The Phantom Empire is a very meta film. Its title refers to the 1935 Gene Autry movie serial — which was kind of remade as part of the show Cliffhangers! — as well as having Robby the Robot in its cast, Jeffrey Combs’ character Andrew Paris saying that he went to Miskatonic University (the same school from Re-Animator) and vehicles from director Fred Olen Ray’s movie Star Slammer and Logan’s Run show up, as well as footage from 1977’s Planet of Dinosaurs. Maybe by referential sometimes I’m also saying cost-effective.

Ray got the idea for this film while filming Commando Squad in a Bronson Canyon cave. He wrote the script over the weekend and then started filming the day after Commando Squad wrapped, using the same cast and crew. That’s impressive but the original inspiration for the 1935 Phantom Empire is wilder. Writer Wallace MacDonald came up with the entire movie — plot, characters, their names, costumes, literally every single moment of the serial — while he was being treated with nitrous oxide by his dentist.

A cave creature with millions in diamonds around his neck emerges from a cave and rips someone’s head off before it’s stopped. A party is made of Cort Eastman (Ross Hagen), Denae Chambers (Susan Stokey), Andrew Paris (Combs), Professor Strock (Robert Quarry) and Eddy Colchilde (Dawn Wildsmith, Ray’s wife) to enter the caves and see what they can salvage.

They soon find a hidden world, Robby the Robot and a queen played by Sybil Danning, which is really why most people rented this. Throw in Michele Bauer as a cave girl and that’s why they definitely rented this.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Nicky Marotta (Robin Johnson, D.O.A.) and Pamela Pearl (Trini Alvarado, The Frighteners) meet in a place where it seems like all hope is gone: New York Neurological Hospital. Nicky just got sent there by the cops after she wouldn’t stop playing guitar in the streets and trashed a car. Pamela is there so she can stop embarrassing her father (Peter Coffield), a wealthy politician out to clean up Times Square. They define fast friends and why Nicky has to return to see her social worker, she breaks Pamela out and they hide out on the Chelsea Pier.

DJ Johnny LaGuardia (Tim Curry, as always incredible) figures out that the missing rich girl and a regular listener named Zombie Girl are one and the same. As part of his battle against the campaign to gentrify the Deuce, he reaches out to the girls who have formed a band called The Sleez Sisters. He helps get the word out — perhaps to further his own agenda — as the girls write scathing letters to the adults in their lives, perform raucous concerts on the air and throw TV sets into the streets from tall buildings.

The rebellion and joy they find in the band ultimately pushes the two apart, as it helps Pamela recognize that she’s a worthy person while Nicky runs from belonging and safety. But the redemptive power of rock and roll can save everyone.

“If they treat you like garbage, put on a garbage bag. If they treat you like a bandit, black out your eyes!” yells Nicky at one point. Moyle was inspired by a diary that he found hidden in a second-hand couch, one that told the life story of mentally disturbed young woman who lived on the streets. He said, “This girl was burning the candle at both ends. She would go into bars — she was too young — but she would go in anyway and get arrested. She had no intention of reaching the age of 21.”

Somehow, this movie made its way to producer Robert Stigwood, who saw it as another Saturday Night Fever. He deleted the lesbian scenes — which is near impossible, as the entire movie is about the relationship between two young women. Moyle left the film before it was finished, upset that he needed to include scenes to sell the soundtrack.

Man, Robert Stigwood…

As part of her role in this Times Square, Johnson signed an exclusive three-year contract with the Robert Stigwood Organization. RSO would develop film and music projects for her and market her as the “the female John Travolta.” As her contract legally barred her from accepting offers or auditions from rival companies, she turned down work for years and worked in a bank until her contract ran out. She finally gave up on acting and worked as a traffic reporter on a Los Angeles radio station.

As for the soundtrack, it features The Ramones, The Cure, XTC, Lou Reed, Gary Numan, Talking Heads, Garland Jeffreys, Joe Jackson, Suzi Quatro, Roxy Music, Patti Smith and The Pretenders. The RSO influence comes in for the Robin Gibb and Marci Levy song “Help Me!” that runs over the credits. There are also songs by the cast: “Damn Dog” by Johnson, “Your Daughter Is One” by Johnson and Alvarado, and “Flowers of the City” by Johnson and New York Dolls singer David Johansen. The lyrics to those songs came from the film’s writer, Jacob Brackman, who also wrote “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” and “Haven’t Got Time for the Pain” with Carly Simon, as well as the song “Two Looking at One” from The Karate  Part II and the movie The King of Marvin Gardens.

Times Square wasn’t a success upon release, but much like Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, the fans that it made — like Manic Street Preachers and Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre — would make their own noise soon enough.

As for Moyle, he’d go on to make two other generational films that didn’t find an immediate audience: Pump Up the Volume and Empire Records.

You can get this from Kino Lorber. The blu ray has a new HD master from a 4K scan of the original camera negative, new commentary by film historian Kat Ellinger, a second commentary track with Moyle and Johnson, and the trailer.

Jesse (Robin Antin, who helped form the Pussycat Dolls and choreographed Paris Hilton’s Carl’s Jr. commercial) murders her abusive stepfather and gets sent to prison, a prison filled with all the WIP cliches, like delousing showers, mean girl butchery thanks to Maxine Farmer (Rhonda Aldrich, Cynthia from Boogeyman II) and her henchwoman Echo (Robin Cleaver) and a mix between prison blues and the clothing that would define breakdance.

When I hear phrases like “women in prison plus breakdance,” a part of me passes out I get so excited and I wake up and the other part of my brain is just yelling at the screening and dancing around the room like I’m on Solid Gold in 1982.

Luckily, Jesse has the nerdy Peggy (Valerie Jean Richards, Hard Rock Nightmare, Appointment With Death), singing tough girl Samantha (Jacqueline Houston) and Mouse (Annie Livingstone, Skatelady from The Wizard of Speed and Time) on her side.

It also has a cruel warden played by Ron Lacey, who once he was Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark knew he’d only be slimy villains. And even though director Phillip Schuman made the X-rated Randy, which starred Juliet “Aunt Peg” Anderson and Desiree Cousteau, he forgets that most people come to WIP movies for the nudity and sleaze, not girls practicing long and involved dance numbers under the guise of escape.

Filmed in 1984 and released long after the death of the craze in 1988, you should watch this in the only way that matters: a battered VHS rip dubbed into a language that  it was not shot in.

When a poor farmer named Yasuke dies, all of his fields are taken — legally if not ethically — by landlord Chobei Onuma. That man now takes Yasuke’s wife Sue and daughter Asa as servants to work off his debt, an action that introduces Chobei to the ghost of the farmer. He orders their home destroyed and a gigantic snake appears before being killed — a bad omen in Japanese culture and but the start of the curse.

Asa and Sue are abused not only by Chobei but also by his Masae and son Takeo. Sue tries to protect another snake but pays for that act with her life, leaving her mother alone to deal with the sexual advances of her new master’s son. Yet the ghosts haven’t left and while rich men may rule the physical world, they have no say over the supernatural one.

Directed by Nobuo Nakagawa (Jigoku) and written by Fumi Konami (Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion), this may not be the all-out shock that later Japanese horror would spray all over the screen, but it has moments of eerie calm amongst the otherworldly.

Why did it take this long to get this movie on this site?

Ms. Johnson (Jacqueline Cole, director Grayden Clark’s wife) has perhaps the smallest cheer squad ever. Just four girls — Debbie (Alisa Powell, The Toolbox Murders), Sharon (Sherry Marks), Patti (Kerry Sherman, Eyes of Fire) and Chris (Hillary Horan, Young Doctors In Love) — who are more interested in playing touch football and getting scored on by the football team than doing their routines. 

After their car breaks down on the way to their big game, Billy the janitor and bus driver (Jack Kruschen, The Apartment) rescues them. And by rescue, I mean sacrificing them on an altar to Satan. They’re saved again by a hobo (John Carradine), the sheriff (John Ireland) and his wife (Yvonne De Carlo) and you know what I always say: never trust Old Hollywood.

Shot in ten days with no permits, Satan’s Cheerleaders is mindless fun with an entire town devoted to the Lord of the Flies and a cheerleader with a secret of her own.

Castle of the Living Dead is a movie of mystery.

Who directed it?

Warren Kiefer, who couldn’t be directly credited for the film as the film required an Italian director?

Herbert Wise — Luciano Ricci, the film’s first assistant director — whose name was used to fulfill that needed native director credit?

Riccardo Freda, who left I Vampiri for Mario Bava to finish and also made Double Face and Tragic Ceremony?

Michael Reeves, the tragically lost too song director who made Witchfinder General? Depending on who is asked, Reeves either did minor second unit work, a polish on the script’s dwarf character, a complete takeover of the movie or nothing at all.

And did Mario Bava do effects?

So many mysteries!

This gothic horror movie stars Christopher Lee as Count Drago, a man who embalms humans and animals, making them part of his eternal theater thanks to a chemical formula that instantly kills and embalms anything that lives, arresting them at the very moment of death.

Beyond Lee, the cast includes Gaia Germani (Hercules In the Haunted World), Philippe Leroy (The Laughing Woman), Luciano Pigozzi (the Italian Peter Lorre), Luigi Bonos (Frankenstein 80) and Donald Sutherland in his first movie playing a witch, an old man and Sergeant Paul.

Co-writer Paul Maslansky would go on to produce tons of movies like Death Line, She Beast, Race with the Devil, Damnation Alley and Ski Patrol amongst so many others, as well as creating the original concept — and producing — all of the Police Academy movies.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Also known as Poison and Midnight Vendetta, this Jim Wynorski film puts together a yin and a yang of enticing female stars with Kari Wuhrer and Barbara Crampton as Ann Stewart and Nicole Garrett.

Ann’s husband Chris will do anything to get ahead, even hot wife her for his clients. Yet when he’s fired — he soon commits suicide — and replaced by Nicole’s husband Scott (Jeff Trachta), you may say that she loses her mind. She starts by blowing up the CEO who fired her husband real good with his entire family collateral damage.

Nicole and Scott barely get along. They’re both too busy with work. Their daughter Darla (Melissa Stone) is coming of age — and doing even more on a washing machine with her boyfriend  — while their current housekeeper Karina (Peggy Trentini) is so close to making Scott renounce his marital promises.

That’s when Ann comes on in, kills Karina in the shower, gets hired as the new au pair and starts taking over as wife and mother. Also, she pours raw sugar into diabetic Nicole’s food, which is in no way how you kill a diabetic. You just make them very tired that way. I mean, I guess eventually you could murder someone that way but it feels so ineffective.

Barbara Crampton looks younger than her teen daughter.

Every shot seems to be edited in a way that makes each shot after a closer close-up until scenes cut and paste on top of each other, edits ending before dialogue does, a hamfisted attempt at assembling what one can only imagine are the only takes of each scene with all the coverage of the Little Match Girl on a cold winter’s night.

Then again, Kari Wuhrer and Barbara Crampton go to war.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Blumhouse TV’s direct to streaming films end up being enormously entertaining and remind me of the reasons why I love the made for TV movies of the past. For some reason, they feel more focused despite — or perhaps because of — their reduced budgets.

Torn Hearts is a great example of that.

Leigh (Alexxis Lemire) and Jordan (Abby Quinn) are the Torn Hearts, a Nashville duo working hard every day and every night to make it in the country music business. Of the two, Jordan is the one who might be less comfortable on stage and more a music lifer, someone whose closest shot at fame may be someone else singing her song. Leigh is the mover, sweet on the outside but smart enough to get sleep before the studio (and hooking up with the band’s manager played by Joshua Leonard from The Blair Witch Project). As for Jordan? She’s hooking up with country megastar Caleb (Shiloh Fernandez, Evil Dead) and already learning that most men in the business are all out for themselves.

So while their fling doesn’t lead to any opportunities, it does open one door. Caleb had been working with the mysterious Harper Dutch, one half of a country duo that the Torn Hearts idolize. Katey Segal owns this movie, emitting Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? vibes while maintaining old country rock and roll edge. She’s pure danger, ready to confess to past sins, drink hard liquor before 9 AM and put the girls through some brutal encounter exercises for the chance to record with her.

Directed by Brea Grant (who was Mya Rockwell in Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2) and written by Rachel Koller Croft (who also wrote the lyrics for the strong songs within the film), Torn Hearts is a real surprise. A country music based horror movie about lost fame, regret and trying to instill lessons in someone who is in your old shoes but not having the language or sanity to achieve your aims. Or maybe Harper just likes tearing things up?

Yaron Levy, who was the cinematographer for Scream: The TV Series, The Purge series and the upcoming Maniac Cop revival makes this film look dark and sinister when needed and sugar sweet when that’s the mood. Editor Hunter M. Via (The Mist, The Walking Dead) really makes the end tense and adds some true surprise with the way shots are revealed.

This film made me reflect on the sadness of country. One needs only look at the recent tragedy of the Judds to see that achieving fame is just part of the story. Life doesn’t get easier when you’re famous. And when family is part of the story, things can be hard. I’ve been thinking through this movie and how it comes together — and it’s dark as it gets coda — since I’ve watched it. You’ll be doing the same when you do.

Torn Hearts is available for digital purchase from Paramount Home Entertainment.

There’s a fine line between watching a movie inspired by the pandemic and your own experiences during it. Therefore, if being reminded of the last two years would make you overthink the last two years and shudder, well…don’t say you weren’t warned.

Machination is 62 minutes of Maria (Steffi Thake) losing her sanity during the time of the coronavirus. She never left that first stage that we were all in, disinfecting herself and everything that comes into her home, avoiding everyone she can. Becca has photos of my first trip out of the house to get groceries and I look like I’m about to escape the Bronx or enter Bartertown.

Shot for around six grand and in ten days in Malta, the film stays on Maria for most of the film as she deals with calls from her boss, her landlord, her boyfriend and a family member whose abuse is at the root of her germaphobia and agoraphobia in the first place.

But is Maria insane for overreacting to COVID-19? I mean, am I, the only person who wears a mask in public these days dumb for how I feel? Is it a critique on those that did take care of others? Is it exploitation as it concentrates so intently on numerous shower scenes? Is it some strange fetish video of watching someone prep during a pandemic? Who can say?

You can watch Machination on digital from Nexus Production Group.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A.C. Nicholas, who has a sketchy background and hails from parts unknown in Western Pennsylvania, was once a drive-in theater projectionist and disk jockey, Currently, in addition to being a writer, editor, podcaster, and voice-over artist, he contributes to Drive-In Asylum. His first article, “Grindhouse Memories Across the U.S.A.,” was published in issue #23. He’s also written “I Was a Teenage Drive-in Projectionist” and “Emanuelle in Disney World and Other Weird Tales of a Trash Film Lover” for upcoming issues.

Once upon a time, legendary director Brian DePalma essentially created the “erotic thriller.” The genre had its genesis in the giallo films of the 60s and 70s with obscure plotting, vicious murders, and sex, usually lots of all three of those things. DePalma’s transmogrification of giallo films into the new erotic thriller entailed keeping the almost explicit sex and extremely explicit violence but making the plots more transparent for mainstream audiences and adding a larger dash of comedy, as well as his trademark movie craftsmanship. DePalma is an amazing director. Who else invented an entire genre, other than perhaps George Romero and the zombie film? 

After DePalma’s seminal Dressed to Kill, other less talented folks with less money seized upon the notion of making cheap erotic thrillers. These films, mostly direct-to-video items, were a mainstay of pay services like Cinemax throughout the 80s. Cinephiles who saw names like director Gregory Dark and exploitation movie queen Shannon Tweed on the VHS box or in the Cinemax After Dark listings, knew exactly what they were getting: good looking people mixed up in a blackmail/serial killer/murder-for-love plot punctuated by gauzy softcore couplings accompanied by mist and saxophone riffs. It was a comfortable formula. 

Trashy erotic thrillers eventually lost their charm and fell out of favor, mostly do to the “been there, seen that” nature of these cookie-cutter efforts. But recently, the erotic thriller has returned with a vengeance with the dire Deep Water directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Ben Affleck and current “it” girl Ana de Armas. And then there’s the Amazon Studios film The Voyeurs, a new contender for the title of “most entertainingly trashy erotic thriller.”

After a credit sequence showing close-ups of eyes, scored to a cover of Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without a Face” (this film’s anything but subtle), we meet Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria) and Justice Smith (Generation, Jurassic Park World: Fallen Kingdom), an impossibly attractive young couple, getting their impossibly expensive-looking first apartment together in an impossibly great location, downtown Montreal. As this is a film about these two becoming voyeurs by watching their impossibly good-looking neighbors who never, ever draw the blinds, Sweeney works as an optician. Naturally.

So far, so good. We’re playing by the rules of the genre. And as a bonus, this is all well-filmed, acted, and scored. We have a nice build up with some funny dialogue to a Cinemax After Dark version of Rear Window or DePalma’s Body Double with the couple’s spying some impossibly erotic sex in an apartment across the street and then becoming aroused themselves. Things get ramped up when the two manage to sneak a mirror into that apartment so that they can bounce a laser beam off the window and impossibly hear the other couple’s conversations. Then Sweeney sees something bad happen in the other apartment and is guilt-stricken about whether to tell the woman, who has become her friend by the near-impossible coincidence of buying glasses at Sweeney’s optical business.

If that’s not enough, this thing goes completely bat-shit, off-the-rails crazy with a huge plot twist that you’ll never see coming and is clever but impossible if you do any thinking about it. And yet there are more twists to come, including the use of a WiFi-enabled printer on a non-secure network to send messages.

Sweeney, for her part, carries the film even though she’s playing someone who makes so many sharp character turns, it’s like a stretch of the Pennsylvania turnpike. Writer-director Michael Mohan, who has written and directed mostly shorts, teases the viewer for about an hour with scenes moving toward unveiling Sweeney’s sexy body (described by one character as “magnificent”; I think so too) but then stopping just short. That’s even more suspenseful than the plot itself. After all that foreplay, the film finally lets loose with Sweeney in her undraped, uninhibited glory during a two-minute sex scene. (I can’t recall another mainstream film apart from David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence that features so much cunnilingus.) Let’s just say that it’s a scene destined to become one of the most viewed clips on the Mr. Skin website.

But wait. There are more plot twists to come before the last one right before the end credits roll. By now, you’ll know exactly how I’d describe them. Impossible.

So does The Voyeurs breathe new life into the erotic thriller? Definitely. Clocking in at just under two hours, it’s a tad long (so many plot twists, so little time) but never boring. For my jaded, voyeuristic eyes, the film was a nice surprise. It’s impossibly preposterous at its core, but it’s played so straight-faced by the cast and crew that it’s almost endearing in its trashiness. Making an entertainingly trashy erotic thriller was not such an impossible task after all. Sometimes films just need to be ridiculously fun. The Voyeurs is all that and more.