Writer and director Damian Lee also did Ski School, which I assume preps you for making science fiction action movies starring two of Arnold’s pals, Jesse “The Body” Ventura and Sven-Ole Thorsen. Plus, best of all — no, actually best doesn’t apply here — Jim Belushi shows up.
Abraxas (Ventura) and Secundus (Thorsen) are Space Cops called Finders who live for thousands of years and use an Answer Box to scan and communicate in the field. It’s also a weapon, as if a subject doesn’t contain the Anti-Life Equation, they are disintegrated.
If you just read that and got angry that Jack Kirby’s concepts were ripped off for this movie, good news. For me, at least. Because I thought I was going crazy.
Secundus goes bad, because he wants to live forever and needs to figure out that Anti-Life Equation to do so. His plan? Knock up the first woman he finds by rubbing his hand over her belly. That woman is Sonia Murray (Marjorie Bransfield, who was married to Belushi at the time, so that explains that) and she has a baby named Tommy in seconds. But Tommy is going to grow up to be the Culminator and solve that equation. Abraxas is supposed to kill the child and the mother, but he’s too nice and let’s her live. Her parents get mad that she had a baby and toss her out into the streets, except that you know, she somehow got pregnant and had the child in the very same day.
Five years later, Tommy is a mute child with superpowers. Well, his one power is the ability to make bullies piss their pants. So I guess that’s a power. And his principal at school is Jim Belushi, who brings back his role of Rick Latimer because we all demanded that. You know, I give Jim a lot of guff and the dude voted for Obama and has a pop-up cannabis shop, so maybe he’s not as bad as I’ve been led to believe.
What is bad is Abraxas, a movie that is kinda sorta The Terminator with no time travel. You can watch it for free on Amazon Prime and Tubi. Or, if you need some help, the Rifftrax version is also on Amazon Prime and Tubi, too.
Kanichi Iwata is a wrestler who is suffering from a disease that turns him into a giant squid. Interestingly enough, he’s played by Osamu Nishimura, a wrestler who had already survived cancer. I’m a big fan of Nishimura, who is a proponent of the MUGA style of pro wrestling. This term translates into Selflessness and is the catch style that was used by Tatsumi Fujinami for a good portion of his career. That said, I never saw any wrestlers become mollusks in New Japan Pro Wrestling.
Eventually, the Calamari wrestler must battle Koji Taguchi, who is The Octopus Wrestler. He’s played by AKIRA, who is also known as Akira Nogami. He’s wrestled on and off when he’s not acting. Finally, one of the heroes of the past, Godozan, is revealed as The Squilla Boxer. What’s a squilla? It’s a form of mantis shrimp.
One of my favorite wrestlers ever, Yoshihiro Takayama, also appears as himself.
There’s only one downside to being a Calamari wrestler. If you have sex, you lose your sea-based power. This reminds me of the old days of pro wrestling when guys claimed they wouldn’t have sex before big matches. Then, you know, I got into wrestling for real and learned the fallacy of these legends.
Wrestling Queen is less about Vivian Vachon, the titular rassling royalty, than it is about early 1970’s pro wrestling. This movie near-instantly puts a lie to the rewritten Vince McMahon Jr. history of wrestling that big crowds and families didn’t attend wrestling shows until the rock and wrestling connection of the early 80’s.
Vivian comes from the legendary Vachon family, which includes Paul the Butcher and Mad Dog Maurice, both of whom show up here. They’d eventually come into the WWF fold at the start of the USA Network era and Vachon daughter Luna would become a memorable part of the Attitude Era.
The most important reason to watch this movie is to see a behind the scenes and in-ring portrait of some of the most famous names of wrestling’s past, including Andre the Giant, Baron Von Raschke, Dory Funk Jr., Dick Murdoch, Bill Watts, Danny Hodge, Blackjack Mulligan, Killer Kowalski and more.
There are some interesting moments with fans, who compare it to other sports like baseball, while some opine that women are there to hook up and the son of a female wrestling explains why he still thinks that it’s real. It’s not the best documentary on wrestling that I’ve seen, but still a fascinating time capsule.
Dario Argento’s Demons meets The Blair Witch Project as the movie about a real life haunted hotel (ala The Overlook Hotel from The Shining) turns into a “real movie” via its behind-the-scenes documentary footage.
As Darkness Reigns unfolds, we meet documentary filmmaker Daniel Whitaker (filming himself via smartphone, of course) on the way to host the premiere of his documentary Darkness Reigns — his movie about the failure of Defantus Soul, a Casper Van Diem-starring horror film shot in a real haunted hotel. The original intent of Whitaker’s documentary was to include it as a behind-the-scene vignette-extra on the eventual DVD/Blu-ray of Defantus Soul.
But since the director sold his soul to The Devil to be a successful filmmaker, the demon haunting the hotel seals it off, and kills Casper with a push off the mezzanine. The “deal” was to spook everyone and Daniel would film “real ghosts.” Of course The Devil reneges on the deal and kills everyone. And Daniel got what he wanted: he’s famous and Darkness Reigns is the most-talked about movie in the world. And now a documentary is being filmed about him and his movie.
Yeah, The Devil’s a dick when he needs to be.
Now, the caveat: If you learned your lesson from your steady diet of Nicolas Cage (Arsenal), Eric Roberts (Lone Star Deception), and Tom Sizemore (Zyzzyx Road) movies, you know you get a little bit o’ Casper and a whole lot of everybody else. But what little Casper we do get, he’s a real sport playing up himself as possessed by a demon.
Darkness Reigns is the third feature film by longtime documentary and reality TV purveyor Andrew P. Jones, who made his fictional film debut with the urban drama Kings of the Evening (2008) and Haunting of Cellblock 11 (2014). So, based on his experience, you go in knowing he brings a level of quality to the table that’s a head above most of the direct-to-video horrors in the streaming marketplace.
Wild Eye Releasing now offers Darkness Reigns as a free-with-ads stream on TubiTv.
Disclaimer: The was sent to us by the film’s PR firm.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Back in March, we covered Jurassic Thunder, another film that was directed by Milko Davis and Thomas Martwick. They also made Tsunambee, which we covered earlier this week. Obviously, we’re going to watch every movie that these guys put out.
Dr. Wojick Borge has had enough of being made fun of. So he signs up with the Axis of Evil to destroy America with a series of mad scientist weapons like a gas that turns people into zombies and EMP blasts. But that’s not enough. No, he has to live up to the title of this movie by unleashing an undead T-Rex called…the Z-Rex.
There are plenty of bullets fired, bodies devoured and zombies walking about. Imagine a sub-Shocking Dark and you have a good idea of this movie. (Yeah, we did an exploring feature on the works of Bruno Mattei. You know it! So, yeah, we dig Milko just like ‘ol Bruno.)
The VOD stream on Amazon is gone, but it’s still available as a free-with-ads stream on Tubi.
DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by Wild Eye Releasing.
Update: Do you want to be a part of a Milko flick? In November 2021, Team Milko launched a Kickstarter campaign for the production and release of his next film, Phantom Patrol.
Duke is a carousel unicorn who hates his job. One day, a fat child pushes him beyond the brink, bringing him to life and sending him on the path of revenge. Honestly, if you read that sentence and laughed, this movie is for you.
This was directed by Steve Rudinzki, who was also behind Red Christmasand makes Christmas movies like A Meowy Christmas because that’s what else horror directors are known for in the 2020 world of video streaming.
Don’t expect a budget. Do expect women to have sex with unicorns. See? You can’t always get what you want, but when you try sometimes, you just may find a tusk in the meat locker.
I’ve never understood No Holds Barred. It had the entire WWE machine behind it — watching an hour of their program in 1989 was akin to watching an hour commercial for this movie — and this was the movie they put so much effort behind? A movie that makes wrestling and its top star both look like morons? I get that the rest of the world sees pro wrestling like this, but when I realized that this was how the company itself saw it, it was pretty sad.
But yeah, I still went to the drive-in and watched it. They sold me.
Imagine if Vince McMahon decided to make an entire movie about Ted Turner.
Well, stop dreaming and start watching, because Brell (Kurt Fuller) is Ted, owning an entire network that is being toppled by pro wrestler Rip Thomas (who is Hulk Hogan other than the fact that he wears blue instead of the yellow and red, brother). That’s right — all his network needs to start failing is to go up against Rip, until they start making their own wrestling program called Nitro…I mean Battle of the Tough Guys.
On this show, Zeus (Tiny Lister, Friday), an ex-con and former student of the same man who taught Rip takes over the world of wrestling from the No Count Bar. Brell is the kind of guy who replies to people making fun of his penis size by sending killers after Rip and rapists after Rip’s PR person Sam (Joan Severance).
There’s also a scene beats up a henchman so badly that the guy craps his pants. I mean, wouldn’t you after a gigantic human being basically flies out of a limo?
Beyond getting to see Gene Okerlund, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, Howard Finkel and Joey Marella on the big screen, this movie also features Jeep Swensen (he’d go on to play Bane in Batman and Robin), Bill Eadie (Axe from Demolition and the Mask Superstar) and one of my favorite wrestlers of all time, Stan “The Lariat” Hansen. In fact, when the movie came out, there was a big rumor that Hansen — who achieved most of his fame in Japan — was about to leave Giant Baba’s All Japan Pro Wrestling to come to challenge Hogan. It never happened. They did fight a year later in a match between AJPW and WWE in Japan just days after Hogan lost the belt to the Ultimate Warrior.
There’s another Japanese influence to the movie, as Hogan doesn’t use his American legdrop finisher here as Rip, but instead the clothesline-like Axe Bomber that he used to win so many matches in New Japan Pro Wrestling.
Zeus, however, did come to WWE and claimed that he deserved to be the star of the film. After a Summerslam 1989 match between Hogan and Brutus Beefcake against Zeus and Randy Savage, the feud culminated in a PPV called No Holds Barred: The Match/The Movie, an event that played the movie and then a blowoff tag team match.
No Holds Barred was produced by star Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon, only to be distributed by New Line Cinema after completion. When the first draft of the script was turned in, Hogan and McMahon disliked it so much, they checked into a Florida hotel and stayed up for 72 hours straight — cocaine — rewriting the script together.
Thomas J. Wright, who directed this, was also the artist who painted the artwork featured on Night Gallery. He was also the second unit director for Howard the Duck and Staying Alive.
This is the first film written and directed by Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz. It’s really special. Yep — I’m going to dispense with that notion that a review has to wait to tell you how it feels about a movie until the end.
It’s all about Zak, a 22-year-old with Down syndrome played by an actor who also has it, Zack Gottsagen. He’s living in an assisted living facility in North Carolina where he keeps escaping, hoping to find the school of his pro wrestling hero, the Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Haden Church).
I love how this movie happened: The directors met Zack at a camp for disabled and non-disabled people and he expressed his desire to be a movie star. They wrote the script around him and his hopes and dreams.
One night, thanks to his roommate Carl (Bruce Dern), Zak escapes and sneaks on to the fishing boat of Tyler (Shia LeBeouf), who has just been denied the ability to sell crab without a license, who he burns everyone else’s boats. This sends Duncan and Ratboy, who is played by music artist Yelawolf, on his trail.
Zak and Tyler become friends after a long and arduous journey as they elude the twosome, get baptized and also stay a step ahead of Zak’s social worker, Eleanor (Dakota Johnson). Wrestling fans will enjoy seeing Jake Roberts and Mick Foley in major roles.
This movie really made me emotional. Hopefully, you’ll feel the same way. As someone who has lived a life in pro wrestling, I really understood Zak’s need to perform. The idea that what exists on an old VHS tape not meaning as much today is something that we, as film fans, feel every day. I love that there was still magic, as Zak still gets a chance to have a match.
Pen Dasham wrote and produced Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and the 1980’s revivals of The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone. He often worked with John Watson, making this film and Backdraft. They wrote, directed and produced this late 80’s teen film.
Kate (Tiffany Helm, O.C. and Stiggs, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, Reform School Girls), her brother Ricky (Robert Jayne, half-brother of Scott Jacoby who also is in Tremors and Dr. Alien) and their pals Danny, Val (Marc Price, Ragman!) and Bobbi buy an old nightclub from a bum named Leatherface (Ben Vereen).
Before you know it — and after getting past the adults in town — The Zoo becomes an overnight success.
That’s when the Donnelly Clan decides they want to take it over. They’re led by Little Joe, who is played by a demented looking Jackie Earl Haley nine years after The Bad News Bears and 25 years before he’d play Freddy Krueger.
His twin brothers are played by Glen and Gary Mauro, who were the twin vampires in Once Bitten.
How did this end up in wrestling week? Well, it turns out that Leatherface used to be a wrestler named The Winch and he teaches the kids how to defend themselves.
Some claim that this was the first movie to actually be awarded a PG-13 rating, despite Red Dawn being released first.
When I first loaded up Evil Little Things, I was expecting a creepy little doll flick of the Richard Matheson Trilogy of Terror or Child’s Play variety terrorizing a family headed by Zach Galligan of Gremlins fame—which are, in themselves, evil little things. Then things unexpectedly (and pleasantly) veered into portmanteau territory with stories concerned with creepy little dolls or, in this case, evil little things.
The linking device across the two stories—instead of the usual three or five stories typical of most anthologies—is a young boy with a fear of monsters under the bed; his mom takes him to a local toy store the next day to buy a friend to keep him company at night.
Of course, the toy store’s proprietor and resident doll maker is an odd duck. At first glance, I thought he was played by Bill Mosely (of our recent “Radio Week” reviewed Dead Air), who does a lot of put-a-star-name-on-the-box type of movies as of late. But it’s actually Geoff McKnight (who very good here). He did an early ‘90s, three-season run on the NBC-TV series In the Heat of the Night as Deputy Farrell and got his start working on Tracy Keenan Wynn’s excellent In the Line of Duty series of NBC-TV telefilms.
In the first tale, “Blood for Gold,” which reminds of the 1973 Kim Darby-starring TV movie classic Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, a horror novelist moves her children into her great grandmother’s house in the Atlanta countryside—a house attached to the legends of an evil Leprechaun that haunts Irish Mountain. And the house has a creepy fireplace. And mom’s hearing music coming from the fireplace. Of course, she starts an excavation. And then she starts speaking in an Irish brogue. And a creepy, red-bearded doll shows up . . .
And that takes us to the second tale, “Be Careful What You Wish For,” which harkens the classic ‘60s Telly Savalas episode “The Living Doll” from TV’s The Twilight Zone. We meet Abby, an emotionally damaged collector of antique dolls on her way to another Magna-Con. And Abby’s a bit tweaked with her doll obsession, and one doll in particular, Patty, who likes to “hurt” the other dolls. Is Patty possessed or is Abby imagining it? Of course, Patty’s jealous of Abby’s suitor, Jeremy . . .
Hey, we almost forgot about Zach Galligan (who’s very good in his small role as the abusive dad). You didn’t think he was getting out of this alive, did you? Say hello to Giggles the Clown, Zach.
Although we know the dolls will prevail and the owners will suffer an evil fate, both tales are well-written with enough suspenseful creeps and twisted mystery to keep our interest. And once those dolls break out the knives—especially Patty (voiced to chilling perfection by screenwriter Yasmin Bakhtiari) from the stronger, second segment, yikes! I haven’t had dolls freak me out this much since Dan Curtis broke out the dolls all those years ago in Trilogy of Terror.
Evil Little Things is a solid debut from the screenwriting team of Yasmin Bakhtiari and Nancy Knight (Knight effectively stars as Aunt Sally). I’m looking forward to their next horror opus and I’d love to see either of these tales expanded to feature-length films. Director Matt Green has been around a little bit longer, with an ever-expanding resume of direct-to-video horror films he’s been building on since the early 2000’s. He most recently worked behind the scenes as a set designer on the Taraji P. Henson-starring Hidden Figures (2016).
Evil Little Things is available from Uncork’d Entertainment on all online streaming and PPV platforms in the U.S on May 12. Visit them on Facebook for the latest news on their releases.
Huh? You need more creepy little dolls? Do you, really? Hey, it’s your funeral. Check out our “Ten Evil Dolls” examination for a list of cursed figurines that date from the ‘60s anthology series The Twilight Zone to the present-day horror of Annabelle Comes Home from The Conjuring series.
Disclaimer: This movie was sent to us by its PR department. As always: you know that has nothing to do with our feelings on the movie.
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.He also writes forB&S About Movies.
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