Kasi Lemmons started her entertainment career as an actress — she was Bernie in — before starting to direct. The movie I remember her for most is The Caveman’s Valentine. A film about Harriet Tubman was rumored for years and I’m quite glad she got the job, as this is a movie that moves quickly and imparts plenty of emotion and history without feeling preachy or boring. That’s quite a feat for a historical film.
Cynthia Erivo, who was in the stage revival of The Color Purple and who has been great on The Outsider every week, plays Harriet throughout her life, as she escapes from slavery (choosing to either live free or die) and then continually comes back to help others escape. It’s a harrowing tale filled with twists that history class never taught me, such as the fact that the man who gave her the last name Tubman remarried, as everyone in her family believed that she died after she jumped off a bridge to escape her owner Gideon Brodess.
Leslie Odom Jr., who was the original Aaron Burr in Hamilton, is in this, as is Janelle Monáe, a freewoman whose sophisticated ways are in direct contrast to young Harriet.
I would have never watched this movie if not for a freelance assignment where I’ve been creating teacher guides for biographical films. So in some strange way, the predicament of my occupation has led to me experiencing plenty of new things I would have otherwise never had the opportunity to see, listen, watch or learn.
You don’t need to go through all that to see this. I recommend you watch it at your first opportunity.
Turns out award shows can have a positive result on my movie watching. I wouldn’t have known anything about this film if Awkwafina hadn’t won the Best Actress – Musical or Comedy Golden Globe for her work here.
Luckily, the movie lived up to my expectations and then some.
Based on director Lulu Wang’s real life — which she first publicly discussed on an episode of This American Life — The Farewell proves that the foreign may not be so foreign. Billi (Awkwafina) learns that her grandmother Nai Nai (played by Chinese theatrical actress Shuzhen Zhao) is dying from cancer, yet her family refuses to tell their matriarch. Instead, an elaborate wedding ruse is invented so that they may all see her one more time.
The truth is, six years after the real life diagnosis, Wang’s grandmother remains alive. She still didn’t know that she even had the disease until this movie. Incredibly, Wang kept the secret from her during and after the making of this movie. She would only discover the true story when she discussed the movie with her sister Lu Hong, who plays herself in the movie. The fact that the movie was released in China as Don’t Tell Her was not lost on the real life Nai Nai, who remarked, “…that’s why you didn’t tell me, because I am the “her” of the Don’t Tell Her.”
The way that families deal with aging is strange. My father had a stroke last year and often worries so much about the shaking in his hands — which he can’t understand and needs an explanation daily — that the rest of my family told him that it was all because one of the knives he uses isn’t balanced properly and that the shaking isn’t really his fault. Much like the lies in this movie, that simple explanation makes things easier for him. Is it right? I’m not entirely sure.
The lesson here comes from Nai Nai’s farewell. She warns Billi of being “the bull endlessly ramming its horns into the corner of the room” and tells her that “life isn’t just about what you do, it’s more about how you do it.” Certainly this seems like no great revelation, but this movie is all about the way the story and the advice and the emotion are told.
I enjoyed it. Perhaps you will. You can watch The Farewell on Amazon Prime.
A polyamorous male couple decides to test the limits of the restrictive society that they live in when they become romantically involved with a young woman. Yes, this is the winner of the SIFF 2018 China Stars Award for Best Film and not usually the kind of film we feature on our site.
That said, it’s well-made and interestingly shot, starting off almost as a series of non-sequiturs.
Li Qi works at a dolphin show and his friend Ren Yu runs a mobile karaoke that is popular because he looks like screen actor Leslie Cheung. A young woman Bai Ling hooks up with both of them, but soon, an event rocks all of them to their very souls.
This movie is mostly dialogue-free, so if you’re concerned about the foreign language barrier, there really is none. The movie is known as Bing Lang Xue in its original language.
It’s the second film of Hu Jia, who also directed Dance With Me.
The Taste of Betel Nut is available on demand and DVD from Uncork’d Entertainment.
DISCLAIMER: This movie was sent to us by its PR department.
Eric and Reese have moved to Wakefield to start a bed and breakfast, just in time for solar flares to kick in. A medium shows up and starts informing them of the history of their property, which was once owned by a killer named Nathan Cross. A shift in energy from the flares causes the veil between the living and dead to lift, so all the death in this quaint little town has come back to haunt everyone.
Director L.A. Lopes played a cashier in the remake of Poltergeist and now she’s making movies of her own. It was written by Lindsay Seim, who was in Insidious: Chapter 2 and St. Agatha before this. Oddly, she doesn’t list writing this film in her IMDB credits.
A Wakefield Project is available on demand and on DVD from High Octane Pictures.
DISCLAIMER: This movie was sent to us by its PR department.
Critics didn’t care for Roland Emmerich’s sci-fi warm up to Universal Soldier (1992), Stargate (1994), and Independence Day, but I’ve always enjoyed this galactic cocktail that pours one part Escape from New York (a disgruntled ex-soldier/anti-hero Felix “Don’t call me Snake” Stone) and two equal parts of Outland and Alien into a Roger Corman New World Pictures commemorative tumbler that’s shaken and poured over Blade Runner.
Toto? We’re not on LV 426 anymore. I think this is “the dark side” of Moon 44!
In the year 2038, in the wake of all of Earth’s natural resources being depleted, multinational corporations—as in Creature (1985)—have taken control of the galaxy and battle each other for mining rights. The two leading companies, Pyrite Defense and Galactic Mining, are in a current battle over a grouping of moons—46, 47, and 51—in a remote region of space known as the Outer Zone. Pyrite has already taken control of the moons and stole two of Galactic Mining’s mineral shuttles—and they’re on their way to take Moon 44.
So Galactic Mining hires Stone (Michael Pare of Eddie and the Cruisers andStreets of Fire) who, to get out of his contract, must take an undercover mission—as a prisoner, along with other prisoners that’ll be granted full pardons for flying a fleet of Airwolf meets Blue Thunder hybrid battle-choppers to protect the mining operation. While there, Stone mixes it up with fellow prisoner O’Neal (Brian Thompson, who made his debut in Sly Stallone’s Cobra) and the crooked mining operation defense officers played by Malcolm McDowell (Rob Zombie’s Halloween reboot, American Satan, FOX News mogul Rupert Murdoch in 2019’s Bombshell) and Leon Rippy (General West in Stargate, HBO’s Deadwood).
So, is Moon 44 galactic flotsam and jetsam for the Death Star’s trash compactors? Eh, for a $15 million budgeted B-Movie shot in West Germany, Moon 44 certainly looks great, thanks to cinematographer Karl Walter Linderlaub (who shot Universal Soldier, Stargate, and Independence Day), and the up-against-the-budget production designs by Oliver Scholl and Sven Hass. (While Hass faded from the business, Scholl pressed onward, working on Edge of Tomorrow, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Suicide Squad.)
Moon 44 served as the final mainstream film of actor Stephen Geoffreys, who portrayed Cookie, a drug-dealing military flight navigator. After starting out with memorable roles in the ‘80s hits Heaven Help Us, Fraternity Vacation, Fright Night (as Evil Ed), and 976-Evil, he left Hollywood to work in gay porn—under the names Larry Bent and Sam Ritter. And it was also the last acting gig for Dean “I’m not John Cryer” Devlin, who rose through the ranks of Hollywood as a writer and producer, most recently with Geostorm (2017).
Originally intended for an American theatrical release, the producers eventually realized the film’s shortcoming as a weak competitor to the films from where it pinched all of its ideas, so it became a popular direct-to-video rental (marketed as “The Most Thrilling Adventure Since Star Wars,” and “The Most Suspenseful Journey Since Aliens”) and was part of a “Moon” TV syndication package that aired on American UHF-TV alongside The Dark Side of the Moon (1990) and Moontrap (1989).
Free VHS rips of Moon 44 come and go — and the two decent uploads we once had linked are now gone from You Tube. It was also on Amazon Prime — and that upload is gone as well. So Google and You Tube at your leisure to see if you find a streaming upload.
And while we’re on the subject of cool, little sci-fi films such as Moon 44, The Dark Side of the Moon, and Creature, be sure to check out our reviews for two clever, ultra-low budgeted sci-fi films filled with more heart and soul than most big-budget studio romps: Space Trucker Bruce and Ares 11. You’ll be glad that you did.
This third and final movie by Fangoria magazine’s film shingle, produced in conjunction with Columbia Pictures, who wanted to get into the home video horror market, wants to be to the ‘90s what Basket Case and Re-Animator(in particular) were to video renters in the ‘80s. And while Severed Ties doesn’t measure up (does any movie co-starring SNL third banana Garrett Morris, ever do?) to the unhinged, off-the-wall dark humor of either, it will slide in nicely into your retro-horror collection shelf alongside both, along with your copies of the Bill Paxton-starring Brain Dead (1989) and the granddaddy of black humor horror, Return of the Living Dead. And will you flashback to David Cronenberg’s mind-of-its-own asassinating arm in Videodrome? Yes, and it’s a welcomed reminder.
My advice: double feature Severed Ties with Edward Hunt’s The Brain (1988; which is equally off-the-wall, but played straight) and you’ll have yourself one hell of a popcorn-noshing night starring brains and lizard arms swingin’ their tails.
Harrison Harrison (‘80s TV actor Billy Morrissette from Family Ties, Growing Pains, and Blossom) is a young scientist carrying on his dead father’s work in tissue and limb regeneration utilizing reptilian DNA—much to the chagrin of his overbearing and domineering mother, Helena (Elke Sommer; a long ways away from Baron Blood and Lisa and the Devil).
During the course of good ‘ol mom and her ex-Nazi doctor-lover, Dr. Hans Vaughn (Oliver Reed, a long ways away from Burnt Offerings), stealing the formula to sell as their own, the ensuing argument that erupts between the trio ends in tragedy when the lab’s automated door closes and severs Harrison’s arm. So he injects himself with the regeneration serum (in Re-Animator day-glo green, natch) to grow a new arm. And one does sprout—only with reptilian scales. Then it transforms into a lizard-snake monster that can detach from his body, crawl off, and kill. (The arm detachment and reattachments scenes—with, I kid you not, Harrison’s “shoulder vagina” and his phallic arm—are a piss-and-a-half and only darkens the already dark comedic bend of the film.)
Now every on-the-run anti-hero needs a sidekick, so Harrison meets up with Stripes, a homeless war vet (Garrett Morris) who lives with a sewer-based religious cult led by wildman wrestler, actor and musician Johnny Legend, doing what he does best as a crazed, maniacal preacher (Sam? How is it that you never reviewed My Breakfast with Blassie?). Harrison’s lizard arm, of course, dispatches Legend—and Harry takes over as leader of the cult and sets forth to create a lizard-spawn army. Oh, and our anti-hero needs a damsel-in-distress love interest, so he meets Eve, a homeless mute girl (Denise Wallace, who vanished from the business and never acted in another project) that’s kidnapped by the evil corporation that wants the regeneration formula.
And wow . . . just wow. You gotta watch out for that out-of-left field, incestuous twist ending right out David Cronenberg’s The Fly.
Elke and Oliver, being the pros that they always are, know the material is pure camp, so they just go for broke, chewin’ the scenery with relish and aplomb—with Reed stealing the show with his deadpan comedic performance. (Reed is regarded as Britain’s “purest actor”; unlike most stodgy British actors, Reed never studied Shakespeare or acted on the stage. For a brief time in the early ‘70s, he was the #1 box office actor in the world—and had the balls and clout to turn down the role of Quint in 1975’s Jaws. That’s bad ass . . . and a bag o’ chips.)
The German theatrical one-sheet and Fangoria’s promotion of the film in the pages of their magazine.
The most interesting of aspect of Severed Ties—as with Jay Roach getting his start with Zoo Radio—is that it also marks the beginning of a long and successful screenwriting career. Before you can get to write the big, major studio pictures The Net (1995; starring Sandra Bullock), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Cat Woman (2004), and Terminator Salvation (2009), you have to make your bones writing for Fangoria magazine’s bid to create a film shingle over the door. So John Brancato scribed two of their films: Severed Ties and Mindwarp (1992; starring Bruce Campbell and Angus Scrimm). (Fangoria’s other film was 1991’s Children of the Night starring Karen Black).
(Enjoy this trailer for Fangoria Films/Columbia Pictures Corporation co-productions of Severed Tied and Children of the Night from the 1992 VHS release of Mindwarp (1992). Upload courtesy of the Goremet.)
Severed Ties is another one of those obscurities that never plays on TV (come on Comet and Antenna TV, do us a solid) and is not available on DVD. So if you want it for your collection, you’ll have to purchase one of the many VHS copies available on eBay and Amazon. And watch out for those grey market DVD rips. You can watch a pretty clean VHS rip on You Tube.
Do you need more WTF? movies of the Severed Ties variety? Then check out our December 2018 “Ten WTF Movies” with links to full reviews.
About the Author:You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and B&S Movies, and learn more about his work on Facebook.
“It’s a brain. Not an animal.” — Dr. Anthony Blake
Warning! This Canuxploitation shocker carries the Shapiro-Glickenhaus Entertainment seal of approval. Yes, the studio that brought us everything from Basket Case to Maniac Cop, from Black Roses to Frankenhooker. Then there’s C.H.U.D., Death Spa and Zombie Nightmare. If you haunted the video store shelves of the ‘80s, you’ve loaded a Shapiro-Glickenhaus VHS into a VCR.
And you know what that means: The acting will be questionable (and, in the case of The Brain, you’ll end up rooting for “The Brain” and not the dick-whiny high school hero and his screechy girlfriend). The story will be weak (and, in the case of The Brain, the ending is just stupidly lame). But you will get yourself a slice of low-budget entertainment of the first order. The fact that Ed Hunt directs is icing on the B-Movie schlock cake.
Oh, and yes: you will get some questionable production values; it is an SGE flick, after all. However, in the case of The Brain, you do not want to miss director Ed Hunt’s opening hallucination set piece of inward-pressing walls, live teddy bears bleeding from the eyes, demon hands tearing through walls, and monster tentacles punching out of TV sets. Considering the budget, it’s very well done.
Hey, why am I telling you? See for yourself!
Yeah we love Canadian director Ed Hunt here at B&S Movies. Why? Hunt’s an “all in” type of filmmaker and you do not get run-of-the-mill storytelling. When he does a Star Wars rip, you get Starship Invasions, a tale about UFOs and an underwater pyramid filled with telepathic aliens and Sir Christopher Lee in a black Gumby outfit. When he does a slasher flick, you get Blood Birthday, a story about telepathic kids born under a solar eclipse infected with a taste for blood. And with The Brain you do not get a straight, graphic horror film: you get a campy, sociological statement on Scientology brainwashing, the psychological effects of television, and a lesson that, in order to succeed, you have to submit to some level of conformity. But again, this is an Ed Hunt flick, so you’ll have to wade through the blood of a wife “divorcing” her husband via an electric carving knife.
The Brain reunites Bloody Birthday screenwriter Barry Pearson (Firebird 2015 AD) with Ed Hunt (they also worked together on 1986’s Alien Warrior) for more of that same “what the hell, why not” approach in a film that critical guides opine is a cross between the ‘50s classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the dumber John Agar camp fest that is The Brain from Planet Arous. Now, while that’s an accurate pitch, I’d have to add that this mind control romp also tosses in a hallucinatory dash of Don Coscarelli’s Phantasmand David Cronenberg’s Videodrome. More astute fans of the video-obscure may name check the New Zealand-Australian shot Strange Behavior (aka Dead Kids), which dealt with teens mind-controlled into murder.
As with the aforementioned-linked Blood Birthday, we’re back for more horrors in the small “Southern California” town of Meadowvale (actually a real Canadian town). Dr. Anthony Blake (played by British-Canadian actor David Gale, who pleasantly reminds us of his superb work as Dr. Carl Hill in Re-Animator) is a local psychiatrist and self-help guru of wayward teens. The fact that his teen patients have suffered hallucinations that led them to commit murders and suicides doesn’t seem to alarm anyone. In fact, the ratings of his Dr. Phil-inspired “Independent Thinkers” cable TV show has climbed so high in the local ratings that it’s ready to go national. And what’s the reason no one is alarmed: the show has everyone in town brainwashed. But don’t expect the “brainwash” to be some man-made, electromechanical device of the Cronenberg variety. There’s no From Beyond “Sonic Resonator” making anyone “see” things. This is an Ed Hunt what-the-hell-why-not mind control movie, after all.
The newest inductee to Blake’s clinic (that, with its curved architecture and round windows, looks like a UFO) for wayward teens is Jim, a high school delinquent who’s “so smart” that he’s intellectually bored to the point of blowing up the school’s toilets and has reached the point of expulsion. Jim’s “intellect” helps him in rejecting Blake’s mind-control methods masquerading as therapy—and he stumbles into Blake’s secret: a giant, disembodied alien brain, which is able to spread open its two hemisphere and swallow a person whole, is wired into Blake’s TV show’s transmissions. And what is up with the brain? Is it an alien creature? Is it something Blake cooked up in his lab? Is Blake, like The Tall Man in Phantasm, himself an alien? Or is he a human with once noble intentions now under the control of his own experiment?
Well, keep wondering. We never find out. Argh!
And remember the lame ending? Gale’s Dr. Blake gets punched in the face—one punch, mind you—and his head falls off (a funny homage to his career-making role) and spurts green zombie-goo. Then Jim, the prank-pulling jackass “hero” once on the verge of suspension, rides off into the sunset and gets into Princeton? Where’s the Phantasm twist-ending where we get the ol’ “it’s just a dream/no, it’s not” and Jim the Dick gets what he deserves: an alien brain tentacle choke n’ chomp as he’s yanked into the hallucinatory abyss. We loved Mike—and we were sad when The Tall Man sucked him through the broken mirror. Jim deserves a Dr. Blake from beyond comeuppance.
Eh, who cares! How can you turn down a movie with David Gale hamming it up and losing his head, again (!), nudity, a damsel chained up in cold storage, and a giant, man-eating brain that grows a face and slimes around the catacombs of a psychiatric hospital on its spinal cord? The Brain is one of those movies, like Phantasm or Black Roses, Shock ‘em Dead or Shock Waves, that I’ve revisited many, many times over the years from the warmth of my VCR. Is this as crazy as Fangoria’s Severed Ties. Oh, hell yes, and a bag ‘o chips!
Thanks to those fine folks at Shout Factory, you won’t need to scour the web for a muddy VHS print for your collection, as they released The Brain on Blu-ray in April 2019. If you’d rather a DVD copy, then you will have to scour the web to find the now out-of-print 2011 DVD issued by Britain’s Boulevard Entertainment.
If you can’t wait that long, you can take a dive into the green, brain tank waters of You Tube with these VHS rips of the full movie here and here. We also featured The Brain — with a second look — as part of our weekly “Drive-In Friday” featurettes with a tribute to the old USA Network’s “Night Flight” programming block from the ’80s.
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 for B&S Movies.
Lots of Henry Farrell’s stories got turned into movies. Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, Such A Gorgeous Kid Like Me, How Awful About Allan, The House That Would Not Die, What’s the Matter with Helen?, The Eyes of Charles Sand and, most famously, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
His first book, The Hostage, was turned in to this low budget Crown International film, which was directed by Russell S. Doughten Jr., who would go on to executive produced the entire A Thief In the Night series of Christian pre-millenial madness. God bless you, Mr. Doughten, for all you have given to me.
A kid named Davey Cleaves sneaks on to a moving truck driven by the bonkers man named Bull (Don Kelly, a TV star who died young as this is his final movie) and his partner Eddie (a very young Harry Dean Stanton).
John Carradine shows up, as he does at least seventeen times a week in movies that I watch, as does Ann Doran, whose career started in the silent era.
This was the first movie ever shot in Iowa. What a joy for the state when a drunken John Carradine was arrested in Des Moines, as he was disturbing the peace by loudly acting out various Shakespeare plays.
You can watch this on Tubi. Or You Tube. Or turn to the Mill Creek Explosive Cinema set that we’ve been covering all week.
There was a hole in the B&S About Movies schedule at 12 noon on Friday, March 13. And I can’t think of another film more fitting than Dohler’s third film, Nightbeast, to slide into the VHS shelf between Crown International’s Terror in the Jungle*—the worst jungle flick of all time—and Ed Hunt’s The Brain (coming up at 3 pm)—the most whacked-out horror flick of all time (yes, even more whacked-out than Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator).
I have to admit: When Dohler came back from his decade long, self-imposed celluloid exile after The Galaxy Invader (which is, pretty much, the SAME movie—to a very sad, lesser effect—as his The Alien Factor and, of course, Nightbeast; which is why I’ve passed on reviewing it, myself), I never went back to his oeuvre, which revived with Blood Massacre (1991), then six more films until 2007.
Oh, the nostalgia: I’ll always remember Donnie for his “Big Four,” 16-to-35mm drive-era, SOV ’80s** precursors (which I lump into my SOV lamenting and pontificating at the site, for it’s all about the “vibe” of it all): The Alien Factor (1978), Fiend (1980), Nightbeast (1982), and The Galaxy Invader (1985), each of which end up on some variation of an ‘80s video fringe critic’s “Ed Wood’s School of Filmmaking” worst-of lists. As for me: Dohler is the Tommy Wiseau of sci-fi and horror. His films may be incompetent, but he, like Ed Wood before him, had a lot of heart. A lot. Sure, you can call Don an awful filmmaker . . . but he is an inspired one.
As part of the site’s March 2019 review of The Galaxy Invader, in promotion of the new Rifftrax version of the film, we briefly explored Dohler’s backstory, so we’ll dispense with the history lesson and pop-in his VHS ‘80s classic and get to reviewin’!
It’s the same . . . but different.
As with The Galaxy Invader, we have ourselves another Earth-stranded alien chasing rednecks though the woods. And as with John Carpenter and Don Coscarelli not taking any chances with their sequels to Escape from New York and Phantasm, Dohler crafted Nightbeast as a sequel-remake of his debut film, The Alien Factor—which also a has an alien loose in the Americana backwoods. And even for a Dohler film, Nightbeast shows a vast improvement in quality. As it should: The Alien Factor was shot for, get this, $3,500; he upped his game for Nightbeast to $14,000. And it’s so good that it made the U.K Section 3 “Video Nasties” list, which we touched on in our “Exploring: Video Nasties Section 3” overview.
What the hell? “Music by Jeffrey Abrams” in the opening credits? Not the J.J Abrams from the Star Trek and Star Wars reboots? Yep. Everyone has to start somewhere, and a teenaged Double-J started with a Don Dohler film.
And that film starts out really good—considering its budget—with decent matte, modeling, and camera-plate work that rivals any of Alfonso Brescia Star Wars knockoffs (watch Star Odysseyand compare), and reminds of Charles Band’s Laserblast (1978; only Nightbeast is the better film), as an alien ship comes out of a space-warp over Jupiter and a subsequent meteor collision causes it to crash on Earth—in the hick town of Perry Hall. (Did you ever notice how these alien spawns always land/crash in a “hick town” in these flicks, e.g., Alienator, anyone?)
Coolness that makes me want to watch, again!
So, you say you can only afford the (honestly, for a Dohler film, they’re very impressive) head and hands for your Gigeresque alien? Not a problem, pop that bad boy into a silver lamé jumpsuit and get to the killin’.
And we get our first kill (again, for a Dohler film, it’s impressive) with a ray gun that dispenses a redneck-dufus in a colorful lightshow-animation. And when it’s not gunslingin’, our xenomorph lets loose with some pretty decent on-a-budget eye-pops and gut rips. And bonus: this movie isn’t afraid to disintegrate two kids.
And that’s pretty much the whole film in a nutshell. The local sheriff’s department is dispatched and he gathers a redneck posse that, as with William Malone’s Creature(1985), uses the old The Thing from Another World “trick” of setting a trap-by-electricity.
How loved is this movie? Director Panos Cosmatos runs the film on a TV in a scene from his 2018 film, Mandy. And that impressive alien costume and model work? Those were designed by John Dods. He would come to work on the Poltergeist, Ghostbusters, and Alien franchises. You can also see his early work in the video fringe nasty, The Deadly Spawn (1983).
You have two choices to watch Nightbeast for free: You Tube has it commercial free, and it’s also on TubiTV. While on TubiTV you can also queue a copy of John Kinhart’s Don Dohler documentary Blood, Boobs & Beast. If you’d like to own both, they were packaged as a 2009 Troma DVD double feature. Vinegar Syndrome’s reissue doesn’t include the documentary, but it’s loaded with behind-the-scenes extras.
Be sure to click that SOV ’80s tag, below, to open yourself up to a world of 16mm and camcorder-shot films that populated our video store shelves.
** Click through our SOV category tag to discover more SOV films from their ’80s VHS birth to the digital and phone-shot brethren of today.
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 writes for B&S About Movies.
Seeing as how we’re all going to be trapped in our houses forever, I’ve decided to start a new feature here. Each Friday, I’m going to share four movies that I’d play for an all-night drive-in feature if I had my own drive-in.
Want to share your four films and the reasons why? It’s easy! Just write to bandsaboutmovies@gmail.com or add a comment below. We’ll get in touch and share your festival with the world.
Make sure to drive with your parking lights on and clean up after yourself. And don’t forget to try our snack bar, which will remain open until the last feature starts
MOVIE 1: Endgame (Joe D’Amato, 1983): There are post-apocalyptic movies. And then there’s Endgame, a movie that has just about every Italian genre star who meant anything in 1983 all playing a deadly game show that is The Running Man before The Running Man.
Al Cliver — from Zombi and The Beyond — plays the hero, but the real stars of the show are the supporting players, like B&S About Movies patron saint George Eastman as best friend and better enemy Kurt Karnak, the psychic Lilith (if I have to tell you who Laura Gemser is, get outta my drive-in), Gabriele Tinti, Al Yamanouchi, Gordon Mitchell (Dr. Frankenstein from Frankenstein ’80), Bobby Rhodes and a Michele Soavi cameo (he was the second unit director).
The always name-changing D’Amato (born Aristide Massaccesi) used the name Steven Benson on this one. You’ll recognize it’s one of his movies that minute Gemser is forced to make love to a mutant fish-man who screams, “Look at me while I rape you!”
Blind ninja monks led by psychic children. Mutants driving around on golf carts. Dialogue like, “You’re too famous to disappear in a city that grows smaller every day.” A Spaghetti Western ending. I want to watch this ten times in a row all over again right now.
You can see this on Amazon Prime, because it’s not available anywhere else.
MOVIE 2: Dial Help (Ruggero Deodato, 1988): It seems like my drive-in is all about movies that are impossible to find on home video. Oh well — that’s what being outside (or in your car) for a movie is all about.
This baffling end of the Italian horror boom movie has it all, if all means a nonsensical at best story, killer telephones, gorgeous camerawork, a piercing Claudio Simonetti soundtrack and a scene where Charlotte Lewis puts on her finest lingerie and jumps into a bathtub because the phones command her to do so. Man, I love telephones.
Have you ever seen a movie where a payphone decimates a would-be rapist with thousands of quarters? No. You have not. And guess what — this isn’t available on DVD over here.
MOVIE 3: Enter the Devil (Mario Gariazzo, 1974): By this point in the evening, all of the kids have gone home or are asleep. So that means it’s time to let the real crazy stuff out of the film canisters.
This film — based on a real story, but come on, we all know that’s bullshit — is about Daniela, an art student who is studying a cursed church when one of the thieves crucified next to Jesus gets down off his plaster cross and makes sweet, sweet love to her on the altar. And that’s but the beginning of this completely reprehensible 70’s occult gem.
Ivan Rassimov plays Satan. What more can be said? You’ll watch this while downing some moonshine and pizza with hot sauce all over it and love every minute.
Also known as The Eerie Midnite Horror Show, this is available on DVD, including several Mill Creek anthology sets. Be a maniac like me and spend way too much money on the out of print Code Red release!
MOVIE 4: American Tiger (Sergio Martino, 1990): My love for this film knows no boundaries. I am more than an advocate for it. I am an acolyte. And I know no better time to play it than at 4:30 AM, when everyone is either asleep or in another state of bliss. This is the perfect time to savor this late-period Sergio Martino film.
Donald Pleasence plays a televangelist who is locked in an eternal war with a Chinese woman who may also be a cat. Of course, she’s a Persian. His son is into being cucked and secretly videotapes former Olympic gymnast Mitch Gaylord to have a tryst with his redhead wife, which involves wearing his jeans in the shower before some men show up and blow his boat up real good. Also, Pleasence isn’t even human, but instead, a poor Southern accent spewing warthog. Bring edibles.
You can watch this night now on Amazon Prime. It comes out in May — FINALLY – on blu ray. Preorder it now!
The drive-in is closed. Please be careful pulling out and watch for your fellow drive-in lovers. Make sure you take the speaker off your car before you pull away. See you in not too many moons!
B&S About Movies 
You must be logged in to post a comment.