TUBI CONTINUED… EMPIRE OF THE APES (2013) ** ½

I have to hand it to writer/director Mark Polonia.  He wanted to make a crossbreed of a futuristic Women in Prison flick and a Planet of the Apes rip-off and he went out and did it.  He didn’t care that he only had $20 in his pocket.  He went out and did it.  He didn’t care that the ape masks were so cheap that they made the troll masks in Troll 2 look like products of the Rick Baker Make-Up Academy.  He went out and did it.  He didn’t care that the special effects looked like something a kid could’ve made with Mario Paint.  He went out and did it.  He didn’t care that the sound was so bad that you couldn’t hear what the actors in the ape masks were saying.  He went out and did it.  He didn’t care that the sets looked like something out of a second graders’ school play.  He went out and did it.  He didn’t care that the spaceship props looked suspiciously like the space gun props that were simply repainted and repurposed.  He went out and did it.  He didn’t care that the production design of this film made the production design of his Amityville in Space look like Star Wars in comparison.  He went out and did it.  He didn’t care that the only good line of dialogue was when the leader of the apes targeted the human heroines for “an aggressive reproduction campaign”.  He went out and did it.  

I think the biggest takeaway from Empire of the Apes is that if Polonia can go out and do it, maybe you can too.  

So, we got * for technical filmmaking craft.  **** for sheer chutzpah for making a movie this ambitious with no technical filmmaking craft.  That comes in at about a ** ½ average.  Now, part of me wants to give it a lower rating because it’s all REALLY uneven, but I can’t completely dismiss any movie that ends with a woman giving birth to a half-human, half-ape potential savior of mankind, so there’s that. 

TUBI CONTINUED… HONEYMOON HORROR (2008) ** ½

Nick (Andy McGuinness) is horny, and his girlfriend Amy (Julia M. Morizawa) is frigid, which is a bad combination if you ask me.  Desperate to get her to lighten up in the bedroom, Nick books a vacation getaway to a sex resort.  However, every time tries to put the moves on her, Amy has disturbing visions and freaks out on him, which seriously kills the mood.  While they are working on their sexual incompatibilities, a crazed killer cavorts around the camp’s bungalows offing swingers and sex maniacs left and right.  Could it be the creepy caretaker who’s always hanging around and hoping for a threesome?  Or is there something even more sinister lurking in the woods?

The stuff with McGuinness and Morizawa working on their relationship is kind of a snooze.  Early on, there’s a scene where they are trying to have a serious conversation and I just couldn’t concentrate on what they were saying because they were playing an awesome spook show trailer compilation in the background, and I was more concerned what was going on with that than I was with their relationship drama.  I understand not everyone will have the same reaction I did, but this scene definitely made me want to pull out my old Monsters Crash the Pajama Party DVD. 

Fortunately, things perk up once the action switches to the swingers’ resort.  There’s a great scene where the killer cuts a dom’s dick off and shoves it down his bound submissive’s mouth.  I also enjoyed the odd sequence that plays like an S & M sitcom (complete with laugh track).  It was also good seeing W.A.V.E. starlet Tina Krause popping up late in the game as a horny camper who picks up McGuinness.  The movie kind of goes off the rails at the end with the reveal of the killer, but the short running time (fifty-five minutes) and bountiful T & A ultimately make it semi-recommended.  

Oh, and the original title was Blood and Sex Nightmare, which makes a lot more sense, seeing how the couple isn’t married and aren’t on their honeymoon.

AKA:  Blood and Sex Nightmare.

TUBI CONTINUED… BLOOD COVE 2: RETURN OF THE SKULL (2020) ** ½

After the massacre that occurred in the haunted house attraction, Blood Cove, a detective orders the place burned to the ground with the serial killer, The Skull still inside.  Somehow, he escapes and begins offing the townsfolk one by one.  The cops eventually catch up with him and toss him in jail, but it doesn’t take long for The Skull to break out and kill more people.

As he showed with the original, writer/director James Ian Mair once again proves he is more than adept at delivering suspense.  He gives us a couple of fine stalking scenes where The Skull subtly lurks in the background for a while before choosing his spot to pounce on his prey.  While the majority of the kill scenes are often rushed or weak (as is the case with the climax), the pitchforking/head stomping scene is pretty great.  Mair also pulls off some rather atmospheric shots, which is admirable considering the time and budget he was probably working with.  The opening sequence also pays homage to Halloween 4 (which is a nice touch) and the subplot about The Skull in jail reminded me a bit of Halloween 5.  

At the heart of the film though is a sweet teenage lesbian love story.  This stuff works because it seems like it is coming from a genuine place and the fact that there is a lot of chemistry between the performers, Autumn Reed and Erinn Swaby.  Because of that, Blood Cove 2:  Return of the Skull is a shade or two better than the original.  

Troma president Lloyd Kaufman is the only “name” star this time around.  He plays the comic relief mayor who is worried the murders will ruin his re-election chances.  While his inclusion kind of goes against the grain of the sweet love story plotline, he is pretty funny, nevertheless.  He also gets the best line when he says, “This is like something out of a Troma movie!”

TUBI CONTINUED… BLOOD COVE (2019) **

Joanie (Katie Harbridge) is a reporter with mental health issues who decides to get away from it all and goes on a vacation in a small town in the middle of nowhere.  Along the way, she stops to take pictures at a rundown haunted house attraction called “Blood Cove” where she is kidnapped by a killer in a skull mask known only as “The Skull”.  Her father (Deron Morgan) wants to know what’s being done about her disappearance, and together with a doubtful detective (Jeff Angel), they investigate the seemingly deserted attraction.  

Blood Cove may be a low budget horror flick, but it’s rather competent in most respects.  The characters have a little more personality than usual, and some of the suspense scenes are handled assuredly enough.  Things kick off with a decent opening sequence where The Skull torments a tied-up hostage, and the scene where the killer stalks Harbridge through the titular establishment works reasonably well.  The Skull himself cuts a memorable figure as his bony visage makes for an intimidating silver screen slasher.

Sadly, the pacing starts to drag once Harbridge disappears from the narrative.  The long scenes of Morgan wandering aimlessly around the swamp and yelling, “Joanie!” don’t help either, as they quickly become tiresome.  Although it sort of finds its footing once again late in the game, it’s pretty much undone by the weak kills and some fake looking effects.  (Like the pole through the head gag.)

Harbridge makes for a likeable heroine, and it’s a shame she’s kept off screen for so much of the second half.  George Stover is the only “name” star as the town crazy who knows there’s a killer lurking in the haunted house, but of course (say it with me) no one believes him.  It’s Tara Bixler though who steals the movie as the horny cop who makes it a priority to bang all the new police recruits.  

TUBI CONTINUED… MAD FOXES (1981) ****

Hal (Jose Gras) is a smug, sportscar-driving asshole who takes his (much) younger girlfriend out on the town to celebrate her eighteenth birthday.  When an altercation at a traffic light with some Nazi bikers turns deadly, they retaliate by beating up Hal and raping his girlfriend.  Hal then calls his Kung Fu buddy who owns a karate school and asks him for a favor:  Kick some Nazi biker ass!  Well, wouldn’t you know it?  The Nazi bikers retaliate (again) and toss a grenade into the dojo in the middle of a karate class!  From there, Hal and the bikers keep ping-ponging back and forth, meting out vengeance until just about everybody near and dear to him ends up dead.  

Mad Foxes is frickin’ awesome.  It’s got everything you could possibly want in a movie.  Sex, violence, fast cars, motorcycle gangs, Kung Fu, Nazis getting punched in the face, explosions, T & A…  You name it, Mad Foxes has it.  In between, there are plenty of jaw-dropping moments, head-scratching plot developments, and brain-melting scenes of violence.

Now, not a whole lot of this makes logical sense, but that’s a good thing since you never know where this crazy flick will go next.  I’ll admit, some of it is a little hard to stomach, and yet, you can’t deny a movie that just delivers awesome sequence after awesome sequence.  There’s a hilarious nightclub scene where the dancing runs the gamut from disco to ballroom.  The part where the members of the karate school interrupt the Nazi biker funeral and have an all-out brawl over the biker’s flaming corpse is just incredible.  The ending is fucking unbelievable too.  

Okay, so this is the part of the review where I state that the version on Tubi has been cut.  It is a good ten minutes shorter than the running time listed on IMDb, and that site’s Parents Guide also suggests that there is a lot more sex and gore not present in this version.  I’m not even sure how that’s possible as it’s already brimming with disgustingness.  I guess I’ll have to track down the uncut version at some point.  Even in a truncated form, Mad Foxes still kicks all kinds of ass.

AKA:  Stingray 2.

TUBI CONTINUED… THE LAST VAMPIRE ON EARTH (2010) *

If you can’t already tell by the thumbnail picture, this is one of the most obvious Twilight rip-offs ever made.  It also happens to be one of the worst.  It’s so bad it makes the official Twilight movies look like Dracula in comparison.

The Last Vampire on Earth tells a time-honored love story.  Pale boy meets pale girl.  Pale boy almost loses pale girl.  Pale boy wins back pale girl.  Pale girl invites him over to her family’s house for dinner.  Pale boy pukes up mama’s chicken because… he’s a vampire.  Pale girl is sick, and since her religion doesn’t allow her to receive blood transfusions, it means the only way she can be saved is if pale boy bites her and turns her into a vampire.  

Imagine if someone had $7 at their disposal, a cast of people without an acting bone in their body, lots of white face paint, and a desire to remake Twilight.  (There’s even a recreation of the “Say it… ‘vampire’” scene.)  That’s about what you get with The Last Vampire on Earth.  

This is a bad movie, to be sure.  I don’t want to oversell just how bad it is, but director Vitaliy Versace left the “Vignette” filter on throughout the whole damned running time.  I repeat:  HE LEFT THE VIGNETTE FILTER ON THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE DAMNED RUNNING TIME.  Every shot has a black circle around the frame, which is a sign of ineptitude the likes of which I have never seen.  It’s like when you play a prank on grandma and mess with the settings on her phone’s camera.

Also, everything is way too dark.  I know everyone is supposed to look pale and all, but the lighting is so bad in some scenes that everyone looks like a corpse.  Even the people who aren’t supposed to be vampires look like one of the undead.  

The acting is some of the worst I’ve ever experienced.  Every single line delivery sound like someone reading right off their script.  Sometimes, it sounds like the actors are pronouncing the dialogue phonetically, as if English was a fourth or fifth language.  

The biggest laugh in the movie comes during the scene where pale boy is playing ping pong with himself.  The ineptly edited jump cuts are supposed to represent his “super speed” as he runs back and forth between both ends of the table.  This has nothing though on the WTF jaw-dropper of a scene where pale girl reveals her big secret to pale boy.  I’m not sure what the fuck the filmmakers were thinking here, but it’s one of the most spectacularly bad taste moments I’ve sat through in recent memory.  That’s not exactly a recommendation, but if you’re a Bad Movie fan who thinks they’ve seen it all, The Last Vampire on Earth will likely test even the most die-hard Grade Z movie fan’s mettle.  

You’ve been warned.  

TUBI CONTINUED… SPLATTER BEACH (2007) ** ½

There have been reports of people being killed by sea monsters, and a fledgling journalist named Rupert (Dave Fife) sets to get to the bottom of the matter.  While his horny friends Rodney (Brice Kennedy) and Tonya (Erika Smith) are off boning at his parent’s beach house, Rupert is combing the beach looking for clues.  After dispatching the horndog couple, the monsters crash a rock concert on the beach.   

Directed by Mark and John Polonia, Splatter Beach is a hit-or-miss, sometimes fun, sometimes silly send-up of beach party movies and late-night creature features.  The animated opening credits sequence nicely sets the tone, which is kind of like a mix between Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Horror of Party Beach, and Humanoids from the Deep.  While much of this is wildly uneven, I did enjoy the monsters, who look like a seaweed-covered version of The Slime People.  The beach party scenes are less effective, but you can have fun with them, just for the fact that it’s obvious that many of the concertgoers are dancing against a greenscreen background of a beach.  

While the opening is fun, the second half suffers from a lot of padding.  Long scenes from The Creature from the Haunted Sea play out on TV, and there’s music video sequences that contain scenes of stuff we’ve previously seen.  Despite all this, it’s moderately fun and entertaining, although it falls short of being laugh-out-loud funny.  In fact, it might’ve eked by with *** if the finale hadn’t been so damned anticlimactic.  (It’s shown in a series of still photographs.)  

Although B-Movie Queen Misty Mundae is top billed, she’s not in it nearly as much as you would think.  She plays the crazy neighbor who knows all about the monsters, but of course, nobody believes her.  Misty brightens up the movie whenever she appears, and I wish we saw a lot more of her.  (If you catch my meaning.)