THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: DEAD ANT (2019) ***

Dead Ant starts off with a hot chick having a peyote trip where she strips off all her clothes and runs naked through the desert while being chased by a giant CGI ant.  As far as ways to open up a picture go, I’d say this ranks right up there with the best. 

Michael (Twin Peaks) Horse is a Native American medicine man/drug dealer who sells a powerful brand of peyote to an over the hill rock band called Sonic Grave who are heading into the desert to play a low rent Coachella type concert.  He tells them if they don’t disturb the land, they will have a good trip.  Things immediately go wrong when the bass player (Sean Astin) pisses on an ant while tripping balls, which causes the ants to grow to enormous size and come after the group. 

Dead Ant has a strange but endearing cast.  In addition to Horse and Astin we have Jake Busey as the lead singer of the washed-up hair metal band, Tom Arnold as the band’s loudmouth manager, and Sydney Sweeney as a sexy groupie who wears a skimpy bikini the whole movie.  It’s an odd mix of talent, but everyone doesn’t take things too seriously (neither should you) and they seem to be having fun (you probably will too). 

I mean the premise is just weird enough to work.  It’s definitely a different way to do a killer animal movie, that’s for sure.  Usually in these things, it’s toxic waste or a hole in the ozone layer or some shit that causes the animals to mutate.  I don’t think we’ve seen one where the insects become killers when the white man fucks around with nature while high on Native American peyote. 

My biggest gripe was that the CGI effects are pretty lousy.  The claustrophobic setting (much of the film takes place in a cramped camper) doesn’t help either.  Still, the pace is rather zippy, and the film more or less skates by on oddball vibes alone. 

AKA:  Dead Ant:  Monsters vs. Metal.  AKA:  Giant Killer Ants.

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: FRANKENSTEIN GENERAL HOSPITAL (1988) **

Six years after starring in the ho-hum Jekyll and Hyde… Together Again, Mark (Fridays) Blankfield tried his hand at another horror spoof of a beloved monster character.  This one is equally bland and unfunny. 

Blankfield stars as Bob Frankenstein, who works by day as a doctor in a hospital, but by night tries to create a monster (Irwin Keyes from House of 1000 Corpses) in his laboratory down in the basement.  The annoying Leslie Jordan is Frankenstein’s inept assistant Iggy who sneaks around stealing body parts when no one is looking.  After the experiment is a success, it doesn’t take long before the monster escapes from the lab and wreaks havoc on the hospital. 

Frankenstein General Hospital has been referred to as “the worst Frankenstein movie of all time”.  Well, it’s not THAT bad (Frankenstein Island, anyone?), but it never once comes close to approaching “good”.  If you enjoyed Jekyll and Hyde… Together Again, you may find something to appreciate here.  All others should probably steer clear. 

The big problem is that it’s a horror comedy that frankly never delivers on the laughs.  The jokes are feebly constructed and indifferently delivered.  There’s also a lame running gag of people laughing every time the doctor mentions his “secret experiment”. 

It’s not all bad though.  All the scenes in the doctor’s lab are in black and white, which was a nice touch.  These sequences at least look the part, even if the jokes land with a thud.  We also get some small servings of T & A, which help a little. 

I’ve never been much of a Blankfield fan, so this one didn’t do a whole lot for me.  Thankfully, Keyes is fun as the monster, especially when he becomes smart.  Playboy Playmate of the Year (1986) Kathy Shower is easy on the eyes as a sexy shrink who doubles as a dominatrix.  We also have Ben Stein as a doctor, a cameo by Bobby “Boris” Pickett of “Monster Mash” fame, and a photo of Colin Clive. 

AKA:  General Hospital.  AKA:  Monster Hospital.

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: THE MALIBU BEACH VAMPIRES (1991) ½ *

The Malibu Beach Vampires is a nearly incomprehensible and unwatchable mess.  Before the title even appears, the film stock changes twice, time codes are visible at the bottom of the screen, and the editing is so bad it’s bound to make you cross-eyed.  Sadly, this is about as good as the movie gets. 

There’s no real plot to this thing.  It’s almost like a bunch of movies that got thrown in a blender and were fed to the editor via an Uno Attack game.  The easiest part of the movie to follow features a trio of girlfriends renting a beach house in Malibu for the weekend.  There are also subplots involving a vampire girl trying to find love, a telethon ran by a pair of televangelists modeled on Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and a fake Oliver North guy being interrogated by Congress.  These imposters horribly date the movie and none of them come close to eliciting the slightest chuckle. 

I guess it might’ve been okay if the Jim and Tammy Faye scenes were saying something satirical about the couple or about organized religion in general, but they most seem like a vehicle for long tapdancing scenes and inexplicable religious song and dance numbers.  It also doesn’t help that their telethon is just filmed at someone’s dance studio and not on an actual stage (or church).  Director Francis Creighton plays the Jim Bakker character, and his performance is downright painful to watch. 

Maybe I wouldn’t have been so upset if this had actually been about… you know… Malibu Beach Vampires.  However, the eponymous ladies only take up about 7% of the actual plot.  I’ve seen low budget movies where vampires wore cheap dime store plastic fangs, but this might be the first one where they wear Dracula fangs that are nothing more than Halloween wax candy lips. 

Most of the time, it feels like you’re watching TV while someone with ADHD has the remote and is channel surfing like a goddamned lunatic.  Either that, or it plays like a Kentucky Fried Movie kind of parody (minus the laughs), but the editor tried to (unsuccessfully) edit everything together into one continuous plot line.   The results are nothing less than a big incoherent mess.  In fact, the random cutaways to the sexy beach girls dancing to “Beach Blanket Bingo” are the only thing saving this turd from a No Stars rating. 

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: THE WOMEN EATERS! (2025) ***

The Women Eaters! is the latest cinematic concoction from W.A.V.E. Productions.  It also happens to be their first new film which utilizes AI.  (They had previously used AI to touch up a special edition of Witchfinder.)  Now, I am vehemently anti-AI, but when I heard W.A.V.E. was now using it to make movies… well… I mean.  I had to see THAT. 

It did not disappoint.  One minute into the thing and I was already laughing my ass off.  Director Gary Whitson knows if you’re going to go AI, you’ve got to bring the WTF. 

Big Pharma is perfecting a drug to reverse menopause.  The secret ingredient lies in giant worms from Africa that only feed on estrogen.  Because of that, they only eat women.  Well, wouldn’t you know it?  A worm escapes from the lab and goes around eating women. 

First, it’s a gal hiking in the woods.  Then, it gets Tina Krause after she’s just gotten out of the shower.  After that, a hunter tries to use a woman as bait for the monster, but it doesn’t go as planned.  Next, it attacks Debbie D. while she’s birdwatching.  That’s followed by another woman being eaten right after a shower.  The worm gets the next victim right where it counts.  Finally, it comes after Laura Giglio, but not before she does some jumping jacks in slow motion without the benefit of a bra. 

Whitson doesn’t go overboard with the AI as he uses it for maybe a quarter of the time.  The stuff without the newfangled tech feels very much like an old school W.A.V.E. production, but with a bad CGI worm.  The AI scenes are something else though.  I don’t think it made me an advocate for the technology.  However, it sort of fits the W.A.V.E. aesthetic better than you might expect.  Let me put it to you this way:  I don’t think I want to see a big budget Hollywood movie using AI.  I would on the other hand love to see more low budget AI bondage fetish horror movies. 

The scenes that are purely AI made my jaw drop.  Imagine if Neil Breen made a power point about killer worms and you have some idea of the lunacy we have here.  Also, this movie is historic in that it features the first AI death by quicksand.  If you’re a fan of W.A.V.E., then you probably already know how integral quicksand is to their formula.  This W.A.V.E. fan in particular was a happy camper. 

Yes, even with a running time of only forty-seven minutes, it’s still too long.  Yes, some of the kills are repetitive.  (The worm always seems to leave its victims cut in half like a magician’s assistant.)  That said, when those magic moments of W.A.V.E.-coded weirdness hit, it’s a fresh blast of cinematic insanity. 

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: MEXICAN MONSTERS ON THE MARCH (1994) *** ½

Something Weird released this compilation tape containing condensed versions of old Mexican monster movies from the ‘60s.  It works as a nice sampler and/or sizzle reel for both fans of Mexican horror and the uninitiated alike.  If you’re not in the mood for Halloween after watching it, you’re probably beyond help. 

The first mini-feature is The Rider of the Skulls.  A masked cowboy hero rides around the west doing battle with a wooly looking werewolf (who seems to be in league with a witch), a vampire (who wears a Lucha Libre mask), and a headless horseman.  This one looks like a blast and frankly, the world needs more werewolf westerns if you ask me.

In The Return of the Monster, a Frankenstein-style monster escapes from a mad scientist’s lab (much to the delight of a comic relief talking skeleton) and goes around terrorizing the countryside.  After he kidnaps a crying toddler, “The Scarlet Fox” (he looks like a Zorro knockoff) comes to the rescue.  Cut-rate lap dissolve transformation scenes reveal the monster is actually a were-Frankenstein!  This might be a cinema first!

One of the few movies I had seen prior to watching Mexican Monsters on the March was Ship of Monsters.  If you’ve never seen it, what are you waiting for?  The monsters are awesome (some of the costumes were later reused in El Santo and Aztec Mummy movies) and Lorena Velazquez is simply stunning, especially once she turns into a vampire!

Another one I saw previously was Adventure at the Center of the Earth.  It wasn’t great, but they do show some of the best parts of the film.  Among the highlights are bats attacking a spelunker dangling over a lava pit and the shots of furry batmen flying around.  One of them even offers the sexy leading lady a rat to eat. 

Next up is one of the granddaddies of Mexican horror, The Brainiac.  A monster emerges from a comet and runs around sucking people’s brains out using its long tongue.  His reign of terror is brought to an end when some dudes with flamethrowers get the drop on the monster and light his ass up.  It’s as awesome as it sounds!

That’s followed by Dr. Satan.  I’ve seen this one too, but it wasn’t so hot.  Fortunately, the editors knew the best stuff to highlight, like the scenes of the eponymous villain consorting with the winged devil in a foggy graveyard. 

Scenes from Madness from Terror play out next.  There’s one terrific moment where a dude melts that looks like it might’ve been the inspiration for Toht’s death in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  This sequence has it all, mad scientist labs, zombies, grave robbing, and a part where a guy is running around with a skeleton for a body.  This one is going on my watchlist pronto. 

Then we have Museum of Horror, which looks to be a South of the Border version of House of Wax.  That is to say, it looks spectacular.  It’s all about a guy with a hideously scarred face who gets his kicks from jumping out of the bushes, abducting damsels in distress, and taking them back to his lair where he dumps vats of boiling hot wax on their face. 

Up next is another “Scarlet Fox” movie, Scarlet Fox in the Hanged Man’s Revenge (which also goes by the infinitely cooler alternate title, Zorro vs. the Teenage Monster).  In this one, the Zorro-inspired character fights a monster (who may or may not be the same one from Return of the Monster, I can’t be sure) who is busy terrorizing the countryside and kidnapping women. 

The final condensed horror show is The She-Wolf.  A werewolf woman rises from her tomb (pretty much nude) and takes to ripping and clawing into the menfolk who are unlucky enough to stumble into her path.  The slow-motion shots of the she-wolf leaping through the air are badass and the suggested nudity is rather tantalizing for the time.  The gore is rather juicy too, and the transformation scenes look great.  I’m gonna check this one out as soon as I can. 

While I consider myself a fan of old Mexican horror movies, even I hadn’t heard of most of these.  There are no subtitles, but it doesn’t really matter since the clips are mostly centered around “the good stuff”.  Besides, the dialogue isn’t really necessary since the sounds of women screaming and werewolves snarling are pretty much universal anyway. 

That said… at over two hours long, I’m inclined to believe they could’ve trimmed this down even more.  They really didn’t need to keep in all the credits sequences either.  Just having the title card at the beginning of each sequence would’ve sufficed.  (The long opening crawl to Adventure could’ve been cut out entirely.)  That’s a minor quibble though as I definitely discovered some new films to add to my watch pile, and honestly… that’s what these compilations are all about!

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: SHOCK FESTIVAL: THE ULTIMATE HORROR TRAILER MARATHON (2010) ***

This collection of Shock Festival trailers concentrates solely on horror films.  Things kick off with trailers that contain warnings to the audience (The Stuff, Pieces, and Snuff), which is a nice touch.  That’s followed by a string of previews that begin with shots of cars entering a seemingly idyllic town that harbors a secret (Beyond the Gate, Burnt Offerings, and Dead and Buried). That’s a pretty niche subgenre and I commend the editors for putting those together. 

That’s pretty much where the themed horror trailers trend ends.  From there, Shock Festival turns into a grab bag of trailers from different genres, eras, and quality, but it’s a pretty fun one.  There are plenty of old standbys here that have been seen on countless other trailer compilations.  Despite that, it’s still good to see them all again, which sort of makes this the cinematic equivalent of comfort food.  The ever-reliable “Double Bill of Horror” trailer for The Blood-Spattered Bride and I Dismember Mama is here.  This has been a staple of many trailer compilations, but I for one never tire of seeing it.  Other old chestnuts include The Toolbox Murders, Maniac, and the ad for a double feature of Carnival of Blood and Curse of the Headless Horseman. 

Most of the trailers are for stone cold classics like Mark of the Devil, Bloodsucking Freaks, and God Told Me To, but every so often, a preview for something crappy like The Curse will sneak in there.  We also get trailers for films from such horror greats as Lucio Fulci (House by the Cemetery), Dario Argento (Cat O’Nine Tails), and George Romero (The Crazies).  There are plenty of great taglines along the way too.  Some of my favorites belonged to Grizzly (“It’s not just a camping ground, it’s a feeding ground!”), Hell Night (“Pray for day!”), Shock Waves (“Once they were ALMOST human!”), The Illustrated Man (“Don’t dare stare!”) and Blood of Ghastly Horror (“SEE a young girl turned into a 1000 year old mummy!”). 

Overall, I think I enjoyed this more than the first installment thanks to the shorter running time and breezier editing.  Sure, there are better compilations of trailers out there, but this one should fit the bill nicely during Spooky Season. 

Here’s the complete trailer rundown:  The Stuff, Pieces, Snuff, Beyond the Gate, Pranks, Burnt Offerings, Dead and Buried, a double feature of Blood Spattered Bride and I Dismember Mama, House by the Cemetery, Great White, Cat O’Nine Tails, Saturn 3, God Told Me To, The Crazies, The Toolbox Murders, Q, the Winged Serpent, Grizzly, Don’t Look in the Basement, Hell Night, Satan’s Black Wedding, The Black Belly of the Tarantula, Invasion of the Bee Girls, Maniac, Banana Monster, Dead of Night, a double feature of Carnival of Blood and Curse of the Headless Horseman, Mark of the Devil, Bloodsucking Freaks, Deep Red, The Curse, Autopsy, Daughters of Darkness, The Illustrated Man, The Fifth Cord, 7 Doors of Death, and Blood of Ghastly Horror. 

SHOCK FESTIVAL: THE ULTIMATE EXPLOITATION TRAILER MARATHON (2010) ***

Shock Festival is a two-disc DVD set containing multiple trailer compilations.  The first one was for a collection of amateurish looking fake Grindhouse trailers, so I skipped that one and went right to the second disc that contained “real” trailers.  This compilation is subtitled “The Ultimate Exploitation Trailer Marathon.”  I’m not quite sure it lives up to the title, but it is a lot of fun and features a good cross section of subgenres.  Among them are ‘80s action (Treasure of the Four Crowns and Vice Squad), Blaxploitation (Cornbread, Earl, and Me, Black Samurai, and Black Heat), Sexploitation (Grimm’s Fairy Tales for Adults, Flesh Gordon, and Cinderella 2000), and Roger Corman movies (Beyond Atlantis, Space Raiders, and Cannonball).  There’s even a trailer for a straight-up porno (Titillation, which is hosted by Little Oral Annie) that also contains a plug for Cheri magazine. 

Typically, I like it when trailer compilations run a bunch of similarly themed previews in one big block.  With Shock Festival, a lot of the fun comes from the sharp contrast in tone from trailer to trailer.  In some cases, it’s so extreme that it’s liable to cause cinematic whiplash.  The biggest head-spinning contrast in content comes from the one-two combo of Jess Franco’s notorious sex flick Sadomania and the G-rated wilderness adventure, Challenge to Be Free.  The juxtaposition of the kinky sexploitation flick The Female Animal and the kiddie matinee movie 7 Dwarfs to the Rescue is also worth a howl of laughter, as is the pairing of King Kong vs. Godzilla and Africa:  Blood and Guts, which concludes the collection.  (The inclusion of the teaser for Albert Pyun’s Captain America is pretty random too.)

Honestly, I could’ve done without some of the tamer trailers.  The previews for war movies like Raiders of Leyte Gulf and The Fighting Rats of Tobruk didn’t do much for me.  The good news is there’s still plenty of jaw dropping stuff here to satisfy fans of trailer tapes like me.  The previews for Amazon Jail, Raw Force, and Fight for Your Life are a lot of fun, and the ad for Avalanche Express (which is nothing more than a series of stills of Lee Marvin and Robert Shaw) is pretty unique.  All and all, it makes for a fine party tape to watch with a big group of friends. 

The complete line-up includes:  The Treasure of the Four Crowns, Vice Squad, Cornbread, Earl, and Me, Black Samurai, Grimm’s Fairy Tales for Adults,  Flesh Gordon, Conquest, Delirium, Amazon Jail, Beyond Atlantis, Sadomania, Challenge to Be Free, Venom, Raw Force, Gone with the Pope, Black Heat, Starstruck, The Last Days of Man on Earth, 1990:  The Bronx Warriors, The Late Great Planet Earth, Avalanche Express, Cinderella 2000, Titillation, Flesh and Lace, The Mysterious Island of Captain Nemo, Circle of Iron, Smithereens, Fantastic Planet, The Loveless, The Sexy Dozen, 2069:  A Sex Odyssey, Raiders of Leyte Gulf, Scum of the Earth, Venus in Furs, The Female Animal, 7 Dwarfs to the Rescue, The Fighting Rats of Tobruk, Fight for Your Life, Fast Company, Grand Slam, Space Raiders, The Final Countdown, Cannonball, Killer Force, King Kong vs. Godzilla, and Africa:  Blood and Guts.