TUBI CONTINUED… AMITYVILLE CHRISTMAS VACATION (2022) ** ½

Amityville Christmas Vacation is barely a movie.  It’s only forty-seven minutes long.  It’s shot in mostly one location using only a handful of actors on the lowest of budgets.  There’s almost enough of an idea here to fill a fake three-minute Grindhouse style trailer, and even then, that’s being somewhat generous.  

Some fake Amityville movies play it straight.  Some intentionally go for laughs.  Most of the time, the ones that play it straight end up getting more laughs than the ones that intentionally go for them.  This one has charm to spare, and even an occasional (intentional) laugh or two.  I guess what I’m getting at is that it’s far from the worst fake Amityville movie out there.  

Wally Griswold (writer/director Steve Rudzinski, the man who gave us CarousHELL) is a cop who wins an all-expense paid vacation to a B & B in Amityville.  The only other tenant is a ghost who must haunt and kill him.  Naturally, they wind up falling in love, because, after all, it’s Christmas.  

I’m kind of a fan of Rudzinski’s films.  If we are setting the bar at CarousHELL, then Amityville Christmas Vacation falls short of that marker, but it’s about on par with CarousHELL 2, which isn’t too shabby.  Sure, it has its fair share of gags that fall flat.  However, it remains relatively entertaining throughout, especially during the scenes that parody Hallmark Christmas movies. 

Rudzinski is basically a one-man show in this.  He gamely carries the movie while tossing off one-liners to no one in particular.  He kind of has a Bruce Campbell quality about him.  You know, the ability to be the only one on screen, and while utilizing little more than his plucky spirit, is able to successfully sell the cheesy dialogue and effects and make them work.  While I can’t say this is overall his best effort, I will be the first one in line should he choose to direct and star in Amityville Vegas Vacation. 

AMITYVILLE APRIL

Hey, Vacuumers!  This month’s theme is going to be Amityville April.  My task is to watch as many fake Amityville movies Tubi has to offer (and maybe even one or two “official” sequels).  I know I’m already running behind schedule, but I hope to post all my reviews by the end of the month.  So, pack your bags, folks!  We’re going to Amityville!

MILLIGAN MARCH: TOGA PARTY (1977) *

According to the opening crawl accompanying the Blu-ray, Toga Party was originally filmed as a softcore comedy called Pelvis.  Distributor William Mishkin then changed the title to Toga Party to cash in on the popularity of Animal House and hired Andy Milligan to shoot some new inserts to spice things up.  The original cast, unaware of the new scenes, caused an uproar at the premiere, and the film faded into obscurity.  

Farm boy Pervis (Luther “Bud” Whaney) leaves home to go to New York and become a country star.  He only has one song (about fucking a chicken) and can’t seem to get his foot in the door.  Eventually, he becomes a singing sensation, but drugs threaten to derail it all.  Fortunately for Pervis, his gal from back home, Betty Lou (Mary Jenifer Mitchell) shows up to snap some sense into him. Porn star Bobby Astyr (the only actor who appears in both the new and old footage) stars in the Milligan-lensed framing sequences as Pervis’ former manager, Snake who reminisces about Pervis during the titular toga party.  

The cast of the original film, Pelvis might’ve been upset that the newly shot material sucked, but it’s honestly just as bad as the old footage.  There’s just enough toga partying in the new scenes to justify the title, but it’s all ill-fitting to say the least.  It’s obvious this was a hatchet job as the linking material to the new and old footage is tenuous at best.  The new scenes have an OK amount of T & A, although that’s about all it has going for it.  (Comedy is not Milligan’s strong suit.)  

The old footage is often a chore to sit through.  The humor is lame, forced, or just plain unfunny.  If you laugh at pie fights, fast-motion chase scenes, and Wizard of Oz references you may enjoy it, but it’s all pretty dire for the most part.  (I did like the Iron Eyes Cody gag though.)  It doesn’t help that Pelvis’ faux-Elvis demeanor is paper-thin and can’t sustain an entire movie (or even half of one).  Heck, the movie is so bad, it can’t even manage to play out the tried-and-true rise-and-fall-of-a-popstar cliches in a coherent manner.

Milligan Motifs:  Since Milligan was only responsible for the wraparound sequences, there’s none of his typical touches here.

Milligan Stock Players:  Milligan mainstay Hal Borske appears in one of the Milligan-shot scenes.

AKA:  Pelvis.  AKA:  Disco Madness.  AKA:  All Dressed in Rubber.  

Well folks, we’ve finally reached the end of Milligan March.  (I’ve been running late posting these reviews as I took a little sabbatical from reviewing over Spring Break.)  Here is my ranking of the Milligan movies I’ve seen:  

MILLIGAN MARCH MADNESS RANKING

1. Fleshpot on 42nd Street ***

2. Nightbirds ***

3. Blood ** ½ 

4. Seeds ** ½ 

5. The Man with 2 Heads ** ½ 

6. The Body Beneath ** ½ 

7. Carnage **

8. Vapors **

9. Legacy of Blood * ½ 

10. Torture Dungeon * ½ 

11. Bloodthirsty Butchers * ½ 

12. The Ghastly Ones *

13. Guru the Mad Monk *

14. Toga Party *

15. The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here NO STARS

Next (this) month’s theme will be another crossover with the Tubi Continued… column.  It’s called Amityville April.  I’ll be trying to watch and review all the fake (and maybe a few official) Amityville movies Tubi has to offer.  See you then…

TUBI CONTINUED… BITE ME! (2004) ***

A shipment of “killer” marijuana is delivered to a struggling strip club owner.  Little does he know there’s a nest of deadly spiders lurking within the wacky weed.  Soon, the place is infested with big ass bugs.  Whenever they bite a dancer, their venom acts as sort of an ersatz Spanish Fly, turning them into complete nymphos.  

Bite Me! is one of those movies that proves The Video Vacuum Rule that any movie can be made better if you set it in a strip club.  I’m sure a flick about giant bugs could’ve worked in a shopping mall, the suburbs, or on a nuclear test site.  It just hits different when the ginormous spiders invade a strip club.  It also helps that there are some genuine laughs to be had, thanks to the fun special effects and game performances.  Sure, there may be a couple of gratuitous characters (like the annoying DEA agent who keeps popping up) and unnecessary subplots, but whenever writer/director Brett (The Screaming Dead) Piper is showcasing the big bugs and bodacious babes, it often works like gangbusters.

Misty Mundae is top-billed and gets a fun Rambo parody scene that allows her to show off her comedic chops.  Julian Wells is also a lot of fun as the sexy Mafioso who wants to shut the club down so she can buy it.  She has a great scene where she gets bit by a spider and then hops on stage and struts her stuff on the stripper pole.

However, it’s Caitlyn Ross who steals the movie as the lethargic stripper, Amber.  She gives what has to be one of the most memorable stripteases in cinema history when she falls asleep on the stripper pole in mid-performance.  Too bad she only starred in a handful of films because based on her ability to combine comedy with sultry sex appeal, she could’ve been top notch B-Movie Queen.

MILLIGAN MARCH: BLOOD (1973) ** ½

I originally reviewed Andy Milligan’s Blood back on May 15th, 2018.  Here’s my initial thoughts on the film, followed by some notes I made for Milligan March:

BLOOD  (1973)  ** ½

Blood is one of Andy Milligan’s best movies, which is telling.  It’s a slapdash, low budget horror flick set primarily in one location that features crummy effects and inconsistent acting.  Some parts are out of focus.  Others are too dark to see.  Sometimes the actors flub their lines.  Other times their dialogue doesn’t match their lip movements.  All this makes the film more enjoyable, not less.  If you’ve ever sat through Milligan’s atrocious The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here, this will seem like Citizen Kane by comparison.

Lawrence Orlofsky (Allen Berendt) moves his wife Regina (Hope Stansbury) and his gaggle of assistants into his ancestral home.  Almost immediately, they begin performing experiments on bloodthirsty plants to keep Regina looking youthful and vibrant.  When Lawrence starts making eyes at a pretty secretary (Pamela Adams), it sends Regina into a jealous rage.

Milligan’s Everything but the Kitchen Sink method is admirable.  Just when you start to get restless, he’ll toss in another improbable (but amusing) plot wrinkle.  (I wouldn’t dream of revealing why Orlofsky had to change his name.)  No matter how shoddy the production looks, I can’t in good conscience dismiss a movie that features mad scientists, vampires, AND man-eating plants.

Even at a relatively scant 69 minutes, the pacing starts to sag about halfway through.  The claustrophobic location doesn’t help matters either.  That said, there’s at least one memorable moment involving a mouse that will make your jaw drop.  While most of the performers are wooden and/or stilted, Stansbury is rather charming as the vampiric lady of the house.  The ending, though brief and anticlimactic makes me wish it had been on a double feature with Al Adamson’s Dracula vs. Frankenstein instead of the crappy Legacy of Satan.

MILLIGAN MARCH NOTES:  

1) As cheesy as most of the movie is, the initial reveal of the vampire lady’s decrepit face is effective.  

2) I wasn’t particularly taken with Hope Stansbury’s work in Milligan’s The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here, but she is a straight-up fox in this movie.  I know she’s high maintenance and all (you’ve got to keep her supplied with fresh blood on a daily basis), but I think she’d be worth it.  

3) The pacing is rather erratic.  There are stretches where not much happens and then when something does, it occurs so fast that it’s enough to give you whiplash, which at least keeps you on your toes.  

4) The brief, sixty-nine-minute running time certainly helps, but sometimes the editing is so frantic that I have to wonder if there wasn’t a gorier cut at some point as the film (while it still has a couple of memorable gore scenes) isn’t quite as gory as your average Milligan flick.

5) As with many of Milligan’s pictures, things begin to stall the more time that’s spent on unnecessary supporting characters.  When Milligan is focusing on sexy vampire women, werewolves, and man-eating plants, it’s good, cheesy fun.  

Milligan Motifs:  This is yet another period costume drama/horror movie Milligan made in Staten Island that uses a lot of library music as part of the score.  Like many of his films, someone inevitably gets a meat cleaver to the skull and/or has their hands hacked off.  As with The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here, there’s a scene where a mouse is killed. 

Milligan Stock Players:  In addition to starring in The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here, Hope Stansbury also wrote Vapors for Milligan.  

AKA:  Black Nightmare in Blood.

TUBI CONTINUED… THE SCREAMING DEAD (2003) ** ½

A kinky photographer (Joseph Farrell) makes his sexy subjects pose for controversial pictures.  He brings his latest batch of models to a supposedly haunted mansion/former insane asylum for his next shoot.  Once on the grounds, the frantic photog sets about playing mind games with the models to mentally torture then so he can capture them in the appropriately frightened state of mind he wishes them to convey.  Unfortunately, the models’ fear awakens the malevolent spirit of the sadistic former owner of the house who sets out to torture and kill everyone unlucky enough to be trespassing on his property.  

Written and directed by Brett (A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell) Piper, The Screaming Dead boasts a solid set-up, and the haunted sanitarium makes for an atmospheric location.  The inclusion of Seduction Cinema starlets like Misty Mundae and A.J. Khan help add to the fun.  However, once the models begin being subjected to the photographer’s mental degradation, things sort of stall.  It also takes an inordinate amount of time before the supernatural elements start falling into place.  The scenes of the beefy security guard (Rob Monkiewicz) butting heads with the freaky photographer have a tendency to get repetitive too.  While there are still a number of neat moments (like when a face gets pushed through a wall), and some of the torture sequences are reminiscent of the old Corman/Poe movies from the ‘60s, the finale ultimately feels rushed and a little unsatisfying.  

Monkiewicz makes for a good upstanding square jaw hero.  Rachel Robbins is also quite strong as the secretary who puts up with Farrell’s increasingly cruel demands and manipulations.  Farrell is a bit grating as the human villain, although I guess that’s kind of the point.  Still, a little of his performance goes a long way.  Misty is the reason to watch it (of course) as she delivers yet another solid performance and looks great during her various nude scenes.

MILLIGAN MARCH: CARNAGE (1984) **

Here’s my original review of Carnage as it first appeared on November 12th, 2008, followed by some additional notes I made as I watched the film as part of Milligan March:  

CARNAGE  (1984)  **

A couple commits suicide while dressed in their wedding clothes in their new house.  Years later another pair of newlyweds moves in and almost right away, the house starts exhibiting some peculiarities.  Doors don’t stay closed, teacups move around by themselves, and the phonograph ominously plays “Here Comes the Bride”.  Eventually we learn that the deceased couple is haunting the place and they want the latest tenants to die so they can become ghostified and live with them forever.

Low budget horror director Andy (The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here) Milligan was actually working with something of a budget on this film and the results really aren’t too bad at all.  The biggest gripe I had was with the sluggish pacing and the fact that the actors were all amateurish and extremely unphotogenic.  That’s okay though because Carnage had enough (unintentional) laughs to keep me semi-entertained for 90 minutes.

The funniest part comes when the spirits toss a radio into the bathtub on some poor unsuspecting dope.  The fact that he is clearly wearing underwear during this scene is funny enough but the fact that the radio is playing an all-accordion version of Elvis’ “Now or Never” makes it that much more bizarre.  I also highly enjoyed the scene where the cleaning woman gets pelted with a whole bunch of supernatural Silly String for no good reason whatsoever.  

The main “scary” thing the ghosts do is make things move around by themselves.  It looks as stupid as it sounds, but at least when the ghosts starts levitating axes, pitchforks and meat cleavers, people end up losing body parts left and right.  (The decapitation scene is particularly shitdiculous).  There’s also a juicy self-induced throat slashing in there too for good measure as well.

Yeah the effects are terrible (the ghosts appear via jump cuts and the levitating objects are obviously being held up by strings), but that doesn’t make the flick altogether unwatchable.  While parts of the film WERE a chore to sit through, it did feature enough gore to justify its title.  It’s far from the worst Milligan movie I’ve seen, that’s damn skippy.  

MILLIGAN MARCH NOTES:  

1) The opening murder/suicide scene is semi-effective and feels much more like a “real” movie than many of Milligan’s homegrown productions.

2) The scenes where the everyday household objects move around on the new homeowners to mildly inconvenience them are kind of funny.  I feel like this is the kind of shit real ghosts would do.  You know, like hide the new tenant’s car keys just long enough to make them late for the dentist and force them to reschedule.  Got to love petty poltergeists.  

3) The scene where the bloody bride randomly appears and sprays the housekeeper in the face with cobwebs (it looks like Silly String) are semi-amusing, but not quite laugh-out-loud funny.

4) The gore is decent, but the transfer on the Blu-ray is so good that you can see the seams of the make-up during the throat slashing and the visible wires when the guy’s guts are being ripped out by the “invisible” ghost.  

5) While the stuff that takes place inside the house is semi-entertaining, whenever it cuts away to other family members squabbling about their own problems, the pace slows down to a crawl.

6) So far, I’ve referred to Carnage as “semi-effective”, “semi-amusing”, and “semi-entertaining”.  That about sums it up.  Close, but no cigar.  However, when Andy Milligan is making horror movies, close, but no cigar is about nearest he can get to a bull’s eye.  

Milligan Motifs:  Carnage is yet another Andy Milligan production that was filmed in Staten Island that's filled with library music on the soundtrack.  The gore is consistent with other Milligan films as it features all the pitchforking, hacked off hands, and meat cleavers to the skull you’ve come to expect from the man.  The concept of three married couples staying in a spooky old house is a theme that constantly recycles throughout Milligan’s work and the death in the bathtub owes a debt to the one in Seeds.

Milligan Stock Players:  Leslie Den Dooven was later in Milligan’s short, Adventures of Red Rooster.