FRANKY AND HIS PALS (1991) *

Franky, Drak, Humper, Wolfie, and Mummy are a group of monsters that have been living inside of a cave for a hundred years.  After they find a treasure map, Franky accidentally farts so hard that it blows a hole in the side of the mountain.  The pals then go out into the real world searching for treasure and encounter aerobicize classes, Halloween costume parties, and the joy of peeping on people while they’re doing the nasty.

Franky and His Pals looks like an unholy amalgam of a low budget Sid and Marty Krofft show from the ‘70s and a ‘90s shot-on-video horror flick.  Although there’s enough suggestive humor here to warrant a PG-13, it’s not really for kids.  Or adults.  Or humans for that matter.

I was flummoxed by this flick at every turn, which is really saying something coming from such a die-hard bad movie connoisseur.  The gags are awful (the vampire, “Drak” goes to a bar and orders a… wait for it… Bloody Mary!) and the sexual humor doesn’t work at all (the hunchback, “Humper” watches a couple doing it and says, “Ride me like a cowboy!” over and over again).  It’s also heavily padded with annoying songs, including a rap that recaps the events of the movie… TEN MINUTES into the film!  We’re only ten minutes in!  What is there to recap?  The ending where the film simultaneously throws up its hands and gives up AND sets itself up for a sequel will have you tearing your hair out.

The oddest part is the romance that blooms with the werewolf, “Wolfie” and a gay ballerina.  In a movie like this (and certainly one made during this time period), you’d think there’d be a lot of crass jokes made at the only gay character's expense.  However, their storyline is treated with a surprising amount of dignity.  (Or as much as you would expect from a SOV horror comedy.)  Furthermore, all the characters never comment negatively on their relationship, and are generally accepting of their union.  That sole touch was enough for me to give Franky and His Pals * instead of ½ *.  (Unfortunately, the progressive attitudes only extend so far as the only two black characters are treated like scared caricatures out of a horror flick from the ‘30s.)

TUBI CONTINUED… CRYPT OF DARK SECRETS (1976) ***

A sexy snake woman named Damballa (Maureen Chan) is out in the swamp performing voodoo rituals.  That doesn’t seem to bother a retired Army Ranger named Ted (Ronald Tanet) who settles down in a little cabin in the middle of the swamp.  A trio of no-good swamp rats learn where he keeps his cash and kill him and make off with the loot.  It’s then up to the sexy snake babe to exact revenge.

Crypt of Dark Secrets has an odd, low budget look and feel.  Many of the swamp sequences are downright gorgeous while some interior shots are blurry and out of focus.  A handful of the actors are hammy and amateurish while other players are quite good.  Some stretches are strangely captivating while others are a total bore.  (Like the flashback that tells Damballa’s story, which basically just boils down to a massive exposition dump.)  For all its uneven qualities, there are a few genuinely surprising moments (like the fact that the killers immediately turn themselves in once they learn they’ve been cursed) and director Jack (Mardi Gras Massacre) Weis makes good use of the swamp locations, which helps make this an imperfect, but memorable winner.

The thing that really puts the movie into the win column is Maureen Chan as Damballa.  Her willingness to do sexy voodoo ceremonies totally nude at the drop of a hat really endears her to the audience.  There’s a particularly awesome scene where she revives the dude’s corpse by doing a sexy dance over his body and bumping and grinding on his chest.  Naturally, he comes back to life, and they bone.  

I think I have a Do Not Resuscitate clause in my will, but now I might have to amend my will and make an exception for sexy snake women.  I mean have a sexy snake woman at least TRY to bring me back to life with her sexy nude gyrations before you pull the plug on me.  It can’t hurt.

AKA:  Dark Secrets.

TUBI CONTINUED… HONEYMOON OF HORROR (1964) *

After a whirlwind courtship, Lilli (Abbey Heller) marries a handsome artist named Emile (Robert Parsons).  She knows she’s in trouble straight away when dozens of his eccentric artist friends crash their honeymoon and throw a surprise party.  The fact that he leaves at all hours of the night while his creepy butler leers at her doesn’t help matters either.   Or that every time she winds up alone with one of her husband’s whack-a-doodle friends, they reveal themselves to be potential psychos.  Then, there’s the matter of the persistent caller who hangs up whenever Lilli comes on the line.  Is the mysterious person on the other line trying to warn her?  Or are they nuts too?

Honeymoon of Horror has a potentially intriguing set up, but after that, it’s duller than dishwater and boring as fuck.  It might’ve been worthwhile if the filmmakers were satirizing the art scene and skewering the quirky characters that populate it the way, say, Roger Corman did in A Bucket of Blood.  These bozos get on your nerves from the moment they arrive on screen and act more as red herrings than any sort of art world caricatures.

Apparently, there’s an alternate version that includes some cheap nude inserts.  I can’t tell for sure it would’ve made a difference since it’s so damned dull.  However, it might’ve taken the sting out of all the dreariness.  On the plus side, Heller isn’t bad (it’s a shame that this was her only film role), and I did enjoy the extensive use of library music, some of which was more famously used in Night of the Living Dead.

A cheap floozy gets the best line of the movie when she shrugs off a near rape and says, “He was a minor sex maniac… NOT a murderer!”

AKA:  Orgy of the Golden Nudes.  AKA:  The Golden Nymphs.  AKA:  Orgies.  

TUBI CONTINUED… THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE IN APARTMENT 14F (2019) **

Two slackers go to a drug dealer’s apartment hoping they’ll get hired as low-level muscle.  While hanging around the apartment, they bide their time by using a drone equipped with a camera to spy on the hooker who lives in the apartment below.  When the drone gets stuck on the next level, they are horrified to see the apartment is overrun with zombies.  Panicked, they stay inside, hunker down, and decide to wait out the zombie apocalypse.

Written by Shaun Donnelly, one of the masterminds behind Lingerie Fighting Championships (one of the characters wears an LFC shirt) and costarring the LFC champ, Jolene Hexx as the hooker, The Zombie Apocalypse in Apartment 14F is a semi-amusing attempt to churn out a low budget zombie flick with limited locations and cast members.  Too bad the two leads aren’t very funny.  Since most of the running time is devoted to them locked in the apartment together, the whole thing has a tendency to get repetitive in a hurry.  I mean having two slackers doing drugs, making pop culture references, and generally just hanging out doesn’t exactly translate into gripping cinema. 

If this was made during the pandemic, I might’ve given it some slack as the premise does offer a novel way to make a zombie movie on a (very) small scale.  Since it came out a full year before COVID, I can’t quite bring myself to go easy on it.  It also doesn’t help that you can see the twist ending coming from a mile away.

Hexx is easily the best thing about the movie, even if she isn’t in it very much.   (Although I’m sure you already guessed that if you’re familiar with my love for her abilities in the ring.)  She gets naked briefly for shower and sex scenes, and the film briefly comes to life whenever she is front and center.  Unfortunately, she spends most of her screen time barely visible on a teeny monitor.  One thing is for sure, the day she has a starring vehicle, I’ll be the first one in line to see it.

TUBI CONTINUED… RUNAWAY NIGHTMARE (2018) ***

Many low budget horror movies try to recapture the look and feel of old ‘70s Grindhouse movies by using fake intermission ads, trailers, and scratched prints.  Very few go for the “Taped Off Television in the ‘80s” vibe.  The WNUF Halloween Special is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.  Runaway Nightmare is a neat attempt to recreate that bygone era with fake station breaks, regional TV commercials, and bumpers.  (Like The WNUF Halloween Special, the broadcast takes place on Halloween.)

This is basically a riff on the old After School Specials, but when you’re watching it, it has commercials for psychics, thrift shops, and Halloween stores left intact.  My only real complaint is that the movie itself never quite feels like a real After School Special. It just feels like… you know… another Dustin Ferguson movie.  However, the ads and commercials are really well done and are worth the price of admission on their own merit.  In fact, I might go so far to say that Runaway Nightmare (which has no relation to the 1982 flick of the same name), just might be my favorite Ferguson joint so far.

The plot of the movie within a movie has a teenager fighting off the advances of her drunken stepfather and accidentally killing him in the process.  She flees the scene and is picked up off the side of the road by two degenerates who drug her and sell her to some Satanists looking to sacrifice a virgin on Halloween night.

Many ads are repeated throughout, which I’m sure served two purposes:  To recreate the experience of watching old TV broadcasts who always used the same couple of sponsors, and to pad out the running time.  (It’s only thirty-eight minutes long.) I’m not really complaining since many of them are pretty sweet.  My favorite bit was a Trick or Treat montage set to “The Monster Mash”.  (I’m not entirely sure how Ferguson got the rights to the song, but hey, don’t ask, don’t tell, right?)

TUBI CONTINUED… THE PRODIGAL PLANET (1983) **

The Prodigal Planet is the fourth and final chapter in Donald W. Thompson’s series of Tribulation films that began with A Thief in the Night.  As with the other movies, it picks up almost immediately where the last one left off.  Our hero, David (William Wellman, Jr.) is about to be executed by the Antichrist’s “Unite” foot soldiers when he’s saved at the last minute by an underground freedom fighter named Connie (Terri Lynn Hall).  Together, they team up to take down the Antichrist once and for all.  Most of their time though is spent riding around the wasteland in his armored RV looking for survivors and avoiding “Doomsday People” AKA:  Mutants.  Along the way, they naturally run into the preacher from other movies who now lives in a hole and is reduced to eating rats for food who tells them lots of long-ass Bible speeches and vital exposition.

The Prodigal Planet feels closer to your average post-apocalypse movie as the scenes in the burned-out cities crawling with mutants in monk robes has a real Omega Man-type vibe to them.  (Other than the shit-ton of Jesus talk, that is.)  Some of this isn’t too bad, but the biggest detriment is the over-inflated running time.  A Thief in the Night was a breezy hour or so.  This one is over two hours, and it drags like a sumbitch in several places.

You get a little bit of everything in this one though.  There’s nuclear bombs, awful religious songs, post-nuke cliches, and of course, lots of Bible quoting.  Stick with it though because the finale is good for a few chuckles.  I also liked how villains die from convenient train accidents and fiery stock footage explosions.  Sure, it’s not quite enough to offer you salvation, but it does take some of the sting out of the overlong running time.

AKA:  A Thief in the Night 4:  The Prodigal Planet. 

RAD (1986) ** ½

Rad is a boilerplate sports movie with the novelty of the sport in question being BMX racing.  It was directed by Hal (Smokey and the Bandit) Needham, who might not be the first guy you think of for something like this.  However, he always had a knack for filming stunts, and he fills the flick with lots of scenes of bike riders doing tricks and flying in the air in slow motion.

Cru (Bill Allen) is a great BMX rider trapped in a small town.  When the big BMX race, “Helltrack” comes to town, he must decide whether or not to ditch the SATs for the big race.  With the help of his new gal (Lori Loughlin), he signs up for the race, defying his mother (Talia Shire, whose husband, Jack Schwartzman produced this) who wants him to go to college.  Naturally, everyone in town starts rooting for him and comes to his rescue when the greedy sponsor (Jack Weston) tries to stonewall him out of the race.

Rad probably has too much plot for something like this, but it does contain some odd touches that help to elevate it above the typical sports movie cliches.  There’s a funny scene where Allen courts Loughlin while riding bikes together at a school dance that feels sort of like a BMX version of Roller Boogie or something.  Then, there’s the “ass sliding” scene, which is just a naughty sounding way to describe… uh… sliding down a water slide… on… uh… your ass.  (I mean, how else are you going to slide down it?)  

The ’80s time capsule aspect works in its favor though, and some of the rampant product placement is also good for a laugh.  It nearly tops Mac and Me in that regard.  The big race is sponsored by 7-11 and Kix cereal, and there’s even a giant Kix cereal bowl the racers have to go through during the race!

The cast is pretty good too.  Allen is solid in the lead, and Loughlin is great as the sexy tomboy with a heart of gold.  Weston chews the scenery gamely as the villain, and Ray Walston is fun as the old fuddy-duddy who might not be so bad after all.  Shire is kinda wasted though.  After all those Rocky movies, she can do the whole “cheering from the sidelines” thing in her sleep by now.

AKA:  Hell Track.  AKA:  BMX Hellriders.  AKA:  BMX Hellraiders.