EDGE OF TOMORROW (1961) **

Whatever you do, don’t confuse this with the Tom Cruise movie of the same name.  This one is a pseudo-documentary/cinema verité/mondo movie/WTF flick about aliens directed by the legendary Ron (The Monster and the Stripper) Ormond.  It tells the purported “true” tale of Reinhold O. Schmidt (who stars as himself) and his close encounters with UFOs.  One day, Schmidt’s driving around Nebraska when he finds a spaceship in a field.  He’s invited in by the aliens and makes lots of small talk with the friendly visitors before going on his merry way.  Schmidt is then interviewed by a reporter to verify his tale.

Edge of Tomorrow is based on two books, but there’s barely enough story here to fill its fifty-minute running time.  At least it gets off to a promising start.  The scenes of Schmidt riding around endlessly have a real Manos vibe to them, and the Coleman Francis-esque narration contains some real howlers like, “We’re living in a new age with different things”.  Sadly, once the movie cuts back to the interview segments, it gets bogged down awfully fast and quickly becomes rather tedious.

The big reason for this is that Schmidt just isn’t an actor.  He flubs several lines, and his whiny voice gets irritating almost immediately.  Whenever the film flashes back to his alien encounter, it flirts with showing a pulse, thanks to the cheesy UFO sets and awkward alien interactions.  However, every time we switch back to Schmidt’s longwinded interview, the life gets sucked right out of the picture.

The funniest thing about the whole thing was that Schmidt was later proven to be a fraud!  Not only did he lie about his alien encounters, but he also was caught trying to swindle old ladies by selling them “crystals” from his alleged UFO buddies.  He even served jail time!  Now there’s one part of his story I’d love to see made into a movie.

Schmidt also appeared In Ormond’s Please Don’t Touch Me.

PSYCHO SISTERS (1994) ***

W.A.V.E. Productions were infamous for allowing fans to customize their horror films to suit their skeevy tastes.  Director Gary Whitson had no qualms whatsoever catering to the whims of fans and shoehorning in whatever fetish they wanted to see.  Psycho Sisters marks the first time they let a fan not only write, but also co-direct one of their movies.  Luckily, Peter Jacelone was aiming to make a “real” movie rather than just a glorified bondage video.  Well, about as close to a ”real” movie as a W.A.V.E. Production could get.  

After the brutal rape and murder of their sister, Janice (Tina Krause), Jane (Christine Taylor) and Jackie (Pamela Sutch) snap and are committed to an insane asylum.  Once they are released, they plot to get revenge on the men who killed their sister… and… well… all men in general.

Psycho Sisters begins with the warning:  “This motion picture contains graphic depictions of rape, murder, and ‘genito-dismemberment’”.  However, the rape scene is rather restrained, all things considered.  The “genito-dismemberment” scenes on the other hand, are pretty damned good as the ladies develop quite a collection of dismembered members throughout the course of the film.  

Psycho Sisters offers up some neat reversals on the typical W.A.V.E. formula.  Instead of women being bound, gagged, chloroformed, and kidnapped, this time, it’s men.  I guess one could argue the death scenes are repetitive, but that kind of goes along with the idea that they are serial killers.  It’s in their very nature to kill their victims the same way every time.  I will say the flick does run on a bit long, although it’s nothing that derails the proceedings or anything.  

I quite enjoyed the flashes of black humor Jacelone brought to the picture.  It is funny that Taylor and Sutch have no problem cutting up men but get all grossed out whenever their victims piss and shit themselves.  The little attention to detail in the sister’s victim disposal methods (like the donation of their clothes to the Salvation Army) also help make it stand out from the rest of the pack.  

The trio of lead actresses are all excellent, which further cements Psycho Sisters’ place as one of the best W.A.V.E. Productions.  Krause is especially good as the ill-fated sister.  Sutch is a vivacious presence as the psychotic and playful Jackie and has many good scenes with Taylor, who acts as the de facto mother figure.  If you’re a fan of any or all of these ladies, you’re sure to go psycho for these Sisters.

TUBI CONTINUED… MOTORBOAT (2023) *

A cult known as “The Brotherhood of Darkness” is murdered by a masked assassin who dumps the leader’s body in the middle of a lake.  Two years later, the leader’s spirit possesses a motorboat that putts around the lake chopping up tourists with its outboard motor.  It’s then up to the sheriff and a priest with a sketchy past to confront and kill the diabolical dinghy.  

Motorboat doesn’t even get out of the dock before there are problems.  The early scenes are edited in a nearly incomprehensible manner with lots of lens filters fogging up the action and making things difficult to see.  Seriously, a movie about a sentient homicidal motorboat should not start off this convoluted.  Also, everyone (including the hero) wears masks, so it’s obvious that much of the dialogue was looped in after the fact (and was probably all done by the same person).  To make matters worse, scenes are repeated again and again in the form of flashbacks and dreams.  In fact, without these repeated sequences (and the unnecessary news reports that break up the action every fifteen minutes or so), the flick would’ve easily been about forty-five minutes long.  

Motorboat (I’m sorry, but I have to interrupt here.  Let me get something off my chest:  Motorboat is a really lame title.  A movie about a killer motorboat is called… Motorboat?  I mean, COME ON!  MURDERboat was right there!) is essentially Jaws, but with a possessed motorboat.  I just wish director Mark Polonia leaned more into the concept.  Unfortunately, he lets the flick get bogged down with all the unnecessary backstory involving the cult.  While some of the CGI shots of the boat’s ghostly aura aren’t bad, the close-ups make it look downright pathetic.  (It’s just a toy boat painted black.)  I’ll admit, the idea of a killer boat is just dumb enough to work, but the boat attack scenes are so weak that it causes the film to sink.  

The bright side:  As bad as Motorboat is, it’s far from the worst Polonia movie I’ve seen.

SORORITY SLAUGHTER (1994) ** ½

Hugo (Sal Longo) is a creepy schlub who says, “Be it zombie or vampire, the eternal urge to live forever is the dream of mankind!”  He then goes out and strangles a jogger (Dean Demko) and hacks her up.  Hugo just so happens to live next door to a bunch of sorority girls who are spending their spring break at home.  When a prank goes wrong, the girls think they’ve accidentally killed Hugo.  Little do the sorority sisters know, he’s an immortal killer who likes sacrificing women on his altar.  

Sorority Slaughter is kinda like the South Jersey version of House on Sorority Row.  Despite the low budget trappings inherent in a W.A.V.E. Production, directors Gary Whitson and Sal Longo still find ways to wring genuine suspense and even a surprise or two.  I liked the opening scene where a victim is watching a W.A.V.E. movie on TV while the killer lurks in the background.  Then, we hear a scream, and the audience thinks she’s just become a victim, but it’s really coming from the TV.  THEN the killer strikes.  Sure, it’s not John Carpenter or anything, but it’s kinda effective for a low budget, shot-on-video horror flick.  Whitson and Longo also give us a great toilet POV shot when Tina Krause blows chunks.  

Moments like that work.  Eventually, Sorority Slaughter reveals its true purpose:  Long scenes of sorority girls horseplaying in the pool, extended water fights that erupt while washing a car (complete with Keystone Kops music), and scenes of sorority girls getting slaughtered (natch).  W.A.V.E. movies are essentially bondage fetish videos parading as horror films, so it’s always amusing once they start showing their skeevier side.  They’re almost like an AI version of a snuff film.  Some of these scenes go on forever, and sometimes, you start to question what you’re watching.  However, is it really a W.A.V.E. movie if you haven’t asked yourself, “Okay, what am I watching?”

Despite the gnarly and grungy aspects of the film, it’s strangely chaste.  Nudity in the shower scenes is either strategically out of frame or obscured by the opaque shower curtain.  When the guys score with the sorority sisters, they either leave their underwear on or seem unable to get past second base.  In fact, there’s no nudity here, unless you count butt shots and wet T-shirts.  The kill scenes are kind of repetitive too, although I guess if you have a fetish for seeing women faint, being carried off like Julie Adams in The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and then having her guts pulled out, you’d be inclined to give it Four Stars no matter what.

TUBI CONTINUED… HOLLYWOOD DINOSAUR CHRONICLES (1987) ***

Doug McClure hosts this lightweight and breezy trip down memory lane that shines a spotlight on the most popular dinosaur movies of all time.  The films of the silent era, such as the animated Gertie the Dinosaur, the early stop-motion effort The Dinosaur and the Missing Link, and The Lost World are covered first.  All these films eventually set the stage for the iconic King Kong in 1933.  After the creation of the atom bomb in the ‘50s, dinosaurs in movies become symbols for nuclear destruction in films such as Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster, Reptilicus, and Godzilla vs. Megalon.  The special then concludes with a look at the then-recent dinosaur flicks, Baby:  The Secret of the Lost Legend and The Land Before Time.

McClure (who looks like he’s having a hard time standing and walking) appears in a museum next to dinosaur fossils during the dry host segments.  While these sequences aren’t much to write home about, they are, at the very least, informative.  Some of the background info on the early days of paleontology and/or moviemaking is kind of interesting.  I did find it chintzy that half of the documentary is devoted to works of the silent era, which means it’s cheaper to acquire footage since it’s all in the public domain.  (The later movies are often represented in footage from trailers, which also helps to keep costs down.)  It is kind of neat though seeing the shift away from goofy, loveable dinosaurs like Gertie to more bloodthirsty variations over the years.  

The cheesy opening set to Was Not Was’ “Walk the Dinosaur” is amusing.  There’s a pretty good selection of talking head interviewees, like Jim Danforth, Forrest J. Ackerman, and Donald F. Glut (who seems preoccupied with pointing out all the inaccuracies in the movies) too.  Overall, there’s nothing particularly earthshattering here, but if you enjoy these dated clip show packages like I do, you might get a kick out of it.

TUBI CONTINUED… SHARKULA (2022) ½ *

Remember that awesome scene in Zombie where the zombie fought a shark underwater?  Well, Sharkula features Dracula fighting a shark underwater.  Trust me.  It’s not as cool as it sounds.  That’s mostly because the effects are terrible.  Not only is the shark an awful CGI creation, but the effects team can’t even disguise the fact that Dracula isn’t underwater, as he’s obviously standing in front of a greenscreen.  

Yep, if you can’t already tell, we’re knee-deep in another Mark Polonia movie.

But it gets worse.  The droning theme song where a guy repetitively moans “Sharkula” over and over again almost put me to sleep.  The same goes for the echoey opening narration.  Ditto the constant cutaways to a fire dancer twilring her flaming sticks.  It all adds up to a one-way ticket to dreamland.  

It also has a weird, blurry look and choppy feel.  Sometimes, it looks like people are moving at .75x speed as they move and talk slower than they ought.  It’s one thing to use slow motion for an important scene.  It’s another to randomly slow parts of the film down to (presumably) inflate the running time.  

The vampire/shark hybrid is kind of funny, I guess.  It looks like a shark bath toy with rubber bat wings glued on it.  That’s about the only laugh the flick has to offer though.  In some close-ups, I shit you not, it looks like a Carvel ice cream cake.  It's also obvious that the fin used for the shots of the shark swimming just below the surface of the water was just a pool toy the filmmakers purchased from 5 Below.

Oh, I forgot to talk about the plot.  My bad.  Two losers get jobs working in an old inn at a seaside resort town.  Their weird employer, Renfield forbids them from going outside at night and mingling with the locals.  It’s a good thing too because after sundown, Dracula likes to feed sacrifices to the shark vampire, Sharkula.  

Sounds like fun, right?  Unfortunately, it’s about as much fun as shoveling chum.

TUBI CONTINUED… THE AMITYVILLE CURSE (2023) **

I think this might be a first for the Tubi Continued… column.  The Amityville Curse marks the first time I have reviewed a movie that is a Tubi Original remake of a movie I’ve previously reviewed for the column.  It also marks the second time a movie from the original Amityville series has been remade (after the original).  The 1990 version of The Amityville Curse was based on a Hanz Holzer book and was the fifth film in the original Amityville franchise.  So, I guess that makes this part of the “official” series?  Maybe?  I don’t’ know.  Things get a little murky when you start talking about rip-offs that are remakes of sequels.  

The basic story of the 1990 film is the same.  A bunch of couples buy a house in Amityville hoping to renovate and flip it.  The big difference is that in the original, it was just a house in Amityville.  This time, it’s THE house.

When one of the new tenets falls to their death, the house is soon swarmed with morbid curiosity seekers and becomes subject of supernatural speculation on social media.  (“We’re trending!”)  Hoping to dispel the claims the house is haunted; the friends invite a paranormal podcaster to do a show on the house.  He naturally winds up dead too.  More people are killed by the house, and eventually, the surviving members of the friend group turn to a professor of parapsychology to save the day.  

The Amityville Curse is watchable, but it’s mostly ho-hum and forgettable.  The biggest special effect is that the lights flicker on and off.  Since the deaths are all “accidental” or suicides, they aren’t exactly creepy or effective.  They just sort of happen.  It may be a cut below the original Curse, but it’s not bad as far as these modern Amityville rip-offs go.  

The oddest thing about the flick is that when it feels like it should be over, a “Two Months Later” title card pops up and it keeps on going.  This sequence isn’t exactly bad, but it’s not really a worthy conclusion.  If anything, it feels like a sequel that’s been crammed into the last twenty minutes and is further proof the movie should’ve really packed it in two reels ago.

AKA:  The Amityville Terror.