TUBI CONTINUED… ATTACK OF THE GIANT TEACHER (2020) **

Kenzo (Makoto Kojima) is a lowly teacher who learns his night school is about to be shut down.  As a final farewell, he and his ragtag group of students decide to put on a musical for the last day of school.  Little do they know that’s when an alien invasion of Earth is about to occur.  Luckily, two of his students are tiny aliens in disguise and they give their beloved teacher a super pill that makes him grow to enormous proportions so he can duke it out with the giant alien menace.

Attack of the Giant Teacher has a potentially good idea.  It’s just a shame that you have to wait until the final ten minutes for the teacher to become a giant.  (Aside from the opening flash forward, that is.)  Till then, you’re stuck with a lot of boring Stand and Deliver-style stuff.  While the teaching scenes aren’t bad exactly, there’s very little for you to hang your hat on until the climax rolls around.  (Aside from the random scene where a lawyer fights a waitress wearing wrestling tights.)

The effects are kind of cheesy, although I guess that’s to be expected.  (The main alien looks like a cross between a burned-out lava lamp and Tom Servo from Mystery Science Theater 3000.)  However, the Ultraman-style fight scene at the end is rather ill-fitting with the whole teacher narrative.  I guess it would’ve been okay if the final fight wasn’t so damned brief.  If you’re more invested in whether or not the teacher and his students will rally together to put on the big musical rather than if the teacher will become huge and fight off the impending alien invasion, then you might dig it.  Personally, there weren’t nearly enough scenes of the giant teacher battling UFOs, which, to me, seemed like the entire goddamned point.  Because of that, I can’t give Attack of the Giant Teacher a passing grade.

TUBI CONTINUED… FROZEN SCREAM (1975) *

“Immortality?  Why would anyone want to live forever in a world like this?”

This question is pondered out of the blue by an unseen narrator early on in Frozen Scream.  The query is posed in between a scene of a floating head that’s superimposed over a starfield and a scene where a bug-eyed strangler murders a couple in a swimming pool.  Shortly thereafter, there are phone conversations where the camera never is on the person talking, which means it’s easier to dub in the dialogue after the fact.  (This is also known as “Pulling a Doris Wishman.”) 

I wasn’t even five minutes into the flick, and I already knew I was in deep trouble.

Five minutes later, the narrator comes back, identifies himself as a cop, and tells us how he’s been investigating the murders.  Unfortunately, he chose to do this during a long dialogue scene between the heroine and her doctor, so there’s narration stacked upon dialogue and overlapping to the point that it feels like a ramshackle Altman movie.  This technique is used throughout the film, which begs the question:  Why go through all the trouble to poorly dub your dialogue if you’re just going to dub narration over the whole conversation anyway?

Speaking of the dialogue, it’s spoken by actors who A) Flub their lines B) Speak in blank, expressionless monotone and C) Have accents so thick it sounds like Lili Von Shtupp impersonating Dr. Ruth.

In short, this movie is like a seven-layer cake of suck with each layer suckier than the next.

Bright spots include an OK nightmare scene, a few nifty (albeit brief) gore effects (including an axe to the face and a shard of glass to the eye), and a nude dream sequence.  The most hilarious scene involves a rock band singing covers of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Rock Around the Clock”, but slurring the words in such a manner that I assume was their slick way of avoiding paying any royalties.

Co-Written by Michael (Blood Diner) Sonye.

TUBI CONTINUED… WONDER WOMEN (1973) ***

Nancy Kwan is an evil dragon lady with a prosperous side business.  She sends out her hit team of all-girl assassins to bring back top athletes and then uses their body parts and organs to transplant onto old rich farts so they can live forever.  Ross Hagen is the cranky ex-cop who gets hired by Lloyd’s of London to bring down her organization.

Wonder Women is a weird flick.  Kwan plays sort of a female-flipped version of Fu Manchu.  The transplant scenes feel like a Ted V. Mikels movie. The stuff with busty ladies in tight outfits seem like something out of a Russ Meyer daydream.  Hagen’s scenes are like a generic made-in-the-Philippines actioner.  All this sounds like an ideal mash-up of genres, but unfortunately, most of the exploitation elements are kept to a minimum.  Even though things kick off with a trippy multicolor scene of topless women swimming around in a pool, that’s about all the skin we get.  (I mean, it’s rated PG for God’s sake!)

The beginning is choppy as hell too.  There were times when I was struggling to tell what was going on.  However, if you’re a patient viewer, you eventually figure it out, mostly from osmosis.  Even then, it kind of takes a while for it to make sense.  Fortunately, the fractured narrative becomes a bit cohesive as the film goes on.  I will say the scenes with Hagen run on a bit long though, and there will be times when you’ll start to wonder where the Wonder Women are.

Is the plot choppy?  Sure!  Is the storytelling structure erratic as hell?  You bet.  BUT… even with those detriments, I must be honest when I say that director Robert Vincent O’Neil’s kitchen sink approach is quite admirable.  While there are certainly some rocky stretches here, the sillier aspects of the flick eventually won me over.  I mean by the time Kwan was giving Hagen a tour of her personal prison of misshapen freaks, I had to admit I was having a good time.  The set-up for a sequel, which sadly never happened, also goes on too long, but since it features some of my personal favorite ‘70s actresses, Marilyn Joi, Robyn Hilton, and Leslie McRae, it’s hard to complain too much.

The cast is solid throughout.  Hagen is grouchy but fun, and Kwan makes for a solid villainess.  It doesn’t hurt that her all-girl army (including Roberta Collins and Maria de Aragon… who went on to play Greedo in Star Wars!) are easy on the eyes.  Sure, Wonder Women is messy and uneven, but it’s hard not to like any movie that features both Sid Haig AND Vic Diaz. 

The music is probably the best part though. The soundtrack is full of funky toe-tapping ditties that will keep you moving and grooving, even when the plot isn’t moving and grooving.  Also, the opening theme was later incorporated by Vinegar Syndrome, which by itself is pretty cool too. 

O’Neil later went on to direct the iconic Angel.

AKA:  The Deadly and the Beautiful.

TUBI CONTINUED… FANTASTICOZZI (2016) *** ½

FantastiCozzi is a fun, breezy documentary on Italian genre filmmaker Luigi Cozzi.  At first, the camera finds him behind the counter of his video store where he relates his story in his own words.  Luigi starts out as a little kid obsessed with science fiction and grows up and becomes the Italian correspondent for Famous Monsters of Filmland.  He then begins writing movie reviews and strikes up a friendship with none other than Dario Argento, who asks him to co-write Four Flies on Grey Velvet.  Eventually, Cozzi shifts to directing gialli (The Killer Must Kill Again), sex comedies (The Naked Housekeeper), and even his own Italian version of Godzilla.  Other films featured are his cheesy Star Wars knock-off, Starcrash, his Alien clone, Contamination, and my personal Cozzi favorite, Hercules.

Director Felipe M. (Deodato Holocaust) Guerra uses a couple different source interviews with Cozzi to generate the film.  In all of them, Luigi seems like a gregarious guy and is obviously a natural storyteller.  Guerra also gives us a nice assortment of clips of the films, and even some behind-the-scenes footage.  Although I wish the film delved more into Cozzi’s Godzilla (it would probably make for its own illuminating documentary), the stuff we do get is fascinating.  The scenes of the colorization process of Godzilla are especially mind-blowing as artists are shown hand painting the black and white film a frame at a time.  

Most of the time is devoted to Starcrash, which is fine.  The behind the scenes look at the special effects are a lot of fun and the side-by-side comparison of Star Wars and Starcrash (accompanied by Meco’s Star Wars disco theme!) is particularly great.  I also enjoyed scenes from the vintage documentary on Contamination where Cozzi reveals the alien eggs are nothing more than balloons painted green and touched up with slime.  The best tidbit however was learning that when they made Hercules, no one told Lou Ferrigno they were making a sequel simultaneously.  He thought they were just doing reshoots of another movie!  The producers purposefully kept him in the dark because if he knew he was making Herc 2, he would’ve asked for more money!  Incredible!

TUBI CONTINUED… YOU NEVER GAVE ME ROSES (1982) **

Chuck (Alfonso Landa) is a low-level enforcer who works for a gangster named Max.  His job detail is to walk up and down Bourbon Street and make collections.  When the hookers can’t pay, he smacks them up a bit.  Max eventually decides to make him a full partner, but before Chuck can get his feet wet, Max is brutally gunned down.  Soon, goons come crawling out of the woodwork to shake Chuck down.

Directed by Jack (Crypt of Dark Secrets) Weis, You Never Gave Me Roses (which is listed on Tubi as Death Brings Roses) boasts some good Bourbon Street location work.  Too bad the story is pedestrian, the plot is uninvolving, and the pacing is curiously stagnant.  I guess it almost works as a travelogue for the French Quarter in the ‘70s. It’s certainly much too mundane to cut it as a slice-of-life tale of a streetwise pimp.  Nor is it nasty and tough enough to make for a seedy crime story.

Landa is kind of dull in the lead, but it’s nice seeing some real stars appearing in a Weis movie for a change.  Scott Brady is good as a Mafioso and Broderick Crawford also shows up as a bartender.  The best part though is seeing Henny Youngman (!) basically playing himself.  Not only that, but he also does his usual schtick on stage, which means You Never Gave Me Roses would make for a good double feature with The Gore Gore Girls (which also featured Youngman in a small role).  

It’s Crypt of Dark Secrets’ Maureen Chan who makes the most memorable impression as a hot to trot hooker who bangs Chuck and says, “When you make love, it’s like going to the toilet!  No emotion.  No feeling.  No nothing!”  If the script had a couple more howlers like this one, it might’ve been worth it.  However, I don’t think anyone will be giving You Never Gave Me Roses its flowers anytime soon.

AKA:  Death Brings Roses.

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.