If you didn’t get enough of Lash LaRue in The Dark Power, have I got good news for you! The master of the whip — no, not El Latigo or Indiana Jones — returns to battle aliens this time, in a movie directed by Phil Smoot, whose name I will drunkenly yell at people for years because it amuses me.
Smoot also directed — surprise, surprise — The Dark Power, as well as serving as a camera operator on Carnival Magic, a movie that has wiped out whatever brain cells I had left from art school.
Jesse Jamison (Kari Anderson) is a gun-shooting lady about to put on a show in a small Southern town — it was shot in Allegheny County and Sparta, North Carolina — and then some aliens just so happen to show up.
Luckily, she has the help of locals like Alex (LaRue) and Sunset (Sunset Carson, a former rodeo star who became a B-level cowboy star for Republic in the 1940s).
Much like Without Warning, this movie somehow rips off Predator years before that movie was made. Life’s weird like that sometimes.
You can watch this with Rifftrax commentary on Amazon Prime and Tubi.
Note: Michael Robertson sent me some info that adjusted this article. Thanks.
It’s racing motorcycles with sidehacks, which is a sidecar with a rail but no sidewalls or seat. As the bikes race, the passenger rides and tilts around curves. Sidehacking is also known as sidecarcross or sidecar motocross racing. The fact that it has a movie made about it doesn’t astound me. After all, I’ve watched movies about arm wrestling (Over the Top, Hands of Steel) and even games that don’t really exist like BASKetball and The Game from The Blood of Heroes.
Surely I can make it through a movie about side hacking, I thought. But man — what a ride. I nearly wiped out.
Ross Hagen, who was in Supercock, The Devil’s Eight and Alienator (amongst many others), plays Rommel, who is a bike mechanic who dreams of sidehacking stardom. That’s a thing, I guess.
He runs into JC (Michael Pataki!), another sidehacker who is abusive to everyone in his gang, including his girl Paisely, who promptly tries to seduce our hero. Or protagonist. Or guy we’re supposed to get behind. He turns her down, JC beats her up and blames Rommel and then the gang all descends on our man and his lady Rita (Diane McBain, Wicked Wicked).
Robert Tessler, a stuntman who formed Stunts Unlimited with Hal Needham, is in this, as is the writer of the film Tony Huston (he also would write The Hellcats) and Hoke Howell (Humanoids from the Deep).
This was directed by former Broadway dancer — and husband of Goldie Hawn — Gus Trikonis, who also brought The Evil, Moonshine County Express, Nashville Girl, Take This Job and Shove It and Supercock to the big screen.
It ends as all biker movies must, with the hero killed for no good reason. Ah 1969, when the kids had given up on life.
You can watch this with help from Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Amazon Prime and Tubi.
Since she was a child, Anna has been abused, misused, manipulated and exploited. This has led her to be disconnected from humanity. But now she’s taking control and turning things on her abusers and enablers. Now, her inner demons will be used to hurt other people instead of just damaging her from within.
This is the first full-length movie from director Pasquale Marco Veltri and it’s really powerful. It’s an incredibly dark film, helped by a brave performance by its lead, Laura Tremblay, who has an IMDB page full of talent with everything from crew member roles to producing, directing, doing visual effects and even being part of the wardrobe department.
This isn’t a light watch. But it’s a good film.
Drowning is available on demand.
DISCLAIMER: This movie came to us from its PR team.
Once upon a time, Corey Haim, Mario Lopez and Bo Hopkins went to Kenosha, Wisconsin and made a slasher. The end.
Ah man, I have to talk about this movie more than that, huh?
How about if I told you that a Native American mystic named Clear Springs — played by the not a Native America n Michael Wise — warns a bunch of teenagers that a lake is cursed and they still party and pay for it with their lives?
Bo Hopkins is in here and his IMDB reminds me that Murder, She Wrote was on so long that he was able to be a guest star on it twice as two totally different characters. He plays a sheriff, a role he seems born to play, as he was also the law in movies and shows like A Crack In the Floor, Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, Getting to Know You, R.I.O.T. the Movie, Texas Payback, Fertilize the Blaspheming Bombshell, Matlock, The Bounty Hunter, Trapper County War, A Smokey Mountain Christmas, The Fall Guy, Mutant, Sweet Sixteen and A Small Town In Texas.
That said, if you ever wanted to see one of the Coreys and AC Slater battle demons, you’re in luck. This was also called Demon Kid in a toned down version, but why would you want to watch a demon slasher movie and not at least get some blood?
In a universe where Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) meets Peter Hyman’s Outland (1981), two rival corporations, the American-led multinational NTI, and the German-led global amalgamate Richter Dynamics, compete for the solar system’s mining rights (yes, we’re in orbit around Roland Emmerich’s Moon 44). When a geological research vessel on return from the Saturn system crashes into the space station Concorde in orbit around Earth’s Moon, both companies launch missions to discover what lurks on Titan, Saturn largest moon: what creeps is the rebirth of 200,000-year-old archaeological find in the form of an alien with the ability to control the minds of other creatures via parasitic organisms from its own body.
(If it all seems similar to the alien in 1980’s Without Warning, which 1987’s Predator ripped off, it probably is.)
Connoisseurs of science fiction’s video fringes consider this second feature film from writer-director William Malone as “the best” of the ‘80s Alien rip-offs. Ironically, that distinction comes courtesy of the 12th Annual Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Film’s Saturn Award-nominated special effects brothers-team of Robert and Dennis Skotak—who would go on to design the effects for 1986’s Aliens. If you’re keeping track: Alien‘s sequel was directed by James Cameron, who designed the effects for Roger Corman’s earlier Alien knockoff, Galaxy of Terror. (Also nominated for Best Picture, Creature lost both nods to Joe Dante’s Gremlins.)
Keep in mind that Creature was produced for $750,000 and, unlike its gooey antecedent, wasn’t backed by 20th Century Fox Studios. So the Shenandoah, the low-budget spaceship of these proceedings, is no Nostromo: it’s more like SpaceCore 1 from the second-best of the Alien knockoffs, Dark Side of the Moon (1989). (Okay, some would argue Roger Corman’s Galaxy of Terror was second; these rankings aren’t “official.”) And be on the lookout William Malone having fun with his purposeful homage-plot twist to the 1951 Alien-precursor classic, The Thing from Another World.
As with The Dark Side of the Moon, the familiar selling-it-against-the-budget cast is pretty good in their clone-roles. Joe Dante stock player Wendy Schall (1987’s Innerspace, 1989’s The ‘Burbs, 1998’s Small Soldiers) holds her own as the resident Ripley. The same goes for familiar TV actors Stan Ivar (NBC’s Little House on the Prairie) as the inhabitant Dallas, and Lyman Ward (but we remember him as the dad in FerrisBueller’s Day Off) as the clone of Paul Riser’s weasely corporate executive from Aliens (which wasn’t even made yet!). Melanie Bryce, in her acting debut, is good as the leather-clad, taciturn Ash-like ship’s security officer. (Since 2009 Wendy Schall served as the voice of Francine Smith on the Fox animated-sitcom American Dad!. Melanie Bryce, who voiced Queen Bansheera in the series Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue, will be back in theatres alongside Eric Roberts in 2020’s Dante’s Hell—which has nothing to do with Joe.)
Shortly after attending UCLA’s iconic film school (also attended by Star Wars’ George Lucas and Dark Star’s John Carpenter), William Malone made a dry-run on the concepts in Creature with his spine-fluid sucking Syngenor monster in the popular Alien-esque video renter and his writing-directing debut, Scared to Death (1980). Moving up to the big leagues, he made the more expensive—but quickly forgotten—films House on Haunted Hill (1999; a remake of the 1959 film), Feardotcom (2002; with Stephen Dorff), and Parasomnia (2008), and he wrote the screenplay Universal Soldier: The Return (1999; sequel to the original).
Amid his major studio dealings with MGM, he revisited the concepts from Creature once again with his 1990 screenplay Dead Star, a modest $5 million picture (the cost of Roger Corman’s Battle Beyond the Stars, which was partly recycled into Galaxy of Terror). Envisioned as a “Dead Calm” (1989, a thriller about a psycho loose on yacht in the ocean) in space, the script was about a space expedition that discovers alien artifacts and brings them back to Earth; one artifact unleashes an evil force. Purchased by MGM and sent into development hell and jettisoning Malone along the way, the film was eventually released as 2000’s Supernova, a muddled mess of a story concerning black holes and supernatural forces—which ripped off the plot from the previously mentioned Alien clone, The Dark Side of the Moon.
Shortly after its release, Creature—known by its original title, Titan Find, in the overseas markets in its dual theatrical-home video-television run—fell into the public domain. In those lawless celluloid lands, it appeared on numerous VHS and DVD reissues through a wide variety of imprints and cheap-jack public domain box sets—along with shoddy artwork-encased grey market DVD-rs.
William Malone decided to rectify the situation in response to fan requests for a proper digital restoration of his most-popular film. In 2013 Malone announced he was going to release a copy of the film’s answer print in his possession (the first version of a motion picture printed to film after color correction on an interpositive and sound properly synced to the picture) in an uncut and widescreen format for the first time on DVD and Blu.
From his Facebook page (posted with the artwork, seen below):
“This is a completely NEW high resolution transfer from the Camera Original Answer Print done in Widescreen Scope format (2:35 aspect ratio). This also [is] the original longer cut under its shooting title (and UK release title) TITAN FIND with never before seen footage and loaded with extras. It features [a] Director’s Commentary, [and] Art Gallery with original pre-production art and on screen interviews with [the] director and cast members. The initial release (March 16) with be the SD version with Blu-ray to follow at a yet undetermined date. This is the first authorized DVD of this title and the only WIDESCREEN version ever available.”
Then MGM, the current right holders over the film, who let it fall into the public domain in the first place, and remained silent as it was released on numerous public domain and grey-market imprints, filed an injunction.
And here’s where the real horror—of legal red tape—begins.
The film’s video distributor, Charles Band’s Media Home Entertainment, began selling off its assets in 1990, ceased operations in 1993, and was rolled into 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. However, the film’s production company, Trans World Entertainment (not the retail company of the same name that operates mall-based entertainment chains), was defunct by 1989. Its intellectual properties, in turn, came under MGM’s tutelage after the Great Lion purchase Orion Pictures, which purchased Epic’s film libraries from Polygram Filmed Entertainment.
The short of the story, to paraphrase Pvt. Hudson from Alien: “Restored DVD and Blu over, man. Movie over! What are we gonna do, now?”
Caveat emptor when you see these DVDs in the marketplace. They are not “official” DVDs promoted as William Malone’s “wide screen” answer print/director’s cut of the film. Malone’s release was stopped by rights holder MGM Studios. To date, Creature, aka Titan Find in the overseas markets, is still in the public domain — bootlegged and pirated — on a variety of foreign imprints with varying degrees of quality in both artwork and film-image quality.
As of this writing, Malone’s version was never official released through any legitimate seller sites. However, that didn’t stop the grey market: they stole Malone’s DVD artwork and started manufacturing their own copies. Caveat emptors are afoot on those releases: the grey market sellers don’t have Malone’s answer print—and don’t possess the 1” video masters—and are simply ripping the 1985 VHS into DVD-rs. And when that “Malone version” appears on shadow seller sites, it’s marketed as “rare” and carries an exorbitant price.
Or, did Malone dupe us all? Is this another Rocktober Blood 2: Billy’s Revenge, which promoted its production with a promoted a DVD and Blu reissue of Rocktober Blood? That release also tossed around the phases “authorized,” “full restoration,” “high resolution transfer,” and “aspect ratio”—then stuck everyone with DVD-rs ripped from a VHS tape source.
Nope.
I believe Malone was sincere in his efforts and he simply got screwed by the major studio, public domain, and grey market system—again. So, come on, MGM! Work with Malone and give the fans what they want: a full DVD and Blu-ray restoration of the best of the ‘80s Alien clones. And it’ll make a hell of a lot more money that Supernova did—you can bank that.
So, for now, save you pennies and watch a very clean copy of Creature uploaded by the responsible folks at the web’s premiere free streaming service (with limited commercial interruptions): TubiTv. Or you can go commercial free on YouTube.
And while it doesn’t have any gooey aliens, I’d love to suggest a very well done, commendable ultra-low budget effort also influenced, in part, by Alien: Space Trucker Bruce. It’s a film loaded with heart and soul and deserves a watch. Double for the recently reviewed Ares 11 and Monte Light’s Space.
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.
If you’re going to make a second Gor movie, by all means, call up John “Bud” Cardos. Bud started his career as a child actor, a rodeo rider and a bird handler before appearing as a biker in movies like Hells Angels on Wheels, Psych-Out and Satan’s Sadists. Eventually, he’d start directing movies such as Kingdom of the Spiders, Mutant, The Day Time Ended and The Dark.
While drinking alone one night — thinking about all the adventures he had in the first film and that he actually talked to a real live woman — Professor Tarl Cabot (welcome back Urbano Barberini) meets an even bigger loser than himself, Watney Smith. Before you can say strike out, they’re blasted back to that magical planet of thongs.
Cabot and Talena (man, did everyone sign contracts for the sequel? Because Rebecca Ferratti is back, too) reunite. Her father King Marlenus (Larry Taylor also signed one of those contracts it appears) married a girl named Lana (yes, she was in the firts movie briefly and she’s played in both by Donna Denton) and is stepping down from his throne. Of all the men in Gor, he picks the accounting professor from Earth to assume the crown.
Of course, Lana and Xenos — yes, Jack Palance is back — frame our hero, try to kill Talena with female gladiators and toss young Watney aside. I think the dude is missing a t in the front of his name.
All manner of hijinks ensue and if you thought the first Gor was rough, well, at least that one had Oliver Reed in it. There’s one funny scene here, though. The main bad guy — the Hunter — is told that Lana killed the king and he’s like, “Oh OK” and kills her without even thinking about it. Who knew it’d be that easy to defeat these villains?
I guess this movie was shot pretty much right after the original, because surely horndog boys would want more of the world of Gor. Before the internet, horrible movies like this were all we had. It was a rough time to be alive. When people remember the 80’s, I don’t recall them quite so fondly.
John Norman is a professor of philosophy and the creator of the Gor series of books, which are basically male-dominated bondage science fiction fantasies that also feature critiques of modern society and the exploration of philosophical themes from a Nietzschean view. And you thought Incels were a brand new thing, huh?
The series began in 1966 with Tarnsman of Gor — which this movie is based on — and was put on hold when DAW refused to publish the twenty-fifth installment, Magicians of Gor in 1988. The series returned in 2001 with Witness of Gor. There’s also an entire subculture called Gorean flourishes online, as you can only imagine that it would.
So yeah. Somehow, this got made. And so did a sequel, Outlaw of Gor.
Professor of physics Tarl Cabot (Urbano Barberini, Demons, Opera) is pretty much a loser with the ladies until he gets a magical ring that sends him to the world of Gor. Think Den from Heavy Metal and you have the picture.
He also comes into conflict with Oliver Reed, playing the priest-king known as Sarm, who is looking for the Home Stone to create more paths to Earth. Our hero accidentally kills Sarm’s son before he’s knocked out and left for the buzzards. Luckily, he’s saved by Talena (Playboy Playmate of the Month for June 1986 Rebecca Ferratti, who is also in Cheerleader Camp and Embrace of the Vampire), the barbarian princess of Ko-ro-ba.
Of course, while Cabot strikes out at home, he somehow scores with this vision of womanhood because on Gor, men are the rulers. But he’s still a moron and activates the Home Stone, sending him home to, one assumes, spill his seed, hack the carrot and sail the seas of mayonnaise all by himself.
Gor at least has some great character actors like Jack Palance, Paul Smith (Bluto from Popeye and the landscaper in Pieces) and a young Arnold Vosloo.
Norman almost didn’t get the movie made, as his publisher wanted nothing to do with it. He told the fanzine The Gorean Voice, “Ballantine Books refused to do movie tie-ins to either film; they failed even to answer my letters. My attorney finessed his way around Ballantine’s rights department and contacted the legal department at Random House. The movies were made by going over the heads of the censors.”
It was produced by Harry Alan Towers (who you may remember ran a vice ring that implicated the United Nations, JFK, Peter Lawford and several others when he wasn’t producing Jess Franco movies) and action film impresario Avi Lerner. Direction was provided by Fritz Kiersch, who also brought us Children of the Corn and Tuff Turf.
If you ever played lots of D&D and wondered why the popular girls liked jerks and figured, “I’m going to treat them badly, too!” Good news. You are the target audience for this movie.
Human beings are horrible. That’s the biggest truth I’ve ever revealed on this site. And in The Alpha Test, a suburban family has their new Alpha Home Assistant for just a few days before they’ve driven it off the deep end, killing everyone before the opening credits.
This is why I never want a robot maid.
Writer/director Aaron Mirtes was also behind American Hunt, Clowntergeist and Curse of the Nun. This movie is very influenced by Ex Machina, except that the robot here is so frightening looking that I’d never allow it a block from my house, much less inside it.
The Alpha Test is available March 10 from High Octane Pictures.
DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR team.
Originally known as Muskie Madness, Troma insisted the title change to Blood Hook before they’d distribute it.
Probably the most interesting thing about the movie is that its director Jim Mallon and lyricist/key group Kevin Murphy worked on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Murphy is, of course, Tom Servo.
Years ago, Peter’s grandfather went missing under mysterious circumstances. Now, he’s brought his friends back to the lake house for the Muskie Madness competition. Soon, people are getting killed and Peter is facing off with a killer that has a gigantic fishing hook.
You can get this from — who else — Vinegar Syndrome, who have really cornered the market on upscale releases of movies that I was once laughed at for renting in 1987. This version was never released and has all of the uncut gore that you were probably hankering for.
Blood Hook is also available on Amazon Prime and Tubi.
In the year 2022 the maintenance ship SpaceCore 1 is dispatched to repair a Moon-orbital weapons platform and ends up adrift over the galactic-path of Earth’s The Bermuda Triangle—and on a collision course with a paranormal mirror of the geographical anomaly on the Moon. Running out of fuel and oxygen, the crew boards a 20th century NASA space shuttle—believed lost during an emergency ocean landing off the Florida coast—with the hopes of salvaging supplies. Then, one by one, the crew is possessed and killed by a spiritual presence that’s linked to the triangle, the dark side of the moon—and Satan.
Yes. This movie is that celluloid Titchener-moment you couldn’t quite place when you watched the multi-million dollar major-studio failures of Paul W.S Anderson’s (Mortal Kombat) Event Horizon (1997) and Walter Hill’s (Streets of Fire) Supernova (2008).
While this low-budget variant of Ridley Scott’s Alien—which traded out the usual gooey xenomorph (see William Malone’s 1985 Creature) with Satan—was a direct-to-video release, we fondly remember seeing it as part of an early ‘90s UHF-TV Saturday afternoon syndication package with 1989’s Moontrap (starring Star Trek’s Walter Koenig and Evil Dead’s Bruce Campbell) and Roland Emmerich’s pre-Stargate offering, 1990’s Moon 44.
Granted, SpaceCore 1’s crew isn’t as scruffy as the USCSS Nostromo’s. And its interiors aren’t as dazzling as Roger Corman’s slightly-more-expensive Morgantus-bound The Quest from Galaxy of Terror (repurposed from Corman’s even-more-expensive Battle Beyond the Stars . . . and has an innermost-fears-that-kill plot instead of biblical demons). Yeah, SpaceCore 1’s “Mother” computer reimaged as a human-looking leather dominatrix robot is a bit silly—in a Galaxina kind-of-way. But there’s no denying The Dark Side of the Moon is charming (like Ed Hunt’s crazy-fun Starship Invasions) and more engrossing than most of today’s CGI-modern space romps (e.g., the 2009 rip-off of 1973’s The Star Lost: Pandorum; the 2016 rip-off of 1997’s The Titanic: Passengers), with its where-is-this-going-kitchen-sink-plotting rife with biblical references, and making Satan—and not ancient astronauts—responsible for The Bermuda Triangle.
It’s unfortunate The Dark Side of the Moon served as the lone theatrical-directing effort by music video purveyor D.J Webster (best known for ‘Til Tuesday’s 1985 MTV hit “Voices Carry”), as he’s skilled at working against an economical budget and showed a-video-to-feature film-transitional promise. However, the screenwriting brother-duo of Carey and Chad Hayes, who made their debut with this film, climbed the Hollywood ladder to worldwide success with James Wan’s The Conjuring franchise. Their latest effort is the in-production sixth installment of the Die Hard franchise, McClane. And proving that everyone in Hollywood has to start somewhere, Carey and Chad Hayes started in the business as actors in the never-released-to-DVD classic, Rad (1985), while Chad appeared in the how-in-the-hell-did-this-ever-get-made gem, Death Spa (1989).
From Rad to McClane? That’s awesome . . . and a bag of chips.
Fans of Joe Turkel, who portrayed Lloyd the Bartender in The Shining and Dr. Eldon Tyrell in Blade Runner (but we remember him best for American International Picture’s The Dirty Dozen rip-off The Devil’s Eight), will want to watch, as this served as his final film before his retirement. Leading man Will Bledsoe, who made his feature film debut in 1984’s Up the Creek (remember the Cheap Trick song?), also made this his final film. Rounding out the cast of familiar TV faces is Alan Blumenfeld (but you remember him best as Mr. Liggett; his wife “reproduced asexually” in WarGames), John Diehl (TV’s Miami Vice, Stargate, City Limits), and Camilla More (Tina in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter) as Lesli, the ship’s silky-smooth, human-looking A.I—complete with ruby-red lipstick and a dominatrix-leather uniform. And, sadly, we have to raise a cold one for Robert Sampson, who we lost this past January. With TV credits that date back to the late ‘50s, you remember him best as Dean Halsey in Re-Animator and Commission Jamison in Charles Band and Stuart Gordon’s Robot Jox.
Not only is The Dark Side of the Moon fondly remembered in the states, it has a rabid international fan base as well. The German black metal band Nargaroth samples the German-language dub of the film (the dialog of Alan Blumenfeld’s demon-possessed character) in their homage track “The Dark Side of the Moon” from 2004’s Prosatanica Shooting Angels. Swedish death metallers Crypt of Kerberos use those same Blumenfeld-samples (in English) on their 1991 track, “Devastator.”
Now that’s the true sign of a successful movie: no one is sampling dialog from Event Horizon or Supernova anytime soon.
This past June Unearthed Films restored The Dark Side of the Moon to Blu-ray with an audio commentary track by producers Paul White (the ‘80s rental favs The Unamable, Bride of Re-Animator) and Stephen Biro (2010’s A Serbian Film, 2019’s Beneath the Black Veil), along with an interview featuring “Satan” himself, actor Alan Blumenfeld.
Be sure to catch up on all of the Alien knockoffs and rip-offs with our explorations “Ten Movies that Rip-off Alien” and “A Whole Bunch of Alien Rip-offs all at Once.” And there’s more celluloid déjà vu of the Event Horizon and Supernova variety afoot with 2020’s Underwater. And, finally, since there’s always a pinch of Star Wars in all post-1977 sci-fi films, you can catch up with all of the George Lucas-inspired rip-offs with our “Star Wars Droppings” week. There’s more to check out with our “Movies in Outer Space Week.”
But make no mistake: The Dark Side of the Moon isn’t an Alien rip-off or a Star Wars dropping: D.J Webster and the Hayes brothers gave us an intelligent-against-the-budget film with a unique twist on the glut of science fiction films produced in the wake of both of those blockbusters.
Simply put: The Dark Side of the Moon deserves your attention.
You can watch a rip of the old Vidmark Entertainment VHS on You Tube or you can watch a cleaner digital stream on TubiTv.
About the Author: You can read the music and film criticisms of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S Movies.
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