It’s Only a Movie (1989)

Joe Zaso also made the two Screambook movies and Guilty Pleasures and is known as the Horror Himbo. An avid bodybuilder, he made appearances as The Hulk, Spider-Man, the New Jersey Devil and Captain America. And if you care about such things, because of his 15 EEE shoe size, he wears his own shoes for every film he appears in.

Directing this film and co-writing it with this movie’s cinematographer V.C. Siegfried, Zaso also stars in it along with Brian Dixon, who plays two roles, Bosco and Madman Malone. The story is all about a film crew shooting a horror movie in a haunted house and, as you can imagine, the cast and crew soon start showing up dead. You’ve seen it all before, but have you seen it shot on video? Have you seen an older starlet engaging in pillow talk while in the tub to a man she doesn’t know is a zombie? Are you prepared for horrific accidents? The camera accidentally catching people yawning? A close that finds an entire gospel church on stage with lyrics about sweeping your floor?

Honestly, usually a gospel choir can save any movie or song. This is the one time I’ve seen this not happen, as the choir is barely competent and that made me enjoy this movie even more. I also enjoyed the video effects and chromakey taking the places of stock footage lightning.

Zaso himself referred to this as a “less-than-stellar musical.”

Who are we to deny him?

I joke, though, because this movie really fascinates me because how many people pushed this hard and decided to not just make a shot on video, but a shot on video musical? Zeso learned a lot from his earlier films, the horror anthologies Screambook and Screambook 2, and this really shows a ton of promise. His films are entertaining, which is more than I can say for so many other movies.

You can watch this on YouTube.

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