June 7: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Slashers! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.

Wichita, Kansas is a crazy place.

David (Joe Manno) has been playing football his whole life to make his father happy, finally getting scouted and getting to be a Boomer Sooner for Barry Switzer’s  University of Oklahoma. But he better keep up on his pills, as his mother keeps reminding him.

Mom and dad aren’t around tonight, though, so his friends D.B. (Ron Thomas, Bobby from The Karate Kid), Russell, Chuck, Brenda, Mason, Joni, Lisa (Janette Caldwell, who also shows up in small parts in Heart and Souls and Striking Distance), Frannie, Doug and Chris throw him a farewell party — I mean, college does not work this way, you don’t instantly leave town in the middle of the football season, which I would assume is late September — and set themselves up as sacrifices for Runner and Snake, two escaped convicts who have conveniently decided to hide in the basement of David’s house, along with a former mental patient who has ties to David.

And boy do they die. Mason is impaled with a fireplace poker. Brenda tries to leave and someone attacks her inside her car, so she jumps out and hides under another car, which crushes her. Chris is hit in the head with an axe. Doug is killed by a light tube tossed into the hot stones of a sauna. Frank has his face grilled. Lisa is strangled. Russell is choked. Frannie is electrocuted in the hot tub. Even Russell gets killed when he starts to show some morality about the whole evening. D.B. gets stabbed in the stomach but is able to kill Snake at the last minute. I feel like I should have buried some of the lyrics from “88 Lines About 44 Women” in this paragraph to see if you were paying attention.

David has had a hyperactivity disorder since he was a kid which causes him to lose his temper. You might start to think that he could be the killer — I mean, the cops and his parents sure do — but then you’d miss the twist.

Director Allen Plone went on to direct Phantom of the Ritz, Sweet Justice and made a winery’s franchise video this year, so he’s still working. Writer Mitch Brian went on to write Transformations and twelve episodes of Batman the Animated Series and his co-writer Dillis L. Hart II also produced this movie.

When this was first made, the producers felt that it wasn’t long enough, plus it was missing the critical ingredients of the slasher: sex, nudity and gore. They grafted on scenes from Graduation Day, with the kids watching that movie — and giving away the ending of that movie! — and then shooting some skin so that no one would be disappointed when they watched it. And hey! The Sweetheart Dancers show up and dance in a nightclub!

This movie hit just right for me, thanks to a religion-obsessed killer, a hidden secret killer (double positive or negative, depending on your morals), a cop not only set on fire but shotgun blasted, the jokester character getting killed in a satisfying way, a couple that just wants to watch porn (she even complains about watching the same one all the time but man, I recognize Seka on the TV and this makes me happy and realize what a pervert I am that a brief clip of early 80s hardcore shows up and I say, “Oh yeah, that’s Seka and John Holmes” and wonder who I would have thrown on and yes, it would have either been Siobhan Hunter at the time this came out) and a synth soundtrack that pleases my ears as much at 50 as it would have at 15 when this came out.

Someone wrote on Letterboxd “it’s hardly deserving of an individual release” and the jokes on you. It’s not just a DVD or blu ray, it’s a 4K now.

You can get this from Vinegar Syndrome. The film has been newly scanned and restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative. You get both the Pre-Release and Standard Theatrical versions, as well as brand new commentary from director Allen Plone and cinematographer Eric Anderson, moderated by special features producer Ewan Cant. There’s also Blood and Chopsticks: Echoes of Night Screams, a new making-of documentary featuring interviews with the cast and crew, an introduction from executive producer Richard Caliendo and co-writer/producer Dillis L. Hart II, the original trailer and reversible sleeve artwork.

Arianna (Stephanie Sanchez) is in college for business by day and a cam girl by night, raising the money that she needs for round the clock care for the sister injured in a car crash that she caused, one that also ruined the friendship she once had with India (Si Chen). Yes, a lot has happened before this movie even gets started.

There are a lot of lonely hearts that try to connect with Arianna on the site Faces for Sex. She’s also some kind of super hacker, able to not only triangulate where the IP addresses of where people are jerking off to her, but threatening them with blackmail of $1000 if they don’t want their wives to find out. Somehow this makes her the heroine of this story.

However, she soon gets close to one of her regulars, a female voice that reveals that she owns a tech company called Neuranx and if she can share her life with Arianna, she’ll pay her $2,000 a minute. One assumes this is way better than working for tips and domming guys on a cam site. In a few days, she has over $60,000 and feels like life is turning around. If you’ve watched enough Lifetime movies, you know that now is when this secret woman is about to be taken out.

Yes, the secret woman is Olivia X (Olivia Day), the co-owner of Neuranx with her husband Ryan (Chase Anderson). After Detective Choi (Kurt Yue) barely listens to her claiming she watched Olivia get attacked and dragged away, Arianna decides to go apply for a job there, as if she were Halle Berry in Perfect Stranger. Lana (Christie Leverette) sees through her fake resume, but she’s also sleeping with Ryan and just may want to escape the strangeness of this company. And maybe Olivia really isn’t gone but more Gone Girl.

Nearly every man in this movie other than the police officer is scum, including Professor Edwards (David Arrow). While Arianna is literally a hacker beyond anybody in our reality, she’s also dumb enough to reveal her secret online identity of Angel to everyone who shouldn’t know it, from the Professor to Ryan to probably even her insane sister (I have no idea how a car accident makes you flip out because someone won’t play chess with you, but I’ve learned to just go with what these movies give me).

Director Jason Winn and writer Jackie Logsted (Rush for Your Life) have adapted one of my favorite movie-isms here. Instead of the exotic dancer heroine who never gets naked or the sex worker who never has sex, we now get the cam girl who keeps mostly clothed and even takes off her mask like Tim Burton Batman and by that I mean at the worst times when talking to the worst people who should not know who she is under that disguise.

Also: My wife came downstairs in the middle of this, saw the title and shot me the look. So yeah, I got in as much trouble for watching this as I would have for watching Emanuelle In America. This movie is no Joe D’Amato, so the level of annoyance from her was not worth the dearth of depravity that I was given in this film. I’m not expecting a snuff orgy — only D’Amato would randomly drop that on you in a movie you’re watching on Cinemax when you’re 15 and you go from early puberty charged up to suddenly freaked out — but if you’re going to get me in trouble make it worth it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Kristi Jones (Cynthia Rothrock) wants to go legit and stop being in a martial arts gang. Well, her attempt to leave the Red Dragons is noble but even more illegal, as she works with organized crime to stage back alley fights where she beats up men for money that she plans on using to put her sister through college so that she can be a doctor.

At the same time, Stingray (Don Niam) has beaten and assaulted his wife Anna (Emille Davazac) for the last time. She runs away and soon, every woman he meets becomes her as he rapes, murders and takes the eyes of ladies all over the city. One of those women ends up being Kristi’s sister, so our heroine has to stop fighting for money and start battling for revenge alongside Detective Nick DiMarco (John Miller) and one of her sister’s professors, Dr. Jennifer Simmons (Donna Jason)

Undefeatable takes place in a world where every single person knows martial arts. I wish that I lived in this world, a place where high kicking battles are always happening when you walk down the street. It was directed by Godfrey Hall. You can guess who that is. Yep, Godfrey Ho, who couldn’t resist the urge to not be Godfrey Ho, remaking this movie with the same footage and new scenes with Robin Shau as Bloody Mary Killer.

It also is made in a reality where men like Stingray use animal-based martial arts to take eyes, so many eyeballs that he can fill a fishtank with them. This is also a world where when someone is in the hospital, it’s totally normal to bring them enough cold chicken soup to feed them for the rest of their natural life. Most of all, I love that Cynthia Rothrock is dressed like a character from a Japanese beat ’em up arcade game — leather bomber jacket with chains — fighting dudes in red ninja costumes for cash and beating up a guy named Bear, at which point his poor girlfriend looks at him and says, “Oh Bear…” like this has happened so many times before.

It has cinematography by Robin J. Cook (Despiser), who may be the only person to work with Don Dohler, Menahem Golan and Godfrey Ho.

You can watch this on Tubi but you should really go all out and grab the new Vinegar Syndrome 4K. The movie has been newly scanned and restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative and you get both Undefeatable and Bloody Mary Killer. Rothrock contributed the commentary to the former and Brandon Bentley did the Godfrey Ho remix. Plus, there as brand new interviews with Ho, cinematographer Phil Cook, Rothrock, Don Niam, and actress and assistant director Donna Jason. Need more? This has it, with a video essay about Rothrock by film historians Samm Deighan and Charles Perks, a comparison of the two movies by Chris O’Neill, trailers, a 12-page booklet with an essay by writer and film historian Danielle Burgos and reversible sleeve artwork.

Former child star Dollars (Lucas Till) and Martine turned fitness infomercial star The Lobo (Jason Trost, who directed and wrote this) are about to make the new season of their reality show, Pussy Police, in Thailand. They have a new member in their crew, Turbo (Scout Taylor-Compton, once Laurie Strode), who may seem innocent but who may be able to drink and drug both of them into a coma.

The truth is that the network is sick of their egos and demands, so they strand them in Thailand in the hopes that they won’t make it back for the actual new season. Also: Lobo has a treasure map from his father which he hopes will lead them to enough jewels to get them back to the U.S. and their show.

I’d love to know where the true story part of this comes in. That said, it’s a fun one, as you go from laughing at these two party guys into learning their insecurities and why they act this way before starting to root for them. It takes a lot of talent to find the brains and emotion in a movie about partying until you throw up, then drink a beer, then throw up again.

You can watch this on Tubi. There’s also a sequel series, Cornona House, that you can watch on YouTube.

Lyla starts with a young boy running over a Mego Invisible Woman figure over and over again with a reflective toy care. Then his mother appears and tells him that things are going. to be different now that she has to leave. He begs her to stay and she reminds him that she will always love him before slicing open her own throat and bleeding all over the wallpaper.

Hugh (Clark Moore) takes his wife Lyla (Jolene Andersen) and son Lars (Mason Wells) on a getaway so that he can have the solitude that he needs to write his first book. As you can imagine, seeing that this is a horror movie, that escape from the distractions of modern society is short-lived. Have we learned nothing from every other writer who has tried to do the same and found strange people and familiar ghosts out to destroy not only his family but himself too?

Director and writer Gordon Cowie has only made this one film and it looks gorgeous. He definitely has skills as a cinematographer and unlike so many direct to streaming movies, this actually looks like a movie where someone has taken the time to make the colors rich, to think through the shots and to push things beyond just pointing and shooting.

As for what it’s all about, I watched it twice and went back a few times to review things and I wonder if I’ve made it more complicated than it is. I didn’t want to be one of the other people I’ve seen review this on Letterboxd and go off on it, because hey, I’ve watched enough giallo to make my way around a confusing narrative. Yet Lyla is so obtuse at times that I honestly can’t tell you where the story begins or ends.

That said, it has one of the most beautiful depictions of someone smashing someone else’s head with a rock on a wave swept beach I’ve seen, so there’s that, right?

You can watch this on Tubi.

I’m so happy that Phillip J. Cook keeps making movies. Basing this film on Grace Sherwood, the Witch of Pungo — a historical Virginia woman named Grace Sherwood who was thrown off a boat to see if she was a witch; she was a widow and midwife who neighbors claimed ruined crops and killed animals; Grace untied herself and rose to the surface proving she was a witch. She spent seven years in jail before living out the rest of her life. In 2006, Governor Tim Kaine declared that she was innocent — he takes that legend and creates a new fantasy world, just as he did in Despiser.

The story begins when astrophysicist Grace Sherwood (Cathryn Benson) movies into the home once owned by her ancestor, the historical Grace Sherwood and seeks handyman help from ex-Navy SEAL Bud Hays (Mark Hyde, who is himself an actual Navy SEAL vet and was also one of the Shadowmen and the jumper in Despiser) and fireman Sam Dixon (Matthew Sharpe). While they’re working on her house, Bud sees his dead daughter and Sam sees a mysterious woman. This is just the opening, as soon they take a Wizard of Oz type trip to another place where the witch version of Grace rules the world and even has gigantic tree creatures and an entire army ready to destroy anyone who keeps her from meeting her ancestor.

What Cook always gets right is that his budget is just enough for the effects, but he also knows that the things that don’t cost money — emotion, camera angles, characters that you care about — need to be in the movie. When we have those, we forgive when the effects aren’t perfect. Actually, in the world of his movies, I appreciate that they don’t feel like they’re from our world or from today’s cinema. They exist nearly in their own genre, movies that cost less than a car but take your imagination to so many places. I’ve thought back to this movie several times over the days and weeks since I watched it, remembering moments from it, thinking about the characters within it and wondering what happens next for them.

Sure, not all the plot threads add up and yeah, you may find a plot hole or two. But this is a handmade film. Overlook the cynical way that you usually watch movies and just sit back and let this film entertain you.

Cook has been making movies since it was a big deal to get them released on VHS or shown on the SciFi channel, before it was SyFy. The fact that he’s still making movies like this and controlling his own means of production is proof that good things can still happen in this world.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Renowned psychotherapist Barbara Lamb — who wrote this film — has proof of ET/human hybrids. What are these hybrid species? What are their abilities? Why are they here on Earth? Not only does Lamb have these answers, she also has had several long-term relationships with several hybrid species.

Now, that knowledge can be yours.

According to her website, Barbara Lamb is a “UFOlogy Researcher – Experiencer and Past Life Therapist – Crop Circle Educator.” It goes deeper to explain that “Barbara Lamb offers personalized regression therapy sessions, books, workshops and interviews. She is a world-renowned experiencer therapist, Ufologist, crop circle expert and past life therapist.” She’s also “a longtime psychotherapist, having been licensed in 1976, and a highly trained hypnotherapist and regression therapist since 1984. She had five years of training in regression therapy by the International Association for Regression Research and Therapies.  She became a trainer for that organization as well as for the Professional Institute of Regression Therapy and the International Board of Regression Therapists.  In 1991 she began regressing people to the details of their extraterrestrial encounters, and has regressed well over 2000 people   (in over 4000 regressions) to those and to other paranormal experiences.  This work and her past life therapy and her soul guidance work continues, with sessions in person in San Diego, California and on Skype or Zoom.”

You can check out her YouTube channel here.

There are four 1 star reviews on IMDB and two 10 star reviews. They are as opposite as you can get, the lower end decrying the lack of evidence and the well-reviewed ones enthralled and sure that everything in this movie is gospel. I find myself somewhere in the middle of all of this, but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t entertained by this.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was first on the site on November 25, 2021. As I’ll be exploring the films of Cybela Clare this week, this movie has been reposted with some added new material.

I have to thank Bradley Steele Harding for recommending that I watch this while also realizing that his suggestion that I watch this film is like something out of Japanese horror. I’m now obsessed by Cybela Clare and not only want to watch all of her movies, I want to know where she came from, where she’s going and if she wants me to mix her some drinks.

Her Instagram is a mix of images from the film and selfies, telling me not much. According to a 2009 Philadelphia Inquirer piece, she’s from the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Philadelphia and paints her as an outsider artist.

But let me tell you, you don’t make this kind of movie without being a believer. And this isn’t a “so bad it’s good” laugh off — I don’t believe in that “so bad” term — but more an exploration of exactly what this movie is all about.

The other info I’ve found comes from IMDB: Cybela is fluent in six languages, an Ivy League graduate and former Drama Tutor at Harvard University. She’s also a member of the Explorers Club and has traveled the world documenting international wildlife rescues, which have been incorporated in several of her films.

Starting with a quote from Arthur Schopenhauer, who said that the phenomenal world was the product of a blind noumenal will, this movie already sets itself up to be anything like the millions of conspiracy docs that litter Tubi: “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”

So alright. Let’s move past making fun, let’s not argue and let’s accept this movie. Good? Great.

Man, I have so many questions, so consider this my attempt to reach out across reality and ask Cybela to answer them:

• Why is this movie a documentary sometimes and a narrative other times?
• Why exactly are aliens coming to our planet?
• If people want to cover this up, how have you been making movies for over a decade and been able to post them to Tubi and Amazon Prime?
• Have you ever seen Tribulation 99?
• Did you pay for this movie all by yourself?
• Did this play in a theater?
• What are your filmmaking influences?
• How many birds do you have?
• Did this movie really cost $2 million?
• How do you stay so happy-go-lucky in the face of danger?
• Is Baby Rainbow still around?

If you ever listened to Coast to Coast when it mattered, you’ll recognize people like Jim Marrs (who wrote Crossfire, one of the sources for Oliver Stone’s J.F.K.), Nick Pope (who ran the UK Ministry of Defence’s UFO desk), UFO researcher Robert Salas, abductee Carrie Boyer, Richard C. Hoagland, Canadian politician Paul Hellyer, Lt. Col. USAF Donald Ware, Linda Moulton Howe, George Filer, original Roswell investigator Stanton Friedman, Clifford E. Stone and more. They all appear in this to add their thoughts as the story moves from narrative to documentary. There’s also a psychic artist named Yanni who is working with the aliens in the hope of saving the humans by revealing the secrets to Cleo which she will tell us through this film.

Yanni Posnakoff is also a real person who sees angels and is devoted to painting 10,000 of them in his lifetime. So is he real? Or is he part of the story? Are any of us real?

There’s also a flashback to when Cybela was abducted as a child and lost her bird Spooky, as well as plenty of moments where we learn the connection to her bird Baby, who is played by her bird Baby Rainbow. It also becomes a spy adventure as well as a real-life version of Footprints on the Moon with no Klaus Kinski to abuse our heroine.

I’m sure by now that you’ve heard of my theory of movies that feel like they were beamed to us from another dimension, a place where they think they’re making a movie about humans but obviously have no clue how humanity acts. This movie goes beyond those men in black-made films to somehow become an auteur absolute film that we cannot hope to understand if we’re not its creator, perhaps even more baffling than a movie like The Astrologer. This feels like it was made for no one other than the bird-loving heroine at its heart and yet she has decided to bestow this gift upon us.

I don’t want to understand this movie better. I want it to baffle me for the rest of my life.

According to the PR for this movie, “Writer / Director Cybela Clare has spent over fifteen years researching various facets of the mysterious phenomena of UFOs and alien abductions. Clare has compared these abductions of humans by a technologically advanced species, to our inhumane use and abuse of less advanced species (animals) on our own planet.”

This last part blows my mind.

“Cybela Clare is the pseudonym for a screen writer/ director, who has already received credit for a well known major motion picture. Because of the sensitive nature of the documentary portion of Bird’s Eye View (which exposes a real government cover-up), Ms. Clare wishes to keep her identity and background anonymous for her own safety and security.”

Please watch this on Tubi or Amazon Prime and help me figure it out.

In the sequel to All Superheroes Must Die, journalist Vicky O’Neil (Tallay Wickham, who co-wrote this with director Jason Trost) wants to find out who killed Ally Andrews, who takes her into the dark world of superheroes and an interview with the last surviving hero, Charge (Jason Trost). As he explains his life and all the loss within it, she explores what it takes to become — and keep on being — a hero.

Since the first movie, The Four has broken up after the deaths of Cutthroat and The Wall. Later, Shadow also died and Charge was the prime suspect. It turns out that his real name is John Ford and before he became a superhero, he dated Ally. There’s also a masked man who is killing heroes one at a time, absorbing their powers and who may be working for the world’s governments, who want control over the heroes.

A lot of people seemed to dislike that this film was a fake documentary, but I felt like it was a really brave choice for Trost and Wickham to make. The budget doesn’t really allow for much in the way of powers to be shown but I found the story so enthralling that at no time was I wondering how the actual powers looked. There are big budget superhero stories and down and dirty ones, like this. Trost’s superhero films have felt more like Bratpack than Titans and that’s the way that I like them.

You can watch this on Tubi.