THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN (1956) **

Guy Madison stars as an American cowboy in Mexico who falls for a pretty senorita.  Of course, she’s betrothed to the local bad guy, and you know it’s only a matter of time before she leaves that scumbag for Guy.  Complicating their relationship is the appearance a mysterious beast that lives in a nearby swamp.  It’s been eating livestock left and right, and when it begins to get an appetite for fat drunk comic relief sidekicks, it’s up to Guy to stop the beast.

The Beast of Hollow Mountain kind of plays like a half-assed Valley of Gwangi as it only has one cowboy and one dinosaur.  The stop-motion special effects are rather cheesy, but they do have a certain charm about them.  The color Cinemascope cinematography is crisp, so it makes the dinosaur look cooler than he would’ve been in black and white.

The problem is you have to wait an awful long time before you get to see the beast.  The lovey-dovey stuff with Guy and his would-be girlfriend really slows things down to a crawl.  The subplot with the drunkard sidekick and his whiny son also eat up a lot of screen time.  At least the scene where Guy gets into a brawl with the bad guy is a lot of fun.  Their fight lasts a long time and they pretty much wipe out half the town in the process.  I can’t say it’s as good as the fight in McClintock, but it’s certainly in the same spirit.

THE TIME TRAVELERS (1964) **

A group of scientists open up a time portal that allows them to travel over a hundred years into the future.  When the portal closes, they find themselves trapped in a barren wasteland where the humans live in caves and try to keep out mutants who wish to cause them harm.  The scientists of the future are working on a spaceship that will send them to a new Earth-like planet, and the arrival of the scientists from the past ruffles some feathers.  Reluctantly, they decide to help our heroes find a way home.

The Time Travelers has a colorful, mod production design that evokes the best work of Irwin Allen and The Planet of the Apes movies.  The scenes of the creepy robot factory (they look like a cross between Trumpy and C-3PO) are pretty cool too, and the some of the futuristic touches (like the hula dancing machine that looks like the prototype for Dance Dance Revolution) are neat.  Too bad the unsatisfying ending is a complete washout.

The film was written and directed by Ib Melchior, who also wrote Reptilicus.  Like that flick, the movie is at its best when the scientists are working together and trying to solve their problems.  However, the conflict with the futuristic scientists is predictable and dull, and the pacing slows down considerably during the second act.  The scenes of the nude women (well, they have their naughty bits hidden from the camera) add to the cheeky fun though.

AKA:  Depths of the Unknown.  AKA:  The Return of the Time Travelers.  AKA:  This Time Tomorrow.  AKA:  Time Trap. 

CRY WILDERNESS (1987) *

Jay Schlossberg-Cohen and Philip Yordan previously worked together on the insane horror anthology film Night Train to Terror.  Seeing their names in the credits made me hopeful that Cry Wilderness would deliver the same kind of jaw-dropping thrills that movie had.  Well, my jaw dropped several times throughout, but mostly because of how awful it was.

A little boy tells his teacher he’s close friends with Bigfoot.  Naturally, he gets in trouble for telling lies.  One night, Bigfoot comes to him in a dream (?) and tells him he needs to save his father.  The kid runs away from school to save his pops, who is busy tracking a mysterious creature in the woods.  Could the monster be his son’s imaginary friend?

Cry Wilderness is like an insane mash-up of E.T. and Harry and the Hendersons.  Like E.T., there’s even some gratuitous product placement, courtesy of the subplot where Bigfoot drinks Coke and crushes the cans “unlike any human could”.  Unfortunately, the film is closer in quality to Pod People than E.T.

We also have to wait a long time before we finally do get to the Bigfoot stuff.  When we do, it’s ruined by a truly terrible costume.  To make matters worse, it looks like it’s falling apart half the time.  

Most of the movie is heavily padded with a lot of boring nature footage.  The acting is also amateurish and often times painful to watch.  The less said about the ridiculous and stupid ending, the better.

REPTILICUS (1963) ** ½

Reptilicus was Denmark’s foray into the giant monster movie genre.  The thing is; it actually works up to a point.  The build-up to the monster’s first appearance is quite absorbing and the scenes of the scientists working in the lab are a lot of fun.  Once the monster shows up, all bets are off as Reptilicus is one of the all-time worst monsters ever shown on any screen.  Seriously, Puff the Magic Dragon would’ve been a more convincing villain.

Scientists discover the fossilized remains of a tail hidden inside the Earth.  They take it back to the lab where they keep it on ice and study small samples of its tissues.  When one of the scientists forgets to close the fridge, it thaws out and regenerates, turning into a giant dragon monster.  While Reptilicus attacks downtown Copenhagen, the army tries to figure out a way to stop it.

Reptilicus (the movie) looks great.  A lot of care was put into the laboratory scenes and the sequences where the citizens run for their lives are really well done (particularly the part where dozens of people fall off a drawbridge).  It’s just a shame that Reptilicus (the monster) is so shoddy looking.  Whenever he shows up, you just have to laugh.  It looks like a goddamn bath toy and the strings that work his jaw are visible.  There’s such a disproportionate look to the monster and the rest of the film that it’s liable to give you whiplash. 

The rest of the effects are even more piss-poor.  The shots of the monster puking up slime are awful, as is the scene where he eats a person.  It looks like someone cut out a picture of a human and put it in the jaws of the monster! 

The effects alone are worth a look as they will probably make any jaded monster movie fan’s jaw drop in disbelief.  However, you might be surprised by just how good the rest of the flick is.  If the monster scenes were credible in the least, Reptilicus might’ve been a classic.  As it is, it remains a fun piece of schlock filmmaking.

AFTER PORN ENDS 2 (2017) ****

After Porn Ends 2 follows a different group of former porn stars and catches up with them.  For me, this entry was even more powerful, mostly because I still/had crushes on several of them growing up.  I was also fortunate enough to meet both Ginger Lynn and Tabitha Stevens a while back, so it was good seeing that both of them were doing well.  I was also happy to see that both Lisa Ann (who played “Nailin’” Palin) and The Devil in Miss Jones’ Georgina Spelvin were living fulfilled lives.

Not everyone is as fortunate as they are.  Poor Chasey Lain tells about her horrible experiences escorting.  She also talks about her stint as a prostitute at the infamous Moonlite Bunny Ranch and tells how the owners cheated her out of a lot of money.  Now she is content to live out of the spotlight. 

Another sad case is Janine, who once was almost as famous for being in music videos and album covers as she was as a porn star.  When she failed to pay her taxes, she was sent to jail, which led to her losing custody of her daughter.  Her tale of going to court and losing miserably because of her occupation is eerily similar to the scene in Boogie Nights where Julianne Moore loses custody of her child. 

The craziest bit though involves Brittany Andrews (who has since returned to porn).  She tells about doing an anal scene which caused her anus to prolapse.  Even after the incident, people urged her to “try to make money with it” because it’s a fetish in some circles.  I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried!

If you’re a porno fan and have had slight crushes on any or all of these ladies, you really need to check After Porn Ends 2 out.  I thank each and every star for having the courage to come forward and be so candid about their past (and hopes or the future).  I hope the series continues as I’m sure there are plenty of other stars out there whose stories need to be told.  Not only is this film better than the original, it’s also one of the best movies of the year.

THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS (2017) ****

If you watch The Fast and the Furious movies because you love to watch guys racing cars, then you’re going to love the opening scene of this eighth installment.  It begins with Vin Diesel stripping down a piece of shit car down to its nuts and bolts and fitting it with nitrous oxide in such a harebrained manner that it would make Wile E. Coyote nervous.  If you’re a fan of the racing aspects of the series, you may be disappointed as there are no more race scenes after that.  If you’re like me and are a fan of the franchise to see some wild ass action sequences, you’re in for a treat.  The Fate of the Furious is the wildest, craziest, most exhilarating film of the series.  It’s also its best.

I didn’t think they could top the last two Fast films, but F. Gary Gray (who had previously worked with Diesel on A Man Apart) did just that.  There are some action sequences in this flick that are so insane that even James Bond would be jealous of them.  In fact, I think the only way to top this one would be to pull a Moonraker and send the cast into space.  I’m not even joking when I say they could probably pull it off too.

I don’t want to get too into plot specifics because the twisty plot is part of the fun.  All you need to know is that Vin Diesel turns his back on his Fast and Furious family to work with a notorious hacker (played by Charlize Theron at her absolute slinkiest) to steal several objects that when all put together could spell doom for the entire planet.  The only way to stop them is for his tight-knit family to join forces with their arch nemesis, Jason Statham.

What I love about this series is that it’s essentially a male soap opera.  People die, come back to life, turn on their closest friends, betray the ones they love, and no one really bats an eye.  This is actually the second time in the series when someone has turned bad, and I’ve lost track of all the times that the “bad” guy has been made to join forces with the “good” ones. 

Ultimately, the “family” aspect of these films is what gives them their center.  Because no one is perfect in a family, Diesel’s circle of friends is more apt to forgive and forget when one of them (including him) goes rogue.  Even when Statham chooses his new path, it’s out of obligation for his family (including his mother, whose identity I would not dream of giving away because her reveal is one of the biggest joys of the movie).

It’s those crazy action sequences that give the film its kick.  There’s one scene that left my jaw agape for several minutes.  That of course was the scene where Theron hacks into a bunch of cars and takes control of them and causes thousand-car pile-up.  That is not an exaggeration.  There are a thousand cars and they do wind up piled on top of each other.  It’s amazing. 

Then there’s the scene where Theron takes control of a Russian submarine and commands it to shoot torpedoes at our heroes.  Naturally, The Rock, selfless man that he is, redirects the speeding torpedo with his bare hands!  Let’s see James Bond do that!

 

Everyone gets their particular moments to shine.  The Rock gets plenty of laughs and Tyrese Gibson has some good moments playing off Scott Eastwood, who plays Kurt Russell’s right hand man.  It’s Statham who steals the movie though.  He gets one sequence where he must save an infant that is as great as anything in a Transporter film.  It’s so awesome that you’ll be wishing he teams up with Diesel for The Pacifier 2. 

 

BLUE MONKEY (1987) **

A guy cuts himself on a rare plant and has an allergic reaction.  He is taken to a hospital where he pukes up a larva that rapidly grows into a giant bug.  It starts making babies like crazy and it's up to cop Steve Railsback to kill the sucker.  Meanwhile, the health department, fearing an outbreak, quarantines the place and shoots anyone who tries to escape.  They also threaten to bomb the shit out of the hospital if Steve can't kill the bug  Thankfully, there happens to be a giant experimental laser in the basement that just might do the trick.

Blue Monkey is more effective when it's concentrating on the giant bug killing people.  The whole outbreak subplot feels like filler and the movie slows to a crawl during these scenes.  The bug scenes would've been decent if we could've actually seen the thing. Director William (Funeral Home) Fruet bathes it in near total darkness for most of the running time.  (When we do see it, he kinda looks like The Deadly Mantis, but not as big.)

Railsback delivers a good performance and carries the movie on his shoulders during the slow sections.  John Vernon is pretty much wasted as the head of the hospital though.  When he shows up playing the guy in charge, you're ready to see him chew the scenery and be a total asshole.  Sadly, he's basically a good guy and isn't in it a whole lot.  Faring even worse are Joe Flaherty and Robin Duke as an expectant couple.  Their scenes aren't funny at all and only serve as more padding in an already overcrowded film.