“I only wear this shirt to distract people from my face. It’s my only defense.”

On some undisclosed island in the South Pacific, Pam Grier plays Lee Danier, an angry hooker in an evening dress who gets sent to a not-so-classy women’s reform prison in the middle of the jungle. Do not pass “Go”, do not collect $200.  There’s also Karen, played by Margaret Markov,who has likewise earned herself some prison time, due to her nasty habit of trying to instigate revolutions on communist islands. But she looks more like she barely escaped her last photo shoot. Karen and Lee don’t play well together, especially in confined spaces. So when they misbehave in the cafeteria, they’re forced to stand in a walk-in Easy Bake Oven out in the sun for the day as punishment. Fortunately we’ve got a non-stick cooking Pam as our star. The wardens are fed-up with having to break-up their catfights, which cuts into their group shower ogling time. So they chain the two together; make them wear yellow, prison issued mini-skirts; and send them on a bus trip to be interrogated. The bus ride comes to a quick halt, though, when Karen’s rabble-rousing friends attack the convoy. We know they’re revolutionaries because of the amount of their facial hair. The longer your mustache, the more you’re fightin’ “The Man.”

Lee and Karen barely escape into the jungle during the poorly planned rescue attempt, and are forced to hitchhike as nuns across the island and negotiate with oily, fat guys before stabbing them with a screwdriver. They sure make Catholic school nuns almost look tame by comparison. A corrupt cop is sent to track the nuns on the run, but only if he can break away from watching the local drunks play pool long enough. There’re also some hired thugs who are looking for Lee since she is one their prized hookers–their “best in show ho.” They inconspicuously drive around in a giant, decorated, clown jeep, blaring Mexican show tunes, possibly hoping for some women prisoners to just suddenly dart out in front of them, but instead they end up in pointless gunfights or wrestling around in their underwear with the locals. Not quite sure who’re the good guys and bad guys in this one, but I do know that hired thugs look particularly disturbing in baby blue western shirts.

Wouldn’t you think that would hurt your street cred a bit if you wore a shirt like that? Ruben is the head thug with the worst fashion sense, played by Rob Zombie’s favorite psycho, Sid Hag. He reminds me a bit of a local used car salesman, but without the charm and trustworthiness. “Come on down to Ruben Ford–free drug bribes for the kids!”

This is a good little exploitation film, light on the exploitation but heavy on the facial hair and gunfights. Also check out Pam Grier in “Coffy”, another great early blaxploitation movie from the 70’s. She’s all Coffy…without the caffeine.

Roadside Attractions

-Peeping Tom wardens
-chain chockin’
-convincts in a can
-jungle cat fights
-nuns on the run
-jump-starting hookers
-gratuitous use of a western shirt
-puppies with underwear hats
-21 breasts
-37 deaths
-multiple shootouts
-circus mercenary jeeps
-tempera paint blood splatters

rated 7.7 out of 10 for the movie

Check out the trailer for Black Mamma, White Mamma

“Freddy’s worse fear? Missing an episode of “Desperate Housewives.” That’s why he upgraded his new glove with TIVO.”

You know you’re getting old when 9:00 PM rolls around and you’ve already started yawning. Your eyelids are getting mighty heavy while watching “Antiques Road Show”, and you’re pretty winded from trying to find your copy of Reader’s Digest in the couch cushions. That pretty much sums-up my late nights. How far am I away from a nice cup of chamomile tea and a warm seltzer bath with the sounds of Kenny G playing on my clock radio?  I sure miss those college nights when I could stay up all night watching horror movies and playing my Sega Dreamcast. I’d awake the next morning in my Lazyboy surrounded by Cheetos wrappers and empty Diet Coke cans, then bike it to class with no problems.  I’d just need a light nap during anatomy class to rejuvenate me for the rest of the afternoon. In a class hall filled with about 500-plus students, you’d find the back row was a inconspicuous place to curl up for a nice snooze. I think  half of the back row was still in their pajamas, anyway. Did you know there’re about a thousand bones in the human hand named after dead Latin saints? Neither did I, but I think that’s what I dreamed about as I faded out to the monotonous voice of our professor.  “Hey tell the guy down in front to pipe down, we’re trying to catch some sleep back here. Could ya dim those lights, too, while you’re at it? Thanks.”  Sure, I had the option to examine medical cadavers for some extra credit, but I was traumatized enough when my goldfish died, so seeing the pickled liver of pale Joe Average didn’t exactly appeal to me. The class was a well-needed rest even at $250 a credit hour; and yes, I know $250 per credit hour sounds cheap nowadays, but that was big bucks back then. We only had dial-up Internet, giant cell phones, our music was still on CDs, and we liked it that way.  I still think it was a wise choice taking the  passing grade with  in-class dreams of dead Latin saints riding around in go-karts on tracks made of pudding. Maybe I  should have skipped the BBQ pork-rinds the night before.

Speaking of weird snack-induced dreams, “Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare” is the conclusion to the popular Elm St. Franchise, or as I like to call it, “The Final Cash-in.” Our dream Host-with-the-Most returns to don his fedora and Christmas sweater for the final time. Nevermind the eventual “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare “ and “Freddy vs. Jason” films that were to follow. Freddy’s dead for sure…and this time, they mean it!

It’s been 10 years since Freddy’s last carnage. Springwood’s youth has been wiped out and property values are in the gutter, while most of the older residents have either left or gone crazy. Johnny, the last remaining teenager from Springwood, is having nightmares of air travel in coach and homicidal bus drivers, so he decides to head out of town on foot to avoid any mass transit problems. Johnny hits his head on a rock and gets a nasty case of amnesia and is dropped off at a nearby
town’s de-militarized youth shelter. There he meets up with Spencer, a stoner who has an uncanny resemblance to the “You’re getting a Dell, dude” dude; Tracy, a karate kickin’ PMS-in’ teenager with major Daddy issues; and Carlos, a partially deaf Ralph Machio lookalike with a gigantic
hearing aid from the 1970s. Watching over all of them is Kim, their somewhat creepy youth counselor, whose main therapy involves taking them on weekend drives to towns inhabited by psychotic Roseanne Barrs and hyperactive Tom Arnolds. Perhaps the Springwood kids weren’t killed off–maybe they just left. Discovering the dreams of her past are intertwined with Johnny and the town, Maggie’s trip to Springfield is also her quest to discover the mysterious roots of her family tree,
and why she has flashbacks of watertowers and guys in ‘50s sweater vests.

The town seems to have no way out, nor any Red Roof Inns, so they decide to crash at the always-open Elm St. house. While napping, Carlos meets his quick demise via a Q-tip impalement and a hearing test of torture with the sounds of scratching chalkboards. But at least Carlos’s earwax is no longer a problem. Spencer hallucinates on the couch and gets zapped into a videogame where Freddy is King Kuppa, and he’s a stoned Luigi who ends up having his chest stomped on like the ringer in an amateur wrestling match. Meanwhile, Johnny is yet again attempting sky diving lessons in his dream, but lands face-first on a
bed of nails from a faulty Freddy parachute. All this carnage is just part of Freddy’s bigger plan to move on to greener pastures outside the town of Springwood. After all “every town has an Elm Street.” Every town also has a Wal-Mart and Rite-Aid, so I’m not sure Freddy’s relocation would really bring that much more evil. Maggie and Tracy return to the youth shelter with fewer passengers, but they now have a local dream philosopher who has decided to take on Freddy on his own turf. By entering his own dreams and memories, they plan to bring him back into the real world via an extended bear-hug. Little did Freddy realize his greatest weakness was a nice, big hug… Oh, and a stick of dynamite slammed into his chest. KAAA-BOOOM! Freddy-bits everywhere.

Freddy’s dead…if the title didn’t already tell you so. Easily on par with “The Dream Master” in its zaniness. He is still a psychotic wise-cracker with lots of creative kills left in his bag of tricks. A fun little horror movie that offers up more goofiness than any real scares, but well worth checking out. Too bad they didn’t include the 3D glasses like they did with the original theatrical release, but you do get to see Johnny Depp get hit in the face with a frying pan. You’ll end up with an unhealthy fear of Q-tips, but at least you won’t fear pudding and go-karts like me.

Roadside Attractions

-death by airplane decompression
-hit-and-run transit authorities
-gratuitous map folding
-extreme ear cleaning
-Inagodadavida Freddy
-Roseanne Barr-zilla
-Freddy power-glove
-skydiving safety lessons
-frying pan-fu
-Alice Cooper smackdowns
-knife throwing exhibitions
-Super Mario’s World of Death

rated 8.7 out of 10 for the movie

You can WATCH THE WHOLE DANG MOVIE RIGHT HERE!

“A lone Chicken McNugget from the new Super Happy Meals plots it’s unholy revenge.”

Saturday afternoons were always about some great television. After a morning of cartoons and a serving of Soul Train, you knew to prepare yourself for some great edited-for-TV B-movie goodness. One afternoon feature that I remember vividly was “The Bubble”, also known as ”Fantastic Invasion of the Planet Earth.”  Sounding more like an ad for a giant household cleanser, it was actually a pretty good sci-fi film from 1966. It was also the first film to employ a new polarized 3D effect from a single strip/one projector method, and was a heavily guarded secret by the director. While the effects were impressive for the time, at 112 minutes long, audiences didn’t have the patience to wait for the eventual cut scenes of a rake being thrust at them, or a floating tray of bottles. After initial poor returns, they cut the length down to 90 minutes for a re-release in 1976, and then down to 75 minutes for subsequent releases. Putting it on a sort of sci-fi diet, the result was a pretty good extended Twilight Zone episode.
long, The story revolves around a young pregnant couple, Michael and Deborah (she’s the pregnant one), who for some reason decide to take a late night plane ride right before the birth of their child, thus leaving their poor cigarettes and martinis all alone at home. They encounter a freak storm and are forced to land on a makeshift runway.  Johnny, their air-preggo pilot extraordinaire, hails a taxi cab for a quick ride into town for an emergency baby delivery. The streets  are eerily deserted that night, but the very next day they discover them filled with dazed townsfolk, as if emerging from an all night C-SPAN marathon. Touring around town with a new baby in tow they find the town is also filled with props, statues, and other strange cultural memorabilia, as if it was a movie studio backlot. The strange residences walking about the streets just  keep repeating the same things over and over again, seemingly unaware of their presence as they go about their routine. Effectively creeped-out by this, they decide to get out of town but find that their plane has disappeared from the landing spot. Johnny, emotionally distraught over the love lost for his plane, goes on a drinking binge at a western saloon, complete with its own catatonic bartender, mute show girl, and booze-serving ghost. Whether he hallucinates that last one is up for debate, but he sobers up pretty quickly when he and Michael find a strange alien structure in the center of town. It’s the biggest paper machee project known to man that people can walk in and out of like it’s their own personal Walmart supercenter. No price-cutting sales here though, only alien brainwashing and yummy bio nourishment for the townsfolk. Like many dimwitted B-movie characters, they have to investigate it, and discover a lone barco-lounger chair inside. Johnny decides that’s as good a place as any to take a load off, but instead of getting a nice back massage from its magic fingers, the chair zaps his brain with a hallucination of cheap Halloween masks. It’s a Lazyboy of evil! When will people learn not to sit in alien chairs?

Johnny seems to get a sort of psychedelic high off the chair zapper and drives them all out of town in an Army convoy truck, ignoring the chair’s warning label not to operate heavy machinery after use. About 20 miles out of town they encounter a giant reflective barrier wall. It’s the biggest gold fish bowl ever, trapping them like animals in a zoo. The only logical course of action when faced with a giant impenetrable wall is to try to drive through it, so Johnny and his new catatonic girlfriend from the saloon attempt to ram it at full speed. The truck explodes into a firey ball of death and gets levitated into the air just as Johnny safely leaps out, thus ending the longest relationship Johnny has ever had. Why must everything Johnny loves be destroyed? Johnny takes off running into the woods a little goofed-up from his brain shock therapy and the trauma from blowing up his girlfriend.

Deborah and Michael find an old mill where they and their baby can stay hidden away from the alien watchers that pass overhead in a solar eclipse. Michael tries digging under the wall in hopes of escape andDeborah starts up an arts and crafts class while going a little nutty. The final portion of this movie was mostly scenes of  Michael digging…and digging, but Johnny does eventually reappear just long enough to avoid fixing a flat tire and to get pulled up into the sky by the alien abductors. I doubt AAA Roadside Service covers that.

I saw this movie when I was 9 years old and it scared the bejeebers out of me. However, on a recent viewing it definitely didn’t have the same type of “shock” value it once had. If you can get past some of the awkward dialogue and occasional William Shatner-ish style of acting, you’ll find a fun, creepy sci-fi film. There’s also an interesting social/theological commentary of whether these aliens are actually a representation of God and how we are the mindless masses of this town being watched within this glass container, all stuck in our own repetitive daily routines. You’ll never look at your goldfish in the same way, I guarantee.

There’s more below the surface of this film, and it is definitely worth tracking down the Rhino DVD release. Retroman says to check it out, but bring a shovel. There’s a lot of digging to be done…lots and lots of digging.

Keep an eye out for…

- Halloween mask shock therapy
- extreme digging
- 1 booze serving ghost
- 1 Army truck explosion
- catatonic townsfolk
- 1 giant paper machee rock-cave
- obsessive-compulsive digging
- fly-by solar eclipses
- malfunctioning alien lounge chairs
- gratuitous thrusting of 3D objects at viewers

rated 8.3 out of 10 for the movie

The Bubble, now with 30% more cleaning power.

Check out this teaser trailer from The Bubble

“The new Head and Shoulder’s shampoo commercial went a bit over the top. But look no dandruff!”

I’m sure many of you are aware of my continuing quest to find the Greatest/worst movie ever put on film. Like Indiana Jones searching for the Lost Ark, I’m seeking that which cannot be viewed. I’m convinced that looking directly at the movie may cause my face to melt off. A weapon such as this cannot fall into Nazi hands or those of a big movie studio, as a remake would surely bring about the end of the world. I’ve only just discovered that I’m digging in the right spot when I unearthed little treasures like “Gymkata”, “Starcrash”, and recently “Troll 2.” “Troll 2” set the bar pretty low, and I thought no other filmmaker would dare match its level of awfulness. It’s like a late 70’s bloated Elvis of bad movies: tacky and greasy, yet still highly entertaining. Well, Elvis, put down that side of ham because here come the Beatles…in the form of a little piece of cinema excrement called “Hard Rock Zombies”, the most vile, horrible excuse for a film to be burned into my retinas. It’s just the sort of movie you want to take a shower after watching from the greasy stain it leaves on your soul. It’s the devil’s armpit of filmmaking for which no wipe-on deodorant could ever mask its vile odor, and yet it’s one of the most entertaining bad films I’ve ever seen.

The film revolves around an un-named rock band, which is preparing for stardom. They have a plan and a van, and that’s all any hard rockin’ musicians with big hair ever really need. After a hard rockin’ night at their big concert, to which maybe a total of 10 people showed, including the trashy groupies, they head to the small, hick town of Grand Guignol. They plan to have another fan-lite concert, despite the warnings of a bushy-eyebrowed under-age girl who has a crush on the lead singer. Along the way they encounter a somewhat limber and very trashy hitchhiker, who just recently offed some guys in a Firebird (deservingly so, just for being “those guys in a Firebird”). She convinces the band into staying at her family mansion near the edge of town instead of a hotel, making the killing that much more convenient. Sort of like Chili’s Car-side to go…of death.

The inhabitants consist of mutant dwarfs, a snuff photographer in a leisure suit, a crazy grandfather who is actually Hitler in disguise, and a werewolf grandma in a wheelchair. By today’s standards, a pretty normal suburban family. The townsfolk aren’t as upset with the Manson family living down the street as they are with having a big hair band in their quiet town, especially one that rides skateboards and do the rope mime act. These are acts punishable by  up to a whole day in a makeshift barn jail, according to town law. After making “bale”– which was probably paid in bottle returns–the rockers are killed-off one-by-one and buried in shallow graves in the backyard of the mansion. Cassie, the bushy-eyebrowed jailbait mourns their loss and plays a recording of one of their songs next to their graves. The side-effect is its power to bring them back from the dead. I’ve known songs by Wham that could slowly and painfully kill people, but not resurrect them.

The zombified band, now looking like the members of Kiss, goes on a revenge spree at the mansion, killing all the residents in various horrific ways and still finding time to put on a concert later that night. The victims then return from the dead as blood-thirsty zombies and proceed to attack the nearby townsfolk. It’s the standard Amway pyramid scheme of zombification. Some of the survivors in town decide the best defense is to hide behind giant cut-outs of famous people like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis, while sneaking through the zombie-infested streets. Not surprisingly, the Union picket line fails and they’re eaten alive. Great plan, people. The back-up plan is much better, which is to offer up Cassie as a virgin sacrifice to the undead on a nearby mountain. Ron, the one surviving member of the band, convinces his zombified friends to help rescue Cassie, and lures them into a Nazi-approved gas chamber via some of their hard-rocking Gregorian hits. Portable amps and long extension cords must be a-plenty in this town.

Definitely a must-see for you bad B-movie fans out there. The only film to include both Hitler and a werewolf grandma in a wheelchair. Now that’s something you won’t see on the History Channel.

Keep an eye out for...

- homocidal swimming lessons
- grandma werewolves in wheelchairs
- Nazi weed-wacking
- Amish barn prisons
- Resurrected flies and spiders 
- Zombie music auditions 
- Das Fuhrer of the undead
- Self eating mutant Nazi dwarfs
- Extreme eyebrows
- Record smashin’
- Multiple neck chompings

“Raise the dead for what?” “Probably to mop your floors and paint your house.”

Thanks to badmovies.org for some of the photos check out their great review as well. 

rated 9.4 out of 10 for the movie

Check out the trailer for Hard Rock Zombies

“The Russian Chernobyl Dance Class gets their groove on.”

When I was a pre-teen, one of my regular weekend hangouts was the local skating rink.  Donning a pair of smelly, rented roller skates, I’d awkwardly traverse the infinite circle of wood floor paneling, while songs from the likes of Pat Benatar and the Thompson Twins blared in my ears.  “Hit me with your best shot” seemed appropriate as I’d collide with concrete support beams or other skaters.  I was pretty good at gaining speed on the straightaways, but would easily lose control on the turns, scraping the outside wall like Cole Trickle in “Days of Thunder.”  But what else are ya gonna do when they start playing REO Speedwagon’s “Keep On Rollin’”?  That’s right–you gotta keep on rollin’!

I’d take occasional breaks from the circle death-race in the snack bar areas, but it would take quite a bit of skill to transition from the wood flooring to the green shag carpet without it resulting in a trip to the ER.  It’s a skill you don’t often hear talked about in roller derbies. After a brief snack of caffeine and sugar it was back to the perpetual left turn of roller rink skating, until the DJ announced the dreaded “couples song.”  The young guys, who at the time still believed in cooties and whose voices hadn’t yet changed, scattered to the safety of the sidelines, making room for teenage couples wearing glo-sticks, rolling around hand in hand.  What a strange concept: going to some place to roll around in circles to cheesy 80’s tunes.  This might be a good idea to make other mundane things much more enjoyable, such as waiting in a bank line, or getting your license renewed at the Secretary of State.  If only you could just roll around in a roped-off area while listening to the rockin’ sounds of Kenny Loggins, then time would go buy so much more quickly.

In the cult classic “Xanadu”, Olivia Newton-John has to put her roller skating skills to the test.  She plays a magical muse named Kira, who is unleashed from a bad 80’s mural painting, along with her muse sisters, by a starving artist named Sonny Malone. Sonny is played by Michael “Call me Swan” Beck of “The Warriors” fame, whose dreams of success go beyond re-painting bad album covers as promotional posters (larger scale printing technology apparently was still in the dark ages during the 80’s.).  Sonny gets a little sugar from Kira on a boardwalk in Venice Beach, and then she turns into a yellow beam of disco light and mysteriously disappears.  That frightful scene of dark magic doesn’t seem to phase him one bit though, as he decides to try to find her on astolen moped.  Who doesn’t love a girl that can re-materialize on a whim, anyway?  Soon she starts showing up in his album paintings, on old TV shows, in the dictionary, and teleports into dark corners.  She’s sort of a Jason Vorhees with leg warmers stalking Sonny.  She then lures him to an art-deco wrestling arena, where she casts an “eye of Newton” love spell on him, and convinces him to give up his crappy day job and start a dance club  with piles of money from Danny, played by the legendary Gene Kelly.

My theory is that Olivia isn’t even a mystical muse as she claims, but she’s actually just a shrewd real estate woman looking for some good investment opportunities.  The glowing is easily explained by a diet high in phosphorus.  Olivia and Sonny express their love by turning into animated fish and vest-wearing birds that dance to songs by ELO.  No, you’re not hallucinating.  I prefer to give a nice box of chocolates and flowers than to transmogrify.  She then enlists the help of Danny, whose mind is permanently stuck in the 1940’s as he hallucinates, talks to his vintage record player, and makes faces at himself in the mirror.  Poor guy, the dementia was already setting in.

See the conspiracy plot unfold as Sonny and Danny turn the run-down arena into a shimmering temple of 80’s decadence called “Xanadu”, where people of every race and creed will be able to roller skate, dance, and perform tight-rope walking.  With mission accomplished, Kira returns to her Purgatory world of endless voids and neon racing stripes, but Sonny’s love for her won’t keep them apart, so he goes to her world to argue with Zeus for her immediate release.  Because if anyone can convince Zeus, it’s a guy in a Hawaiian shirt wearing roller skates!  Xanadu’s opening night is a hit, filled with circus rejects, mimes, 80’s punk rockers, beatniks, ravers, shavers, mash-potaters, and people in pink neon and metallic clothes.  It’s like a Star Trek convention, only with fewer virgins.  Will Sonny and Kira’s love keep them together for a night of Xanadu, or will the Greek gods put a kibosh on their disco plans?

Honestly, by every account I should have absolutely hated this movie/musical.  It’s horrible acting, it’s plot-less, it’s disco, and the cheese definitely goes on thick.  Yet I’ve watched it 3 times already, and my kids love it, as well.  There really is something unique and endearing about this bizarre little film, and the soundtrack by ELO makes this movie shine (or glow in this case).  The film has also been made into a hit Broadway play, even though the original actors claim this film ended their acting careers.  So check out this cult classic, but don’t forget your glo-sticks.

Keep an eye out for...

- ELO-rama
- Roller-Derby dancing
- The high-pro glow dancers
- Gratuitous interior mansion decoration
- Paranormal big band stand apparitions
- Long bikes rides on short piers
- Dancing fish with leg warmers
- Near train collisions
- Skater-fu
- Disco themed Purgatory
- Western theme roller-rink hallucinations
- Illegal use of Gene Kelly in a pimp suit—5 yard penalty.

“Xanadu, it’s like sniffing glue. It’s like dropping acid, too. It’s up to you, Xanadu!” everyone sing!!!

rated 9.6 out of 10 for the movie

YES YOU CAN WATCH THE ENTIRE MOVIE RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!!!! CAN YOU HANDLE THAT??