Lost Highway would like to welcome the Msytical, Misty Wilkins as a guest reviewer to Lost Highway. ” I am an aspiring writer who loves Sci-Fi and is interested in crime drama, loves music and I have sarcastic wit. I like to write about various subjects. I realized writing is something I am meant to do, so I decided to follow my dream.” You can follow Misty on twitter @mystica43229 and visit her blog at mistysmusings.wordpress.com.

I have never eaten shrooms and I also have never been keen on trampling through pastures sifting through cow patties to find them either. Now, I am sure there are some people out there that will do anything to fuzz their mind off. They feel like getting a little crazy; hopefully see a pink unicorn dancing with a big blue elephant or perhaps run around naked feeling like they are dancing with Lucy in the sky with diamonds. I am sure they will go far out into the boonies for that trip, but to Ireland? A little extreme perhaps? Maybe Ireland’s shrooms have a better experience?

Some teens decide to take a trip to the land of the Leprechaun to find some shrooms and trip the light fantastic. Of course, one teenager’s main reason for going is for a stud she met while on a trip and wants to see him again. I don’t know about you, but if a guy I barely know asked me and my friends to go to Ireland to find poop laden psychedelic fungi in the woods, a red flag would immediately rise. Nothing good happens in the woods in the middle of nowhere in a foreign land right? Riiight…

The cast is filled with the typical characters in a teen slasher film in the woods; you have the good girl in love, her stud and tour guide, the hippy chick who doesn’t shave her pits, the hippy chick’s idiot boyfriend, the jock and the slut. On their journey to their campsite, they hit a deer in the road and immediately, the strange dwellers of the woodlands come out to collect the dead deer. Yes, the dwellers are creepy looking; they have no teeth, are very dirty and speak a very strange local language. The stud tells the group to move on and leave them alone. No problem.

Once at the site, which is beautiful by the way, they begin their hunting for shrooms. The lady in love eats a shroom (called a deathcap that induces rage, gives you foresight and makes you be able to contact the dead if you survive the initial seizure) that her lover/guide tells them specifically not to eat because of those facts. What does she go and do later?

Yes, you are right; she eats it, gets very sick and starts having crazy dreams… The rest of the group trips as well on the “good” shrooms, starts telling campfire tales of the nearby abandoned catholic school and other local myths that starts to get their minds racing. But, after that, pure chaos ensues. The jock decides to go off in the woods at night and then the carnage begins… I have to admit, the tripping scenes are great. For a movie of this caliber, the special effects are pretty good. Strange beings in the shadows are hunting them down one by one in gory fashion.
(Are they the strange dwellers they saw before? Or is it something different?) Oh, so much blood and guts and a lot of running and literally tripping through the woods.

Are all of these killings in their minds? Is it really happening? Is something really picking them off one by one?

Shrooms was produced by Paddy McDonald and Robert Walpole directed by Paddy Breathnach and written by Pearse Elliott and was limitedly released in February of 2008. Surprisingly, Shrooms is an entertaining movie. There are a lot of good gory moments, some sex and some humor. I still do not want to eat shrooms and camp out in the woods though.

- Axe to the head
- Hairy armpits
- Great trippy flashbacks
- Murder by a feral child
- Talking cow
- Insane monk

5.5 out of 10

Check out the trailer for Shrooms

Lost Highway would like to welcome the Syrin of Cinema, Krysha Syrin as a guest reviewer to Lost Highway. “My attraction to B-movies started merely a year ago, after entering college. After attending what was to later become a weekly movie night at a friend’s house, I realized how much I missed the silver screen. We watched Grindhouse and I was intrigued. I wanted to know the inspiration behind the film, the history of the bygone grindhouse generation. Weeks upon weeks of researching and interviews later led me to the true fans of the trade. Before I knew it, I was grabbing a Netflix subscription, scouring video stores, and getting my hands on all the B-movies and exploitation films I could.

Between attending classes and working towards a degree in Creative Writing, my spare time is spent viewing all sorts of films and trying to entice everyone I know to do the same.” You can check out her website as well as follow her on Twitter.

At first glance, Hobgoblins appears to be a strange off-shoot of Gremlins. Look again. Hobgoblins is a quirky mix of bad puppetry, bad acting, and an explosion of the 80s crammed into 90 minutes of non sci-fi torture.

The plot, should you ever find yourself forced to scrape one up off the bottom of this barrel, consists of a senile janitor named McCreedy who sends his interns off to their doom by trusting them to follow instructions and not investigate an unlocked, green-glowing vault. His latest janitorial protégé, Kevin, manages to free a “great evil” which McCreedy had tried to warn him about in sentence fragments but failed do to his senility.

Kevin attempts to correct his wrongdoing by wrangling up the Hobgoblin with his ragtag crew. Amy, his girlfriend with exceptionally high morals; Daphne, who thinks “morals” are a brand of condom; Daphne’s boyfriend, Nick, a war vet who probably got discharged for smuggling out grenades; and Kyle, female in-training.

At some point or another, the entire crew falls prey to the Hobgoblins cunning trickery, resulting in their arrival at Club Scum and the inevitable progression of the film further, much to any viewer’s dismay.

- Thugs
- Loose women
- Frigid women
- Spandex pushed to its limits
- Mortal Kombat: Garden tool edition
- Puppet-induced hallucinations
- Flailing
- Van rocking
- Extreme parking
- War flashbacks
- The plot (and let me know if you find it)

2.5 out of 10

Check out the trailer for Hobgoblins

I consider my time as a teenager not too traumatic. I mean it was no Wonder Years though there’s been times where a disembodied voice would annoyingly narrate over me. My teen years just weren’t filled with all that typical drama, angst and teenage rebellion you’d come to expect. I had a few good buddies, couple of ex-girlfriend and enjoyed watching lots of b-movies.

Back then I drove a 1969 Camaro SS that was given to my on 16th birthday (and yes my dad is that rockin’ cool.) I’m not sure why he trusted the car to a 16 year old lead foot who thought “Gone in 60 Seconds” was a drivers education video but I wasn’t going to complain.

The car was a thing of beauty. Daytona yellow with SS striping and a 300 small block v8 that we pulled out of a Monte Carlo just ready to break free from that hood. It had a low 411 gear ready to run a quarter mile in a heartbeat and it would take all your weight resting on that brake pedal just to hold it back at the stop light. It was like a wild animal ready to pounce and rip through any foreign compact that got in it’s way. My buddy and I would go to the cruise in town on Friday nights driving around aimlessly for a few hours, wastin’ gas, loading up on junk food, and occasionally stopping in at the Big Boy’s parking lot. For some reason all the cool kids liked to hang out there. Maybe it was just the siren call of that giant Big Boy statue smiling endlessly onwards mocking us with his dead cold stare taunting us while holding that giant burger. *shivers*

But my car drank gas like a sponge and eventually I had to put it into storage and drive something a bit more practical and a lot less exciting. Sure I drive a mini-van now, but my Camaro is still waiting in an undisclosed location. Patiently looking forward to taking to the streets again and if you listen quietly at night you might still hear that engine purrin’.

Speaking of muscle cars with a mind of their own. “The Car” features an unmarked Lincoln demon car terrorizing a small country town with it’s thirst for blood… unleaded blood of course. The horn blaring hell car bumps off a few bicyclists while barreling down the highway one day, but soon it shows it’s true motives when it makes a human speed bump out of a french horn playin’ hippie and then goes on a hit and run spree with a high school marching band. Yes Satan has a deep hatred of marching band music. This was a bit surprising as I would have thought marching bands greatest hits would be on a continuous loop in Hell’s waiting room.

Some of the survivors take refuge in an old cemetery whose holy ground notoriously protects them from the likes of vampires, werewolves, and more importantly demon cars. The loud mouthed band teacher, Lauren, decides that’s the perfect time to taunt and belittle the unseen driver. I mean really how do you trash talk a car? “Your daddy was an Etzel” “Your momma’s so old she farts dust out her tailpipe.” The whole scene was just unnecessary.

Meanwhile, Luaren’s boyfriend Wade (James Brolin) is hanging out at the police station. He’s a divorced father and part time lawman who besides having the unfortunate name of Wade he also sports an epic 70’s mustache. Stache’s like that usually only grow on serial killers or porn stars so props to Wade for making it work.

Wade’s band of emotionally fragile deputies attempt to catch the car but Satan has seen plenty of episodes of Dukes of Hazzard and knows how to outsmart them law folks. The way I figure it this small town consists of about 100 people total so that breaks down to about 40 marching band members, 20 drunken wife beaters, 10 rodeo cowboys and the rest are sheriff deputies. logically, there should’ve been plenty of law enforcement to go around but the car continues bouncing people off it’s bumper like ping pong balls. Even the sheriff gets run down in the middle of main street and Lauren gets offed in her own home like a bug on a windshield. Not so much a drive-by but more of drive-thru kill.

Wade teams up with the town’s reigning wife beatin’ drunk and resident explosive experts (aren’t they usually the same person?) and they plan to lure it to the rock quarry where all made for TV movies go to die. As luck would have it the car can’t be found though and nobody had gotten killed lately but Wade arrives home one night to find the car parked in his very own garage just sitting around mooching a few oil quarts, reading his Motor Trends and puffing out some carbon monoxide. Mustering up a Jackie Chan stunt dive he escapes through the garage window and flees on his jr. dirt bike with the evil car in hot pursuit. With a total disregard to helmet laws he lures it outside town limits for the big demon showdown and pyrotechnic light show spectacular. They could charge admission for fireworks finales like that. Just add some heavy metal music and Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat and you’ve got yourself a show.

This movie had made for TV movie written all over it with very little gore but plenty of melodramatic acting. The main star of course is the car itself. It was designed by the late automobile customizing extraordinaire George Barris. George also designed the original bat mobile, the Munster’s car as well as the sweet ride for The Hoff’ in Knight Rider. Big props to Mr. Barris for making this car a true killer on wheels and making me fear tinted window Lincolns.  Retroman says take a test drive with “The Car”. It’s a hot pocket of car killin’ mayhem with some b-movie cheese inside. But “Caution: Contents may be hot.”

- 1 Lincoln Deathcar with optional truck horn
- 1 James Brolin mustache
- 3 Car crashes with multiple crash and burns
- 1 Motorcycle chase with gratuitous demon explosion
- Extreme off-road biking
- French horn homicide
- Marching band hit and run
- Car door fu
- House drive-thru service
- Rodeo marching band shows

8.4 out of 10

Check out the trailer for The Car

I really hate shopping….no let me rephrase that, I would actually prefer to have my toenails removed with  rusty pliers while rabid raccoons chewed through my stomach lining than go shopping. It’s no secret that dragging me to the mall is akin to taking a 5 year old to a masochistic dentist. It’s always the same, there’s a lot of leg kicking and uncontrollable sobbing until someone gives me a sticker and a toothbrush. It may be the fear of being confined in a small place or feeling woozy from the combined smells of the nail saloon and the nearby roasted almond stand, but I can’t get out of their quick enough.
Women on the other hand view the act of shopping as an endurance sports that they need to train for year round constantly perusing all the stores for deals on hundreds of already over priced items. I’d ask me wife as she’s heading out the door “Well what are you getting at the mall?” she’d just wave and reassure me “oh, nothing just looking.” Later she’d return with a truck load of shopping bags full of decoupage and scrap booking supplies and now pulling an additional U-haul trailer filled to the brim with purses and shoes. “Honey, I didn’t have enough room so I had to put some items on layaway.”

When a man goes to the store we get what we need and leave immediately. No standing around, no chit-chat, and avoiding seeing anything we don’t have to. It’s almost the same etiquette for public bathrooms. It’s nice how our Neanderthal brains keep things simple like that. If it wasn’t for the invention of the remote control we’d probably still be hunting out of caves and peeing on shrubs to mark our territory. In the meantime to pay for the wife’s shopping excursions I guess I can always donate some more plasma. I’m sure I can make a good chunk of change before I get woozy and pass out.

Speaking of extreme shopping survival, robot killers are on the loose in the mall and they aren’t there for the sidewalk sales. This is the movie “Paul Bart: Mall Cop” should have been. In fact, I think if you add killer robots to any movie it can increase it’s entertainment value by a factor of 5 or 6 depending on how goofy the robots look. What I wouldn’t have give  to see a cyborg toss Matthew McConaughey into a pool of lava a few times.

In the film Chopping Mall apparently shopping mall crime is rampant across the country. Kids shoplifting banana clips and wayfarer sunglasses at an alarming rate or killing each other in the parking lots over swatch watches and members only jackets. Oh the humanity! So a new line of defense is needed that doesn’t require doughnut breaks. A new line of defense in the form of hi-tech robots stocked with death lasers, c4, torch cutters and Tasers that can take down a horse. Is it even legal to electrocute shoplifters? Sure It seems a bit excessive firepower for mall crimes, but it would be a great deterrent knowing you could have your head blown off at any moment for pocketing that friendship bracelet.

Just as this new security line of roving hi-tech garbage cans is set do go online at midnight, a group of teens decide to hide out and throw a party at a department store to partake in dirty dancing, debauchery and anything else that generally goes on in a Sears Roebuck.

I was already a bit leary of robots running around a mall with early versions of Windows coursing through their circuits, but then their central computer that was strategically placed on the roof gets zapped by a freak lightening storm. (Always be sure to install lightening rods with your rooftop computer.) The robots circuits get scrambled but instead of doing lame impressions and hanging out Steve Guttenberg and Ally Sheedy they electrocute janitors and hunt down frizzy haired teenagers. See, I already like them better than Wall-e.

The teens are automatically locked in the mall until dawn so it gives them plenty of time to drink Slurpees, eat burritos, and stock up on semi automatics from the local artillery boutique. Some of the others get stuck in the air ducts from eating one too many corn dogs then get the smack down from a few of the bots including a golf cart electrocution and accidental bimbo barbecue. I’m not sure why so many of these kids get so easily wiped out by these hunks of tin since they’re about as intimidating as a busted garbage disposal. B-movie rules still apply though as the nerdy girl and geeky guy become the tag team heroes taking on the killbots with road flares and propane tanks. Suffice to say you should always try to hang close to the nerds to better your chances for survival.

This Roger Corman produced film was directed and written by Jim Wynorski and was first released under the title “Killbots” but bombed at the box office so was quickly re-released as “Chopping Mall” given repeat viewer whiplash. There’s also quite a few cameos included Paul Barel and Mary Woronov of “Rock N’ Roll Highschool” fame as well as Kelli Maroney who is best known for her work in “Night of the Comet” another classic b-movie flick. Also look for a quick cameo from Rodney Eastman of A Nightmare Elm St. fame who plays an uncredited shoplifter. Disappointingly his head was not incinerated by one of the rogue bots but he does drown in his own waterbed in Elm St. 4 so you can always rent that instead. This was a pretty decent b-movie that oozes the 1980’s and may make you second guess your toaster oven. Retroman says check it out and watch out for early mornin’ mall walkers.

- 2 Electrocutions
- 1 Exploding bimbo head
- 1 Flaming Barbara Crampton
- Robot choke hold
- Extreme gum chewing
- Grappling hook impalement
- Mall free form diving
- Propane grenades
- Paint can fu
- Laser fu
- Golf cart robot showdowns

7.9 out of 10

Check out the trailer for Chopping Mall

In a recent BBC article It’s been discovered that a our littlest friends under our feet, the Argentine ant, is actually part of a vast mega colony that has already colonized much of our planet. Scary? yes… and maybe the largest species that could even rival humans in their population scale but with less strip malls and urban sprawl. These ants were once only native to south America (hence the Brazilian waxed thoraxes) and now cover every continent by hitching a ride on our shoes…well everywhere except ANTartica. They figured with a name like that it was already spoken for. Faced with this news of impeding insect invasion, I just want to take this moment to welcome our benevolent insect overlords and offer my services in managing diabetic worker slaves in the vast sugar factories. Let’s just try to forget my younger years involving a magnifying glass on a sunny day or that ant farm I accidentally flooded with radiator fluid.

Speaking of mutant ants taking over the world, “Empire of the Ants” leads us to believe that not only can radioactive waste cause insects to grow to the size of Volkswagons but they can also setup thriving sugar based economies, run factories, and managed cheap labor forces. All this in a single day.

Joan Collins takes a break from crappy TV shows to play a unscrupulous land developer, Marilyn Fryser. She’s trying to sell island real estate to clueless Floridians in leisure suits. Little do they know one of the island perks is scenic sunset views of radioactive barrels of toxic waste washing ashore right where the ants like to sunbath. The typical poorly sealed nuclear storage containers start leaking silver paint all over the ants and suddenly BAMMM! gigantus insectus among-us making picnic runs on Marilyn’s clients.

After discovering some dead construction workers covered in Smuckers raspberry jam the remaining customers decide to hightail it outta there as fast as their golf cart tour bus can carry them. Easily exceeding speeds of 10 mph they finally arrive back at the beach to find their tour boat getting antified. Dan, our grizzly faced boat captain swims out to try to save his precious scooner but the ants gives him the smack down. In a Gilligan-esque moment he decides to just to blow up the boat instead. The skipper would be proud. Now trapped on the island, rained on, hungry and without any extra eyeliner for Joan Collins they start to head towards the center of the island in hopes of rescue. The very old and very senile couple trailing the group decides it best to go off on their own hiding out in a dilapidated shack. Their last words would be “don’t worry we’ll be safe in here” proving again that old people are among the first to die in any b-movie.

The survivors battling their poor sense of direction take a old boat down the river and run into an ant made baricade and have to battle American Gladiator gauntlet style with giant foam ant heads. The cameraman appears to be in the thick of the action because heck if anyone can tell whose landing any punches with all those styrofoam legs flailing around. The boat sinks and they find a creepy old couple living in a barb wired cottage retreat who take them to town (this island must be huge!) They know something’s strange is happening in hicksville with not a Walmart or PigglyWiggly in sight and bets are someone’s been hoarding all the sugar packs too.

Their suspicions are confirmed when they find the towns folk being rounded up and taken to the gigantic sugar factory outside town which are apparently quite prevalent in the Florida everglades. Inside the factory, people are lining up like it’s a carnival ride to get sprayed with a cloud of ant pheromone from a queen ant crammed into a phone booth. This mind control spray makes the victim do whatever the queen asks of them plus it has the side benefit of the fresh scent of Lysol. It’s pretty much like if they went to a Pink Floyd laser show and got a contact buzz. Thankfully Dan fends of the ants and towns folk with a road flare and his extreme grizzliness then loads up the last of the survivors onto yet another boat ready to get lost again in the swamp. Hey the guy really likes boats can ya dig? I think the factory blew up too at some point but they ran out of budget…it’s mostly implied by a guy driving aimlessly around in a fuel tanker and then there’s a grease fire and some flaming ant footage.

I was surprised at the low level special effects this movie utilized for a 70’s monster film. I’d swear it was a 1950’s sci-fi movie if it wasn’t for the eye piercing leisure suits and feathered hairdos. Lots of split screens between the actors and ants, toy models with ants trying to climb the painted back drop, and styrofoam props make the effects on par with a Gamera film. The most redeeming quality of this movie is seeing Joan Collins impaled by a giant queen ant after getting her brain zapped. “That’s for making us endure Dallas..see ya in hell!”  ”Empire of the Ants” is cheesy little b-flick that just goes to show you can make a movie without the need for acting, special effects or even a plot getting in the way.

-Extreme leisure-suits
-Nuclear waste in a can
-Joan Collins fu
-Fraudulent resort tours
-Paddle fu
-Ant smoke contact buzz
-Road flair phone booth attacks
-Giant styrofoam ants
-Exploding sugar shacks
-Kaleidoscope ant vision
-Redneck mind control

I give it a 7.3 out of 10..but that’s only because the ants are watching me… right now….listening to my thoughts.

Check out the trailer for Empire of the Ants