Tubi is opening the world to you with this film, which comes from New Zealand director Tearepa Kahi. It’s based on the 2007 New Zealand police raids, a series of armed police raids in response to alleged paramilitary training camps in the Urewera mountain range. More than three hundred police officers went on these raids, which led to them seizing four guns and 230 rounds of ammunition and arresting eighteen people. At a cost of $8 million dollars in New Zealand money, only four of those people to trial and hundreds of people protested the waste and police militarization that led to this two-day raid. Years later, politicians admitted that innocent people “were unnecessarily frightened and intimidated” and seven years later, the police commissioner formally apologized to the Ruatoki community for police actions during the raid.

In this film, the Maori community and the armed forces come into conflict when the Maori are believed to be domestic terrorists. One of the police in the region, Taffy (Cliff Curtis), has just come back home hoping for a quieter life. He’s caught between the law and what’s right.

As the raids start to happen, activists like Tame Iti (beyond being an actor, he was a member of the protest group Ngā Tamatoa in 1970s Auckland and is a key figure of the Māori protest movement) have been training their people to use weapons and fight. Who can blame them, seeing how they’ve been treated historically? Iti was actually one of the men jailed in the 2007 raids and spent nine months in prison before being released.

This is a tense thriller and shows that no matter you go in the world, you will find universal issues with those in authority overstepping and hurting marginalized people. I’m excited that in addition to Lifetime and BET style films that Tubi’s originals are seeking out movies like this and Riding With Sugar.

You can watch this on Tubi.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Joe Zaso is a NewYork-based actor, filmmaker, model and cookbook author, Joe Zaso is a performer on the stage and screen. He’s also the director of some awesome shot on video movies from his teenage years, such as Screambook
and It’s Only a Movie. 

Bryan Norton has an M.F.A. degree in Film Production from New York University’s Tisch School of The Arts Graduate Film Program, and a B.A. in Cinema Studies from Sarah Lawrence College. As a professor and lecturer of film, Bryan has taught film directing and screenwriting throughout the United States since 2001 and served as the chairperson of The New York Film Academy. He also has consulted on several documentaries, books and articles relating to the history and analysis of the horror genre, including Going To Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel and Fangoria Magazine. 

I’m so excited that they offered this article to the site. Enjoy!

Is it any surprise that two of 1980’s highest grossers spawned their own hybrid-subgenre that fizzled out before it even started?  They were the disaster spoof Airplane! (ranking at #4) and the slasher classic Friday the 13th (ranking at #17*) which were both from Paramount coincidently.  A perfectly capital idea to take these two genres and blend them together had studios racing against the clock to get their horror spoofs into theaters.  The result?  A bizarre wave of mostly independent (some admittedly under-produced) releases rushed into production all hoping for a piece of the profitable parody pie.  The 1981-82 roster included Student Bodies, Saturday the 14th, Wacko and National Lampoon’s Class Reunion. MGM was the studio behind this coup known as Pandemonium and what might have seemed ideal in every way didn’t exactly have the desired end result. In fact, what would have had a wide theatrical release (promotional materials, posters, lobby cards and all were all printed and ready to go) ended up relegated to a tiny limited theatrical release on April 2, 1982. Most of us discovered this peculiar seemingly unheard of gem when it hightailed it to HBO and home video.

Originally titled, Thursday the 12th, Pandemonium is a rather ambitious production considering its silly nature.  Produced by the team of Doug Chapin and Barry Krost who unnerved the world with When a Stranger Calls (1979), this wacko extravaganza was directed by the late great Alfred Sole (Alice, Sweet, Alice and Tanya’s Island) who passed away not long before this article was written.  Not since The Sentinel (1976) has such a bizarre studio movie had such an impressive cast of classic stars, has-beens, currently hot and soon-to-be-famous stars which include Carol Kane, Tommy Smothers, Candice Azzara, Judge Reinhold, Debralee Scott, Eve Arden, Donald O’Connor, Kaye Ballard, Marc McClure, Phil Hartman, an uncredited Eileen Brenann, David L. Lander, Paul (Pee Wee Herman) Ruebens, Sidney Lassick, Miles Chapin, Tab Hunter, Edie McClurg, Warhol vet Pat Ast, and dozens of other familiar character actors.

Like Friday the 13th and several other holiday-themed slashers, Pandemonium begins many years before at the scene of the hideous massacre of a cheerleader team which is impaled with a javelin and transformed into a virtual shish-ke-bob.    Who’s the guilty party?  Perhaps the jilted Brooklyn-accented wannabe cheerleader, Bambi (Candy Azzara) or someone with a twisted agenda all his/her own.   The massacre causes the famed school to shut down for 20 years (seems to be the favoured time lapse for all slasher movies) with Bambi now returning to re-open the school as her own cheerleading camp. Despite the many warnings of the locals, Bambi perseveres and soon a hapless fresh-faced gang of perky and horny cheerleaders move in for the summer.  However, a stranger with open-fingered gloves seemed determined to terminate the camp through any homicidal method necessary including a killer electric toothbrush, megaphone impalings, pom-pom suffocation, exploding trampolines that sends one character into a jumbo jet full of camera-snapping Asians, and most diabolical of all – a drowning in a tub of cookies and milk.

We were able to catch up with three of the film’s stars who all seem genuinely amazed and touched that the world still fondly remembers this oddball gem after 40 years.

Starring as Candy the Carrie White-inspired good girl, Carol Kane gives a beaming and delicious performance.  Now residing in NYC’s Upper West Side, Carol reminisced…

CAROL KANE: I think I was told about the movie by my friend Bud Cort, and I knew producer Doug Chapin. We did When a Stranger Calls together a couple of years before.  I grew up loving the Smothers Brothers.  So funny and talented.  I was thrilled to work with Tommy. I had no idea that Pandemonium had a cult following and people still enjoy it today. Isn’t that wonderful! That’s the best thing for an actor to hear. When one of my movies is mentioned, when I look back and remember, it’s more of the experience that I attach to it.  I’ll always cherish that movie because that’s where I met Pee Wee Herman.  He’s one of my favorite people. We’ve been friends ever since. After talking to you about Pandemonium, now I want to see it again!

Another up-and-coming familiar face, Miles Chapin played Andy, one of the sex-starved cheerleaders who was smitten with Candy.

MILES CHAPIN: It was great because honestly our director Alfred Sole didn’t have a great sense of humor on his own.  He wasn’t a comedy director.  He was a horror director.  So basically he said, “If any of you guys have any ideas, please throw them up. Let’s hear them.”  He was surrounded by people who knew and loved comedy, so that was why we were able to get away with everything.  He had the producers on his side, but he was out of his element because it was a comedy.  He had a great visual sense.

Last, but not least, the divine Candy Azzara gives a charming performance as Bambi, the hard-working, but ill-fated camp owner who clearly believed if you can’t cheer, teach.  To this day, her Esther Williams-inspired death scene is an absolute guilty pleasure that still ignites chuckles galore to this day.

CANDY AZZARA: The milk bath (laughs)!!  That was the hardest thing in the world!  Because I had to eat those chocolate cookies and I saw bits of dirt and hair in the bathtub! (laughs)  It took about a day to shoot that scene.  And then the milk went up nose!  They used real milk and they just left it there I said, “Am I desperate or what!” (laughs) I always thought of my father.  I did my father [inspiration for her cookie-eating style].  The yum sounds.  He always used to go like that.  I loved the production. I just get such a kick out of acting.  I love acting.  Any part I do is like the most important part in the world.  I don’t care how big or what.  Pandemonium wasn’t a hit like Airplane!, but now it’s becoming a cult thing.

It’s clear that Alfred Sole’s strong production design sense is felt throughout the movie as every corner of the screen is laden with details galore.  This forte along with his seeming displeasure with directing led to him spending the remainder of his career as a production designer of many features and TV shows including the new McGyver, Castle, Moonlight and Melrose Place.

Pandemonium is still a favorite amongst those who remember it well and while it may not resonate with today’s audiences, it certainly can’t be faulted for being unabashedly just-let-go-mind-go-blank. Or perhaps it’s simply the ideal party movie for those who just can resist groaning and eyeball-rolling.

The year is 1994. This is when a demonic cult who has planned the end of the world will bring their ritual to a music festival in a small Colorado town. Soon, demons will rule the land and three very human people will have to try and stop it.

Sure, you’ve seen this type of movie before. But have you seen it as a cut paper animation?

Attack of the Demons would be an interesting experiment if its story didn’t work, but it actually becomes truly engaging and succeeds because of it.

Director Eric Power also made another animated film called Path of Blood. Here he’s working with writer Andreas Petersen, who also provides the voice of Jeff, to make a movie that would completely fit into the 1980’s direct to VHS era — if it were a live-action movie. Being animated allows it to go wild with its visuals and create a world beyond an everyday budget.

The Dark Star blu ray of Attack of the Demons is available from Vinegar Syndrome. It also has three different audio commentaries, one from Power and Petersen as well as one by Dread Central Editor In Chief MaryBeth McAndews and Gayly Dreadful Editor In Chief Terry Mesnard and a comedy commentary by ScoffTracks’ Lucas Taughn. There’s also a making of, a music video, the KTUTV commercials, a proof of concept trailer and the final trailer.

Amanda Kramer’s (Ladyworld) new film takes place in 1950s Manhattan — maybe not our version of that time and place, but a neon world of music and dance — where Arthur (Harry Melling) and Suze (Andrea Riseborough) — he’s a clarinetist, she’s a housewife — witness a murder committed by a gang of rough trade greasers in leather known as the Young Gents. That act of violence sparks previously unknown emotions and feelings of sexuality in both of them.

“Everyone wants to be Stanley Kowalski,” Suze says at one point. This movie lives up to that promise, creating a world where the gang movies of the 1950s are real-life, complete with more fashion and queer content than any movie of that era would dare (well, sometimes in subtext).

A film festival referred to this movie as “A Streetcar Named Desire by way of John Waters.”

That’s a high mark to rise to but this movie goes for it.

Kenneth Anger might be pleased to see that his influence continues, while certainly jealous of the budget. And oh wow — Demi Moore in a pantsuit, animal print coat and silver high heels, living in a blue fantasy world apartment as a kept woman?

Watch this and prepare to swoon.

You can get the Music Box Selects blu ray of Please Baby Please from Vinegar Syndrome. It has new commentary by director Amanda Kramer and actors Alisa Torres and Matt D’Elia; a cast and crew Q&A from the LA premiere, deleted scenes, outtakes, short films by Amanda Kramer, a new video essay by Chris O’Neill, an Alamo Drafthouse No Talking PSA, the moodboards, the isolated score and sound design, a trailer and character teasers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Upton is an American (non-werewolf) writer/editor in London. She currently works as a freelance ghostwriter of personal memoirs and writes for several blogs on topics as diverse as film history, punk rock, women’s issues, and international politics. For links to her work, please visit https://www.jennuptonwriter.com or send her a Tweet @Jennxldn

The little-seen Way Out is a gem for fans of obscure cinema with quirky histories and happily, it’s way better than it should be. I first saw it as part of a double bill released by Something Weird Video along with the hippie-themed Ghetto Freaks (1970.) 

A cautionary tale about drug use, the film was made by director Irwin S. Yeaworth, Jr. following the sci-fi hits The Blob (1958) and Dinosaurs! (1960.) Right about now you’re probably wondering how in the hell that happened. It turns out Yeaworth was extremely religious in his private life, serving in both presbyterian and non-denominational evangelical ministries with Billy Graham. No doubt, the church funded its production. 

As if that wasn’t weird enough, Way Out is based on a play written by and starring former junkies who turned to religion to replace (ahem…I mean cure) their addictions. That’s right. Not a single actor in this film was an actual actor. And yet, the film boasts exceptionally good acting and ticks all the boxes meeting modern standards for representation. 

Set against the backdrop of the slums of The Bronx in the 1960s, the film tells the stories of young (mostly Hispanic) people, struggling in poverty. The main character Frankie (Franklin Rodriguez) has a strained relationship with his drunk cop dad. Despite the hardship of life in their neighborhood, Frankie meets and falls in love with a lovely, innocent young lady named Anita (Sharyn Jimenez.)

Anita watches as one by one, Frankie and his buds fall into the clutches of addiction and turn to crime to keep from getting dopesick. When Frankie gets arrested, he’s forced to go cold turkey in jail. He comes out clean, having turned to Jesus for a “way out”, but his world is turned upside down when he finds out everything that happened while he was away. His best friend was killed by the police and two other friends are in prison.

 Worst of all, when he visits Anita, he finds a totally different girl from the one he pined for from inside his cell. The pure girl he fell in love with is gone. The new Anita is a trash-talking, world-weary junkie turning tricks to feed her habit. It does not end happily. And yet it does. 

Following the conclusion of the main story, there’s a short epilogue featuring the entire cast marching toward the camera singing a religious hymn in celebration of the fact that they’re all still clean and sober. Is it religious propaganda? You bet it is. Frankie makes the jump from joint to junk ridiculously fast. Its assertion that marijuana is a “gateway drug,” is blatantly incorrect based on modern science, but the film nonetheless paints a grim picture of the ease with which people back then people gained access to heroin. 

The best parts of this movie are the acting and the real-world locations. Not a single person in the film was a professional. These people lived this life for real, living in shabby, sparely furnished rooms, meeting on filthy rooftops to shoot up with shared, dirty homemade needles fashioned from eyedroppers. It’s so realistic that some scenes make other drug films like Sid and Nancy and Trainspotting (1996) look glamorous in comparison. No one in those films ever tried to pour milk down the throat of an OD victim.   

For a night of depression-inducing “entertainment”, Way Out would make an excellent companion piece to other less glamorous New York-centered drug films like Panic in Needle Park (1971) or Requiem for a Dream (2000.) 

Despite its heavy-handed message, it’s a film that makes you root for the principles. Especially knowing they’re baring their souls for us onscreen. When it was over, I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to the cast in the years following its completion. Franklin Rodriguez has a few more credits to his name on imdb, but he probably deserved a bigger career. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Upton is an American (non-werewolf) writer/editor in London. She currently works as a freelance ghostwriter of personal memoirs and writes for several blogs on topics as diverse as film history, punk rock, women’s issues, and international politics. For links to her work, please visit https://www.jennuptonwriter.com or send her a Tweet @Jennxldn

Regional independent film made in Cleveland, Ohio and released originally under the titles Love Commune, The Aquarians, The Wages of Sin, and Sign of Aquarius, this pseudo-musical was one of many from that era that attempted to capitalize on the hippie trend and the popularity of Hair. Then it was released again more than a year later under this version, with a new marketing campaign to capitalize on the popularity of Blaxploitation films. 

How might these two genres cross over? Well, they don’t. Ghetto Freaks is the same movie as the earlier versions, with two minutes of footage added. Thie new scene features an African American guy in a robe performing some sort of blood ritual and has nothing to do with anything else in the film. With a cast of mostly white kids, plus one black guy and no literal ghetto freaks, it must have been a disappointing experience for anyone who went into this version expecting the next Shaft.  

In 2023, it serves as a wonderful time capsule. The clothes, hairstyles, lingo, and furniture are far out, man. It’s a slice-of-life film where the cast randomly breaks into song and dance. The narrative follows the daily (sometimes mundane) activities of a group of hippies. They pretty much do what you’d expect them to. They panhandle and bitch about “the man” to anyone on the street that walks past them. They protest the war in Vietnam go to a club (owned by co-director John Pappas) to listen to groovy music. One evening, the main man Sonny (Cincinnati’s Paul Elliot) meets a naïve runaway teen girl named Donna (Gabe Lewis) who joins their commune.  

Back in their squat, Donna is inducted into the hippie life. They sit around, smoke pot, philosophize endlessly, dance around nude, paint each other and have group sex. There’s one scene of a pregnant girl going on a really bad acid trip, allowing the directors to get creative with lenses and lighting.  

There’s also something resembling a plotline where a dangerous drug dealer threatens Sonny and Donna’s newfound happiness by pressuring Sonny to sell drugs for the neighborhood gangs. Donna dies tragically because of Sonny’s refusal. 

Released on a double bill with the far superior anti-drug message film Way Out (1967) by Something Weird in 2009, it’s unclear where Ghetto Freaks stand on the issue. The filmmakers include some scenes that make it look fun and other scary ones. While their efforts to grab as wide an audience as possible are noteworthy, it didn’t work. Hence the alternate titles, re-releases, and re-vamped marketing campaigns. 

Older people from the Cleveland area will likely get a thrill from seeing all their favorite places preserved on film as they existed in the late 1960s. For the rest of us, it’s slow going. 

A feature-length adaptation of “Slumber Party Alien Abduction” from V/H/S/2, this finds kids Gary (Dominic Mariche), Jack (Asher Grayson) and Miles (Ben Tector) being bullied by teens Billy (Calem MacDonald), Dallas (Isaiah Fortune) and Trish (Emma Vickers) with Gary’s sister Sam (Phoebe Rex) caught in the middle. You see, the kids love backyard wrestling and making home movies, but Sam is growing up, and it’s time for her to decide if she wants a boyfriend. That said, Billy might not be the best pick.

It’s all a moot point because on the night of a party gone wrong, the bad kids force Sam to throw, aliens attack and all extraterrestrial hell breaks loose.

Directed by Jason Eisener (Hobo With a Shotgun), who wrote the film with John Davies, this is a movie that’s gorier, weirder and more profane than its title would suggest. Other than Sam (Phoebe Rex), it also has characters that are cookie-cutter at best and annoying at worst. It feels like a mean-spirited cliche of Spielberg-esque alien movies, and while it looks great and has terrific practical effects, I kept asking if there was more. The end feels so abrupt that you feel cheated; it doesn’t have to have a happy ending, but it just feels like the filmmakers ran out of ideas and time.

Directed by Jeffrey Brown (The Beach House) and written by Michael and Shawn Shawn Rasmussen (Crawl), The Unheard has two horror themes in one: Chloe (Lachlan Watson) is part of a clinical trial to fix the hearing that was damaged by a childhood illness. And oh yeah, she’s going back home — never go back home — to help her father sell the house, the last place she saw her mother before she, like many women in her hometown, disappeared.

You can see — or more likely, hear — what’s coming.

As Chloe starts watching old videotapes and experiences the strange feelings of being back home, she starts to hear things that may or may not be there. As she begins to adjust to having her senses adjusted, she’s not hearing things for the first time nearly, including her mother’s voice via the tapes from the past.

Oh yeah — there’s also a giallo style killer still in town, stalking and killing women.

Sadly, the film never figures out what movie it is. Is it a coming home horror? A senses coming back shocker? A murder story? A haunted town? No, it’s all of those things and it rarely comes together.