EDITOR’S NOTE: You can read another review of this movie here.

I can’t even tell you how excited I was about Robot Jox in 1990. It seemed like it was in every issue of Starlog and I kept wondering, when would one of the video stores in my hometown get it? It seemed like a live action Transformers movie and according to director Stuart Gordon, that was the idea: “While there have been animated cartoons based on these giant robots, no one has ever attempted a live-action feature about them. It struck me that it was a natural fantasy for the big screen–and a terrific opportunity to take advantage of the special effects that are available today.”

Gordon worked with special effects artist David W. Allen to create test footage for the investors for this movie and that ended up becoming the opening title sequence. Initially budgeted at $7 million — it grew to $10 million — Robot Jox was the most expensive film Empire Pictures production.

Science fiction author Joe Haldeman wrote the story with Gordon but the two battled throughout. The writer wanted a serious movie about embattled soldiers and the director wanted a Cold War movie with big special effects. Even the title was debated, as Haldeman wanted The Mechanics and Gordon wanted Robojox.

Haldeman wrote that Gordon later recognized that the author was “writing a movie for adults that children can enjoy” while Gordon had been “directing a movie for children that adults can enjoy.”

Despite those issues and Empire’s bankruptcy causing delays, I still fondly remember this film, as when I finally got to see it, I really enjoyed it. Obviously, Guillermo del Toro did, as the way the robots are controlled and how the pilots are trained are so close to his Pacific Rim.

Only the American Market and the Russian Confederation have survived fifty years after a nuclear war. They decide all conflicts by having giant robots battle as robot jox control them. Alexander (Paul Koslo) is the villain and has murdered his last nine opponents thanks to a spy giving him special weak points. But now he comes up against another fighter who is at his tenth match — when robot jox can retire — Achilles (Gary Graham). Their battle will be for the rights to Alaska and there’s plenty of pressure.

Achilles trains while studying with robot designer Doc Matsumoto (Danny Kamekona, Sato from The Karate Kid Part II) and strategist Tex Conway (Michael Alldredge), the only robot jox to win all ten of his fights. There’s also an entire training center where new genetically engineered robot jox like Athena (Anne-Marie Johnson) are training to replace Achilles.

During the battle, Alexander goes wild and fires a weapon into the audience. Alexander tries to stop it but his mech crashes into the stands, killing three hundred or more of the fans. Shaken by this, he refuses to come back and fight again when the match is ruled a draw.

All sorts of chicanery ensures and Athena drugs Achilles, who comes back for that one big fight, and she gets decimated by Alexander. That leads to a second battle between Alexander and Achilles, who comes back. It even ends up in a one on one fistfight and after all the horror that the Russian pilot has visited on, well, the entire cast of this movie, they bump fists to show sportsmanship.

This was followed by Robot Wars and footage — Full Moon is big on recycling — is also in Crash and Burn.

In the world of Robot Jox, you never say “Good luck.” You say, “Crash and burn.”

I just want 15 year old me to know that in the future, I own this movie and we can watch it any time that we want.

Robot Jox is part of the Enter the Video Store — Empire of Screams box set. Extras include two archive audio commentaries (one with director Stuart Gordon and a second with associate effects director Paul Gentry, mechanical effects artist Mark Rappaport and stop-motion animator Paul Jessell), new interviews with Gary Graham and Anne-Marie Johnson as well as a new appreciation of stop motion animator David Allen, an archival interview with actor Paul Koslo, the original sales sheet and production notes, a trailer and image galleries, including behind-the-scenes stills courtesy of associate effects director Paul Gentry. You can get this set from MVD.

With “Kids In America” playing on the soundtrack over the sunshiny last day of Camp Briarbrook at the start of this movie, She Came from the Woods seems like the kind of movie that would be opening in theaters and drive-ins forty years ago. Instead, it’s on Tubi.

After the campers all leave for home. Peter (Spencer List), the bad boy grandson of the camp’s owner Gilbert McAlister (William Sadler) talks all of the camp counselors into conducting a ritual that brings back Agatha (Madeleine Dauer), the nurse who once terrorized the grounds with occult experiments four decades before.

Gilbert is planning to retire, leaving the camp in the hands of the rest of his family, which include good grandson Shawn (Tyler Elliot Burke) and their mother Heather (Cara Buono). But man, who can say what happens after this night, which starts with counselor Danny (director and co-writer Erik Bloomquist) losing his mind and attacking his crush Kellie (Emily Keefe) after she turns him down. This moment is completely shocking and out of nowhere, as is the further violence that follows.

Written along with his brother Carson, Erik Bloomquist has made a movie that doesn’t just harken back to the slashers of the 80s, but infuses the proceedings with tons of style, wit and no small amount of gore. And beyond the big stars like Sadler and Buono, there are good turns by Peter’s girlfriend Lauren (Clare Foley, Sinister) and Dylan (Adam Weppler).

Best of all, the movie also takes on more than just the slasher and supernatural, as an entire busload of kids goes missing in the woods and all suddenly become killers. You know how much a killer kid movie is appreciated around here.

The characters also make a point of not making the same mistakes as every other camp counselor. They don’t go off and make out in the middle of the murders (Veronica even screams at Dylan, “You want to f*** me to get my mind off my best friend being dead?” before punching him in the face), they call the police immediately and they work hard to not be separated. Not that it matters — whatever is out here in the woods is turning everyone insane.

Originally made as a short film made by Bloomquist brothers in 2017, I had a lot of fun with this movie. A lot of the reviews of it seem to take a holier than thou “how dare someone make another summer camp movie” spin and it kind of took me by surprise, as I really enjoyed what I watched. And you know, that’s the joy of watching movies for yourself and not depending on others to tell you if you should watch something or not. I mean, please keep coming back to this site and reading me discuss movies, but I want you, dear reader, to determine if a movie is something you like not because a group of hivemind sycophants thinks it’s good or not. Create your own sense of what you like and what you don’t. I don’t expect anyone to start liking late 80s Italian ripoffs of American movies, Turkish remakes or Philippines-shot war movies as much as me. I just got the whiff of “I have to show off my Film Twitter” cred in these reviews and you should remember: you are never as cool as the movies that you cover.

You can watch this on Tubi.

If you’re planning a sleazy triple feature of giallo yacht-based films, go with Interrabang, Top Sensation and this movie. Take liberal showers before, during and after all three movies and when your significant other walks in on these, you can blame me.

Waves of Lust has Ruggero Deodato at the wheel and he’s working from a script by Franco Bottari (Colt 38 Special Squad) and Fabio Pittorru (The Night Evelyn Came Out of Her Grave) from a story by Gianlorenzo Battaglia and Lamberto Bava.

We meet young and in love couple Irem (Al Cliver, Endgame) and Barbara (Silvia Dionisio, Murder Obsession) in the middle of their vacation in Sicily. An older and not-so-in-love couple named Giorgio (John Steiner, Shock) and Silvia (Elizabeth Turner, Beyond the Door) beckons them to join them on their yacht and that’s when things get cooking.

Somehow, this movie becomes an anti-capitalist one, as Giorgio is an industrialist who owns nearly everything, including his wife, and lords it over anyone he can. That said, in no way will the message get in the way of what this movie is really about, and that’s making a giallo that’s more on the erotic side than the thriller part of the erotic thriller. Both Irem and Barbara end up with Silvia and hardly anyone stays clothed for this movie’s running time.

John Steiner, who usually overacts in nearly everything, has found a role in this that’s perfect for him. He’s out of control and a lunatic and given to pouring J&B in women’s belly buttons instead of shot glasses. One night it all goes too far and he repeatedly stabs his wife with a trident — yes, really — and throws her overboard. Our young and free working class kids respond to this by getting him drunk and convincing him that Silvia in a wig is his dead wife back from her watery grave. They dress him up in a SCUBA suit and toss his ass overboard and finally enjoy the fruits of labor. This would only be a bigger proletariat victory if they burned the yacht down and walked away from the harbor in slow motion smoking cigarettes.

There’s also a strange skeletal drawing above Giorgio and Silvia’s bed that keeps changing as the movie twists and turns. It’s not so much giallo as, well, what else would you call it? Sex and murder on a boat? Let’s just be find with the giallo title and enjoy this movie for what it is. Deodato has some nice diving footage and shows he’s as adept at filming gorgeous women as he is people being eaten and turtles being killed (yes, this is a Deodato movie, so an eel is violently killed for real, fair warning).

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally on the site on April 20, 2023 but it’s back thanks to Kino Lorber releasing it on blu ray. It comes with some great extras, including a brand new 2K scan from the 35mm Interpositive, new commentary by the absolute master of all things Bronson Paul Talbot, 4 TV spots that are remastered in 2K and a trailer. You can get it from Kino Lorber.

Wild Bill Hickok (Charles Bronson) is so haunted by dreams of a giant white buffalo that he hunts the monster like he’s the Ahab to its Moby Dick, soon to be joined by Crazy Horse (Will Sampson), who also hunts the beast as it killed his daughter.

Director J. Lee Thompson and Bronson worked together quite a bit. This was written by Richard Sale, who would also write Assassination for Bronson. This would be Bronson’s last Western after doing so many in his career.

For some reason, Wild Bill has a steampunk look to him*, but man, that opening gunfight is great. A lot of the crew came from King Kong, which was also produced by Dino De Laurentiis, including actors Ed Lauter and David Roya, composer John Barry and special effects magician Carlo Rambaldi, who created the animatronic life-sized bison for this movie.

Seriously, when that buffalo comes attacking them at the end, I lost my mind. It’s a full-size bison that would slide around on tracks and it’s seriously so eerie looking.

In The Golden Turkey Awards, the Medveds said, “Another De Laurentiis epic about a giant buffalo that chews on Indians for bite-sized snacks. Charles Bronson manfully does his bit to sink this infamous White Elephant.”

With roles for Jack Warden, Kim Novak, Stuart Whitman, Clint Walker, John Carradine, Slim Pickens and Maryin Kove — did I cast this film? — I was always led to believe by this being in the Medveds’ book that it was horrible. Nope.

*Quentin Tarantino is also a fan of this movie, which explains the similar glasses that Django wears in Django Unchained.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Consider Light Blast (Colpi di Luce in Italy, which means Strokes of Light) Erik Estrada’s Rick Dalton moment. Made two years after the show that made him famous — CHiPs — was canceled and six years after People named him one of The 10 Sexiest Bachelors in the World, this finds Estrada in Italy working for Enzo G. Castellari, the same man who directed The Inglorious Bastards, 1990: The Bronx Warriors and Sinbad of the Seven Seas. Estrada even married his leading lady, Peggy Lynn Rowe, while in Rome making this movie.

He plays San Francisco cop Ronn Warren who must stop Dr. Yuri Svoboda (Ennio Girolami, who is in many a Castellari movie; he was the President in Escape from the Bronx and Viking in Sinbad), who has a laser ray that can melt human flesh — this being an Italian movie, we get to watch a young couple make love and then get burned down into goo and skeletons — unless he’s paid $10 million dollars.

How much of a tough guy is Warren? We meet him when he defuses a hostage situation by walking in just in the tiniest of a banana hammock carrying a turkey that has a pistol inside it. He shoots a criminal right in the face and then takes everyone else out while pretty much naked. Why? Who cares. It’s San Francisco, which has a Chinatown, baby!

This being an 80s movie, the final boss has decided to menace the Oakland Stunt Show, which means we get to see people race dune buggies. In fact, if you love car chases, I would dare say that this is the movie for you. And face melting. Seriously, Castellari and co-writer Tito Carpi (Tentacles, Alien from the Deep, Atlantis Interceptors) must have watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and decided to go all in on human features being turned into wet hot bloody goo.

Speaking of Atlantis Interceptors, if you liked the Maurizio and Guido De Angelis music from that movie, you’re in luck. It’s in this movie too. So is some of the Oliver Onions score from Yor, Hunter from the Future.

Also: This also uses footage from Fireball 500 for that stunt show. I am proud of my Italian people for believing in recycling before anyone else.

If you rented movies with me in the 80s and 90s, I would have totally picked this. And you might have wondered why and then when it started with gratuitous nudity and body melt, you’d look over and see me laughing and say, “Well, yeah. That’s why it picked this.”