.  However, it’s just one big cop-out.  Heck, I don’t even think Franco bothered to answer the titular query, which makes things even more frustrating.  

The good news is Lina Romay.  She is the sole reason to watch this mess.  I don’t think she’s ever looked hotter than she does here, and that’s really saying something.  She is incredible during the scenes where she seductively sips champagne, sunbathes in the nude, and in the film’s most famous scene, eats a banana.  I’m telling you, I never wanted to be a banana more in my life than when I was watching this movie.  I could justify watching But Who Raped Linda? solely for the presence of Romay.  Too bad there’s nothing else here that’s nearly as memorable.

As far as Franco’s signatures go, this is another movie in which he delivers lots of lazy camera zooms and pans.  As previously mentioned, it’s another film like The House of Lost Women where Franco depicts the family unit as a nest of crazed sexual loonies.  And like many a Franco picture, it seemingly solely exists to show Romay in the nude.  Among the performers from Franco’s usual stock company, we have:  Romay, Arno (from Countess Perverse), Llimera (Tender and Perverse Emanuelle), and Muller (Eugenie de Sade).    

AKA:  The Hot Nights of Linda.  AKA:  Come Close, Blond Emmanuelle.  AKA:  Erotic Dreams.  

Well folks, that’s a wrap on Franco February.  I looked through the Video Vacuum archives and exhaustively went through all the Jess Franco movies I’ve seen and ranked them.  Here’s how they stack up for me:

RANK-O de FRANCO:

1. Female Vampire ****

2. Sadomania ****

3. Ilsa, the Wicked Warden ****

4. Falo Crest ****

5. The House of Lost Women *** ½ 

6. The Demons *** ½ 

7. Sinfonia Erotica *** ½ 

8. Faceless ***

9. Killer Barbys ***

10. Succubus ***

11. Vampyros Lesbos ***

12. Dracula’s Daughter ***

13. Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun ***

14. Macumba Sexual ***

15. Commando Mengele:  “Angel of Death” ***

16. Justine ***

17. Eugenie… The Story of Her Journey into Perversion ***

18. Jack the Ripper ***

19. Diary of a Nymphomaniac ***

20. Rififi in the City ***

21. The Sadist of Notre Dame ** ½ 

22. Barbed Wire Dolls ** ½

23. Bloody Moon ** ½  

24. Cannibals ** ½ 

25. Exorcism ** ½ 

26. Cecilia ** ½ 

27. She Killed in Ecstasy ** ½ 

28. The Awful Dr. Orloff ** ½ 

29. Black Boots Leather Whip ** ½ 

30. 99 Women **

31. Venus in Furs **

32. Lulu’s Talking Ass **

33. Two Female Spies with Flowered Panties **

34. Dr. Orloff’s Monster **

35. Women Behind Bars **

36. But Who Raped Linda? **

37. A Virgin Among the Living Dead **

38. Nightmares Come at Night **

39. Count Dracula **

40. The Diabolical Dr. Z **

41. Diamonds of Kilimanjaro **

42. Death Whistles the Blues **

43. Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein **

44. Shining Sex **

45. The Sexual Story of O **

46. Sex is Crazy **

47. The Bloody Judge **

48. Oasis of the Zombies * ½ 

49. Golden Temple Amazons * ½ 

50. Kiss Me Monster * ½

51. Night of the Skull * ½ 

52. Downtown Heat * ½ 

53. Rites of Frankenstein * 

54. Future Women *

55. Two Undercover Angels *

56. The Inconfessable Orgies of Emanuelle * 

57. Devil Hunter *

58. The Blood of Fu Manchu *

59. Lust for Frankenstein *

60. The Sadistic Baron von Klaus *

61. Esmerelda Bay *

62. Blind Target *

63. Night of the Eagles *

64. The Castle of Fu Manchu *

65. Revenge in the House of Usher ½ *

It seems that out of his over 200 directorial credits, I’ve only seen about 65 of Jess Franco’s movies.  Which ones are your favorites?  Let me know in the comments below.  And don’t forget to join me in the month of March when we will explore the wild, weird world of Andy Milligan for a column I call Milligan March.  See you then, Vacuumers.

TUBI CONTINUED… CHICKBOXER (1992) * ½

You know you’re in trouble from the opening credits sequence which is nothing more than a five-minute scene of a woman (presumably star Julie Anne Suscinski) lacing up her shoes and tying them.  That’s right, we can’t just watch her tie her shoes, we have to watch her lace them up too!  I know low budget filmmakers have to find creative ways to pad their films out (this one is only an hour long), but this is fucking ridiculous.  (The film is further padded out with gratuitous scenes of Suscinski narrating the action from her living room as she relates her life story to the audience.)  

Kathy (Suscinski) is a nerdy girl who wants to be like the star of her favorite TV show, Chickboxer.  Against everyone’s better judgment, she signs up for a karate class.  Meanwhile, bad guys have been blackmailing the mayor in order to set up a criminal empire and take over the city.  When Kathy learns her karate teacher is in cahoots with the villains, she reaches out to the star of Chickboxer (Michelle Bauer, the only real star in the movie) for help.  When she blows Kathy off, she takes it upon herself to bring the bad guys down herself.  

Chickboxer kind of reminded me of a mash-up of Robot Ninja and Fright Night, minus the gore of the former and the fun of the latter.  The general idea is fine, but the execution is sorely lacking.  The big problem is that it feels like it’s missing an entire act.  There needed to be more scenes of Kathy honing her kickboxing skills in order to defeat the bad guys believably.  As it is, she just decides in the last ten minutes to take them out.  Up till then, there hadn’t been much action, and the action we do get in the finale is painfully lackluster, even for a shot-on-video production.  

Bauer is the lone bright spot.  Too bad she isn’t in it enough to make much of an impression as it’s more of an extended cameo than anything.  She does get a good sex scene at the end, but it’s too little too late to save the movie.  If she was front and center the whole time kicking ass (as the misleading thumbnail suggests), we might’ve had a winner.  (I did like the scene where Suscinski trains by watching Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout, though.)

Well, 28 days in February and 28 movies watched on Tubi.  I began the year with 365 movies in my Tubi watchlist.  At the start of this month, I had 441 movies in my Tubi watchlist.  At the end of the month, I had 435.  Some progress is being made.  Will I be able to clear out my watchlist before December 31st?  Keep reading!

TUBI CONTINUED… CHEAP THRILLS: THOSE DRIVE-IN HORROR FLICKS (2022) ***

I’m a sucker for a good horror compilation.  While I personally prefer horror trailer collections as opposed to clip packages, they still can hit the spot when I’m in a pinch.  Cheap Thrills:  Those Drive-In Horror Flicks is one of the good ones.  

SEE:  Rock monsters attack astronauts in Missile to the Moon, zombies menace Duane Jones in Night of the Living Dead, Vincent Price squares off against vampires in The Last Man on Earth, a pregnant man pleads for the life of a parrot monster in Night of the Blood Beast, Frankenstein’s Daughter proves she’s a chip off the old block, a spider man stalks chorus girls in Horrors of Spider Island, The Wasp Woman shows us what the buzz is all about, The Brain That Wouldn’t Die won’t shut up, George Zucco commands The Mummy’s Hand, Creature from the Haunted Sea gets more laughs than screams, we take a visit to the home of The Beast from Haunted Cave, witness The Attack of the Giant Leeches, see a fisherman become a hot lunch for The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues, The Killer Shrews attack James Best, Vincent Price invites us to The House on Haunted Hill, The Screaming Skull loses its head, The Snake Woman shows off her charms, the Ymir rampages in 20 Million Miles to Earth, Killers from Space talk poor Peter Graves to death, Soledad Miranda investigates the Sound of Horror, Jonathan Haze feeds Audrey Jr. in The Little Shop of Horrors, and MORE!  MUCH MORE!

Overall, Cheap Thrills:  Those Drive-In Horror Flicks offers up a good mix of (mostly) public domain titles, along with a healthy dose of ‘50s cheese, and even a few Universal titles.  There really aren’t as many horror compilations like this on Tubi as you might think, which is kind of a shame.  I hope they add more of these things in the near future.

TUBI CONTINUED… MOURNING WIFE (2001) ***

Mamoru (Yoshikata Matsuki) owns a printing press business with his wife Tomiko (Mayuko Sasaki).  When an accident kills his mother and leaves him paralyzed, it threatens to close the shop down.  Desperate to keep the business up and running, Tomiko hires a drifter named Ryuzo (Keisaku Kimura) to help run the printing press.  It doesn’t take long for the two to start knocking the boots.  Their happiness is eventually threatened when Mamoru finds out the two have been making time behind his back.  Naturally, Ryuzo has been harboring a dark secret, but his secrets pale in comparison next to the ones Tomiko’s been hiding.

From the early scene where Sasaki spills her mother in-law’s ashes and masturbates with her remains, you know Mourning Wife is going to be a little different than the rest.  Allegedly a remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice, director Daisuke Goto resists the temptation to take the material down the usual pathways.  (I mean, was there a masturbating with skull fragments scene in the old John Garfield movie?)  While it still plays by the rules of classic film noir, the film has fun poking at the confines of the genre.  It explores unique angles within the love triangle dynamic and introduces new wrinkles into their relationships that your average noir thriller just would not explore (like Sasaki’s previous affair with a lesbian doctor).  

Mourning Wife is just a little different at every corner to keep you on your toes.  The only place it really disappoints is the ending.  (Although, quite honestly, the movie would’ve been hard pressed to top the masturbating with your mother in-law’s remains scene.)  While it still follows in the grand noir tradition where everyone gets what’s coming to them, it’s ultimately far too abrupt and unsatisfying to really pack its intended wallop.  Other than that oversight, it remains a solid, sexy, and unusual thriller.  

AKA:  An Affair with a Woman in Mourning.  

TUBI CONTINUED… UNCLE’S PARADISE (2006) ** ½

Takeshi (Shiro Shimomoto) is a weird old guy who gets kicked out of the house and goes to stay with his nephew Harou (Mutsuo Yoshioka).  Uncle Takeshi is suffering from a strange form of narcolepsy, which gives him terrible, erotic nightmares.  Whenever he rises from an unexpected slumber, he wakes up with a raging boner and a case of the hornies.  Trouble brews when he begins seeing the woman of his dreams/nightmares while he’s awake.  That doesn’t sound like a bad thing until you realize she’s a zombie.  

Uncle’s Paradise is an odd Japanese “Pink” movie.  The first half almost feels like a Japanese version of a quirky American indie flick, with occasional sex scenes sprinkled about.  The characters all have bizarre character quirks and at the same time are kind of endearing and likeable.  

Things get really weird though in the second half.  The shift in tone is a little jarring to say the least.  Still, there’s plenty of wild shit here.  I’m not saying it works or anything, but any Japanese sex flick that includes attacks from giant squids, big-ass spiders, and venomous snakes (it bites a guy right in the dick after he accidentally cums on it) is going to at the very least skate by with a ** ½ rating.  That’s not even taking into consideration the zombie girlfriend or the crazy finale, which takes place in what can only be described as a brothel for the damned.  

Sure, Uncle’s Paradise hits as much as it misses.  Another debit is the fact that the sex scenes are rather brief.  The ending is certainly unique enough to make up for some of its missteps along the way.  Despite its uneven nature, any movie in which a guy cums on a snake is going to pass with a marginal recommendation in my book. 

AKA:  Mighty Extreme Woman.