WEIRD WEDNESDAY: The Other Hell (1981)

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If you think you’ve seen it all because you sat through The Devils or owned a bootleg of Killer Nun, Bruno Mattei is here to grab your rosary beads and yank you straight into the abyss. The Other Hell (originally L’altro inferno) isn’t just a movie; it’s a 90-minute assault on every Sunday School lesson you ever endured.

Get ready for a movie overflowing with blasphemy, shot at the Convento di Santa Priscilla in Rome (once owned by FIAT but now by the Secret Service). Then again, the print that Severin used for the Blu-ray was found behind a false wall in a Bologna nunnery! I sum up this movie with these three words: Not fucking around.

Written by Claudio Fragasso (Rats: The Night of Terror) and directed by Bruno Mattei (Seven Magnificent Gladiators, Robowar), this is a pull-no-punches nunsploitation shockfest. You think mother! was bad?  Then you are by no means ready for this one. A baby gets boiled alive, and that’s the very least of the shocks in store. And if you’re Catholic, well, get ready to go to confession.

Boasting a Goblin score stolen from Beyond the Darkness (actually from their albums Roller and Il fantastico viaggio del bagarozzo Mark; Fragasso said they had the band in the movie “as they were fashionable and asked them to write music for the film, but they asked for a lot of money, leading to the production to use stock music with a few modifications.” Mattei claimed that he was friends with their publisher, Carlo Bixio, who gave him the music he wanted.

The plot kicks off with Sister Cristina getting lost in the catacombs — never a good move in an Italian movie — where she finds Sister Assunta (Paola Montenero, Sylvie from A Bay of Blood) in a morgue laboratory. Assunta is busy embalming corpses and casually dropping lore about nuns fornicating with Satan and the mysterious murder of the previous Mother Superior, Sister Florence. Before you can say “Hail Mary,” Assunta goes into a supernatural trance, murders Cristina and then drops dead herself.

Mother Vincenza (Franca Stoppi, who was also in Beyond the Darkness) tries to play it off as an accident to Father Inardo (Andrea Aureli), but the gig is up when Sister Rosaria (Susanna Forgione) starts spraying blood from her mouth during communion and develops a case of terminal stigmata.

Enter Father Valerio (Carlo De Mejo, who survived City of the Living Dead only to end up here). He’s a scientific priest sent to investigate, but he spends most of his time clashing with Vincenza, who runs the convent like a fascist boot camp.

It turns out the convent’s basement isn’t just for storing communion wine. It’s housing Elisa (Francesca Carmeno), Vincenza’s illegitimate, horribly disfigured daughter, who was tossed into boiling water at birth by the former Mother Superior. Elisa didn’t die, though; she just developed Carrie-esque telekinetic powers, like making people strangle themselves with their own rosaries.

By the time we get to the finale, Vincenza has dropped the act, admitted she made a pact with the Devil and claimed Elisa is the literal daughter of Satan. It all ends in the morgue with resurrected corpses, psychic battles, and Father Valerio losing his mind. The final kicker? The Bishop shows up to investigate the earthquake and gets a face full of rotting nun corpse falling out of a coffin.

Oh yeah — between priests being set on fire and a nun’s severed head in the sacristy, this movie is every nightmare you had in CCD class. When Mother Vincenza yells, “The genitals are the door to evil! The vagina, the uterus, the womb; the labyrinth that leads to hell; the devil’s tools!” you’ll either cheer or recoil in terror, depending on whether or not you ever sat through a five-hour Good Friday mass.

Seriously. This movie tested even my resolve of how far is too far. Which is just another way to tell you that I loved it.

This was shot at the same time as The True Story of the Nun of Monza with most of the same cast and crew. Fragasso says that he shot The Other Hell downstairs and Mattei shot the other upstairs, helping each other as needed. As for Mattei, he would always say that Fragrasso was just an assistant director. They did the same two movies for the price of one on Women’s Prison Massacre and Violence In a Women’s Prison, as well as Scalps and White Apache.

Mattei was interviewed by European Trash Cinema and said, “Let’s say that he has influenced almost everyone. For example, L’altro Inferno/The Other Hell utilized Argento’s concepts, but wasn’t an absolute copy of Inferno, the title was dictated by the distributor. He makes movies wilh lots of blood, I’m not adverse to it but in some countries, like Germany, gory movies aren’t distributed.”

While it premiered in Italy in 1981, it didn’t reach American theaters until 1984, where it was renamed Guardian of Hell. It was unleashed on VHS by Vestron Video, finding its true home in the wood-paneled basements of horror nerds who wanted something a little more European.

I can’t believe that you could have walked into a multiplex and watched this.

ARROW VIDEO 4K UHD RELEASE: Soldier (1998)

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Paul W.S. Anderson gave us Mortal Kombat—a movie that proved you could turn an arcade game into a theater-filling spectacle—and then followed it up with Event Horizon, which is basically Hellraiser in outer space. So when it was announced he was teaming up with Kurt Russell and Blade Runner scribe David Webb Peoples for an old-school sci-fi actioner? You bet your ass I was first in line.

Soldier is a movie that got absolutely buried at the box office because people expected Star Wars, but what they actually got was a beautiful, hyper-violent cross between Shane and a Cannon Films action exploitation flick.

Kurt Russell plays Sergeant Todd 3465. He doesn’t say much—in fact, he only has 104 words — the whole two-hour running time, which is pure cinematic economy. He’s a veteran warrior raised from birth to freeze his emotions and kill anything in front of him. But progress marches on, and the delightfully slimy Jason Isaacs shows up as Colonel Mekum, introducing a new batch of genetically engineered super-soldiers led by Caine 607 (Jason Scott Lee). Todd gets his clock cleaned by the new model, gets pronounced dead and is dumped with the trash on a waste planet called Arcadia 234.

Except Todd isn’t dead. He gets taken in by a group of interstellar refugees, learns how to do crazy things like “smile” and “not murder people,” and then has to go full action star on his old unit when they show up to use the planet for target practice.

Peoples has explicitly stated that this takes place in the same universe as Blade Runner. Look closely at the junk piles on Arcadia 234 and you’ll see a spinner vehicle. Look at Todd’s military record on the computer screens—he fought at the Shoulder of Orion and the Tannhäuser Gate! However, it was not intended as a sequel. Peoples told author Danny Stewart in the book Soldier: From Script to Screen, “No, I never had any thoughts about that… I wrote Soldier in 1984. Very quickly on my own. I wrote it because I saw the first Terminator in the theater, stunned. And it was such a wonderful movie. I’d always wanted to write a movie in which there was a tough guy who would be seemingly unsympathetic in the lead, and I felt that The Terminator was almost there. Later in the sequel, it was determined he was the hero, but at the time, he was sort of a villain. But the fact is, he was so great. I went off, and I decided to write about this soldier.“

Plus, you get Gary Busey as old-school commander Captain Church; Connie Nielsen as Sandra, the woman who teaches our hero how to be human and Michael Chiklis as Jimmy Pig.

I love how this ends, as 3465 and his old men end up rescuing the planet and adventuring out into deep space. This has always been a movie that deserved a much bigger audience than it got.

The Arrow Video release of this film features a brand-new 4K restoration approved by director Paul W.S. Anderson. Extras include an archival audio commentary by director Paul W.S. Anderson, co-producer Jeremy Bolt and actor Jason Isaacs; interviews with James Black, assistant director Dennis Maguire, associate producer Fred Fontana and production designer David L. Snyder; VFX Before and After, a brand new behind-the-scenes look at how the film’s special effects were created with visual effects supervisor Craig Barron; Weapons of Mass Creation, interviews with visual effects supervisors Craig Barron and Van Ling and miniature supervisor Michael Joyce; A Soldier’s Journey, a brand new interview with Danny Stewart, author of Soldier: From Script to Screen; We Don’t Need Another Hero, a brand new retrospective on the film with film historian Heath Holland; an electronic press kit; on-set interviews with cast and crew; trailers; a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Orlando Arocena and a collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by film critic Priscilla Page. You can get it from MVD.

CULTFLIX MONTH: The Sheriff was a Lady (1964)

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Also known as In the Wild West, Freddy und das Lied der Prärie, The Wild Wild West, 6 pallottole per Ringo Kid, this stars German singing sensation Freddy Quinn as Black Bill (aka Freddy / John Burns), a gunslinger returning to his hometown of Moon Valley. He’s looking forward to reuniting with the Daniels family, who raised him, and his childhood friend, Anita Daniels (Beba Lončar, Interrobang, Don’t Look In the Attic), whom he views as a sister.

Upon arrival, Black Bill finds the town in chaos. While the local ranchers have struck gold, a ruthless bandit group is burning them out of their homes and killing them to steal their fortunes. The bandits, led by a shifty saloon owner named Steve Perkins (Rik Battaglia, Nightmare Castle), have just raided the Daniels’ ranch and kidnapped the family patriarch, Ted Daniels (Josef Albrecht).

Anita manages to escape the raid. Instead of playing the helpless damsel, she pins on a deputy sheriff’s badge, determined to rescue her father and bring the bandits to justice. Meanwhile, Black Bill goes undercover on the exact same mission. Neither realization hits immediately: Anita doesn’t recognize her old friend in the stranger in town and Bill keeps his true identity clandestine.

While trying to save the town, Black Bill finds himself targeted by both Anita and Olivia (Mamie Van Doren, why do you think I watched this movie?), a sultry saloon singer controlled by the villainous Perkins. Olivia takes a liking to Bill, prompting Bill to warily warn her that a woman’s love “can pain you for a lifetime.” True to his no-nonsense cowboy nature, Bill refuses to let these romantic distractions derail his mission to stop Perkins. Assisted by three comedic sidekicks and a frequently drunk local sheriff (played by director Carlo Croccolo, who also made Black Killer and Gunman of One Hundred Crosses as Lucky Moore, but was mainly an actor. IMDb claims that Sobey Martin made this; he was a German mainly known for directing TV shows like Gunsmoke, Lost In Space, Rawhide and The Cisco Kid. Bill sets out to clean up Moon Valley.

Quinn was an absolute powerhouse heartthrob in Germany, scoring 10 number-one hits between 1956 and 1966. His German cover of Dean Martin’s “Memories are Made of This” (“Heimweh”) sold a massive 8 million copies. The film capitalizes on this by having him break into song frequently.

Imagine: A German Elvis, ten minutes of Mamie Van Doren and a dubbed Western that feels like a slow-moving drug high. Of course I loved it.

You can watch this on Cultpix.

WEIRD WEDNESDAY: The One-Armed Executioner (1981)

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Interpol agent Ramon Ortega (Franco Guerrero) and his new blonde American children’s book author wife Ann (Jody Kay, Death Screams) are back in the Philippines after a honeymoon in San Francisco. Within minutes, the drug dealer that our hero is after — Edwards (Christopher Mitchum) — has sent his men to kill Ann and has had his arm chopped off. And in case you’re wondering if the drug dealer is evil, he has an evil Axis symbol on the side of his boat.

Edwards doesn’t just want Ortega dead; he wants him broken. After the brutal hit on the beach that leaves Ann dead and Ortega’s arm severed by a machete, Edwards leaves him alive as a living warning. Ortega spirals into depression and drinking, just trying to live out the rest of his life in pain, when a new master named Wo Chen appears and teaches him how to fight with one hand and how to do gun fu, if you will, in which they have a gigantic training device with numbers. The master calls out the targets, and Ortega improves with each shot.

You feel for Ortega, as he found the right kind of woman, the one who sleeps with baby dolls and has sex in the shower with her shower cap on, the height of eroticism. But seriously, he really does hit rock bottom, but this film pulls him up and gives him the chance to get revenge.

Ortega eventually fits his stump with a specialized prosthetic that allows him to steady his aim, effectively turning his entire body into a tripod for his .45 caliber vengeance. The showdown moves from the slums of Manila to Edwards’ fortified compound. Ortega has to dismantle a small army of mercenaries using a combination of one-handed reloading techniques and raw, unadulterated 80s rage.

This movie is an absolute blast from start to finish, delivering the kind of weirdness and magical action that could only come from the Philippines and a master director like Bobby A. Suarez, who also directed American Commandos, The Bionic Boy, Cleopatra Wong and Warriors of the Apocalypse.

You can watch this on Tubi.

CHATTANOOGA FILM FEST HITS FANS WITH CINEMA SUPLEX UNLEASHES FINAL WAVE OF 2026 PROGRAMMING

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The Chattanooga Film Festival proves three is indeed the magic number with a ludicrously loaded third and final wave of 2026 announcements.

With two waves of programming, parties and peculiar happenings already announced for its 13th annual event, the Chattanooga Film Festival was just getting warmed up. The festival has now added a third wave of films and fun to the schedule, and true to form it’s as electric as it is eclectic. With screenings and events featuring genre luminaries like Michael Dougherty, Mark Pellington, Barry Bostwick, and C. Robert Cargill, the festival’s fans will be treated to a year filled with reverence for cinema’s history but also the joy of discovering new voices and future favorites.

Leading the charge are a pair of world premieres primed to ooze their way into the hearts (and nightmares) of the festival’s 2026 attendees. Filmmaker Josh Lobo’s Night After Night is a mysterious and maniacal jaw dropper of a follow-up to Lobo’s brilliant debut I Trapped the Devil—which graced CFF’s screens in 2019. In the film, a pair of overnight security guards at a private university experience increasingly disturbing events when a mysterious mute figure begins appearing nightly without explanation. Anchored by a uniformly killer cast including CFF Fan Favorites Scott Poythress and AJ Bowen, Lobo’s latest deftly dodges the sophomore slump and cements his status as one of the coolest voices in genre cinema.

Also, making its debut is the world premiere of filmmaker, writer and photojournalist Andrew Zappin’s wonderfully unhinged The King of Black Goo. From its amazing cast anchored by DJ Qualls (Hustle & Flow, Road Trip), Kathleen Wilhoite, Margaret Cho and Johno Wilson to its colorful world and impossibly detailed production design, Zappin’s bizarro sci-fi comedy may just be the most original and unique rom com you’ll see this decade. The kind of movie practically made for CFF’s audience of warm-hearted weirdos The King of Black Goo follows Qualls and unfolds a genre-bending fairy tale about a bitter, lonely man who undergoes a personality-altering medical procedure in hopes that it will make him worthy of love.

Making its U.S. Premiere at the festival is Australian filmmaker James Branson’s haunting and hard to forget Bunny. In his atmospheric post-apocalypse tale, Branson follows a young woman as she roams the ruins of a world she never got to grow up in. Raised on old books and b-movies, she lives alone in the shack she once shared with her father. Supplies are scarce and food is running out. There’s nothing left to hunt… nothing except other people. Full of incredible imagery and fueled by a remarkable intensity, Bunny is a breathless experience that we think our fans are going to—pun intended—eat up.

Another treat for CFF faithful is the return of the festival’s favorite purveyors of ultra-indie liminal horror. Two years ago the original NOCLIP shattered skulls when it screened here, and last year its equally eerie successor NOCLIP 2 expanded the NOCLIP cinematic universe. And here’s the insane part. While they were here for their NOCLIP 2 screening, filmmakers Gavin Charles and Alex Conn somehow secretly shot an entire third film in our honor, crafting in the process a film as much devoted to the eerie emptiness of liminal spaces as it is to the creativity-crushing difficulties of navigating the film festival circuit. We’re flattered and honored to present our 2026 audience with the opportunity to see a special screening of NOCLIP 3: The Chattanooga Syndrome.

Speaking of special screenings, this year’s virtual fans can also tune in for an episode of the world’s first horror trivia game show Better Luck Than Chuck. Having been raised on a steady diet of MTV’s Remote Control and Tales from the Crypt episodes this is truly a quiz show after our own dark hearts. As with all their virtual events the festival has leaned into interactivity and during the screening audience members can get in on the fun and win mystery movies from sponsor ARROW VIDEO.

CFF is also proud to partner with the folks at Antenna Releasing to present screenings of two incredible documentaries. Nicholas Clark and Dylan Frederick’s American Theater, in which a “canceled” theater director summons a troupe of conservative actors to an abandoned cabin in rural Georgia to plot revenge on the Atlanta theater community with a musical retelling of the 1692 Salem witch trials. Like a non-fiction Waiting For Guffman or Hamlet 2, Clark and Frederick’s wildly entertaining doc is, as one astute Letterboxd reviewer perfectly put it, full of moments that will make you laugh till it hurts and some moments that just hurt. Believe us when we say everyone is going to be talking about this one.

One great doc deserves another, and CFF couldn’t be more excited to honor its tradition of dropping a crowd pleasing banger of a music doc into the mix for its annual SONIC CINEMA offerings. This year it’s not only a great music doc, it’s a great music doc directed by Mark Pellington, one of the undisputed GOATS of the music video era with an insane number of iconic clips to his credit (Alice In Chains, Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Flaming Lips and Pearl Jam to name just a few). Pellington also co-created one of the most influential shows in the history of MTV, the short lived but impactful BUZZ. With its sights firmly set on the counterculture, BUZZ reveled in a kaleidoscopic verite approach to culture and the underground and was instrumental in putting diverse and brilliant artists from William S. Burroughs to RuPaul in front of MTV’s 1990 audiences.

In his new doc This Is Buzz, Pellington chronicles the history and the legacy of his influential show as only a true insider could and serves up nothing less than one of the best documentaries you’re likely to see in 2026. Among Pellington’s many incredible contributions to the world of music videos, television and film he’s also the director of one of eeriest and most underrated films of the early 2000s, 2002’s The Mothman Prophecies. CFF is honored to present a special screening of this stone cold cryptid classic with an introduction by Mark himself along with an extended chat about This Is Buzz.

Capping off our collab with ANTENNA RELEASING is a CFF exclusive sneak peek into the whacked out world of multi-time CFF alumnus Mr. Graham Skipper. Skipper will give CFFers an exclusive tease of his forthcoming metaphysical surrealist horror comedy Organonym in which Graham and the equally beloved to CFF’s long time fans actor/filmmaker Jeremy Gardner play versions of themselves. Did we mention the project is produced by one of our other talented 2026 filmmakers Chelsea Stardust (GRIND)?

The CFF’s southern celebration of cinematic strangeness has become a cult-favorite on the festival circuit and the inclusive community of kind-hearted film fans that have embraced the festival have helped to elevate them in just 13 years to one of the key destinations in the U.S. for lovers of fantastic films.

“For fans of genre cinema 13 is an iconic number. This year we turn 13, and we’d be fools not to properly commemorate such a macabre milestone,” said CFF’s Director and Lead Film Programmer Chris Dortch II. “That’s why this year we’ve built a beast for our fans and for everyone that has helped carry us through to our teenage years. Movies have a way of lightening even the darkest of times and every one of us could all use a bit more of that right now. Maybe some cheaper gas and a few less AI data centers too.”

The CFF’s 2026 feature line-up doesn’t end there though with more than 20 additional features and dozens of short films available to both hybrid and virtual festival attendees in addition to the two jam-packed previous waves of announcements. Highlights include the much buzzed about SXSW sensation Sender (featuring Severance‘s Britt Lower and Better Call Saul/Pluribus star Rhea Seehorn), the gorgeous (and deeply strange) animated musical The Obsessed, and a deeply inspiring doc chronicling everyone’s favorite filmmaking family The Adams’ in Blood & Guts.

Then there’s the awesomely intense survivalist slasher Pitfall, Pierre Tsigaridis and co-writer/star Dina Silva’s brilliant and darkly hilarious slasher Frankie, Maniac Woman and the mysterious must-see by Polish filmmakers Helena Ganjalyan and Bartosz Szpak Glorious Summer, a flat-out masterpiece of a sci-fi drama and one of the best movies of any genre you’ll see in 2026. It also wouldn’t be CFF without at least one skull crusher of a film about a metal band and filmmaker Donnie Hobbie’s JUMP SCARE has its amps turned to eleven and therein Hobbie delivers a crowd-pleasing head-banger of a horror comedy.

Oh boy does the list go on, CFF’s feature line-up, packed with more than 50 films, means that fans will also be treated to brilliant riffs on classic Twilight Zone episodes (The Thing in the Fog), one of the most unique vampire tales ever shot—with stop motion bats no less— (On Gallows Hill), a love letter to physical media that still cares enough to be creepy as hell (Dead Media) and many more.

Also of note is the festival’s multi-pronged salute to Megaforce, one of the finest films in the history of humanity, which we’ll be screening along with filmmaker Bob Lindenmayer’s joy filled celebration of Megaforce, Making Megaforce. The latter is a documentary that will make you cry, warm your heart and remind you that sometimes the only move is to avoid the tyranny of “good” taste and find a little bit of joy in this world. Joining us for an extended chat with doc maker Bob Lindenman and Megaforce star Barry Bostwick (Rocky Horror Picture Show) moderated by the only man for the job—screenwriter, author, producer, and as fans of his popular Junkfood Cinema podcast will know a LITERAL Lieutenant of Megaforce C. Robert Cargill (The Black Phone 1 & 2, Sinister, The Gorge). Get ready to leave CFF 2026 a Megaforce Mega-fan.

Speaking of fans, ensuring that the festival now enters into the sixth year of its on-going commitment to audience accessibility and that fans anywhere in the US can get plugged right into the fun of the festival, the festival’s beloved Fans and Filmmakers Discord Server makes its triumphant return as well boasting its own full schedule of virtual events from filmmaker chats and Q&As to watch parties including nightly midnight gatherings to bask in the wonderful weirdness of the festival’s wildly popular nightly secret screening series REDEYE.

This year the festival’s many night owls will be treated to the craziest collection of films in the block’s history including intros and guest programming by SUPER NEAT special guests including Fangoria’s Amber T to the festival’s longtime collaborator and the madman behind their kinetic annual animations Zack Hall. A nightly celebration of the deepest of cuts and the thriving community of cinephiles that has grown around the festival, REDEYE rides into its fourth year on a pale horse that CFF says fans, “shall know by the trail of dead-ass motion picture madness in its wake.”

On the shorter side of things, the CFF has assembled the largest offering of short films in its 13-year history with more than 130 films from more than 40 countries represented. Anchoring this year’s shorts program and leading the festival’s fan-favorite DANGEROUS VISIONS block is a beautifully restored new version of Season’s Greeting filmmaker Michael Dougherty’s (Trick ‘r Treat, Krampus, Godzilla: King of the Monsters) hand-animated short film that introduced the world to the now iconic Sam character from Dougherty’s beloved Trick ‘r Treat. Season’s Greetings celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, and to mark this milestone CFF is honored to have Michael join us for a conversation about Sam’s evolution over the years.

Other highlights of the festival’s stacked 2026 shorts program include the return of can’t miss alumni filmmakers like Chris McInroy (Chair), stop motion animator extraordinaire Matt Eslinger (Cotton Candy Randy), animator Ashley Wong (Forever Home), Aqua Teen Hunger Force creator, writer and actor Dave Willis (Silverbacks), multi-time alumni Chloë Levine (Bloom) , Bill Watterson (Midnight City), Alexandra Basson (Redneck) and more than 100 more of the most creative, crazy and crowd pleasing pieces of short cinema the universe currently has to offer.

FEATURES

Grind (d. Brea Grant, Ed Dougherty, Chelsea Stardust): This horror anthology tackles the modern work landscape through four timely perspectives – the hustle culture of an MLM, the endless repetitiveness of a food delivery driver, the online horrors of a content moderator, and the unionization of a familiar-feeling coffee shop.

Camp (d. Avalon Fast) Presented by Dark Sky: Haunted by a traumatic past, Emily finds solace as a camp counselor while navigating grief, witchcraft and the power of female friendship. Emily feels at home as she’s taken in by the other counselors, who accept her as she is and wrap her in a veil of peace & forgiveness. Emily stands at the forefront of a new kind of life, but there’s a voice out there in the woods she can’t quite seem to ignore. The voice is whispering – and she’s telling Emily to go home.

Flush (d. Grégory Morin) Presented by Dark Sky: Middle-aged coke fiend Luc (Jonathan Lambert, Quentin Dupieux’s Reality) is having a pretty terrible night. Having gone to confront his ex at the club where she works, determined to somehow win back her love, one thing leads to another and he soon finds himself wedged firmly in a toilet, effectively trapping him in a bathroom stall. Trapped, we should mention, with a heap of coke that he stole from the bar’s resident dealer. He’s soon found, setting off an increasingly crazy series of circumstances that veer from the hilarious to the intensely grotesque as Luc’s world is assailed from every conceivable direction in a bizarre race against time that will have you gasping.

First Feature (d. Curtis James Matzke) World Premiere: Intrepid student filmmaker Thomas Reilly-King (affectionately known as TRK) spends years doing whatever it takes to complete his first feature film, aptly titled Enduring Destiny, as classmate Curtis Matzke documents his antics and looks back on the experience together ten years later. Searching for fame in a production spanning several years, the unflappable writer/director/actor calls in every favor and spends his last dime to realize his bizarre vision. The resulting film is its own brand of absurdity, featuring an 80s-style theme song, superfluous green screen, and excessive ADR. He even makes talking action figures of his character. What began as a behind-the-scenes student production, First Feature is a love letter to student filmmaking in the digital age, showcasing the absurdity of what could be a future cult classic.

Mockbuster (d. Anthony Frith): A struggling filmmaker’s chance at redemption collides with chaos and compromise as he navigates the eccentric world of notorious production house, The Asylum. Mockbuster is a comedic, behind-the-scenes documentary of the making of a B-grade smash, The Land That. Time Forgot, that is both an unashamed celebration of trash cinema and a forensic look at the collision between art and commerce.

Lucid (d. Deanna Milligan and Ramsey Fendall): A 1990s art student uses a lucid dreaming elixir to break through creative blocks, but soon finds herself trapped in a nightmarish underworld where her suppressed memories and inner demons become deadly monsters.

American Theater  (d. Nicholas Clark & Dylan Frederick) Presented by Antenna Releasing: A “canceled” theater director summons a troupe of conservative actors to an abandoned cabin in rural Georgia to plot revenge on the Atlanta theater community with a musical retelling of the 1692 Salem witch trials.

Assets & Liabilities (d. Zach Weintraub): Zach is a burnt-out suburban father haunted by the impending arrival of middle age. When his family heads out of town for the weekend, he seizes the opportunity to live out a day as his younger, less responsible self. A spontaneous encounter with a fellow skater feels like a victory until an unsettling connection between the two emerges. The result is a forcible confrontation with his own bourgeois standing that shatters the illusion of Zach’s carefree day and sends it spiraling into dark territory.

Blood & Guts (d. Carlye Rubin & Katie Green): The lines between real life and reel life are muddied in the story of the Adams, an unconventional family who makes independent horror films. While they may vomit blood onto one another, lack boundaries and make frequent use of the f-word, they also face what every family must: change.

Bunny (d. James Branson) U.S. Premiere: In the aftermath of a climate collapse, a young woman roams the ruins of a world she never got to grow up in.Raised on old books and b-movies, she lives alone in the shack she once shared with her father.Supplies are scarce and food is running out. There’s nothing left to hunt…  …nothing except other people.

Dead Media (d. Joseph Scrimshaw): A troubled young woman wants to relax by streaming an old horror movie. Her lonely Gen X uncle demands they watch it on DVD. But the disc is haunted, plunging them into a movie night that won’t die.

Demonitize (d. Alexander Watson): Out-of-work television ghost hunters discover the key to getting their jobs back – and proving ghosts are real – is by working with the last group of people anyone would expect: Social Media Stars.

Frankie, Maniac Woman (d. Pierre Tsigaridis): After years of wanting to look like those who grace the covers of magazines, Frances Ramirez ends up making headlines in a different way. She is soon to be known as the Maniac Woman.

Glorious Summer (d. Helena Ganjalyan, Bartosz Szpak): In a serene, sun-drenched world, three young girls spend their days in carefree play, mindfulness exercises, and idle contentment. Their every need is meticulously cared for by an all-encompassing, nurturing system that keeps their lives perfectly stable and predictable. For years, they’ve lived in this blissful, responsibility-free bubble, where summer never ends. But cracks soon begin to appear in this idyllic picture.

Lenore (d. David Ward): In the squalid basement of a suburban home, unemployed filmmaker Max Wren (Nicholas Jaquinot) spends his days and nights hunting for footage of the controversial online performance artist Lenore (Ruby Duncan)—piecing together a distorted tribute to her in the wake of her sudden disappearance. But before he can complete his magnum opus, Max must face a domineering antagoniser from his past, two nosy police officers tipped off about his antisocial behaviour, and most concerning of all: a violent and vengeful spirit that seems to live within his grotesque editing Suite.

Making Megaforce (d. Bob Lindenmayer): The original Megaforce (1982), is widely regarded as one of the worst movies of the Eighties and filmmaker Bob Lindenmayer made a documentary about how awesome it is. Starring Barry Bostwick (Rocky Horror Picture Show), 1982’s Megaforce is packed with futuristic vehicles, spandex jumpsuits, insane stunts, and corny dialogue. It’s an adolescent adventure that time has forgotten. But one man remembers: director Bob Lindenmayer, and he’s on a quest to convince the rest of the world just how amazing this under-appreciated stunt-filled spectacle is. The world’s biggest Megaforce fan, Bob owns a fleet of fully operational dune buggies and motorcycles from the film. At first, Bob’s mission is pretty straightforward – chronicle the making of this box-office flop through cast and crew interviews. But when he meets his hero, Barry Bostwick, the film takes a left turn and becomes something more than a documentary – it becomes a hilarious and touching tribute to the power of fandom, friendship, and flying motorcycles.

Megaforce (d. Hal Needham): Whenever freedom is threatened only the rapid deployment defense unit MEGAFORCE (with a little help from their flying motorcycles) can save the day. On its release in 1982 stuntman turned filmmaker Hal Needham’s MEGAFORCE died an unceremonious death and has since carried with it a reputation as one of the worst films of its era. At CFF we think it’s high time MEGAFORCE had a reappraisal. It’s fun, it’s got martial arts and we know we already mentioned flying motorcycles but c’monnnn! If that doesn’t stir your nethers we’re afraid you might be at the wrong film festival. For the rest of you be sure to catch this as a double feature with Bob Lindenmayer’s doc MAKING MEGAFORCE and make sure to check out our extended discussion with Bob and Megaforce star Barry Bostwick moderated by C. Robert Cargill.

Narcisa’s Will (d. Clarissa Appelt, Daniel Dias): Haunted by the memories of her recently deceased mother, the once known Brazilian star Narcisa, Ana wants to sell her childhood home and split the money with her younger brother, Diego. But when her mother’s ghost starts giving signs of her presence in the dressing room, it becomes clear that Narcisa’s will is still stronger than her own, even after death.

Pitfall (d. James Kondelik): After a young man gets separated from his friends in the woods, he falls in to a 10 foot deep pit of spikes, impaling him through his leg and leaving him trapped. He quickly learns that his fall was not an accident but the beginning of a deadly hunt.

On Gallow’s Hill (d. Ed Shimborske): After college screw-up Matt Bishop is bitten by a vampire, he discovers he can only survive on one thing: his own rare blood type. As his thirst grows, Matt descends into a coven underworld, rekindles an old flame, and uncovers the dark secrets of the blood business- forcing him to confront his own morality (and mortality) to stay alive.

Jump Scare (d. Donnie Hobbie): The female metal band JUMP SCARE retreat to a remote cabin to write their next album only to be terrorized by the family of cannibals next door.

Night After Night (d. Josh Lobo) World Premiere: The lives of two overnight security guards at a private university begin to unravel after the discovery of a mysterious individual who returns on a nightly basis.

Noclip 3: The Chattanooga Syndrome (d. Alex Conn & Gavin Charles) Special Screening/World Premiere: In their self described “meta-found-footage / documentary escapade”, Gavin and Alex head to Tennessee to document the premiere of their previous film, and to follow a tip that will lead them to the most liminal spaces in Chattanooga…

Sender (d. Russell Goldman): After receiving a series of unnervingly personal packages she never ordered, a woman, newly sober and starting over, spirals into paranoia, convinced someone is watching her. As the online retailer denies responsibility, her search for the anonymous sender sends her down a dangerous rabbit hole, forcing her to confront her past and the fragile reality she’s trying to rebuild. A tense psychological descent into surveillance, recovery, and self-doubt.

Sunshine Girls (d. Madeleine Hicks): This is the story of Elaine Hamilton, a timid woman nearing her 30th birthday who must make the difficult choice between motherhood and medically induced photosynthesis. In a world that is quite literally suffocating, society has become dependent on the oxygen-producing Sunshine Girls to sustain life. Within the confines of this organization (part new-age adult summer camp, part dystopian prison) Elaine learns that falling in love can take your breath away.

The King of Black Goo (d. Andrew Zappin) World Premiere: A genre-bending fairy tale about a bitter, lonely man who undergoes a personality-altering medical procedure in hopes that it will make them worthy of love.

The Mid-NIght Driver (d. Alex Cherney): When a young girl summons a driver using a seemingly innocent ritual, she must fulfill his demands if she ever wants to get back home in 1992 Long Island

The Mothman Prophecies (d. Mark Pellington): A reporter investigates strange phenomena in a small town in Mark Pellington’s classic of cryptid cinema.

The Obsessed (d. Wataru Takahashi): Inspired by Shinji Ishii’s short story, this whimsical musical follows Giuseppe, a man powered by fleeting obsessions. One day, he’s singing arias, and the next, he’s collecting insects or mastering embroidery with feverish focus. Every new fascination feels like everything—until the next one comes along.

The Thing In the Fog(d. Chedey Reyes): A veteran airplane pilot and his atypical co-pilot in training will find themselves involved in a series of unprecedented interdimensional events, which will turn them into the only hope to save all humanity from the imminent invasion of the Audryes.

This Is Buzz(d. Mark Pellington): Follows the radical impact and lasting relevance of Buzz, an influential MTV series from the 1990s that featured notable contributors including William S. Burroughs and RuPaul as hosts.

With its commitment to audience and filmmaker accessibility, its warm-hearted southern hospitality, and its consistently surprising and eclectic programming, the Chattanooga Film Festival has, in just 13 years, been chosen as One of the 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World (MovieMaker Magazine), one of FilmFreeway’s Top 100 Best Reviewed Film Festivals in the World out of the nearly 14,000 festivals on that platform, been chosen One of the Best Genre Film (MovieMaker) and Horror Festivals (Dread Central) and hailed as “the gold standard on how to run a welcoming, unpretentious, no-bullshit film fest for folks who want to hang out and have a good time together” by legendary cinema publication FANGORIA.

The Chattanooga Film Festival is a 501c3 non-profit run entirely by a small but passionate crew of volunteers. All proceeds from the festival’s ticket and badge sales and donations go directly to the staging of each year’s festival. For more information, visit chattfilmfest.org or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube or even join our virtual monthly secret screening series with The Double Secret Cinema Society on Patreon.

ARROW VIDEO 4K UHD AND BLU-RAY RELEASE: Mortal Kombat Kollection

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A high-impact fusion of martial arts mayhem, fantasy spectacle and video game mythology, the Mortal Kombat films brought arcade combat to the big screen with bone-crunching action, iconic characters and pure 90s attitude, helping turn a controversial fighting game into a global pop culture phenomenon. And hey — this set is just in time for the release of Mortal Kombat II!

Mortal Kombat (1995): The premise of the original 1992 Mortal Kombat arcade game was essentially Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon with a heavy dose of sorcery, severed spines and color-swapped ninjas. So, it stands to reason that the 1995 film adaptation should follow the exact same blueprint: a grueling martial arts tournament to the death with the literal fate of the cosmos hanging in the balance. Against all odds, the movie absolutely delivers the goods.

Director Paul W. S. Anderson (Soldier, the Resident Evil films, the Death Race remakes) was the perfect director for this film — it feels like the ’90s in concentrated form. You’ve got your hard techno beats, your neon colors, green screen early CGI and plenty of quips during the Kombat.

The realms of Earth and Outworld come together for the Mortal Kombat and create a battle to the death, with the provision that if Outworld wins Mortal Kombat ten consecutive times, its Emperor Shao Khan may invade the Earth realm.

Standing in his way are Shaolin monk Liu Kang, Hollywood action star Johnny Cage and a military officer named Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson, I Know What You Did Last Summer). Cameron Diaz was originally up for the Sonya role but got hurt during filming. Helping them is Raiden (Christopher Lambert, Highlander), the god of thunder and the defender of the Earth realm.

Along the way, we meet Princess Kitana (Talisa Soto, License to Kill), Kano, Sub-Zero (François Petit, who would go on to be the head trainer for the WWE in the mid-90s), Reptile (who is played by Robin Cooke, who is also in Picasso Trigger and China O’Brien), Goro and Jax. They’re all here to be part of Shang Tsung’s tournament.

The tournament itself delivers a superb rhythm of action, but the plot kicks into overdrive when Johnny Cage pulls off the impossible and defeats the monstrous Goro. Sensing total defeat, Shang Tsung abandons the rules. He kidnaps Sonya Blade—who up until this point had been a fierce, take-charge heroine, only to suddenly succumb to the “helpless girl in distress” trope of 90s cinema—and drags her into the desolate, hellish wasteland of Outworld to force a final confrontation.

Liu Kang and Johnny Cage pursue them into the dark realm. In a climax that heavily leans into the game’s lore, Liu Kang must overcome his inner demons, embrace his destiny as the Chosen One, and face Shang Tsung in a brutal, final duel. With a spectacular bicycle kick and an iconic “Flawless Victory,” Kang sends the sorcerer plummeting onto a bed of spikes. As Shang Tsung dies, the thousands of souls he had consumed over centuries are liberated, including the spirit of Liu Kang’s brother, finally bringing peace to the Shaolin monk.

Everyone goes to the Shaolin temple to celebrate, but the skies turn dark, and Shao Khan appears. With the voice of Frank Welker, he screams, “You weak, pathetic fools! I’ve come for your souls!” All of the good guys show their fighting stances, cue the Mortal Kombat theme, and we’ve set up the sequel.

Where this film truly gets it right is its unwavering respect for the source material. Better yet, it actually expanded the franchise’s lore. The movie introduced and popularized narrative concepts—like the explicit hierarchy of Shao Kahn, the distinct visual identity of Outworld, and the deeper backstories of Kitana and Jax—that the video game developers would actually adopt into the mythology of future games.

It is genuinely baffling that mainstream critics savaged this movie back in 1995. It is fun as hell, unapologetic and completely true to its inspirations. It operates as a video-game version of a classic Hong Kong martial arts flick: a glorious mixture of bastardized pop culture that serves as the ultimate guilty pleasure. Furthermore, it doesn’t look cheap; despite being decades old, the practical sets, rich atmospheres, and intense choreography still hold up remarkably well.

I don’t even want to tell you how many hours I put into the last Mortal Kombat game. Or brag that I know the difference between babalities, fatalities and friendships. The thing is, even if you haven’t played a single game of Mortal Kombat, you can still enjoy the movie. And if you love the game, unlike so many video game adaptations, you won’t feel let down. That’s actually high praise.

Mortal Kombat Annihilation (1997): Ed Boon, one of the creators of the Mortal Kombat video game, calls this the “worst moment” in the history of the franchise. Coming from someone who loved the original film and has played every game, I agree.

Christopher Lambert was seen as one of the highlights of the last film. He’s gone, replaced by James Remar (The Warriors). I always dislike whitewashing in movies, but Lambert was so game in his scenes and such an integral part of getting the last film made (Lambert’s great attitude calmed director Paul W. S. Anderson as he worked on his first big movie. While he had the highest salary in the film, he paid his own way to Thailand and shot all his own scenes there for basically free, just to ensure the movie looked better. Plus, he paid for the wrap party.) that this feels like a major loss.

In fact, only Liu Kang (Robin Shou) and Kitana (Talisa Soto) are played by the same actors from the previous film. Robin Cooke, who played Reptile, plays Sub-Zero here, with that fighter gaining a much larger role.

Did you like Johnny Cage last time? Lots of people did. Bad news — he’s killed seconds into this new film to get over the new bad guy, Shao Khan. He’s opened a portal from Outrealm to Earth (hey, wait — didn’t we just fight a tournament to stop that from happening?) and has brought back his queen (and Kitana’s mother), Sindel, from the dead.

Sonya Blade (now played by Sandra Hess, who played the cave girl in Encino Man) brings in her partner Jax, and they immediately battle Cyrax and Mileena. Then there’s Nightwolf (played by Litefoot, the Native American who also portrayed Little Bear in The Indian in the Cupboard), a shaman who will guide Liu Kang and Kitana toward defeating Shao Khan. Another fight between Smoke and Scorpion, with the help of Sub-Zero, happens, and Kitana gets kidnapped.

Raiden meets with the Edger Gods, who don’t really give any answers. I have several questions for them. Like, why are we fighting Shao Khan when we won a tournament to stop things like this from happening? And why is there a fight every ten seconds instead of character development like the first film? Or why didn’t you bring back the actors we liked in these roles? And why doesn’t the “Toasty!” guy show up?

Nightwolf makes Liu Kang pass several trials to gain the power of Animality, which allows him to shapeshift into a new form. He must pass the self-esteem and focus trial. The trial of temptation, where Jade tries to get into his karate pants. And there’s a third test, but we never get to it!  One assumes that he passes it, as we’ll see in the finale.

Raiden gives up his immortality to fight for Earth, which means that he needs to cut off his hair. Jade is a double agent, and while the good guys rescue Kitana, they still face tough odds. Raiden reveals that Shao Khan is his brother and their father, Shinook, is favoring his evil sibling. After a big battle, Raiden is killed at the hands of that very same brother.

Another lengthy fight sequence happens, with Motaro, Ermac, Sindel and even Noob Saibot all showing up.

Liu Kang then shows what an Animality is by turning into a poorly rendered dragon, a scene that makes this movie seem even more dated than the 1995 original. Luckily, the Elder Gods discover the shenanigans afoot and declare another round of Mortal Kombat.

Aren’t you glad we have Liu Kang on our side? He defeats Shao Kahn, allowing Raiden to return, as the Earth realm wins again.

Director John R. Leonetti would go on to be the cinematographer for The Scorpion King, I Know Who Killed Me, The Conjuring and the Insidious series before directing Annabelle: Creation and Wish Upon. He’s done great work in those films, but this film feels so much cheaper than the original. It’s weird because that film succeeded by transcending its junk-food origins, while the sequel just piles on way too much.

Originally, Paul W.S. Anderson decided to do Event Horizon instead of this film. He hated the results, and that’s why he’s stayed close to the Resident Evil franchise throughout its sequels.

It’s hard to hate a movie where alien monsters battle ninjas, so if you accept this one as goofy chop socky fun, it’s fine. But compared to the original—and with the rich mythology of the Mortal Kombat video games at its fingertips—this one really suffers. 

The Arrow Video release of these movies has brand new 4K restorations of the two films by Arrow Films and includes a collectors’ perfect-bound booklet featuring new writing on the films by Simon Ward and John Torrani; reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matt Griffin and two double-sided foldout posters featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matt Griffin.

For the first movie, there’s a brand new audio commentary with director Paul W.S. Anderson, as well as another new commentary with comic book expert and podcast host Dave Baxter; interviews with Linden Ashby, cinematographer John R. Leonetti, producer Lawrence Kasanoff and designer and suit performer Tom Woodruff; Mortal Kombat: A Journey Behind the Scenes; on-set interview bites with the cast and director and B-roll footage; trailers and an image gallery.

The second movie extras include a new commentary with director John R. Leonetti moderated by filmmaker Gillian Wallace Horvat and a second commentary with comic book expert and podcast host Dave Baxter; interviews with Musetta Vander, composer George S. Clinton and stunt performer J.J. Perry, who played Cyrax, Scorpion and Noob Saibot; pn-set interview bites with the cast and director and B-roll footage; a trailer and an image gallery.

You can get. the 4K UHD and Blu-ray sets from MVD.

CULTPIX MONTH: Robo Vampire (1988)

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Godfrey Ho (using the pseudonym Joe Livingstone) is the only person who could make this, a movie that doesn’t just cross genres. It violently collides with them in a head-on wreck and invites you to laugh at the debris.

Because this is a classic IFD Films production, the plot is actually two entirely separate movies stitched together with Scotch tape and worse dubbing:

The footage Godfrey Ho actually shot) Tom Saunders (Robin Gould) is an American DEA agent. He’s trying to bust a ruthless drug lord named Drug Lord (seriously, that’s basically his vibe) who is smuggling narcotics using Chinese hopping vampires (jiangshi). Tom gets blown up by a rocket launcher. RIP Tom.

The footage Godfrey Ho stole or bought: A Thai action movie, Paa Lohgan (Against the World), about undercover agents, a kidnapped woman and some gunplay.

It all gets mashed together as a plan to save Tom and stop the drug-smuggling undead comes together.

Soldier #1: Now that Tom is dead, I want to use his body to create an android-like robot. I’d appreciate you approving my application.

Soldier #2: You’re assured of success?

Soldier #1: Yes.

Soldier #2: Okay, it’s approved.

The military decides to turn his corpse into a cyborg. Enter Robo Warrior. Instead of sleek, multi-million-dollar cybernetics, our hero is wrapped in what looks like dryer vents, tinfoil and a motorcycle helmet. He walks like he desperately needs to piss and shoots lasers that look like they were drawn directly onto the film strip with a Sharpie because they were.

What follows is an endless barrage of him walking slowly through the woods, hopping vampires exploding for no reason and a ghost bride who tries to seduce our metallic hero. It all culminates in a final battle where logic goes to die and art is born.

Obviously, this was used to rip off Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop, but following the IFD house style of making a movie come together from tons of other elements, just not what is filmed.

Keep your ears on for the sound design. The hopping vampires make a bizarre, echoing boing-boing noise every time they jump and the gunshots sound like someone hitting a piece of plywood with a flip-flop. As for those vampires, traditional Chinese folklore says you can stop one by putting a paper talisman on its forehead. In Robo Vampire, you can also stop them by shooting them with a bazooka, which honestly feels like a solid update to the mythology.

So many IFD movies feature Toto’s “Robot Fight.” One would think this one should have that song.

Somehow, this film is both the prequel to Devil’s Dynamite and Robo Vampire 3: Counter Destroy/The Vampire Is Still Alive, which is also a Freddy movie. Never change, Godfrey Ho. Keep putting tinfoil Officer Murphy in every movie.

You can watch this on Cultpix.

CULTPIX MONTH: The Street Fighter (1974)

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Gekitotsu! Satsujin Ken is the story of Terry Tsurugi (the legendary Sonny Chiba). Terry isn’t a hero. He doesn’t have a heart of gold. He’s a mercenary, an assassin and a deeply unpleasant human being who lives in a world of pure, unadulterated machismo.

When a wealthy oil magnate dies, the Yakuza tries to hire Terry to kidnap the billionaire’s daughter, Sarai. Terry demands a king’s ransom. The Yakuza says no and tries to kill him instead. Big mistake. Huge.

Terry decides to protect the girl out of spite and greed, leading to a non-stop gauntlet of severed limbs, crushed windpipes and a climax on a rain-slicked ship that defines the word overkill.

The Street Fighter is pure, uncut 1970s grindhouse. It’s loud, it’s sweaty, and it has a fuzz-guitar-and-horn soundtrack that will make you want to buy a leather jacket and punch a wall. Chiba doesn’t just fight; he animalistically snarls, gasps, and hyperventilates before exploding into violence. If you’ve ever wanted to see a man’s teeth knocked out in slow-motion X-ray vision or an actual eyeballs-ripped-from-sockets moment, you are in the right place. In fact, the X-ray shot of a skull being crushed was achieved using a medical skeleton and some creative lighting. It became a staple of the franchise and was later homaged in games like Mortal Kombat.

If Terry Tsurugi sounds familiar, you probably remember Clarence and Alabama watching a Chiba triple-feature in True Romance (written by Quentin Tarantino). Tarantino later cast Chiba as Hattori Hanzo in Kill Bill.

The first film to receive an X-rating in the U.S. for just violence, which led the newspaper ads to scream NOTICE: The MPAA has rated this film unsuitable for viewers under the age of 17 because of its extraordinary fight sequences.

There are two sequels, Return of the Street Fighter and The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge, as well as the Sister Street Fighter spinoff series. There was another spinoff, Kozure Satsujin Ken, released in America by Silverstein Film under the title Karate Warriors.

Beyond its influence on Mortal Kombat, The Street Fighter would obviously be a major source of inspiration to Capcom. Their fighting-game franchise, Street Fighter, was originally going to feature a protagonist named Terry Sugury, but that name was changed in favor of Ryu and Ken. SNK would use the name Terry character in Fatal Fury: King of Fighters and with a character named Takuma in Art of Fighting 2.

This movie has a hero — kinda, we cheer for him — who rips another man’s dick clean off.

You can watch this on Cultpix.

Murder, She Wrote S4 E2: When Thieves Fall Out (1987)

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When a prisoner is released from jail after serving 20 years, he returns to Cabot Cove to prove he was wrongly convicted.

Season 4, Episode 2: When Thieves Fall Out (September 27, 1987)

Twenty years is a long time to stew in a cage. It’s long enough for a town like Cabot Cove to turn a pack of local jocks into pillars of the community and long enough for a man like Andrew Durbin to decide it’s time he got his life back.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury?

Tom Bosley (Sheriff Amos Tupper): Before he was dealing with Jessica’s meddling, he was America’s dad, Howard Cunningham, on Happy Days. Cult fans know him as the voice of The World of David the Gnome.

John Glover (Andrew Durbin): An absolute legend of the unsettling character actor pantheon. He’s best known as Lionel Luthor on Smallville and the billionaire Daniel Clamp in Gremlins 2: The New Batch. He’s also been in In the Mouth of Madness and was the voice of the Riddler in the 90s Batman: The Animated Series.

Michael Lembeck (Arnie Wakeman): Known for playing Max Horvath on One Day at a Time, Lembeck eventually moved behind the lens to direct The Santa Clause sequels.

Kenneth McMillan (Coach Kevin Cauldwell): You know him. You fear him. He’s the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen from David Lynch’s Dune (the one with the boils and the floating). He also played the grumpy Captain in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and the neighbor in Cat’s Eye.

Caitlin O’Heaney (Tara Sillman): The ultimate Final Girl credential here: she was the lead, Amy, in the 1981 slasher classic He Knows You’re Alone (which featured a young Tom Hanks). She also starred in the short-lived but beloved adventure series Tales of the Gold Monkey.

John Bennett Perry (Judge Perry Sillman): Yes, he’s Matthew Perry’s dad. He’s been in everything from Independence Day to George of the Jungle.

Dack Rambo (Bill Hampton): Best known as Jack Ewing on Dallas. He had that perfectly coiffed 80s hair that seemed built for primetime soaps, but he also appeared in the cult horror-thriller Nightmare Honeymoon.

Shelley Smith (Alison Hampton): A former supermodel turned actress who was a staple of the game show circuit. She had a lead role in the series The Associates and appeared in the TV horror flick The Memory of Eva Ryker.

Mark Voland (Dan Pulling): A reliable TV face seen in The Love Boat and Matlock. He specializes in playing the “guy who might be the killer but is probably just a jerk.”

Charles Summers (Doc Mathews): A veteran of TV, popping up in Falcon Crest and various soaps.

Dick Durock (Man Stopping Fight): Keep your eyes peeled for the man breaking up the scuffle. Durock is the Swamp Thing. He played the mossy hero in both the 1982 Wes Craven film and the 1989 sequel, as well as the TV series. He’s a stunt legend who has been punched by every leading man in Hollywood.

What happens?

Durbin arrives in Maine with a chip on his shoulder the size of a lighthouse. Two decades ago, he was a hitchhiker who survived a car crash that killed a wealthy businessman. While Durbin ran for help, someone else showed up and finished the job, bashing the businessman’s head in with a rock and making off with $100,000 in bearer bonds. Durbin took the fall, largely because he was a long-haired anti-war protester in a town that didn’t like his kind.

He’s back because he finally recognized the face of the kid driving that other car: Bill Hampton, now a successful car dealer. Durbin starts a psychological war, hovering around Hampton like a ghost, eventually setting a trap by leaving his car at the dealership. Jessica, of course, gets pulled in when Hampton’s wife starts worrying about her husband’s fraying nerves. But before J.B. can mediate, Bill turns up dead with a bullet in his head and a suicide note blaming Durbin’s harassment.

Jessica notices the “suicide” was a right-handed shot to a left-handed man. The killer didn’t just want Bill dead; they wanted to frame Durbin again. But this isn’t your standard “Aunt Jess catches a greedy nephew” episode. It’s a deep dive into the rot beneath the surface of small-town nostalgia.

We get a classic subplot with Arnie Wakeman, a former athlete in a wheelchair, suing Hampton. In a moment of pure Jessica sleuthing, she notices scuff marks on a waxed floor and realizes Arnie is really unhurt. Speaking of athletes, this one centers on the state-champion football team of twenty years ago. These men are the town’s heroes, and their leader was Coach Cauldwell.

Who did it?

The reveal is a gut-punch. Coach Cauldwell wasn’t just a mentor; he was the one who saw the accident, saw the money and chose greed over the lives of his boys. When he realized the businessman was still alive, he used a rock to protect his future. Twenty years later, when Bill Hampton got cold feet about Durbin’s return, the Coach killed him, too. He viewed Bill like a son, but apparently, $100k and a reputation are worth more than family.

This is one of the rare downers on the show. Usually, when the handcuffs click, Jessica shares a laugh with Amos or Seth over a bowl of chowder. Not here. Jessica is genuinely wounded. She lost a friend in the Coach and discovered that her beloved neighbors were complicit in hiding a crime for two decades. When she confronts Durbin at the end, she displays that libertine scold energy—it almost feels like she’s actually annoyed at him for bringing the truth to light because of the collateral damage to her social circle.

Just look at this dialogue:

Jessica: I can’t help but think that justice could have been served in a better way.

Durbin: Oh? Well, you give it some thought, Mrs. Fletcher, and when you figure out what could have been, you let me know.

Who made it?

This was directed by Seymour Robbie and written by Arthur Weingarten. Speaking of Tales of the Golden Monkey, he wrote episodes of the other Indiana Jones cash-in TV series of the 1982-83 season, Bring ‘Em Back Alive.

Does Jessica dress up and act stupid? Does she get some?

No, this is a serious episode.

Was it any good?

Yes! I love learning that Cabot Cove isn’t always such a nice place to live.

Any trivia?

This episode’s title is from James William Emery Townsend, who said, “When thieves fall out, honest men get their dues. But when honest men fall out, lawyers get their fees.”

We learn in this episode that the population of Cabot Cove is 3,560. I expect it will be lower by the end of the series.

Give me a reasonable quote:

Andrew Durbin: I came to say good-bye and to thank you.

Jessica Fletcher: I’d rather you didn’t.

Andrew Durbin: But I was telling you the truth, and I did spend 20 years in prison unjustly.

Jessica Fletcher: Yes. And I’m sorry. But you knew when you came here what would happen.

Andrew Durbin: I wasn’t sure, but I did warn you I was after justice.

What’s next?

Jessica goes to Quebec to testify at the trial of a friend who is accused of killing his wife and burning his house.

CULTPIX MONTH: Blaze Starr Goes Nudist (1962)

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If you ever wanted a collision of two absolute titans of mid-century exploitation cinema, Blaze Starr Goes Nudist is your holy grail.

First, you have Blaze Starr (born Fannie Belle Fleming), the undisputed Queen of Burlesque. Blaze wasn’t just a dancer; she was a master marketer and an American icon who famously caught the eye of Louisiana Governor Earl Long (a romance later immortalized in the 1989 film Blaze starring Paul Newman). She was known for her explosive red hair, her couch routine and a gimmick in which her G-string would literally catch fire, thanks to clever stage pyrotechnics. Blaze’s famous smoking gimmick was achieved using a hidden battery pack and a small piece of flash paper. She actually brought a version of her stage show to the film, giving audiences a taste of the act that made her rich.

Behind the camera, you have the legendary Doris Wishman. A true anomaly, Doris was a female director ruling the male-dominated, sleazy world of 1960s sexploitation. Wishman’s style is instantly recognizable, as she often shot without sound and dubbed everything in later. Watch as her camera stares at ashtrays, feet, light fixtures or the back of a character’s head while they are speaking to avoid having to match lip-syncing! It creates a dreamlike, disorienting and utterly fascinating watch.

Let’s be honest: nobody was buying a ticket to Blaze Starr Goes Nudist for the gripping narrative. The plot is a clothesline — pun absolutely intended — designed to do two things: showcase Blaze’s charisma and fill the runtime with footage of people living the nudist lifestyle.

The film falls squarely into the nudist colony documentary subgenre that was wildly popular in the early ’60s. Legal loopholes at the time allowed for onscreen nudity as long as it was presented as a healthy, educational lifestyle choice. So, Wishman gives us plenty of wholesome, naked activities, like naked volleyball, naked badminton and naked lounging by the pool.

Nudist colony movies are as boring as it gets, but it’s a boredom I invite into my life. A calming, serene boredom, a time when it seemed like all we had to worry about was sitting naked in the grass, which seems like a horrible idea.

This was filmed at the  Sunny Palms Lodge in Homestead, Florida. The same location was used for Doris’ The Prince and the Nature Girl, Diary of a Nudist, Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls and Playgirls International, as well as E.S. Seeley Jr.’s Shagri-La, which stars Sammy Petrillo!

Blaze herself is incredibly charming here. She possesses a natural, easygoing screen presence that outshines the stiff, community-theater acting of the supporting cast. The story is simple. Blaze is tired of her agent, Tony —who is also her fiancé—running her all over the country doing her act, so she goes to a nudist colony to relax, using her real name—Belle Fleming—as an alias. She soon gets quite close to the director of the colony, Andy Simms, who is played by Ralph Young, the singing partner of Belgian-born Tony Sandler, performing as Sandler and Young. His songs “The Moon Is the Lamp of Love,” “Moon Doll” and “Hideout In the Sun” all appear in Wishman movies.

While the film has that distinct, low-budget Wishman grime around the edges, it’s surprisingly lighthearted, breezy and innocent compared to the darker, sleazier roughies Wishman would direct later in her career (like Bad Girls Go to Hell). It’s basically a 70-minute vacation video with a burlesque superstar.

Like most Wishman films, the audio was recorded entirely in post-production. However, Blaze Starr didn’t dub her own voice! Another actress was brought in to provide Blaze’s lines, giving her a slightly different vibe than her actual Maryland/West Virginia twang.

To keep the film from being seized by vice squads, Wishman had to adhere to the era’s strict censorship rules: plenty of bouncing and bare skin were allowed, but showing pubic hair was a one-way ticket to a courtroom. The cast spent a lot of time strategically standing behind bushes, holding volleyballs or framing shots from the waist up. You do get to see two dudes run, wangs swinging, however.

You can watch this on Cultpix.