The third part of Dark Infinity’s Tales for the Campfire trilogy will delight anyone who liked 1983’s Scary Tales or 1997’s Campfire Tales or, well, any horror anthology. A quick burst of gory junk food, this would have fit in perfectly on the shelves of my hometown’s mom and pop video stores, whether that was Prime Time Video or Hollywood Video (not the chain).
Even the cover is reminiscent of one of those multi-time rentals of the lamented past, Return of the Living Dead 3.
As the Campfire Gang — Shawn, Ronnie, Ken, Rebecah and Amber — gathers around the campfire one more time to tell several different stories.
“We One” is definitely a tribute to perhaps the most effective anthology horror story ever, “Amelia” from Trilogy of Terror. “Cole Canyon Creeps” is all about the worst of all ideas, hitchhiking. “The Prisoner” concerns a mental patient menacing an agoraphobic woman on Halloween night*, which is perfect slasher fodder. It’s followed by another slasher story, “The Bitter Half**” and then finally, a tale about “The Gateway” to Hell.
This is the first of these anthologies that I’ve watched and it moved quickly. So quickly, in fact, that it was over before I knew it. It totally doesn’t overstay its welcome!
Primarily known as a talent manager, studio producer and engineer, Hungarian born director Tibor Takács worked behind the boards for the Canadian bands the Viletones and the Cardboard Brains before he became a director. His first feature film project was the self-produced Metal Messiah (1978), a long-form rock opera/video which starred two bands from his stable: Kickback and the Cardboard Brains.
Best known for the internationally-distributed “No False Metal” classic, The Gate (1987), he made his feature film debut with the 1978-shot-and-1982 released CBC-TV movie 984: Prisoner of the Future, which has long since fallen into the public domain and is easily found on a wide variety of bargin-basement sci-fi DVD sets. After the cult VHS and cable status of The Gate, he was poised to direct A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, but passed on the project . . . and he gave us The Gate 2: The Trespassers and the pilot movie for the original Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
These days, he’s churning out the mockbuster hoards of Ice Spiders, Mega Snake, and Destruction: Los Angeles, as well as other films concerning all manner of meteors, tornadoes, mosquitoes, black holes, and rats for the SyFy Channel . . . and he got into the Hallmark Christmas movie business alongside our equally beloved Fred Olen Ray and David DeCoteau.
Oh, and Hallmark romance flicks.
Did Sam and I watch The Secret Ingredient for its February 2020 premiere — making our significant others cringe in the process — as we chomped on our popcorn and gulped our A&W Root Beers with glee? Damn right, we did. And you know how B&S About Movies is about our Christmas movies . . . so yes, we did binge the Takacs X-Mas oeuvre of Once Upon A Christmas (2000), Twice Upon a Christmas (2001), Rocky Mountain Christmas (2017), It’s Christmas, Eve (2018), Memories of Christmas (2018), and A Christmas Miracle (2019). And when Tibor finishes off his currently-in-production Lifetime damsel-in-distress thriller Roadkill — his 48th directing effort — we’ll watch that one, as well.
But what we really want to know: Tibor, when in the hell are you and Eric Roberts going to do a movie together? It’s de rigueur for guys like you, Olen Ray, and DeCoteau. Make it happen, Tibor! Remember when you wrote and directed Redline, aka Deathline, that bionic-man-out-for-revenge actioner back in 1997 with Rutger Hauer and Mark Dacascos? Or Bad Blood, aka Viper, from 1994 with Lorenzo Lamas as a bad-ass trucker taking down the mob? Something like those flicks . . . just cut Eric Roberts loose to kick mercenary and mobster ass as an “aging action hero” thespin’ his little heart out . . . as a rogue C.I.A black-ops agent, like Mack Dacascos in 1998’s Sanctuary. Make it happen, buddy!
This is — non-CGI, mind you — a tale of an album known as The Dark Book by Sacrifyx — a band who died in a horrific accident after its recording — that serves as “the key” to opening a gate to hell . . . that just so happened to be under the roots of a lightning-stuck tree in the backyard of future Blu Cigs spokesman Stephen Dorff (he was 12 at the time).
How loved is this movie? You can buy Sacrifyx “The Dark Book” T-shirts on esty. Fans have compiled “Top 10” lists about the film. Sacrifyx is noted as one of the best “fake bands” on film. And . . .
There’s a (baffling, but awesome) Sacrifyx website, and . . .
An equally eerie album by a band called Sacrifyx listed on Discogs that recorded an album at Dunwich Analog Studios in Detroit, Michigan, in 1983 — with a song “The Gate.” But wait, the movie didn’t come out until 1987? Shivers. And guess what . . . the album is real. It’s on You Tube.
Which Old God is F’in with us, here? Love this movie, ye must!
Dude . . . imagine a Tibor-made Freddy Krueger movie? How awesome could that have been? Instead, we got a sequel to The Gate — both written by Michael Nankin, who made his debut with the David Naughton-starring (yes, the Dr. Pepper “Making It” Meatballs werewolf in London guy), Animal House-rip Midnight Madness in 1980.
The upside to this movie: Terry shoots and scores! He bags a babe. So, you see, it pays to worship Satan and dabble in the black arts. Do it! Chant Natas three times and the babes will come crawlin’ out the ground for ya!
Is The Gate II as good as the original? Nope. But it’s a lot of fun with great non-CGI effects, once again, from Randall William Cook, who also handles the SFX for the next feature on this evening’s program.
Intermission! Spin the dark circle, if you dare . . .
Long before meta-fiction became shot-on-iPhone de rigueur for the digital auteur crowd (For Jennifer), Julio Cortázarwrote a short story — La Continuidad de Los Parques (The Continuity of the Parks) — a tale that is three stories; each aware of one another in a universe where fiction collides with meta-fiction.
The much-missed Jenny Wright of Near Dark fame (I recall reading her interview in Shock Cinema Issues #45 that went into detail about the abuses she suffered and caused her exit from the business) is Virginia, a bookish girl obsessed with writer Malcolm Brand’s I, Madman. In the pages of that tale, the deformed Dr. Kessler attempts to win over an actress by killing people and adding their faces to his own. And she comes face to face, literally, with Dr. Kessler as he’s entered the real world.
Should this follow up to The Gate be as revered and remembered as The Gate. Yes. Is it? No. Love this movie, you must. It’s awesomeness and a bag ‘o garlic fingers.
P.S. You need more “film within a film” tomfoolery? Check out Anguish (1987).
Tibor’s first commercial film project was this failed Canadian TV series pilot programmer in 1978. Courtesy of the Star Wars-infused sci-fi market, it was shook loose from the analog dustbins onto home video shelves in 1982.
Also circulating on DVD bargain comps as The Tomorrow Man, it’s a surreal psychological drama concerned with the imprisonment of an intelligence agent in an Orwellian future. Don’t let the Dr. Who-esque TV production designs deter you from watching this well-written and acted sci-fi’er — a commendable start to the awesome career of Tibor Takács. We found a trailer upload on You Tube.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Moviesand publishes on Medium.
Editor’s Note: This review previously ran on May 8, 2018.
When horror movies have socially maladjusted kids getting abused by popular football players while showing how attractive girls can still fall for them, they’re playing directly to their demographic. How many fright fans felt the same way or endured the same stings and arrows as the hero of this film?
Everybody beats the shit of Vernon. His fellow students hate him. His teachers despise him. Even the janitor. His only friend is Robin (Rosie Holotik, Nurse Charlotte from Don’t Look in the Basement), who is dating the main football player who abuses him. And his other friend, the mouse known as Mr. Mumps? Well, he’s taking a mind-altering potion that Vernon’s developed that makes the little fella super violent. In fact, it makes him so brutal that it kills the janitor’s cat, who flips out and smashes the little fellow and forces Vernon to drink his own potion.
Pat Cardi, the actor who played Vernon, was a busy child star, playing in over 100 TV shows and appearing as a young chimp in Battle for the Planet of the Apes. He grew up to create and found MovieFone, which in the pre-internet days was how people discovered what films were playing in theaters.
Austin Stoker (Assault on Precinct 13, Abby) plays the detective who comes into the school once Vernon starts killing. The murder scenes form a proto-slasher vibe while the music is crazy, with primal power chords accentuating big moments (think the guitar sound from the Torso trailer). It also features Pittsburgh Steelers star “Mean” Joe Greene in a small role. If you live here in the Steel City, you need no introduction to Mean Joe. If you live elsewhere, he’s the player who threw a jersey to the kid in the Coca-Cola commercial. He’s also in The Black Six, one of the first all-black biker films, along with other NFL names like Gene Washington, Mercury Morris, Lem Barney, Willie Lanier and Carl Eller. Of course, we’ll be getting to this movie very soon. But until then, savor Joe in that Coke commercial:
At heart, this is a Jekyll & Hyde story (it’s Carrie before Carrie, too) but told as if it were a 1950’s teen monster movie refilmed through a 1970’s doom-laden lens. Its script comes from Jack Fowler, who is really J.D. Feigelson, writer of Wes Craven’s Chiller and Dark Night of the Scarecrow.
The film — also known as The Twisted Brain — was shot in Texas and released by Crown International in March of 1974 to the drive-in circuit. It really picked up its cult cache thanks to frequent TV airings. Code Red put out an uncut version on blu-ray in 2009, following a Rhino release of the TV version of the film. They’re both rather hard to get now, but worth seeking out. I found myself really liking this film, despite its budget and relative silliness at times.
Want to learn more? The new issue of Drive-In Asylum has an interview with director Larry Stouffer and some artwork from me that you can see here!
Executive produced by Academy Award winner Leonardo DiCaprio, this film went perfectly with the election process this year, as it taught me about the 18th President of the United States, a man who overcame a troubled past and alcoholism to save our nation.
I love how this blends a shot movie, commentary by several experts and real images of the past to form the full picture of someone who I had only glanced at during history class.
Justin Salinger plays Grant and it’s through him we see the human side of the historical icon. I’d often heard him painted as an alcoholic whose time as President was marred by corruption, which is only part of the real story, which this six-hour mini-series (originally airing on History) sets right.
Having this all on one DVD set is such a great addition to my library. History continually finds ways to make what was once dry into exciting shows that actually teach me new things. If you’d like to learn more about what true leaders were once like, I recommend you pick up this new release from Lionsgate.
I had a friend buy me a copy of The Secret, the Rhonda Byrne self-help book. It was well-intentioned, but it felt like the New Thought of the past and a sanitized version of Chaos Magic that didn’t work quite as well. But hey — everyone needs something to help them get by, and like I said, the thought was in the right place.
Now, the book has inspired a film which I can only imagine will be the first of many.
Director Andy Tennant knows romcoms. After all, he was behind It Takes Two, Fools Rush In, Ever After and Sweet Home Alabama, the kind of movies that the lady in your life wants to put on any time they show up on a Sunday afternoon (and you’d be the jerk wanting to watch The Replacements again).
Miranda Wells (Katie Holmes) is the kind of hardscrabble, yet gorgeous, widow that these movies are all about. She’s raising three kids on her own but a storm blows into town and she has to hire Bray Johnson (Josh Lucas, who was in the aforementioned Sweet Home Alabama) to help fix things up, which includes her life and her family. Bray is pretty much The Secret in human form, because he’s a positive thinker, as well as someone that has a mysterious past that could ruin everything.
Don’t you just hate the third part of the hero’s journey?
If you’re already in for the 90’s stars in this, Jerry O’Connell shows up as well to seal the deal.
There was another movie version of the book in 2006, but that one didn’t have romance, a storm or Katie Holmes trying to raise kids. The universe talked to me and told me not to watch it. However, the universe did tell me to watch this, as we got a screener in the mail and it felt like I was watching too many slashers and perhaps it was time to watch a family-friendly movie about the power of positivity.
Now, for you moment of meta, sponsored by the IMDB trivia page for this movie: Josh Lucas played Mitch McDeere in the television adaptation of The Firm, a role originated by Holmes’ ex-husband Tom Cruise.
Now, back to The Secret. I feel as if my movie writing is now a success, as I have been able to convince movie studios to send me films to get my “expert” opinion. Most of my opinion is based on how much I love movies where people are menaced by gardening implements. That said, when this crossed my plate, I knew that I had finally achieved something worthwhile.
Then my wife said, “Why do you want to watch this movie?”
So I explained The Secret*somehow combines the Protestant teachings of Norman Vincent Peale with the Theosophy of Madame Blavatsky to create a theory that you can reprogram reality without needing to make sigils or set things on fire or masturbate. Then she stared at me even longer, wondered why she married me and went out to smoke a cigarette.
*The movie does this with pizza magically arriving when the children wish it in existence. Maybe I’m being too hard on this book, because if I can conjure pepperoni and extra cheese slices into being, I might have to get more serious about this.
Have you ever wondered what a hybrid of John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China (1986; a bigger hit in the Pacific Rim territories than in the U.S.) and Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop(1987) would look like?
Robo Vampire is one of the 150 films from the joint ouvre of director Joe Livingstone and screenwriter Willie Palmer, aka Godfrey Ho; he, the master of B-movie Hong Kong action disasters, he, the master of the “cut-and-paste” technique with a finesse and skill that leads one to wonder how in the hell he got a job teaching filmmaking — to others — at Hong Kong Polytech. But, as with Roger Corman, during his 25 years of making genre films in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Philippines, Ho’s mostly Z-grade movies never lost a dime.
And like Corman and Santiago before him, Ho was a stock footage recycling fetishist that not only cannibalized his own films, but the films of others. Not content with endlessly patching one of his own movies into another to create a “new” movie (or two or three), he’d purchase unfinished and unreleased Asian, Chinese, Filipino, and Thai films, then add Caucasian actors to appeal to the Euro and American home video markets, and, through dubbing and voice-overs, assemble a “plot” with the barest of coherence — you know, like when Niels Rasmussen took William Chang’s Calamity of Snakes and churned out The Serpent Warriors as “John Howard” (nope, again: not the John Howard of Spinefame).
In the case of Robo Vampire, it all begins with Ho’s 1987 action film, Devil’s Dynamite, which, after the “success” of Robo Vampire, became, Robo Vampire 2: Devil’s Dynamite (1990). But, if you’re keeping track, Robo Vampire itself features footage from Devil’s Dynamite. So it’s the same film . . . but it’s a sequel . . . and it’s not. And it’s confusing as hell to figure which is the chicken and which is the friggin’ egg . . . or if we have three films or two films — with one film simply retitled to make it look like three films.
Anyway, Devil’s Dynamite is a straight forward good guys vs. bad drug gang movie that owes it debt to John Carpenter: It concerns a top secret agent, aka “The Shadow Warrior,” sent to stop a drug smuggling operation in The Golden Triangle. But a drug lord burnt a voodoo doll and chanted a spell in a crypt that revived a hoard of bloodthirsty, hoping vampires (yes, they hop like bunny rabbits)* that shoot flesh-eating smoke n’ sparks from their hands to defend the operation. And apparently, the once long-sleeping vampires are the stuff of legend, as kids at a birthday party play a sick version of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey — with the blindfolded birthday girl being chased by a kid pretending he’s one of the hoping vampires.
Then Verhoeven had to go and make Robocop.
So Devil’s Dynamite is recut into a story about Tom Wilde, a murdered narcotics agent given a second chance via an experiment that transforms him into a cyborg. His mission: rescue Sophie, a beautiful undercover agent (from the first film) kidnapped by the evil drug lord, Mr. Young, and his hoard of hoping, somersaulting-and-back flipping vampires.
Then Robo Vampire had to go and make bank.
So, Robo Vampire and Devil’s Dynamite are recut again — with a whole new “Robo Cop” costume (because the other, cardboard cheapo suit probably fell apart in the first film) — as Robo Vampire 2: Devil’s Dynamite. At least that’s what we think is going on here. So it goes in the world of the cheap-jack Indonesian cinema we love at B&S About Movies.
And, er, ah . . . wait . . . what’s this? Godfrey’s oeuvre — well, 36 of them, including Robo Vampire — have been digitized for TubiTV? How many films can you watch with the words “Ninja,” “Snake,” “Dragon,” and “Thunderbolt” in them? When it’s Godfrey Ho . . A LOT!
* We can take a poke at Willie Palmer, aka Godfrey Ho, and joke about bunny vampires; however, those vamp-rabbits aren’t from cinematic ineptitude: they’re from Chinese legend: the Qing Dynasty legends of the Jiangshi (meaning “hard or “stiff”), which first appeared in print 1789 through the literary visions of writer Ji Xiaolan. Director Yeung Kung-Leung was the first to bring the Jiangshi to the big screen with 1936’s Midnight Vampire.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Editor’s Note: This review previously ran on August 20, 2018.
This is the first VHS tape I ever rented. It was 1983. Prime Time Video had just opened. And the tape box promised delights we’d never dreamt of before. I was thinking this was going to be the best parts of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Mad Max. And wow, was I disappointed. But how would I feel 35 years later?
After trying to raise a Russian sub, the descendants of Atlantis attack our heroes, but they look a whole lot like punk bikers from an Italian post-apocalyptic movie. Which they totally are. Our heroes have to uncover the secret of Atlantis and stop them before they take over the world.
Christopher Connelly is Mike, our main hero. You may recognize him from Benji or TV’s Peyton Place. Or more likely, you know him from Manhattan Babyor 1990: The Bronx Warriors.
Plus, there’s Gioia Scola (Conquest), Tony King (The Toy), Stefano Mingardo (Blastfighter), George Hilton (The Case of the Bloody Iris), Ivan Rassimov (need I regale you with my love of his films?) and a young Michele Soavi before he became a director!
I’ll be super honest. This movie is a complete piece of shit. There are moments of greatness, such as whenever Crystal Skull appears or when a corpse keeps turning a jukebox off and on. I wanted to love this movie as a child and I wanted to love it even more as an adult. But sadly, that love never filled my heart.
There are people that love this film. And I get it. I like Ruggero Deodato. I just can’t get into this movie.
You can watch it for free with an Amazon Prime membership, so maybe you might have a totally different point of view!
Don’t get excited — this isn’t the official G.I. Joe movie that got moved to next year. No, instead it’s a short film created by Rene Perez (Death Kiss), which has seventh degree black belt martial artist Juan Manuel Olmedo as the title character and Miss Nevada 2020 Victoria Olona as Snake Eyes’ wife (who is decidely not Scarlett).
Perez and producer Joseph Camilleri previously collaborated on the film The Insurrection, with the director’s next movie being Righteous Blood, which will star Michael Pare and Emily Whitcomb.
While this is a fan film, it’s packed with some pretty good action. That said, if you’re a Joe fan — I mean, I only have 8 or 9,000 of the modern era figures and a room devoted specifically to their display — you’ll be disappointed that this has nothing to do with any of the continuity of the line. It’s a stand-alone story of Snake Eyes last mission.
That said, it will hopefully tide you over until the October 22, 2021 re-release date of the official film.
I love the guys at Wild Eye. After reading our Letterboxd list of Amityville movies*, I got an email from them that said, “Have you seen Amityville Island yet?”
Look, when a movie has the tagline “For God’s sake, get out of the water!” you know I’m probably going to have to watch it. Throw in the fact that it was directed by Mark Polonia (along with Paul Alan Steele) and I knew I was going to be spinning this, probably while my wife was asleep so that she didn’t cast a gaze at me that said, “You really will watch anything if Amityville is in the title.”
Several girls are brought to a small island where they are subjected to genetic experiments that involve both humans and animals. Right away, we have a women in prison, a science gone wild story and a government conspiracy flick all at the same time, but to complete this buffet, we learn that one of the girls killed people inside the house on 112 Ocean Avenue.
Perhaps the finest movie to ever be made for $30,000 in Wellsboro, PA, Amityville Shark succeeds just because it exists. It’s packed with a CGI shark, CGI blood, stock footage, a possessed woman blasting a dude through his PC and lines like, “She’s from Amityville, what are you gonna do?” and “High quality dirtbags are getting harder and harder to find.”
Oh yeah — there’s also a zombie that shows up before the end of this movie.
Of course there is.
You know, if we put low budget filmmakers in charge of solving COVID-19, I bet their ingenuity and ability to work with no money would solve it in no time. Or maybe we’d have female prisoners fighting in basements while random dudes in officers yell into their landlines. Either way, this time, we can all win.
I hope Mark Polonia reads this and hears my request: Please make a movie where the apes from Empire of the Apes ride sharks.
Man, I keep getting sucked into the world of Crown International Pictures, don’t I? Well, that’s also Mill Creek’s fault, as so many of their box sets are filled with the output of this studio.
That brings us to Susanville, CA, known as Prison Town, USA and the home of Ken Shamrock, and also the Crater Lake, which is also where the Crater Lake Monster lives. If you’re thinking, “Will this be a Bigfoot film?” No, my friend. This one is all about a giant Plesiosaurus, just like Loch Ness.
Speaking of obsessions, director William R. Stromberg has one other credit to his name: he did the stop motion animation for Night Train to Terror. He’s working from a script by Richard Cardella, who also stars in this as Sheriff Steve Hanson, the man who has to protect his town from the sea monster.
The main issue with this film is the problem that many a giant monster movie faces. We don’t really care about the townspeople and the robberies that the sheriff is uncovering. Nor do we care about the forced humor from the stereotypical backwoods people of the small town.
No. Not at all.
We just want to see a dinosaur eat people.
According to Cardella, Crown International took over production and did very little of it. He claims that’s why the day for night shots just are day and also why there are so many plot holes. I really don’t think anything would improve this script, because you can throw money at feces and it remains feces.
The poster for this movie promises a T. Rex and delivers a completely different dinosaur. Five-year-old me would be incensed.
But you know, once that rubbery stop motion monster — born when a meteor blasted into the lake and woke up a sleeping dinosaur egg — shows up, I forget all the padding, all the cornball humor, all the boredom and just enjoy that beast biting down on some humanity.
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