Monthly Archives: October 2019

3 From Hell (2019)

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Of all the many movies that Rob Zombie has brought to the screen, his 2003 film House of 1000 Corpses and its 2005 sequel The Devil’s Rejects probably have done the best with both audiences and critics. They’re wildly disparate movies — the original goes from realism to a phantasmagorical journey below the titular house into the world fo Dr. Satan. And the sequel really works well — it’s a grimy, gritty journey through the world of its serial killing protagonists.

Since then, Zombie has made two divisive Halloween reimaginings, The Lords of Salem (a Ken Russell-influenced movie that completely misunderstood black metal on a level that you’d think a non-musician made it) and 31. He almost made two other films — Tyrannosaurus Rex and a remake of The Blob — while continuing his music career.

Which brings us to 3 From Hell, a movie that I quite frankly had no interest in after the abysmal drivel that 31 assaulted my eyes with. I get it — I’ve seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Eaten Alive and Warlock Moon. I just haven’t made it my life’s mission to continually remake these films to progressively less returns.

So, umm…let’s start the movie.

Since we last saw the Firefly family, they miraculously survived at least twenty bullet wounds each to make it to trial, where they were sentenced to life in prison, with their patriarch, Captain Spaulding (the late Sid Haig) paying the most penalty, as he’s executed via lethal injection. You can tell how rough Haig was at the end, but he still brings plenty of thunder to his role, despite his short time on screen.

Otis (Bill Moseley, who was Chop-Top in the aforementioned — and superior — Chainsaw 2) has escaped from jail thanks to his brother, Winslow Foxworth “Foxy” Coltrane (Richard Brake from Zombie’s 31 and the chemist from Mandy). They set up a plan to free their sister Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie), who is locked in a war with prison guard Greta (Dee Wallace). They kidnap Warden Virgil Dallas Harper (Jeff Daniel Phillips, who was in Zombie’s Halloween and The Lords of Salem), his family and friends — including Austin Stoker — and hold them hostage so that she can finally escape. They all decide to go to Mexico.

Oh yeah, they also kill a clown, Mr. Baggy Britches, before that. He shows up for no reason whatsoever. I know that Clint Howard needs work, but he also deserves better.

While there, we’re reminded that Otis killed Rondo (Danny Trejo), one of the bounty hunters from the last film that was incarcerated along with him. Oh yeah — and Baby is growing crazier than she was before. Or more annoying. Seriously, it’s a fine line.

The three makes their way to a small town in Mexico in the midst of Day of the Dead celebrations — to which I audibly sighed and not in a good way — and stay in the town’s only hotel. In the midst of celebrating the holiday, Rondo’s son Aquarius (Emilio Rivera, Sons of Anarchy)and his Black Satans gang shows up for revenge. The three are tipped off by a little person named Sebastian (Pancho Moler, who played the Nazi killer Sick Head in 31) and end up wiping out the gang. setting Aquarius on fire and getting back on the road.

There are also some random killings I forgot to mention, but by and large, the film feels very unfocused, unplanned and yes, that word again, random. There’s no sense of urgency until the final ten minutes, which place the three into a situation they may not survive. It was the only time this movie seemed to have any promise, outside of rehashing what seemed fresh nearly two decades ago, like Slim Whitman’s “It’s a Sin To Lie” replacing “I Remember You” from House of 1000 Corpses, seeming like faint nostalgia at best and trite at worst.

Let me sum it up with music. Having “In-A-Gada-Da-Vida” play during the closing battle is about as cookie cutter music cue as there can be. You can pretty much say the same thing about this movie, which carbon copies Zombie’s influences ad nauseam to no good end. Then again, maybe that’s just a reference to Chop-Top, because he wanted that song played by KOKLA radio back in Texas.

To wit: Rob Zombie seems like a good dude. He obviously adores his wife. He’s an ethical vegetarian. His music was the entrance music for every independent pro wrestler ever at one point. He has good taste in bad movies. I think he’d be a fun person to discuss pop culture and film with. But man, then we’d get to the question, “So have you seen any of my movies?” and I abhor lying. I’d probably end up feeling bad, but not as horrible as I did suffering through this, literally a movie for an audience who must live inside the stockrooms of a Hot Topic and only come out for 80’s nights and Slipknot tours, high on 4 Look and demanding they make Scream 5. In short, pretty much every single thing I have been created to destroy.

I don’t know if 2019 can get a worse movie. Good news, Travolta. The Fanatic isn’t the worst movie now. Neither is Serenity. You can sleep safe, McConaughey. Here’s hoping neither of you choose to work with Mr. and Mrs. Cummings’ baby boy any time soon, though.

Skinner (1993)

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Dennis Skinner (Ted Raimi) has moved into the Tate household, helping them with their financial situation while widening the gap between husband and wife. He seems nice enough, but a disturbing childhood — he only ripped his mother’s face off after his father forced her to watch him conduct her autopsy before punching him in the face — has led to him becoming a skid row slasher. However, Dennis’ past sins have come back to haunt him in the form of Heidi (an insanely perfect Traci Lords), a bad girl with a secret — horrible scars as she’s survived being flayed alive thanks to the power of her will and no small amount of narcotics — who won’t stop until he gets her horrible revenge.

Skinner was the kind of movie that haunted the video stores in my early 20’s. It almost made it into theaters, as well, because a newly reformed Cannon Pictures almost gave it a limited theatrical run. However, this new Cannon fell into bankruptcy before Skinner made it to screens.

It’s just as well — this is a movie made for home video. It’s gloriously scummy, revelling in darkness, grue and gore courtesy of Pittsburgh hometown heroes KNB. Where films like Silence of the Lambs only hint at the skin suits that their killers are making, Dennis Skinner creates muliple flesh fashions that he walks around in.

Former Hairspray lead and daytime talk show host Ricki Lake plays the lonely Kerry Tate, who lives a near-seperate life from her husband Geoff (certainly named for the former Queensryche frontman). As mentioned before, Traci Lords grabs every scene she’s in by the literal balls and leaves the viewer begging for more.

This whole paen to slicing up hookers was brought to us by Ivan Nagy, who may know a thing or two about the world’s oldest profession, as he was the ex-boyfriend of Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss. In addition to directing episodes of CHIPs and HBO’s The Hitchhiker, Nagy also cooked the books for the mob. His work on Skinner would pair nicely with a film like Fulci’s The New York Ripper, providing a west coast glimpse of neon-hued squalor.

You can get Skinner in the most perfect form it’s ever been released in from Severin. It comes complete with interviews with Nagy, Raimi, screenwriter Paul Hart-Wilden and editor Jeremy Kasten, as well as alternate scenes and a trailer. As always, Severin goes above and beyond to deliver essential physical media. You can also watch this on Amazon Prime.

2019 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 5: Dawn of the Mummy (1981)

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DAY 5. MUMMY’S DAY: An ancient woman wrapped in linen has resurfaced with new purpose.

There are plenty of mummy films to choose from, but ever since I wrote this article on section 3 video nasties, I’ve been wanting to watch this.

Dawn of the Mummy was directed by Farouk “Frank” Agrama, who was also behind the camera for the abysmal King Kong parody, Queen Kong. He’d go on to form Harmony Gold — yes, the same people who redubbed Macross, Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeda and turned them into Robotech. After that, he’d later be convicted of buying and selling film rights at inflated prices in a scandal that also brought down former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Agrama would have gone to jail if he wasn’t 82 years old, but was later exonerated.

Dawn of the Mummy was shot in Egypt with a mostly Italian crew, which allows it to transcend its boring beginnings and emerge with a second half filled with utter mayhem, as these mummies aren’t just content to shamble around. No, they’re closer to zombies that must feast upon the flesh of the living.

The film begins in ancient Egypt, where youngvillagers are taken away to be the servants for Pharaoh Sefirama in the next life. As we watch his body get prepared for the next world, they’re killed with poison gas and the entrance to the tomb is sealed. Then, the high priestess places a curse on the pyramid, declaring “he who enters this tomb, after it is sealed, will die on the dawn of the mummy”.

By the way, if you watch movies with me, please know that any time the title of the film is said within the dialogue, I scream and yell as if I’m Pee-Wee Herman and you just said the secret word.

We then fast forward to the present, where the high priestess — now an ancient crone — chases off some grave robbers. They’re persistent, however, even in the fact of poison gas, but we soon discover that they’ve met their demise when a fashion shoot in the desert ends up with a model tripping over one of their severed heads. Yep — if you’re expecting a bloodless mummy affair, you picked the wrong scuzzy movie to enjoy.

One of the grave robbers, Rick, has survived. The film then goes into he and his henchmen following the fashion shoot into the cursed pyramid. Yes, you may have always wondered, “How would the pharaohs react to disco and vogueing?” This is the movie that strives to answer that question.

The photographers being their lighting into the pharaoh’s burial chamber, which behins to wake the slumbering monarch. Then someone spills a bowl filled with the mummy’s organs and burns her hands, thanks to the blood of the mummy. That sends a torrent of zombie-like mummies into the streets. Numerous explosions later, our heroes — such as they are, they’re all pretty much morons — celebrate even through Pharaoh Sefirama is still alive.

This movie was remade in 2015 as Prisoners of the Sun, with Joss Ackland and John Rhys-Davies. It’s directed by Roger Christian, who of course brought us Battlefield Earth.

Anchor Bay released this years ago, but it’s currently out of print. If you want to see it, it’s on Amazon Prime. It’s nowhere near as good as the poster makes it look, but it’s certainly different than most mummy films. It’s a movie so messy and scummy that you feel like you may very well be covered in the dusty, mucky and grue of the tombs that it explores.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

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How did it take so long for this movie to make it to our site? Has there ever been a better high concept — alien clowns coming from space to eat humans? How did this movie even get made? Man, I have questions. Let’s get some answers.

It’s the only movie to be written, produced and directed by the Chiodo Brothers. These insane masters created the puppets and effects for films such as Critters, Ernest Scared Stupid, Team America: World Police, Large Marge for Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and the mouse artwork in Dinner for Schmucks. A sequel to this has been in development forever; if I had my way, these guys would make movies all of the time.

On a lover’s lane in Crescent Cove, Mike Tobacco (Grant Cramer, New Year’s Evil) and his girlfriend Debbie Stone (Suzanne Snyder, Weird Science, Night of the Creeps) are parked when a strange object falls to Earth.

Meanwhile, farmer Gene Green (Royal Dano, Gramps from House II) and his dog — who my wife knows is named Pooh Bear without even needing to look it up — track the comet and discover the crash site looks more like a circus tent.

Mike and Debbie find the same strange tent and discover teh farmer trapped in a cottom candy-like cocoon as a Klown appears to shoot popcorn at them. They’re chased away by more Klowns and a balloon animal dog, because this movie is ready to tear out your brain, stomp on it and laugh the entire time.

They make their way to the police station where Debbie’s ex-boyfriend, Deputy Dave Hanson (John Allen Nelson, Deathstalker from the third version of that film, Deathstalker III: The Warriors from Hell), and mean-spirited Deputy Curtis Mooney (John Vernon!). Seriously, John Vernon should be in every movie, because he’s majestic in this, treating every single person with oodles of contempt.

The Klowns make their way to the town and start blasting people with lasers, punching people’s heads clean off and shrinking people down and putting them into bags of popcorn. There are also scenes of Klowns drinking people with crazy straws and a giant Klownzilla that attacks the town. Obviously, the reality went right of the window with this one. It resembles the Topps Mars Attacks! cards, with episodic encounters of the goofball Klowns running wild.

This movie frightened my wife worse than any of the many, many films that she watched in her childhood. She was already afraid of clowns, so these Klowns ended up infiltrating her dreams. Yet she still watched it all of the time. She also wanted Debbie’s jumper-tastic wardrobe, which makes a lot of sense when you see her fashion sense today.

While the Chiodos were able to get The Dickies for the soundtrack, they couldn’t convince producers to pay the money to have Soupy Sales — the king of getting pies thrown in his face — appear as a security guard.

You can watch this on Tubi, Vudu and YouTube. If you want the best possible experience, let me recommend the Arrow Video release, which is packed with more extras than a car full of Klowns, including a complete collection of the Chiodo Brothers short films and interviews with the stars and The Dickies.

This is the kind of movie that I’m glad exists. I return to it time and time again whenever life seems meaningless, because the fact that a movie about giant Klowns attacking a small town for food makes me feel better, knowing that somehow a studio bought this and allowed it to happen.

Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland (1989)

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A year after the second Sleepaway Camp, Angela is back to terrorize another camp full of teenagers. Now, after running over a young camp counselor named Maria with a truck, she’s assumed that identity and ready for even more murderous mayhem and flashbacks set to sing-a-long campfire songs.

Before things even get started, Angela (the returning Pamela Springsteen) kills news reporter Tawny Richards by giving her Ajax cleanser instead of cocaine. Then, she starts wipining out the troubled kids and counselors at camp.

There are some pretty inventive murders in this, like burying a woman up to her neck and then running her over with a lawnmower, dropping another teen off a flagpole, burning someone alive, blowing a firecracker in yet another camper’s nose and even some paramedics that get attacked with syringes. It’s pretty much open season on campers.

There is some star power — in my universe at least — as Michael J. Pollard (Four of the Apocalypse) plays camp counselor Herman Miranda and Sandra Dorsey, who was in Grizzly, plays his wife Lily.

There are plenty of easter eggs in this, like all of the characters being named for Brady Bunch, The Munsters and West Side Story characters. There were also originally going to be even more elaborate deaths, like Angela stabbing Herman in the crotch with a flaming hot poker and yelling, “A weenie roast!” But that’s probably just as well, as when this was screened for the MPAA, one of the screeners for physically ill during the flagpole scene.

You have plenty of options if you want to watch this. We’d advise getting the Shout! Factory blu ray, because physical media never gets taken away from you and streaming is unreliable. But if you want to see this immediately,  it’s free on Tubi, Vudu and Amazon Prime.

2019 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 4: The Initiation

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DAY 4. BLACK FRIDAY: A rough day at the shopping maul.

Today could have been any number of movies. Being from Pittsburgh, it’d be too easy to select Dawn of the Dead, seeing as how it was filmed miles from my house. Of course, I’m only discussing 1978 version, as the 2004 one has been stricken from my memory. I even debated the Argento Zombi cut of the film, but decided against it.

I also debated any of the multiple movies shot at the Sherman Oaks Galleria in Los Angeles, which include Night of the Comet, Fast Times at Ridgemont High,Valley Girl, Commando, Back to the Future Part II, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge, Innerspace and Chopping Mall.

What else was out there that had a bad day at the mall, yet fit into the psychotronic world of this monthly challenge?

The Initiation was directed by Larry Stewart, who started his career as an actor in fare such as Captain Video and the 1952 adaption of the Quality Comics character Blackhawk: Fearless Champion of Freedom. In 1976, after arguments centered around budgets and the concept that television productions were happening more in the west than the east of the United States, Larry became the leader of the new Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He was brought in to direct this film after British director Peter Crane fell behind schedule and the budget started to expand out of control. There were also creative differences, as Crane was said to have had “European art house sensibilities” that didn’t jive with the producer’s goals of making a profitable slasher.

Daphne Zuniga was still a student at UCLA when she made this, right after The Dorm That Dripped Blood. She plays Kelly Fairchild, a college student who has suffered from the same dream sicne childhood: watching a stranger burn to death in her childhood home. To top off that trauma, Kelly and her fellow pledges Marcia (Marilyn Kagan, Foxes), Alison (future Bold and the Beautiful star Hunter Tylo) and Beth have been tasked with breaking into her father’s department store — actually Dallas Market Center where Logan’s Run was filmed — and steal the clothes of a security guard.

To top all of that off, the prisoners of a sanitorium have been freed and the doctors call Kelly’s parents (Clu Gullagher from Return of the Living Dead and Vera Miles from Psycho!) to warn them. Let’s compound the pain some more — Kelly also explains her amnesia and dreams to the hunky grad assistant Peter, who tries to analyze her. Her mother flips out and forbids any of this from happening just in time for her father to get stabbed right in the neck by an unseen killer.

Our heroine has no idea that that happened, as she’s busy breaking into the giant department store, where a bunch of frat boys have also been sent to frighten the girls. Cue the slashtastic action: frat boy Andy gets a hatchet to the head and Megan gets shot with an arrow, as Peter learns that the fire in Kelly’s dream was real. One man died in it — Jason Randall, who used to be married to…cue the music…Kelly’s mom! Peter’s hypothesis is that Kelly is reliving the night that her adopted father (the dead Clu Gullagher for those scoring at home) killed her real dad, Jason. But then he learns that Jason was actually in the sanitorium that we saw at the beginning of the movie and never really got back to.

This being a slasher, everyone dies. Just like Shakespeare, right? Allison’s death scene was so brutal that British censors took an entire minute out of her stabbing demise.

Kelly runs to the store’s boiler room, where she meets Jason, who chases her to the roof. She kills him with a pipe and he falls to his death. Happy ending? Nope. Because as Peter and Kelly’s mom race in to the building, someone they think is Kelly stabs him in the stomach. That’s when Kelly learns the truth: she has a twin sister named Terry, who went insane when their parents divorced and burned the house down. Before Terry can kill her sister, mom blows her away. Now that’s how you do an ending.

The poster and tagline for the film, “They pledge themselves to be young, stay young…and die young” makes you think that this might be a Satanic film or a witchy movie like The Craft. But it’s not. It’s a slasher and sadly, came out the same time as a movie that plenty more people remember — A Nightmare on Elm Street.

If you’d like to see it for yourself, it’s been re-issued by Arrow Video, who has been awesome about bringing back some of the lesser known slashers of the past. You can also check it out on Tubi, but hey — physical media forever!

The Atomic Dust Bin: 10 More Post-Apocalyptic Films You Never Heard Of: Part 2

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Well, the world had to end sometime.

What started out as a week of post-apoc reviews — and went off the rails into a month-long tribute — is over. It’s time for B&S Movies to move onto the annual Scarecrow Challenge, then a month-long tribute to Mill Creek’s Pure Terror 50-film box set, as well as a Halloween tribute to ‘80s slasher films.

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So, in closing out B&S Movies’ quest to chronicle the “future” for future generations, here’s our Part 2 tribute (here’s Part 1) to the celluloid uranium dust collected in the atomic dustbins.

American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1993) aka Steel Warrior

Prior to Lunar Cop, Boaz Davidson and Cannon Pictures produced this post-nuclear war caper with the usual sterilized population ruled by a “Skynet” run amuck from Arnie’s universe. Of course, one woman was able to give birth; she needs to get the child to a ship, and to safety (as in the previous After the Fall of New York ripped-off, and denied, by Children of Men). Of course, she’s pursued by the ubiquitous Terminator and protected by the obligatory “Kyle” (Joe Lara, excellent as Austin). Trailer Vudu/Full Movie

Apocalypse Mercenaries (1987)

Familiar recycled stock footage abounds (Editor Vanio Amici of The Bronx Executioner) in this inert Neapolitan homage to ‘60s Italian war films that ripped-off The Dirty Dozen. So don’t be duped into thinking this is set in a “future” WW III apocalypse — it’s the WW II one (you lousy, marketing bastards). At least the limestone cavern system where it takes place is a nice touch. And don’t be fool by the doppelganger Arnold Schwarznegger Raw Deal art work. Don’t be swindled by the shared Nasty Hero (1987) artwork either, which isn’t an alternate title to this film, but a separate Italian-action stinker. Trailer

The Bronx Executioner (1989)

It’s a sequel . . . but it’s not . . . is it? What it is: A rip-off, of a rip-off, that rips-offs half of its footage from the apoc romp, The Final Executioner. It’s the lone writing/directing effort from Vanio Amici (aka Bobby Collins; the editor behind the “worse sequel ever made,” Troll 2, along with Lucio Fulci’s possession flick, Aenigma) in an all-too-late-to-care hijack of the superior Enzo G. Castellari’s Escape from New York rips (1990: The Bronx Warriors and Escape from the Bronx) with a low-rent Mad Max hunting a Terminator in the baked Big Apple. And no: Umberto Lenzi didn’t direct this: know your Italian Bobby Collins directing-pseudonyms, buddy! Trailer

Crime Zone (1990)

An okay early directing effort by Peruvian Luis Llosa for Roger Coman’s Concorde Productions; Llosa also directed Sniper (1993) starring Tom Berringer, Fire on the Amazon (1993) starring Sandra Bullock, Sylvester Stallone’s The Specialist (1994), and the first/best “big-snake movie,” Anaconda (1997). This Lima-shot contribution to the apocalypse stars David Carradine (who went from Future Force (1989) into the Future Zone (1990) and into the Crime Zone) in a futuristic twist on the ol’ Bonnie and Clyde crime caper. Set in the usual post-WW III, gleaming police state, the wealthy Carradine hires two star-crossed teens (Sherilyn Fenn from The Wraith) to steal a hi-tech computer chip/disc; in exchange: he’ll smuggle them out of the sex-oppressive city. When the heist goes bad, the chase for vengeance is on. How about that artwork that predicts Sly’s Judge Dredd-chin—which doesn’t hit screens until five years later? Trailer Full Movie

Empire of Ash (1988) aka Manic Warriors

This is a case of come-for-the-crazy-rocket-launching-apoc-helmet-then-leave type of a flick where Vancouver doubles for a Mad Maxian “New Idaho.” It’s the usual elite survivors living underground, with the infected above harassed by the usual road warrior tomfoolery and hunted for their white blood cells and bone marrow. And beware of that crazy religion where you’re murdered to be “baptized” into it! Amid the mayhem, one sister—a Mad Maxine—sets out to rescue her kidnapped-for-cultivation sister. This was successful enough (!) on the video fringe to warrant a second the-video-box-art-is-better-than-the-film-inside, Part III sequel. Caveat: Part II is an EOA I repack made to extend its rental-shelf life. It’s all courtesy of Lloyd A. Simandi; he directed murdered Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratton in her feature film debut, and his first directing effort, Autumn Born (1979). Trailer Full Movie

The Final Executioner (1984)

Also known as L’ Ultimo Guerriero, Escape from New York collides in a beautiful disaster with The Most Dangerous Game (see The 10th Victim and the superior Italian “death sport” flick, Endgame) as an elite group of “clean” survivors holed up in lush mansion in the nuclear aftermath. For sport, they head out into the wastelands to hunt the infected; they pick the wrong victim in . . . Alan Tanner (Alan? Dude! Snake, Stryker, Hunter, Paco, Trash, and Parsifal are going to kick your ass!), played by William Mang who, like Michael Sopkiw before him, looks a lot like Kurt Russell. Half of this film’s footage was recycled in the “it’s not a sequel,” The Bronx Executioner (1989), reviewed above. Full Movie

Interzone (1987) aka Warrior Wolves (1989)

Writer/director Claudio Fragasso (Monster Dog) pens his third Italian Mad Max-romp (Shocking Dark, Rats: Night of Terror), this one helmed by prolific U.S television-series director Deran Sarafian (Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Death Warrant). It’s Sarafian’s ingenuity against the low budget, along with Bruce Abbott’s (Re-Animator) perpetual likeability, which rises this above the lesser knockoffs. A mercenary, Swan (Abbott), is recruited by psychic monks to protect a mysterious treasure from road warriors, so as to preserve the Interzone: the last fertile place on Earth. And yes, Swan (Hey, wait, uh . . . from Battletruck?) drives Calamity Jane’s repurposed car from Death Race 2000. Full Movie

Land of Doom (1986) aka Mad Force, Bad Raiders, Raiders of Death

Taking its cues from the superior, bigger-budgeted Hollywood frolics Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn and Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (both 1983), Star Wars and The Road Warrior ineptly collide in Cappadocia, Turkey for a knockoff of the Italian wastelands filled with plague survivors, Jawa-dwarfs, and way-over-customized ‘70s cars and cycles. The resident Mad Max, a solider-of-fortune named Anderson (Andy? Do you know Alan from The Final Executioner?), and a Mad Maxine, after her village is destroyed by a junior Wez overlord clad in armor n’ leather — with an arrow-shooting robot hand, no less — pursues them in quest of find a rumored paradise. And that end credit theme song. Wow, that’s not Tina Turner. Trailer Archive.org/Full Movie 

Steel Frontier (1995)

The always reliable Joe Lara (American Cyborg: Steel Warrior), along with the we-luv-‘em B-movie stalwarts Bo Svenson, Brion James (Blade Runner) and Kane Hodder deliver in this futuristic spaghetti western set in 2019 — Steel Plains Drifter, if you will — with Lara’s Yuma hired by the citizens of New Hope to fight the invading United Regime biker-psychos. Yeah, it has a vibe of Patrick Swayze’s earlier Shane-rip, Steel Dawn (1987), but this is so much more fun. Trailer Full Movie 

Urban Warriors (1987)

Unlike Vanio Amici’s previous editing swindle, Apocalypse Mercenaries, this post-apoc frolic — which doesn’t live up to its poster-art — really is a post-apoc adventure as a trio of scientists venture from their underground lab into a nuclear wasteland to search for uncontaminated humans for baby making, against the usual road warriors and cannibal-mutants. Trailer Full Movie

Be sure to check out B&S Movies’ past “More/Even More Fucked Up Futures,” “10 End of the World Movies We Love,” and “Ten Post-Apocalyptic Vehicles” tribute weeks for more expansive reviews on your favorite post-apocalypse films.

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Here’s the rest of the reviews (by Sam and myself) for our September 2019 rally of post-apocalyptic films:

The Features

Then, as is the case with B&S About Movies: we never say never. So we went post-apoc, again, in April 2021.

And there’s even MORE FILMS with our “Fucked Up Futures” and “More Fucked Up Futures” weeks of reviews.

˟ Reviews by R.D Francis

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.

Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988)

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Remember Sleepaway Camp, a movie whose shock ending disturbed everyone back in 1983? Well, Angela is back — this time played by The Boss’s sister Pamela Springsteen — and a counselor at a new camp. Of course, she (that’s the pronoun I assume that she prefers) just can’t stop killing everyone.

Renee Estevez — in her second slasher month film — plays final girl Molly. She makes it to the end at least, but her fate is ambiguous.

You know that The Nails song “88 Lines About 44 Women?” That’s how I should review this movie. Just play the song and sing along:

Sean Whitmore played Tony Higgins

Molly’s guy, he lost his head

Valerie Hartman was Ally

Got drowned in a toilet stall

Brian Patrick Clarke is T.C.

His face met battery acid

Walter Gotell was Uncle John, once General Gogol of the KGB

He didn’t even get to die on screen

Susan Marie Snyder was Mare

She got drilled, literally

Terry Hobs was Rob

Also killed off the screen

Kendall Bean was Debbie

Killed with a guitar string

Julie Murphy as Lea

Stabbed by our he and she

Carol Chambers as Brooke

Grilled to death

Her sis Jodi played by Amy Fields

Also was fricasseed

Benji Wilhoite? He was Anthony.

His throat slit with Freddy’s glove.

Walter Franks? He’s Judd.

Chainsawed, he got no love.

Justin Newell? Charlie.

Also killed but off the screen.

Heather Binion as Phoebe.

Tongue cut out, neat and clean.

Jason Ehrlich? Emilio.

Also killed but not shown on screen

Carol Martin Vines was Diane.

Another stabbing. Another teen.

Tricia Grant had no name.

Her character was sent home.

Jill Jane Clements drove a truck.

She met Angela. Had no luck.

Anyways — Sleepaway Camp II is played for laughs versus the original. Interestingly enough, all of the cannon fodder are named for 1980’s cultural icons: Molly (Molly Ringwald), Ally (Ally Sheedy), Uncle John (John Hughes), Rob (Rob Lowe), Demi (Demi Moore), Lea (Lea Thompson), Anthony (Anthony Michael Hall), Judd (Judd Nelson) and so on and so forth.

I’m not as much for the jokey slasher, but this is fine if you’re looking to continue the Sleepaway Camp experience. A third film was shot at the very same time, Back to the Future-style, so you can keep it going even further, if you’re so inclined.

You can watch this on Tubi and Vudu for free. Learn more at the official site and you can get a new blu ray of this from the fine folks at Shout! Factory.

The art for this article comes from Fright Rags, who have it available on their high quality t-shirts. This isn’t a paid plug. Trust me, we’ve spent plenty on their site.

Visiting Hours (1982)

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Oh Visiting Hours — I’ve stared at your box art so many times and never watched you, despite you being on rental shelves and in my collection for years. I’ve been meaning to watch it for awhile, but every time I grab the case of the Shout! Factory DVD, I just end up watching Bad Dreams, which is one of my favorite films despite just how much it rips off of the Elm Street films.

Oh Canada — your tax laws are just as responsible for slashers as much as sex and drinking in the woods!

Also known as Get Well Soon and The Fright, this movie tells the tale of Deborah Ballin, a feminist journalist and activist, who is played by Lee Grant (The Swarm, Valley of the Dolls). She gets under the skin of misogynistic serial killer Colt Hawker (Michael Ironside!), who has a name like a gay porn star. He attacks her, but she survives and is placed in the generically named County General Hospital.

As Deborah befriends a nurse named Sheila, Colt starts killing old people and other nurses. He also starts dating a girl named Lisa (Lenore Zann, who is also in Happy Birthday to Me) only to assault and torture her.

Our heroine is convinced that Colt is stalker her, but everyone — including her boss, played by Canada’s greatest export William Shatner — thinks she’s gone crazy.

Speaking of crazy, we learn that Colt got that way because his father was disfigured by his mother. That’s how these things happen, one assumes. He’s also nuts enough to take out everyone connected to our protagonist and then stab himself with a beer bottle so he can go to the same hospital as her.

Despite featuring little to no outright gore, Visiting Hours made the video nasty category 2 list, causing issues in the UK throughout the 80’s. Ironside really has a focused and evil performance, but I don’t know why this would make that list. Maybe I’m jaded.

Visiting Hours doesn’t live up to its poster art. Even by ripping off the theme to Halloween and aping Halloween 2‘s hospital setting, it can’t live up to other slash classics. Watch it for Ironside and Shatner, or just because you love Canadian tax shelter laws.

2019 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 3: Deadball (2011)

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DAY 3. SPORTS AND FITNESS: All pain, no gain. A workout watch out!

For this year’s challenge, I’ve wanted to avoid the expected and find movies that nobody is really talking about. Plus, each movie could never have been posted before to our site. That means that movies like Death Spa and Killer Workout were verboten.

The Japanese LOVE baseball, perhaps more than their American counterparts. Their love, however, is filtered through their own lens, which means that their edited American games take out everything between pitches. That means that a game that takes us 3 hours or more to watch can take but minutes. Keep that in mind and you’ll understand how a movie like Deddoboru came to be.

The film starts with young Jubeh Yakyu playing a game of catch with his father, who asks him to throw him his best pitch. This is a horrible time for Jubeh to discover he has superpowers, as the resulting throw ignites Earth and blows his dad up real good.

As a result, Jubeh becomes a juvenile delinquent and hero of the teenagers of Japan, doing things like killing fifty people a week and throwing TV sets at people. He’s sent to the Pterodactyl Juvenile Reformatory, a place where his adopted brother was once a prisoner before his death.

Chief warden Ishihara — not-so-coincidentally the granddaughter of a Nazi collaborator — is in charge of the prison baseball league and knows that the team will finally have a chance if Jubeh is on their team. Also: her butler looks exactly like Klaus Nomi, a fact that is called out in the film.

Director Yudai Yamaguchi knows of strange baseball. He also directed 2003’s Jigoku Koshien (Hell Stadium), or as it’s known in the West, Battlefield Baseball. The hero of that film was also named Jubeh, but this is less of a straight sequel than just another movie about deadly baseball.

Tak Sakaguchi, who plays Jubeh, is pretty much acting like the Japanese Man With No Name in this, constantly smoking and looking cool while he does so. Literally, he has the superpower — in addition to being able to throw father-murdering fastballs — to generate a cancer stick whenever he needs it.

Should you watch it? Does the prospect of a giant robot covered with swastikas and evil prisoner women battling a superpowered Asian Clint Eastwood fill you with glee? Because if it not, anata ni wa kokoro ga arimasen, as the Japanese say.

You can watch this for free on Popcorn Flix.