Four Happy Valley High Hamsters cheerleaders, led by Angela (Angela Brubaker), have been by a church group for everything bad about the internet. They hire a gay teacher named Steven (Jeff Nicholson, who created the comic book Ultra Klutz) to train a group of Catholic school girls to take their place. He’s also working with Mr. X (Donr Sneed) who is turning all internet users into zombies.

The girls turn to the nerds, led by Maverick (Jared Brubaker), who are able to teach the girls how to be ninjas.

Director and writer Kevin Campbell directed an entire series of VHS how-to model kit videos in the 90s like Video Workbench: How to Build Science Fiction Models and Video Workbench: How to Build Car Models. Just last year, he came back to directing and made an internet referencing slasher called Back Slash.

Probably the reason why most guys watched this was because Kira Reed was in it. She’s also in Amityville Witches, Chained Heat 2001: Slave Lovers, Playboy’s Sexcetera and was an early internet adult star. Nearly all of the nudity in this movie comes from her.

As you can imagine, this is one of those films that sets out to be bad and overdelivers.

This is not Ninja Cheerleaders.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Also known as Kickboxing Connection, Ninja Boxing Cop and Ninja Connection 2, Ninja Champion starts with Rose (Nancy Chang) being assaulted by clowns over the opening credits. If you can get past that, then nothing can stop you in this movie. Because soon, her husband George (Roger Lam) leaves her, as he feels that she’s been tainted and almost instantly gets married.

Yet he can’t forget her. And his Interpol partner, Donald (Bruce Baron) — from completely new footage, as yes, this is a Godfrey Ho film — promises to watch out for her. But because George has a license to kill, he should probably keep close tabs and do the killing for her, as it looks. like Rose is going for revenge.

By the way, Bruce Baron has just as wild of a movie career as another Godfrey Ho star, Richard Harrison (don’t worry, he’s in this). After graduating from Cornell, he appeared in forty movies, including Code Name: Wild Geese, The Atlantis Interceptors, Fireback and many more.

Rose starts by poisoning one of her nipples and drowning the “Boxing Champion of Asia” in the bathtub. All of the Rose and George footage is from the Korean revengeomatic Poisonous Rose Stripping The Night. But Godfrey Ho goes harder than ever in this one, bringing back footage of Richard Harrison from Ninja Terminator and yes, he’s calling in on a Garfield telephone.

Oh yeah — Rose also cuts off the dick of almost every man she kills.

And George falls for a diamond smuggler named Jenny.

Trust me, that pays off in a way that you may not see coming.

There are also plenty of ninjas doing tricks with swords and hoops, as well as a final battle that takes place on the monkey bars of what I can only imagine is the playground of Godfrey Ho’s kids’ grade school. Well, a ninja just died on it and they left his body to rot.

Also I am a fan of the mentally challenged bald guy who ends up helping the good guys and George’s absolutely insane off-color Michael Jackson jacket. Hills uses to sell the black and white one along with the black and red and I always wondered, “Who would buy the jacket Michael didn’t wear for the very same price?”

It was George, the same guy who told his new wife to take a cold shower and go rent someone to make love to her, because he wasn’t interested. The guy who left a woman who was the victim of triple ninja clown rape. You know. The hero of Ninja Champion.

This movie is just packed with stolen music, the true joy of any ninja. We’re got Jean-Michel Jarre’s “Second Rendez Vouz,” “Third Rendez Vouz,” “Fifth Rendez Vouz” and “Ethnicolor;” Pink Flord’s “On the Run;” The Michael Schenker Group’s “Into the Arena,” Andrew Poppy’s “The Object Is a Hungry Wolf” and “Listening In;” ZZ Top’s “Sleeping Bag;” Kraftwerk’s “Trans Europe Express;” a track by Oscar; “Stereotomy” and “Where’s the Walrus?” by The Alan Parsons Project; “Junku” by Herbie Hancock; two songs from the soundtrack to Armored Trooper Votoms; “Ain’t I Cute” by Japanese synth artist Osamu Shoji; “Voyeur” by Hubert Kah; a song from the Japanese show Ultra Q; a song from the anime The Unchallengeable Daitarn 3; “Bois de Boulogne (Paris),” “Thru Metamorphic Rock,” “Diamond Diary” and “Lana” — which is from Risky Business — by Tangerine Dream and “The Other Side of Time” by French space disco artist Roland Romanelli.

I mean, this movie starts off with a remixed Star Wars theme, as if it is ready to announce to the world that copyright infringement is your best entertainment value.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Night Ninja Thunder Fox is a much better title than Ninja Empire. I don’t know what it has to do with this movie, but it does sound more mysterious.

Just so you know, I hate AI writing. I’ve been tasked at work with using more of it and I feel like I’m helping Skynet kill John Connor, so this is really the worst timeline as writers like me look at our jobs being co-opted and a world where machines make art and words while we look at the kind of backbreaking work that machines were supposed to do. The Terminator didn’t win through violence, they won by convincing those that can’t create that creativity is no longer worth time or energy.

However, I thought it would be funny if I asked ChatGPT to write some of this and asked it, “How is Godfrey Ho like ChatGPT?”

Also known as Shaolin Quick Draw, Ninja: Champion on Fire and Ninja Operation 6: Champion on Fire, this Godfrey Ho-directed mix and match remake remix rip-off takes much of its story from Da di long zhong (Fury In Storm), a 1974 Chin-Liang Hsu-directed movie that features a guy named Anthony (Patrick Kelly), a Catholic who is such a true believer that he carries a wooden cross like Jesus. He carries it everywhere.

He’s nearly killed when the train that allows him on is taken over by a Japanese gang, but he’s the one that slowed the train down so they could attack it. They get what they wanted, a gold statue, and then double-cross him.

They crucify him, even placing a man on each side of him, but somehow he survives and ends up meeting a man named Dragon (Yi Chang), a martial arts master who teaches him how to withstand blows from weapons and walk through punches and kicks.

Does this seem weird enough for you? I mean, the original film was called Django – Im Reich der gelben Teufel (Django – In the Realm of the Yellow Devils) in Germany. That’s because just like Django’s coffin, Anthony’s crucifix — that he’s already survived being crucified on — has a Gatling gun inside it.

Master Gordon (Richard Harrison), the ninja who has been in so many of Godfrey Ho’s movies, shows up in this, battling other brightly colored ninjas and also meeting Anthony in a waterfall to warn him about a danger he is about to face. He’s also about to battle an evil ninja named Ringo (Stuart Smith).

This is also very much an Italian Western with an ambiguous hero — Anthony is a man of God but somehow has no issues slapping around the lover of the main bad guy, who has fallen for Dragon and he or her — and an ending where, like the best of the Eurowest, nearly everybody dies, including Anthony chasing most of the gang that put him up against a firing squad earlier and doing onto others as you would have them do onto you.

Also, as always, lots of Tangerine Dream. Some Mike Oldfield, too.

The movies of Godfrey Ho and the AAV Creative Unit are always going to be strange. But even I was not ready for this film which tears through pop culture, ripping off rip-offs, reducing film to some formless amorphous ever-changing Silly Putty that distorts but retains some of the story of the funny pages that it has stretched out upon.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Also known as Ninja Turf, this was directed by Woo-sang Park, who we all know directed Miami Connection. It’s about new kid at school Tony (Phillip Rhee, who created and starred in the Best of the Best series of movies) and how he instantly vibes with a gang leader named Young (Jun Chong, whose company Action Brothers Productions made this movie happen; he’s a celebrity martial arts trainer who taught Sam J. Jones, Lorenzo Lamas and Phillip Rhee). Their friendship is enough to get him threatened by another gangster, Chan (James Lew). In the middle of Young saving Tony, they get offered a job as security guards. Yes, that can happen.

In between their security gigs, they rumble with the Blades and Spike’s Gang, which has Biff Tannen as a member. Seriously, it’s him. But when they’re not fighting, Tony hooks up with Chan’s sister Lily. This enrages his enemy and his friend too, as all Young can think about is feeling alone. And oh yeah, his mom, who lives to drink and sleep with men.

Young has some issues.

He also screws up when those issues get to him as he and Tony do security for a mob boss and he steals a briefcase filled with money from a drug deal. That boss sends a swordsman named Yoshida (Ken Nagayama) and a fighter called Kruger (Bill “Superfoot” Wallace). They meet up with Chan, who eagerly tells them where to find his enemies and they even torture a whole bunch of Tony and Young’s school buddies. They catch up with Young, who kills Yoshida and breaks Kruger’s knee, all while Tony is studying.

On the way to the hospital with his injured friends, Young is stopped by Chan and his entire gang. His mother comes out into the street and tells him that she’s sorry for everything she’s ever done and, wow, Chan beats her into oblivion while her son watches. Then, the gang brutalizes him and Tony gets there too late. Grabbing his friend’s wooden sword, he chases away the gang and probably kills Chan. But again, it’s pointless, because Young dies in his arms.

Jaime Mendoza-Nava, who wrote this movie with Ji-woon Hong, was mostly known for composing music for films and TV shows. Some of the 300 works he contributed to include music for The Witchmaker, The Stewardesses, Dream No Evil, Grave of the Vampire, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Mausoleum and Death Wish Club, which is really “The Case of Gretta Connors” from Night Train to Terror.

This isn’t as amazing as Miami Connection but it’s the dark opposite coast version of friendship in the middle of street fights. It’s a lot of fun, even if the ending is nihilistic pain.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Jigoku is a samurai outlaw with a bounty on his head that Zatoichi, Cyrano de Bergerac and Yuri the Pistol is out to collect. Except she’s the one who nearly catches him. And then he falls in love with her. And he has a bigger thing than saving his head on his mind. He’s looking for a golden sword that’s inside a cave. It’s more than a weapon. It’s the key to Zipang, the city of gold ruled by the love-hating Golden King, who has a woman trapped in an ice cave. And her lover has been released when the sword was freed. And oh yeah, there’s also an army of blue ninjas who want to steal the golden sword.

If you’re confused, don’t worry. Zipang packs a lot in a short time. And then throws in lots more.

Have you ever played Kabuki: Quantum Fighter on the old NES? Then you know this movie, even if you didn’t know it, because it was the Americanized tie-in game for a movie that would never be released in the West.

As he kills nearly 150 people (146, if you want to know), Jigoku discusses his nine swords, even if we don’t see all of them. He’s got a samurai sword, a sword that shoots its blade, one that has two blades, a really long samurai sword and even one with a spinning top on it.

Director and writer Kaizô Hayashi also made To Sleep As to Dream, another movie that is just as delightfully strange as this. Sure, you can watch this as a swords versus ninjas treasure hunting movie, but there are deep themes inside, like wondering what love is and the dangers of only caring for things. Also, for some reason, everyone looks like they’re wearing street fashion and we have no idea where in time or space this is all happening.

This is a film with human-sized kites, ninjas with high tech goggles, mechanical claws and guns, as well as monsters, a friendly baby elephant, a samurai who knows how to use a rocket launcher and so much joy in every frame that you just can’t believe it’s happening.

I read a review on Letterboxd where someone said it was too long and kind of boring and I wonder why that person hates magic so much.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

Arrow Video continues its exploration of giallo with its fourth box set after the Black, Red, Yellow and White editions of Giallo Essentials.

In the early 1970s, when the giallo boom was at its peak, producer-turned-director Luciano Ercoli made  three standalone — but thematically linked — giallo films all starring his wife Nieves Navarro under the name Susan Scott. This set shares those movies in one convenient and well-priced edition.

The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion (1970): Minou (Dagmar Lassander, The House by the Cemetery) loves her husband, Peter. But Peter is cold and only really seems to care about work. All she does all day is pine for her husband and take care of a turtle. Yep. You just read that correctly.

One night, a mysterious stranger attacks her, cuts open her clothes and then warns her: her husband is a killer.

The mysterious man is proven correct when a man who owed Peter money shows up dead. He demands that she come to his home, where he blackmails her into sleeping with him. Seeing as how he has recorded their tryst, he now has more material on her.

Even her friend Dominique (Nieves Navarro, All the Colors of the Dark, who was married to the director, Luciano Ercoli) can’t be trusted, as Minou finds photos of the blackmailer in provocative poses in her possession. When she finally gets the police to investigate, the man’s home is empty and Dominique tells the police he never even existed. Oh yeah. Dominique was once Peter’s woman before Minou. So there’s that.

Minou has a nervous breakdown and overdoses on tranquilizers before sobering up and learning that it’s all been a plot against her from the beginning. But come on — if you’ve watched any giallo, you knew that going in.

Despite its lurid title, Forbidden Photos of a Woman Above Suspicion isn’t filled with sex or even all that much violence. It’s more about alcoholism and how women were taught that they had to have the skills to land a man, but not what to do with their lives to make them fulfilled beyond just a relationship.

Director Luciano Ercoli has some gorgeous shots in here that really take advantage of the space age 1960’s aesthetic. And a bossa nova score by Ennio Morricone keeps this film bouncing. It wouldn’t be the first giallo I’d recommend, but it’s not the last, either.

Extras include commentary by Kat Ellinger; Private Pictures, a documentary featuring interviews with Navarro, Ercoli and Gastaldi; an appreciation of the music of  70s Italian cult cinema by musician and soundtrack collector Lovely Jon; a Q&A with Lassander; the Italian and English trailers and an image gallery.

Death Walks On High Heels (1970): 

A man is stabbed on a train, leading the police to question Nicole (giallo queen Nieves Navarro) about diamonds that are missing. Her life turns upside down, as she begins to receive disguised phone calls asking about the diamonds and a blue-eyed masked man attacks her in her boudoir. She then remembers that her jealous lover Michel owns contact lenses in that color, so she runs away with an older eye surgeon to the coast of England. But Michel isn’t far behind…

The first of three giallo directed by Navarro’s husband, Luciano Ercoli, this is what the genre should be: shocking, lurid, bloody and oh so fashionable. It also makes a deft turn from what we expect from the form into an actual mystery film.

There’s a plot twist here that honestly shocked me, so I won’t spoil it. While the other two films in the Ercoli giallo trilogy are much better, this is still a quality film worthy of your time. Some critics decry them as Ercoli making movies just to feature his wife, but if you had a quality woman like Navarro in your life, I bet you’d do the same.

This comes with audio commentary by film critic Tim Lucas, an introduction to the film by screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi, an interview with Ercoli and actress Navarro, Gastaldi explaining how to write a successful giallo, an interview with composer Stelvio Cipriani and Italian and English trailers. These extras are a sheer joy for giallo lovers and what an opportunity to hear from Ercoli, Navarro and Gastaldi.

Death Walks At Midnight (1972): Nieves Navarro is a true queen of giallo, appearing in All the Colors of the Dark, Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, So Sweet, So Dead and Death Walks on High Heels. Here, she makes her third film with her husband, Luciano Ercoli.

In this one, she plays a fashion model named Valentina who agrees to help her journalist beau study LSD. But while she’s dosed and in the middle of a photo shoot, she watches a man brutally murder a woman with a spiked gauntlet. He thinks she’s just hallucinating and publishes her account, but she believes it’s real. And when the killer starts stalking her, she really starts to worry.

The entire opening of the film is one big acid freakout and everything that follows is the bad trip, the comedown and reality brutally intruding into drugged out bliss. This is a film packed with brutal violence and plenty of gore, but it makes sense. The movie demands it.

The end, when everything is wrapped up by the killer (killers?) is pretty great, as the many red herrings are discussed and the entire plot is finally explained to us. If everything before felt like a nightmare, this is bracingly cold water directly to the face.

Even better, Navarro portrays a heroine who doesn’t faint at the first sign of danger. She deals with the ineffectual police and indifference of her boyfriend with aplomb.

And yes — this film is packed with bonkers crazy fashion — a metal/glass silver wig and a strange sculpted wall feature prominently — so if that’s why you love giallo, you’ll be quite happy here. Me? I loved every minute.

This release comes with audio commentary by film critic Tim Lucas, an introduction by screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi, an extended TV version, a reflection by Gastaldi reflects on his career in the crime film-writing business and Desperately Seeking Susan, a visual essay by Michael Mackenzie exploring the distinctive giallo collaborations between director Luciano Ercoli and star Nieves Navarro. If you love giallo — or are just getting into it — all of these extras will open deepen your love for the form; Lucas is one of the best commentary track experts there is.

This limited edition Arrow Video box set comes in rigid packaging with the original poster artwork in a windowed Giallo Essentials Collection slipcover. You’ll enjoy 2K restorations for all three films as well as reversible sleeves for each film featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by The Twins of Evil and Gilles Vranckx.

You can get this from MVD.

Also known as American Force Ninja, the boss of this movie is Gordon, a ninja master who has renounced the ways of the ninja and is more concerned with selling heroin. You know he’s the bad guy because he has a swastika on his ninja mask.

His enemy is the so-called Lady Detective — what, is this like Suzy Bannion being called the American Girl? — who is being protected by the CIA Action Men and a ninja — a tame ninja at that — named Captain Scott.

Much of this movie takes place in a disco, which I’m good with, except that it has nothing to do with anything else in the film. Also: this reinforces one of the rules of the Godfrey Ho/Filmark Cinematic Universe: only a ninja can kill a ninja. This goes even further to prove that a ninja can shrug off bullets and grenades, unless thrown by a ninja.

The box art, however, is a million times better than this movie. I want to make whatever movie that it’s for so that I can watch that a million times.

Sadly, this doesn’t have much of the typical awesome bootleg songs on the soundtrack. But if one Godfrey Ho movie lets you down, he has like ten more. Or twenty. Maybe even more.

You can watch this on Tubi.