THE VAMPIRE RAIDERS (1988) ***

The Vampire Raiders is an entertaining slice of Godfrey Ho and Tomas Tang lunacy.  As is par for the course with their films, it’s really two movies that have been edited together in slapdash fashion to make a “new" flick.  This practice usually yields uneven results, but this one just might be their weirdest one yet. 

This Eric Clapton lookalike wants to bring the hotel industry to its knees.  In order to do so, he must kidnap a hotel bigwig.  He knows that the Purple Ninja Clan are just itching to foil his plans, so he hires out for protection in the form of some hopping Chinese vampires. 

I have seen some shit and I have seen some shit.  The shit I seen in The Vampire Raiders just might take the cake.  In one scene, without warning, a giant pig is thrown off the roof of a building and lands on an elderly couple.  Then, the pig explodes, and a vampire emerges.  If you and I saw that in our everyday life, it would probably scar us till the end of our days, but the heroes in this movie just sort of shrug it off. 

I guess it takes a lot to shock a Ninja.

Someone who is unnerved by all of this is a trio of hotel switchboard operators who act as the heroines in the “second” movie.  One even says, “Pigs just don’t fall off the tops of buildings!”  You got that right, sister.

When people ask when will Godfrey Ho make a coherent movie, the answer usually is, “When pigs fly”.  Well… here we are. 

Admittedly, the rest of the movie isn’t quite as demented as that scene, but there are some definite highlights along the way.  We get a fun bit where a lady Ninja’s suntanning session is interrupted by a handsy vampire.  There’s also an attack by zombies who have Mr. Fantastic arms.  One of the idiots thinks the only thing that can stop a zombie is virgin piss (?!?), so he gets his buddy to pee in a jar.  Needless to say, it doesn’t go as planned.

The Vampire Raiders is far from what the AFI would call a “good” movie, but it’s a lot of fun.  I will say the Ninja stuff isn’t nearly as entertaining as the vampire scenes though.  Still, this is probably one of Ho’s best (and by best, I mean “jaw-droppingly weird”). 

AKA:  Vampire Raiders vs. Ninja Queen.  AKA:  Vampire Raiders:  Ninja Queen. 

THE JAR (1984) ** ½

Paul (Gary Wallace) gets into a car accident and brings the old man (Les Miller) he hit back home to his apartment.  Not only is the dude weird as shit, he’s also carrying a strange jar and won’t let it out of his sight.  When he disappears suddenly, he leaves the jar behind, which contains a little demon baby.  Paul naturally tries to get rid of the jar several times, but it ominously keeps coming back.  Pretty soon, he starts having bizarre visions, loses track of time, and has trouble distinguishing reality from illusion. 

The Jar is a weird fucking movie.  It’s very amateurish in some spots, but downright effective in other stretches.  It almost feels like David Lynch directed a Frank Henenlotter film.  There are also some moments that might have influenced Jacob’s Ladder too, which came out six years later.  (There’s a Vietnam flashback.)

He might not have any other credits on IMDb, but director Bruce Toscano gets a lot of mileage from just a handful of locations and is able to create some unsettling atmosphere with just a shoestring budget.  We also get a good performance by Wallace (who, like Toscano, has no other credits) in the lead.  In some of his scenes, he reminded me of Bruce Campbell in the first Evil Dead, as his character goes through Hell mentally and physically, but gamely keeps plugging along. 

There are many positive things I can say about The Jar that can’t be said for many low budget horror movies.  The problem is that after our hero is left alone with the jar, things become increasingly predictable and repetitive.  (The ending is a foregone conclusion.)  The thing in the jar is pretty cheap looking too.  (It resembles a pickled Ghoulie.)  However, the horror comes from the mental chaos it creates, and not the monster itself.  Ultimately, Toscano is unable to string that feeling along throughout a feature length running time. 

In fact, there are some scenes in the film that are in black and white for no good reason whatsoever.  This leads me to suspect it might’ve started life as a short and was later expanded.  If that was the case, it’s better than many similar movies of its kind.  That’s still not quite enough of a recommendation to make it a must-see, but it works most of the time.

CAULDRON OF BLOOD (1971) ** ½

This horror chiller starts with a great title sequence that features some Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein-inspired animation.  Halfway through the credits, there is a freeze frame on a skull for what feels like an eternity.  The music continues, but there are no titles flashing on the screen.  This went on so long I thought my Roku crapped out on me.  Just when I was about to get up to grab the remote, the skull’s head suddenly popped open, giving me a slight jolt.  Kudos to the credits people who designed that effective bit. 

A photographer (Jean-Pierre Aumont) comes to a small village to do a story on a reclusive blind sculptor named Franz (Boris Karloff).  Little does he know his wife (Viveca Lindfors) has been using the bones of her murder victims as the armatures in his sculptures.  Once Franz realizes his wife is a deranged murderess (and an adulterer too), he puts his foot down and tries to put a stop to her deadly game.

Cauldron of Blood kind of plays like a loose remake of A Bucket of Blood.  Only this time the sculptor uses bones under his clay instead of whole bodies.  (Who needs a bucket when you got a whole cauldron?)  The idea of a blind sculptor is pretty funny, but they wisely don’t play it for laughs. 

It’s not successful overall, but it’s quirky and watchable.  Whenever things threaten to get too dull, something weird will happen to give you the confidence to continue to plow through.  I think my favorite bit was the dream sequence that featured Nazi torture, kaleidoscopic effects, and a melting face.  The odd freeze frames and random cutaways to lightning striking during the other horrific scenes makes me think this might have been cut to get its PG rating.  Then again, there’s also a little bit of nudity in there too, so who knows?

This was one of Karloff’s final performances, as it was made shortly before the quartet of Mexican quickies that proved to be his swan song.  Lindfors does most of the heavy lifting as the feeble Boris mostly sits around wearing oversized sunglasses.  She’s pretty entertaining to watch though, so it’s a reasonable enough trade-off.

Sure, Cauldron of Blood drags, but then again so did every other fucking movie I watched this week.  Despite that, it’s got personality, an offbeat vibe, and a pretty gnarly climax.  There are worse Karloff quickies out there, that’s for sure.

AKA:  Blind Man’s Bluff.  AKA:  Children of Blood.  AKA:  Death Comes for the Dark.  AKA:  The Corpse Collectors.  AKA:  The Shrinking Corpse.

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: GRETEL AND HANSEL (2020) *

I guess you can tell by the title, Gretel and Hansel, that this is going to be one of those deals where they try to flip the script and elevate the female character’s role in an already well-established story.  That probably isn’t the worst idea in the world given that they cast It’s Sophia Lillis as Gretel.  They also made her significantly older than the brat playing Hansel, so she basically has to do all the heavy lifting.  In fact, I’m not even sure why they bothered putting Hansel’s name in the title to be honest.

Unfortunately, this is one of those movies that tried to ride the coattails of The VVitch.  Like that flick, it’s got a nice sense of time and setting, but it’s mostly a big bore.  Sure, the opening scene, which looks a little inspired by The Holy Mountain is cool, but it’s all downhill from there. 

That sequence also serves as an origin story for the witch, played by Alice Krige.  That is about as perfect casting as you can get.  Unfortunately, just like The VVitch, everyone talks in hushed tones and whispers, so it’s hard to hear what they’re all going on about half the time, so it makes it hard for her to build up a sense of menace. 

Also, there’s no candy house.  What the fuck?  That’s like making a Sleeping Beauty movie and beauty don’t go to sleep.  They don’t even fuck around with breadcrumbs either.  There is a scene where they get high AF on mushrooms though.  The witch even turns Gretel against Hansel at one point because… fuck the patriarchy?  I guess.  You know, you can only change so much stuff about Hansel and Gretel (or Gretel and Hansel) until at some point it stops being Hansel and Gretel.

Another dumb thing:  Gretel somehow has Jedi powers too.  I guess that’s the Force Awakens influence.  Or something.

The movie was directed by Osgood Perkins.  (More like OsBAD Perkins, am I right?)  He is none other than the son of Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins.  As for as directorial efforts from the Perkins bloodline go, this ain’t no Psycho 3 that’s for damned sure. 

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: SKIN: A HISTORY OF NUDITY IN THE MOVIES (2020) ****

I probably saw more documentaries in 2020 than I have in a long time.  That was mostly because cinematic pickings were kind of slim, thanks to the pandemic.  However, this year’s crop of docs just sort of spoke to me.  Dangerous theme parks?  Drugs?  The Bee Gees?  The Go-Go’s?  Sure, why not?  I’ll check out a movie about those subjects. 

Now, here comes a documentary that REALLY speaks to me.  Skin:  A History of Nudity in the Movies is exactly what you think it is.  It’s a lot of stars, historians, and film critics taking you on a nude romp down mammary (err… memory) lane and celebrating Hollywood’s infatuation with nudity.  We learn that nudity in movies practically began with the movies themselves.  They started off in small indie productions before slowly creeping into big budget studio films.  The Hays Code put a stop to all that in 1934, so Hollywood had to come up with clever ways to sneak risqué stuff past the censors.  Things lighten up a little bit thanks to the nudist camp pictures and nudie-cuties of the ‘60s.  Eventually once major stars like Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren star in movies topless, it paves the way for nudity in film as we know it today. 

There is a good variety of talking heads throughout.  We hear from everyone who made the movies (like Joe Dante) to the people who starred in them (like Sybil Danning) to the people who watched them (like David Del Valle).  We also hear from the authority on nudity himself, Mr. Skin.  If you think Mr. Skin is cool, wait till you see the guy they have on here named Professor Kuntz!  Although… I don’t think it’s a pseudonym like “Mr. Skin”.  I think it’s his real name.

Anyway, a lot of this will be an old hat if you know your film history, but it’s still fun to see it trotted out again.  What makes it so engaging is that it is scholarly to a point, but not so much so that it can’t embrace the wild side of cinema that you and I enjoy so well.  I mean any movie that shows clips from The Monster of Camp Sunshine, Kiss Me Quick, and Orgy of the Dead in rapid succession is just catering to my tastes. 

Editor Steven L. Austin deserves some kind of award for his ingenious cutting.  How can you not love a documentary that follows up the harrowing nude scenes of The Last Tango in Paris with scenes from the Women in Prison classic, The Big Doll House?  I think my favorite moment was when they go from the schlocky werewolf orgy in The Howling 2 to the tender lesbian lovemaking in Personal Best within a span of a single edit.  That is some Oscar-worthy editing right there.

Austin is also smart enough to include moments from some of the most iconic scenes in screen history.  And by that, I mean Betsy Russell’s topless horseback riding scene in Private School, Traci Lords’ nude scene in Not of This Earth, and Julianne Moore’s bush in Short Cuts.  If that alone isn’t enough to sell you on this movie, you probably don’t have a pulse.

MOONSTALKER (1989) ** ½

An old coot goes camping and makes the acquaintance of a vacationing family.  Mom doesn’t like him, but dad assures her, “He’s just a harmless old guy!”  (If you play a drinking game where you take a shot every time the father says a variation on this line, you’ll be drunk off your ass before the second act.)  As it turns out, mom’s instincts were right.  The old fart just busted his deranged son, Bernie out of the booby hatch and before long, he goes to town on the family with an axe.  Only the daughter survives, and he chases her to a nearby camp where some counselors are taking a training course.  It isn’t long before our axe-happy killer starts piling up counselor bodies like cordwood. 

Moonstalker gives us a little bit of a Psycho situation where our heroes are killed off early on before we are introduced to another set of characters.  It’s also interesting in that our killer, though quite mad, still has enough wits about him to steal the clothing and identity of one of his victims.  Although he’s not quite as menacing while wearing oversized sunglasses and a cowboy hat (he kind of looks like Joe Don Baker) as he was when he was in his Slipknot mask and straitjacket, his appearance is at least different enough from the usual slasher fare to be memorable. 

In fact, the movie is a little bit better than average the whole way down the line.  I’m a fan of this sort of thing, so I appreciated some of the novel touches.  It’s probably not novel enough to win over any non-slasher fanatics, but it’s also not too far off the beaten path that fans wanting more of the same will be disappointed.  

For example, there’s the scene where the character of Marcie (Ingrid Vold, who has a Linnea Quigley-type quality to her) prepares for a lovemaking session with her boyfriend.  In most of these movies, the girl would simply disrobe and hop in a sleeping bag.  This is not the case with Moonstalker.  Marcie’s boyfriend is a military fetishist, so that means she dresses up in a camouflage bikini, cracks a whip, and cranks Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” as a form of foreplay.  You just don’t get that in your average Friday the 13^th sequel.

The third act is a little plodding though.  Despite the draggy pace, it does have a few cool bits like the campfire sing-along with a bunch of dead bodies.  We also get a nice little twist at the end.  It’s not enough to put it over the top or anything, but I kind of wish the set-up for a sequel happened.  I wouldn’t have minded another go-round with Bernie.

AKA:  Camper Stamper.

GREMLOIDS (1984) *

Most movies wear their inspirations on their sleeve.  This one wears them on its pajamas.  And by that, I mean the opening scene features two kids having a close encounter with aliens while wearing Star Wars and E.T. P.J.’s. 

The evil Lord Buckethead (Robert Bloodworth) accidentally winds up on Earth.  Refusing to own up to his mistake, he plows forward, and along with his band of pint-sized aliens in black robes they scour a small hick town looking for stolen transmissions.  When he realizes AAMCO transmissions aren’t the plans he’s looking for, he kidnaps a grease monkey named Karen (Paula Poundstone) thinking she’s a princess.  It’s then up to a wimpy exterminator named Max (Alan Marx) to rescue her and save the planet.

Gremloids resembles what Star Wars might’ve looked like if George Lucas opted for the “let’s have it take place on Earth” approach of the Masters of the Universe movie.  As bad as the film is, the Star Wars-inspired opening crawl is very well done.  Lord Buckethead, who looks like a cross between Darth Vader and the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, could’ve been a fun villain, but his repetitive shtick wears out its welcome quickly. 

You know you’re in trouble when you’re watching a Star Wars spoof that came so late in the cycle that its title was changed to cash in on Gremlins.

The film ultimately tries way too hard to be like Star Wars that it fails to do anything original.  It tries even harder to make the unfunny gags work.  The jokes are repeated ad nauseum, the action sequences are lame (like the chase scene involving grocery carts in a supermarket), and the special effects aren’t so special.  The filmmakers had the right idea by casting then-up and coming comedians like Paula Poundstone and Chris Elliott in sizable roles, but they were just too early in their career to really pull the weak material off.

Ultimately, Gremloids feels like a Mad magazine Star Wars spoof stretched out to ninety minutes.  In case you’re wondering, ninety minutes is way too long for this sort of thing.  Heck, it would’ve been a painful nine-minute short.  I mean the opening crawl gag is OK and the first appearance of Lord Buckethead is good for a chuckle, but the movie grinds to a halt shortly thereafter and becomes a tiresome chore to get through. 

AKA:  Hyperspace.