The title pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? Instead of reptiles, we have ants. Hey, don’t laugh this movie off and make with the bad Samuel L. Jackson imitations. Besides, this flick is more of the “Uh, excuse me. But I want these goshdarned ants off this goshdarned plane” variety.

And, as this 2019 New York Post article shows, it really happened on a United Airlines Italy-to-U.S flight. And there’s nothing like a real “nature run amok”* event to breathe new life into an old TV movie. And besides, this eco-terror romp is directed by George Mendeluk, he of my fondly remembered, pre-cable TV movies Stone Cold Dead (1979) and The Kidnapping of the President (1980).

It’s good to visit with you again, George, my friend.

Utterly annoying Caribbean vacationers and honeymooners from the Canadian Campus of the Ed Wood School of Thespian Arts—the type of “skilled actors” that leave you rooting for the little lost rain forest ants—are on a return trip from to Miami from Columbia. The cardboard cast soon discovers that a mutated, “super-organism parasite-hive” of deadly bullet ants burrowed its way into a human host—who subsequently “Aliens” them up on the plane. And the ants swarm from his every orifice and make a run for the air vents. And they turn the plane’s electrical system into dinner. And they kill people in the bathrooms because, well, even in the throes of death, one still has to pinch a loaf—ants be damned.

Luckily an entomologist (Jessalyn Gilsig) with a whiny daughter (for the human relationship drama) and a hunky U.S sky marshal (Antonio Sabato, Jr. (for the romantic angle) just happen to be on the plane—that no country will allow to land for fear of spreading an ant plague. (Make a note: Mutant Columbian rain forest ants BAD: don’t fly them in under any circumstances. COVID-19 Coronavirus good: load ’em up, land ’em, stock pile ’em at an army base. Why? Because we think The Walking Dead really happening would be, like cool ‘n stuff.)

U.S TV fans will recognize Jessalyn Gilsig from her starring roles in the series Boston Public, NYPD Blue, Friday Night Lights, Nip/Tuck, Heroes, Glee, and, most recently, ABC-TV’s Scandal.

While ex-daytime TV actor and former Playgirl-Calvin Klein model Antonio Sabato, Jr. has done a commendable job making his bones on TV series such as Earth 2 and Melrose Place, and his excellent portrayal of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas in 2009’s Drifter: Henry Lee Lucas, we, the staff at B&S About Movies, always go back to the fact that his dad is our beloved Italian exploitation actor Antonio Sabato, Sr. from Seven Blood Stained Orchids and Escape from the Bronx. (Sabato, Jr. recently made the news regarding his industry-wide blacklisting for his Republican political beliefs and not being able to find work, having to sell off his possessions and take work in the construction field to make ends meet. You can read more about it at The Blaze and The Washington Times.)

Since this Canadian TV movie has a strong female lead, it became quick programming fodder for the female-centric cable channel Lifetime in 2007—and having a “hot” Italian-born Sabato as a leading man doesn’t hurt its female fan base.  This eco-terror flick eventually rolled out as a TV movie and direct-to-DVD feature in the overseas markets from 2008 to 2015 under the titles Swarm, Deadly Swarm, and its original title, Destination: Infestation. Of course, courtesy of the United 2019 incident, it was reimaged once again with a new exploitive-marketing title, so as to align it with Samuel L. Jackson’s Snakes on a Plane for its free-online streaming debut on TubiTv.

You’ve seen worse. But I’d still rather watch a “killer bee” movie, such as The Bees, The Deadly Bees, Killer Bees, The Swarm, and Terror out of the Sky. Hell, even Locusts.

Eh, but still, Mendeluk is a long ways down the road on his extensive, 70-plus Canadian and U.S. resume that began with the highly-rated TV flicks Stone Cold Dead (starring the awesome Richard Crenna and Paul Williams from Phantom of the Paradise, Smokey and the Bandit) and (the aforementioned-linked) The Kidnapping of the President (starring the always welcomed Hal Holbrook and William Shatner). Mendeluk’s most recent work—with, yet again cable-dumb criminals and annoying heroine-damsels—was the 2017 Lifetime damsel-in-distress flick The Wrong Babysitter (that’s appearing on various streaming services and Smart TV platforms in late 2022).

You can rent Stone Cold Dead on Vudu/trailer. The Kidnapping of the President is available for rent on Amazon Prime, but there’s a pretty clean VHS rip for free on You Tube. You can watch Ants on a Plane for free—with commercial breaks—on TubiTv, or pretty clean DVD-rip without commercials on You Tube.

* Back in January 2020, we went crazy reviewing nature-strikes-back films with our “Nature Run Amok” week. Here’s the full list of those reviews so you can catch up.

Arachnia (2003)
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)
Congo (1995)
Crawl (2019)
Cruel Jaws (1995)
Flu Birds (2008)
The Giant Leeches (1959)
Invasion of the Animal People (1959)
Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973)
Jaws (1975)
Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
Kiss of the Tarantula (1975)
Monster Shark (1984)
Monster Wolf (2010)
War of the Insects (1968)
Night of the Cobra Woman (1972)
Play Dead (1981)
Rattlers (1976)
Sharks’ Treasure (1975)
Slugs (1988)
The Uncanny (1978)
Underwater (2020)
The Wasp Woman (1959)
WolvesBayne (2009)
Zombie 5: Killing Birds (1985)

And there’s even more “nature run amok” films with our December 2018 shark tribute week, “Bastard Pups of Jaws,” which features everything imaginable—from 1976’s Grizzly to 1977’s Orca, from 1979’s The Great Alligator all the way out to Renny Harlin’s 1999 shark romp, Deep Blue Sea.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.

The low-budget genre studios of Crown International and American International Pictures responded to the box office success of George Lucas’s American Graffiti (1973) with a glut of innocuous, teen-driven T&A comedies centered around vans, CB radios, and car cruising.

And Crown International Pictures gave self-professed Luis Bunuel and Federico Fellini-influenced writer-director William Sachs an assignment in December 1978. And he could make whatever film he wanted: provided it had a kid in a van, generous amounts of nudity with hot chicks, drag racing and cool cars, that it starred Playboy magazine 1974 Playmate of the Year, Cindy Wood, and that he shot it in 18 days.

There months later, with a script he punched out in 7 days, Van Nuys Blvd. was on Drive-In screens by March 1979. It became a box-office hit as it played to packed parking lots on double bills with fellow teen T&A flicks The Pom-Pomp Girls (1976), The Van (1977), Malibu Beach (1978), H.O.T.S, and Gas Pump Girls (both 1979).

In interviews Sachs mentions his admiration for Dr. Seuss’s 1953 musical fantasy The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, Buneul’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and Fellini’s 8 1/2 in the same sentence. So that tells you there’s no middle ground with William Sachs: He’s either is a misunderstood genius with a deep understanding of existentialism filmmaking and uses that knowledge to poke fun at the establishment and show us the ridiculousness of trends in our culture. Or he’s a B-movie hack for Crown and A.I.P.

One thing is for sure: William Sachs never gives you a predictable movie.

When the Drive-Ins were clogged with every manner of Vietnam War movie, he responded with the 1974 surrealist war drama, There Is No 13. When tabloid newspapers like The National Enquirer reached circulation milestones, and Sunn Classics struck box office gold with their conspiracy-documentaries The Outer Space Connection, In Search of Ancient Astronauts, and In Search of Noah’s Ark, he responded with the parody documentary-satire The Force Beyond. When Star Wars reignited an interest in science fiction and all manner of galactic slop appeared in the Drive-Ins, he responded with 1977’s The Incredible Melting Man and the 1980 genre homage-parody, Galaxina (again, with a Playboy Playmate of the Year as his star). Remember all of those over-the-top Death Wish-inspired revenge flicks? He made one: 1984’s Exterminator 2.

And that brings us to his car movie satire-homage that features everything that Crown International wanted—and the surrealism of a Fellini film with an underlying theme on the art of living that he wanted. So the angst-ridden kids of the Southern California’s famed “strip” drive off into night for their kicks in their “temporary lives.” And where do they go if their rebellion lacks substance: nowhere. And that’s the point of Van Nuys Blvd.

And why is a chick licking her lips? What’s this got to do with Luis Bunuel and Federico Fellini? Damned if I know. Watch the trailer and figure it out!

So, did Sachs accomplish his goal?

It depends. Van Nuys Blvd. is of a time and place. It’s time capsule of a post-sixties Americana culture filled with optimism and hope of the good old days. Anyone who was born after the mid-1960s might not be able to relate to the movie beyond its low-budget B-movie trappings. And it’ll look like just another T&A movie.

Bobby (Bill Adler, who starred in the aforementioned The Pom Pom Girls, The Van, and Malibu Beach; he also starred in the Quentin Tarantino-admired Switchblade Sisters) is a country kid who dreams of crusin’ in the big city after he sees a news report about California’s famed boulevard. So he sets off in his beat-up van. There he meets the drag-racing babe Moon (Cindy Wood) and her pal Camille (Melissa Prophet, in her acting debut; she later starred with Chuck Norris in Invasion U.S.A and in Scorsese’s Goodfellas and Casino).

When they’re arrested by Officer Albert Zass (Dana Gladstone, whose extensive TV resume led to a role alongside Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop II), a bullying cop hell bent on cleaning up the boulevard, they meet fellow ne’er-do-well van lover Greg (Dennis Bowen, Gas Pump Girls, TV’s Welcome Back Kotter) who’s filled with dreams but not the tools to achieve them. Along the way the quartet befriends “Chooch,” the requisite, brawny-older wise man and “king of the strip” (David Hayward, another extensive TV resume; he’s still acting, with three projects in production) who’s lost his dreams, and his squeeze, Wanda (Tara Strohmeier of fellow T&A’er Hollywood Boulevard and The Kentucky Fried Movie). Together the sextet stumbles through a series of goalless, plotless misadventures punctuated with non-offensive softcore sex scenes and sophomoric humor. Oh, and keep your eyes open for Renee Harmon of Frozen Scream and Night of Terror in the frames.

If you’re interested in learning more about the hot-rodding and cruising culture of the ‘70s, you may want to seek out the other films in the short-lived vansploitation cycle with the first film of the bunch: Blue Summer (1973; with Davy Jones, yes, he of the Monkees), then there’s Best Friends (1975; with Richard Hatch), the hicksploitation-hybrids C.B Hustlers (1976) and Texas Detour (1978), Supervan (1977), Mag Wheels (1978), and On the Air Live with Captain Midnight (1979). There’s also a great article by Jason Coffman of the Daily Grindhouse that goes deep into the genre that we totally recommend for a read — with even more watch suggestions.

To learn about the vansploitation era’s roots: you can travel back to the rock ‘n’ roll oriented, juvenile delinquent films of the ‘60s made in the wake of the 1955’s Blackboard Jungle and Rebel Without a Cause. Most of those films were produced by Roger Corman, such as 1958’s Hot Car Girls and 1959’s T-Bird Gang. Then there’s the wealth of ‘60s biker films that peaked with 1969’s Easy Rider, such as 1966’s The Wild Angels and 1967’s Hells Angels on Wheels.

As for the famed “Wild Cherry” van that stars in Van Nuys Blvd.: In 2018, that customized, 1975 Chevrolet G-10 made the news when the van was stolen and thrust into legal limbo. You can read more about the travels of Wild Cherry here and here. And Vansploitation got so insane during the ’70s that A&M Records gave away a Styx Van. Yes, Styx had a van you could enter to win!

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.

Frank Harris and Leo Fong! My head is swimming. Where do I begin with this review?

Well, first off, you can get both of these Crown International releases on Mill Creek’s “Explosive Cinema” 12-pack (along with Scorpion, Skydivers, and 9 Deaths of the Ninja). Second: You also get Troy Donahue (Omega Cop), Richard Roundtree (Q: The Winged Serpent), and, say what? Cameron Mitchell (Space Mutiny) appears in both?

Harris. Fong. Mitchell? Sign me up! I am going to loose my nut!

What’s that? Harris also did the post-apoc romp Aftershock and the cop actioner Lockdown (1990; trailer) with Richard Lynch from Deathsport and Ground Rules? What? No way! And Fong did Showdown (1993; full movie) with Lynch as well? Rock on! Richard Friggin’ Lynch. Rock on, Ankar Moor, you post-apoc bad ass.

Frank Harris

Writer, director, producer and cinematographer Frank Harris got his start as a reporter for a small California TV station. But his true love was film. He got his start in the movie business courtesy of the fifth film from Asian action star Leo Fong, 1976’s Ninja Assassins (aka Enforcer from Death Row), who hired Harris as a cinematographer. (I have wonderful memories of my older cousin, Bobby, who studied martial arts and was ready to go into the military, taking me to the Drive-In after seeing the film’s commercial on TV. Yes, I rented it when it came out on VHS.)

After putting one more cinematography gig under his belt with the 1984 actioner Goldrunner (trailer: race cars, motorcycles and kidnapping), Fong hired Harris to not only serve as the cinematographer, but as the producer, director and screenwriter for his eighth film as an actor: Killpoint.

Then there was Harris’s directing gig with 1996’s Skyscraper, an awful attempt to turn famous-for-being-famous ex-Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith into—not only into an “actress” and not only into a “leading lady”—an “action star.” Anna Nicole as a hot, corporate helicopter pilot who goes “Die Hard” when terrorists take over her employer’s office tower? Huh and W.T.F. It’s one of those movies where you simply can not turn away. And let me make this point perfectly clear: there’s a lot of people to blame for it, but Harris isn’t one of them; he was just a director-for-hire. (Watch the full movie at your own peril; the trailer might even be too much to bear.)

Killpoint (1984)

Cameron Mitchell returned from Ninja Assassins, this time as Joe Marks, an illegal arms dealer who robs a Californian National Guard Armory with plans to sell the weapons to L.A’s street gangs. Lt. James Long (Fong) a bitter, troubled L.A detective still dealing with the rape and murder of his wife a year earlier, gets his chance to go “Dirty Harry” —well, “Jackie Chan,” actually—when he discovers Mark’s sidekick, known as Nighthawk (professional ex-boxer Stack Pierce; worked on several of Fred Williamson’s Blaxploitation films), was responsible for her death. Teamed with FBI Agent Bill Bryant (Richard Roundtree), they bring them to justice.

Of course, while Fong was already a major star in the Eurasian marketplace, he was an unknown commodity in the States. So while Roundtree’s part in Killpoint is a minor one, as you can see from the below poster images, that didn’t stop the distributors from highlighting Roundtree’s contribution—and giving Leo Fong the short shift on the U.S Drive-In and video campaigns.

Low Blow (1986)

Karen Templeton (Patti Bowling; her only film role) is a young, wayward Patty Hearst-type heiress brainwashed-kidnapped by the Church of Universal Enlightenment, a Jonestown-styled religious cult run by Cameron Mitchell’s Jim Jones-inspired Yarakunda.

After seeing Joe Wong (Leo Fong), a harried ex-San Francisco detective take down a couple of thugs who mugged an old lady, Karen’s tycoon-father (Troy Donahue) decides Wong is the man for the job to rescue his daughter. So Wong recruits a Vietnam vet and ex-pro-boxer (Stack Piece is back!) to get her out. Once inside, Wong fights the cult-camp’s ninjas and world-renowned martial artist and Tae Bo exercise program guru Billy Blanks (Tango & Cash, Lionheart) in his first film role.

Leo Fong

Leo Fong is still going strong at the incredible age of 91. He starred in three films in 2018: Hidden Peaks, Dragon to Dragon, and the most recent film: Challenge of the Five Gauntlets. And he has four more films in various stations of filming and pre/post production: Pact of Vengenance (with Jon-Mikl Thor!), Asian Cowboys, Runaway Killer, Hard Way Heroes, and Junkers. You catch up with Leo and his Sky Dragon Entertainment at LeoFong.com.

Other films in the Harris-Fong oeuvre include 24 Hours to Midnight with Cynthia Rothrock (1985; clip), Hawkeye (1988; full movie) (seen them on VHS), and the direct-to-DVD releases Brazilian Brawl (2003; trailer) and Transformed (2005; full movie) (honestly, never heard of them or seen them; I need to change that).

You can watch the TRAILER and the FULL MOVIE for Killpoint, the TRAILER and FULL MOVIE for Low Blow, and the FULL MOVIE of their first film, Ninja Assassins, on You Tube.

Join us tomorrow as we take a look at another Harris film on the “Explosive Cinema” box set: The Patriot.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.

In space, air is your most precious cargo. . . .

In the year 2073 the solar system is in a political divide between the hydrogen-rich outer planets beyond the asteroid belt and the hydrogen-dependent inner planets. The military surveillance vessel Ares 11 is part of the Terrestrial Alliance Fleet that patrols the 200 million kilometer-wide neutral zone of the Asteroid Belt and keeps the peace.

After their ship is attacked by a planet-to-air missile, the crippled craft slowly leaks its oxygen supply. Now the Ares’ four crew members fight for survival as they discover there’s only enough air for two of them to return to base—alive.

South Florida writer-director Robert Goodrich’s ultra-low budget feature film debut reminds of the 1985 Canadian post-apocalypse flick Def Con 4—if it stayed inside the ship and never made planetfall—and of the inventive production design of its Pacific Northwest shot-against-the-budget brethren, Space Trucker Bruce. If you ever wondered what happens aboard a spaceship orbiting the Io mining colonies of Jupiter in Peter Hyams’s Outland, Ares 11—with its “limited setting” flavor of Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat—is that movie.

As with the charmingly quaint Space Trucker Bruce, Ares 11 overflows with commitment across all the film disciplines—with its truly impressive set and costume design—that’s devoid from most of the minor-studio direct-to-DVD features clogging up today’s online streaming marketplace. For the astute sci-fi connoisseur, after a spending a few minutes with the four-actor cast working inside three cramped sets, they’ll find themselves watching a dramatic, psychological version of John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon’s 1974 University of Southern California student film, the science fiction comedy, Dark Star. Another film reference—in terms of the cramped, budget-conscious set design and costuming—is Trimark Pictures’ 1990 television/home video-distributed The Dark Side of the Moon (its plot pinched for the failures 1997’s Event Horizon and 2000’s Supernova)—and that film was backed by a major studio (absorbed by Lionsgate and now a Roku channel) with a 1.2 million dollar budget.

As many of the Amazon Prime reviews on Ares 11 prove, low-budget science fiction—for those more accustomed to Matt Damon’s The Martian and McConaughey’s Interstellar—isn’t for everyone. As someone who worked as an actor on three experimental sci-fi indie shorts myself, I wish my writer-directors had Robert Goodrich’s talents (and Anton Doiron’s of Space Trucker Bruce) and lived up to their lofty pre-production (broken) promises. Ares 11 is immensely better that the “professional,” larger-budget MST3K honoree Space Mutiny (1988) and all of the suggested watches listed on the Ares 11 online streaming pages.

First released in 2013, Ares 11 won “Best Feature” at the 2013 Palm Beach International Film Festival and the 2014 Action on Film Int’l Film Festival, as well as earning “Official Selection” status at the 2014 Roswell Film Festival and Austin Indie Flix Showcase. You can learn more about Ares 11 at Continuum Motion Pictures and check out the film’s production stills at HighTechScience.org and Hunu Films Facebook. You can watch behind-the-scenes clips—and stream the film as a PPV—at Vimeo. While Ares 11 has been in the marketplace on PPV and DVD platforms since 2015, it has recently made its free 2019 streaming debut—with limited commercials—on TubiTv. You can also rent/purchase its stream on Amazon Prime and purchase DVDs from Walmart.

By the way: we love our sci-if here at B&S About Movies. Be sure to check out our “Star Wars Droppings” week of reviews in commemoration of the December 2019 release of Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. Back in September we had a post-apocalypse blowout of all manner of films from the ‘60s to ’80s—and you can catch up with our “The Atomic Dust Bin: 10 Post-Apocalyptic Films You Never Heard Of” round-ups Part 1 and Part 2 that lists those 60-plus film reviews.

Oh, and speaking of great sci-fi films on a budget: Be sure to visit our three-in-one review for the Dust Channel-hosted Pink Plastic Flamingos, Skyborn, and Cockpit: The Rules of Engagement. All three sci-fi shorts are highly recommended watches.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.

In a universe where Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) meets Peter Hyman’s Outland (1981), two rival corporations, the American-led multinational NTI, and the German-led global amalgamate Richter Dynamics, compete for the solar system’s mining rights (yes, we’re in orbit around Roland Emmerich’s Moon 44). When a geological research vessel on return from the Saturn system crashes into the space station Concorde in orbit around Earth’s Moon, both companies launch missions to discover what lurks on Titan, Saturn largest moon: what creeps is the rebirth of 200,000-year-old archaeological find in the form of an alien with the ability to control the minds of other creatures via parasitic organisms from its own body.

(If it all seems similar to the alien in 1980’s Without Warning, which 1987’s Predator ripped off, it probably is.)

Connoisseurs of science fiction’s video fringes consider this second feature film from writer-director William Malone as “the best” of the ‘80s Alien rip-offs. Ironically, that distinction comes courtesy of the 12th Annual Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Film’s Saturn Award-nominated special effects brothers-team of Robert and Dennis Skotak—who would go on to design the effects for 1986’s Aliens. If you’re keeping track: Alien‘s sequel was directed by James Cameron, who designed the effects for Roger Corman’s earlier Alien knockoff, Galaxy of Terror. (Also nominated for Best Picture, Creature lost both nods to Joe Dante’s Gremlins.)

Keep in mind that Creature was produced for $750,000 and, unlike its gooey antecedent, wasn’t backed by 20th Century Fox Studios. So the Shenandoah, the low-budget spaceship of these proceedings, is no Nostromo: it’s more like SpaceCore 1 from the second-best of the Alien knockoffs, Dark Side of the Moon (1989). (Okay, some would argue Roger Corman’s Galaxy of Terror was second; these rankings aren’t “official.”) And be on the lookout William Malone having fun with his purposeful homage-plot twist to the 1951 Alien-precursor classic, The Thing from Another World.

As with The Dark Side of the Moon, the familiar selling-it-against-the-budget cast is pretty good in their clone-roles. Joe Dante stock player Wendy Schall (1987’s Innerspace, 1989’s The ‘Burbs, 1998’s Small Soldiers) holds her own as the resident Ripley. The same goes for familiar TV actors Stan Ivar (NBC’s Little House on the Prairie) as the inhabitant Dallas, and Lyman Ward (but we remember him as the dad in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) as the clone of Paul Riser’s weasely corporate executive from Aliens (which wasn’t even made yet!). Melanie Bryce, in her acting debut, is good as the leather-clad, taciturn Ash-like ship’s security officer. (Since 2009 Wendy Schall served as the voice of Francine Smith on the Fox animated-sitcom American Dad!. Melanie Bryce, who voiced Queen Bansheera in the series Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue, will be back in theatres alongside Eric Roberts in 2020’s Dante’s Hell—which has nothing to do with Joe.)

Shortly after attending UCLA’s iconic film school (also attended by Star Wars’ George Lucas and Dark Star’s John Carpenter), William Malone made a dry-run on the concepts in Creature with his spine-fluid sucking Syngenor monster in the popular Alien-esque video renter and his writing-directing debut, Scared to Death (1980). Moving up to the big leagues, he made the more expensive—but quickly forgotten—films House on Haunted Hill (1999; a remake of the 1959 film), Feardotcom (2002; with Stephen Dorff), and Parasomnia (2008), and he wrote the screenplay Universal Soldier: The Return (1999; sequel to the original).

Amid his major studio dealings with MGM, he revisited the concepts from Creature once again with his 1990 screenplay Dead Star, a modest $5 million picture (the cost of Roger Corman’s Battle Beyond the Stars, which was partly recycled into Galaxy of Terror). Envisioned as a “Dead Calm” (1989, a thriller about a psycho loose on yacht in the ocean) in space, the script was about a space expedition that discovers alien artifacts and brings them back to Earth; one artifact unleashes an evil force. Purchased by MGM and sent into development hell and jettisoning Malone along the way, the film was eventually released as 2000’s Supernova, a muddled mess of a story concerning black holes and supernatural forces—which ripped off the plot from the previously mentioned Alien clone, The Dark Side of the Moon.

Shortly after its release, Creature—known by its original title, Titan Find, in the overseas markets in its dual theatrical-home video-television run—fell into the public domain. In those lawless celluloid lands, it appeared on numerous VHS and DVD reissues through a wide variety of imprints and cheap-jack public domain box sets—along with shoddy artwork-encased grey market DVD-rs.

William Malone decided to rectify the situation in response to fan requests for a proper digital restoration of his most-popular film. In 2013 Malone announced he was going to release a copy of the film’s answer print in his possession (the first version of a motion picture printed to film after color correction on an interpositive and sound properly synced to the picture) in an uncut and widescreen format for the first time on DVD and Blu.

From his Facebook page (posted with the artwork, seen below):

“This is a completely NEW high resolution transfer from the Camera Original Answer Print done in Widescreen Scope format (2:35 aspect ratio). This also [is] the original longer cut under its shooting title (and UK release title) TITAN FIND with never before seen footage and loaded with extras. It features [a] Director’s Commentary, [and] Art Gallery with original pre-production art and on screen interviews with [the] director and cast members. The initial release (March 16) with be the SD version with Blu-ray to follow at a yet undetermined date. This is the first authorized DVD of this title and the only WIDESCREEN version ever available.”

Then MGM, the current right holders over the film, who let it fall into the public domain in the first place, and remained silent as it was released on numerous public domain and grey-market imprints, filed an injunction.

And here’s where the real horror—of legal red tape—begins.

The film’s video distributor, Charles Band’s Media Home Entertainment, began selling off its assets in 1990, ceased operations in 1993, and was rolled into 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. However, the film’s production company, Trans World Entertainment (not the retail company of the same name that operates mall-based entertainment chains), was defunct by 1989. Its intellectual properties, in turn, came under MGM’s tutelage after the Great Lion purchase Orion Pictures, which purchased Epic’s film libraries from Polygram Filmed Entertainment.

The short of the story, to paraphrase Pvt. Hudson from Alien: “Restored DVD and Blu over, man. Movie over! What are we gonna do, now?”

As of this writing, Malone’s version was never official released through any legitimate seller sites. However, that didn’t stop the grey market: they stole Malone’s DVD artwork and started manufacturing their own copies. Caveat emptors are afoot on those releases: the grey market sellers don’t have Malone’s answer print—and don’t possess the 1” video masters—and are simply ripping the 1985 VHS into DVD-rs. And when that “Malone version” appears on shadow seller sites, it’s marketed as “rare” and carries an exorbitant price.

Or, did Malone dupe us all? Is this another Rocktober Blood 2: Billy’s Revenge, which promoted its production with a promoted a DVD and Blu reissue of Rocktober Blood? That release also tossed around the phases “authorized,” “full restoration,” “high resolution transfer,” and “aspect ratio”—then stuck everyone with DVD-rs ripped from a VHS tape source.

Nope.

I believe Malone was sincere in his efforts and he simply got screwed by the major studio, public domain, and grey market system—again. So, come on, MGM! Work with Malone and give the fans what they want: a full DVD and Blu-ray restoration of the best of the ‘80s Alien clones. And it’ll make a hell of a lot more money that Supernova did—you can bank that.

So, for now, save you pennies and watch a very clean copy of Creature uploaded by the responsible folks at the web’s premiere free streaming service (with limited commercial interruptions): TubiTv. Or you can go commercial free on YouTube.

Be sure to catch up on all of the Alien knockoffs and rip-offs with our explorations “Ten Movies that Rip-off Alien” and “A Whole Bunch of Alien Rip-offs all at Once.” And there’s more celluloid déjà vu of the Supernova variety afoot with 2020’s Underwater. And, finally, since there’s always a pinch of Star Wars in all post-1977 sci-fi films, you can catch up with all of the George Lucas-inspired rip-offs with our “Star Wars Droppings” week. There’s more with our “Movies in Outer Space Week.”

And while it doesn’t have any gooey aliens, I’d love to suggest a very well done, commendable ultra-low budget effort also influenced, in part, by Alien: Space Trucker Bruce. It’s a film loaded with heart and soul and deserves a watch. Double for the recently reviewed Ares 11 and Monte Light’s Space.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.

In the year 2022 the maintenance ship SpaceCore 1 is dispatched to repair a Moon-orbital weapons platform and ends up adrift over the galactic-path of Earth’s The Bermuda Triangle—and on a collision course with a paranormal mirror of the geographical anomaly on the Moon. Running out of fuel and oxygen, the crew boards a 20th century NASA space shuttle—believed lost during an emergency ocean landing off the Florida coast—with the hopes of salvaging supplies. Then, one by one, the crew is possessed and killed by a spiritual presence that’s linked to the triangle, the dark side of the moon—and Satan.

Holy galactic déjà vu, Ripley.

Yes. This movie is that celluloid Titchener-moment you couldn’t quite place when you watched the multi-million dollar major-studio failures of Paul W.S Anderson’s (Mortal Kombat) Event Horizon (1997) and Walter Hill’s (Streets of Fire) Supernova (2008).

While this low-budget variant of Ridley Scott’s Alien—which traded out the usual gooey xenomorph (see William Malone’s 1985 Creature) with Satan—was a direct-to-video release, we fondly remember seeing it as part of an early ‘90s UHF-TV Saturday afternoon syndication package with 1989’s Moontrap (starring Star Trek’s Walter Koenig and Evil Dead’s Bruce Campbell) and Roland Emmerich’s pre-Stargate offering, 1990’s Moon 44.

Granted, SpaceCore 1’s crew isn’t as scruffy as the USCSS Nostromo’s. And its interiors aren’t as dazzling as Roger Corman’s slightly-more-expensive Morgantus-bound The Quest from Galaxy of Terror (repurposed from Corman’s even-more-expensive Battle Beyond the Stars . . . and has an innermost-fears-that-kill plot instead of biblical demons). Yeah, SpaceCore 1’s “Mother” computer reimaged as a human-looking leather dominatrix robot is a bit silly—in a Galaxina kind-of-way. But there’s no denying The Dark Side of the Moon is charming (like Ed Hunt’s crazy-fun Starship Invasions) and more engrossing than most of today’s CGI-modern space romps (e.g., the 2009 rip-off of 1973’s The Star Lost: Pandorum; the 2016 rip-off of 1997’s The Titanic: Passengers), with its where-is-this-going-kitchen-sink-plotting rife with biblical references, and making Satan—and not ancient astronauts—responsible for The Bermuda Triangle.

It’s unfortunate The Dark Side of the Moon served as the lone theatrical-directing effort by music video purveyor D.J Webster (best known for ‘Til Tuesday’s 1985 MTV hit “Voices Carry”), as he’s skilled at working against an economical budget and showed a-video-to-feature film-transitional promise. However, the screenwriting brother-duo of Carey and Chad Hayes, who made their debut with this film, climbed the Hollywood ladder to worldwide success with James Wan’s The Conjuring franchise. Their latest effort is the in-production sixth installment of the Die Hard franchise, McClane. And proving that everyone in Hollywood has to start somewhere, Carey and Chad Hayes started in the business as actors in the never-released-to-DVD classic, Rad (1985), while Chad appeared in the how-in-the-hell-did-this-ever-get-made gem, Death Spa (1989).

From Rad to McClane? That’s awesome . . . and a bag of chips.

Fans of Joe Turkel, who portrayed Lloyd the Bartender in The Shining and Dr. Eldon Tyrell in Blade Runner (but we remember him best for American International Picture’s The Dirty Dozen rip-off The Devil’s Eight), will want to watch, as this served as his final film before his retirement. Leading man Will Bledsoe, who made his feature film debut in 1984’s Up the Creek (remember the Cheap Trick song?), also made this his final film. Rounding out the cast of familiar TV faces is Alan Blumenfeld (but you remember him best as Mr. Liggett; his wife “reproduced asexually” in WarGames), John Diehl (TV’s Miami Vice, Stargate, City Limits), and Camilla More (Tina in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter) as Lesli, the ship’s silky-smooth, human-looking A.I—complete with ruby-red lipstick and a dominatrix-leather uniform. And, sadly, we have to raise a cold one for Robert Sampson, who we lost this past January. With TV credits that date back to the late ‘50s, you remember him best as Dean Halsey in Re-Animator and Commission Jamison in Charles Band and Stuart Gordon’s Robot Jox.

Not only is The Dark Side of the Moon fondly remembered in the states, it has a rabid international fan base as well. The German black metal band Nargaroth samples the German-language dub of the film (the dialog of Alan Blumenfeld’s demon-possessed character) in their homage track “The Dark Side of the Moon” from 2004’s Prosatanica Shooting Angels. Swedish death metallers Crypt of Kerberos use those same Blumenfeld-samples (in English) on their 1991 track, “Devastator.”

Now that’s the true sign of a successful movie: no one is sampling dialog from Event Horizon or Supernova anytime soon.

This past June Unearthed Films restored The Dark Side of the Moon to Blu-ray with an audio commentary track by producers Paul White (the ‘80s rental favs The Unamable, Bride of Re-Animator) and Stephen Biro (2010’s A Serbian Film, 2019’s Beneath the Black Veil), along with an interview featuring “Satan” himself, actor Alan Blumenfeld.

Be sure to catch up on all of the Alien knockoffs and rip-offs with our explorations “Ten Movies that Rip-off Alien” and “A Whole Bunch of Alien Rip-offs all at Once.” And there’s more celluloid déjà vu of the Event Horizon and Supernova variety afoot with 2020’s Underwater. And, finally, since there’s always a pinch of Star Wars in all post-1977 sci-fi films, you can catch up with all of the George Lucas-inspired rip-offs with our “Star Wars Droppings” week. There’s more to check out with our “Movies in Outer Space Week.”

But make no mistake: The Dark Side of the Moon isn’t an Alien rip-off or a Star Wars dropping: D.J Webster and the Hayes brothers gave us an intelligent-against-the-budget film with a unique twist on the glut of science fiction films produced in the wake of both of those blockbusters.

Simply put: The Dark Side of the Moon deserves your attention.

You can watch a rip of the old Vidmark Entertainment VHS on You Tube or you can watch a cleaner digital stream on TubiTv.

About the Author: You can read the music and film criticisms of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S Movies.

People like to rag on Christian Slater.

I’m not one of those people.

If his name is on the movie, I’ll watch it. Call it bad choices or bad luck, but the Slate does not suck. Granted, most of the movies he’s done of late do, but he himself, does not. He, like Bruce Willis (Precious Cargo), Nicolas Cage*, Eric Roberts (Lone Star Deception), and Tom Sizemore (The Pining) before him, may have fallen on hard times, and some may say he’s gone from heartthrob to has-been, but he always delivers the goods on screen. Always. And while Playback does suck and deserves to be noted as 2012’s lowest-grossing movie of the year, netting under $300 in U.S domestic box office against its $8 million budget (its worldwide gross was just over $57,000 during its 41 weeks in release), it’s not Slater’s fault—although all of the critical reviews on Playback make a point of driving home that Slater once worked along Tom Cruise and now he’s ended up in the lowest-grossing movie of the year.

Long before many came to know Christian Slater for his three-time Golden Globe nominated and 2016 winning role in the USA Network’s Mr. Robot, and a wealth of low-budget indie and direct-to-video films (Alone in the Dark, Bullet to the Head), he was on Hollywood’s A-List with roles alongside Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and he headlined Quentin Tarantino’s True Romance. Slater admirably traded acting chops in John Woo’s Broken Arrow with John Travolta, In the Name of the Rose with Sean Connery, and Interview with a Vampire with Tom Cruise. Then, after starring with Morgan Freedman in the 1998 action thriller Hard Rain, his “star,” as with Nicolas Cage, started to slip. Call it age. Call it changing times. Call it problems with alcohol, drugs, guns, and assault.

Honestly, I don’t care what you call it. The Slate always delivers. And he deserves a Robert Downey, Jr.-styled second chance back to the bigs. His Golden Globe work on Mr. Robot is proof of that.

Okay, so you’re wondering how in the hell does a film with a seven-figure budget earn a three-digit U.S box office? Well, hopefully, you read our previous “Box Office Failure Week” review for Zyzzyx Road, because, Playback suffered from the same exact rollout snafu. (Another is the excellent Jason Patric war film, The Beast). Playback—most likely to fulfill a clause in a SAG or IATSE agreement—played in one theater (location unknown), once-a-day for one week (March 16 to 22) (the bare minimum, theatrical-contractual requirement) and sold approximately 35 tickets. As with Zyzzyx Road, Playback was never meant to be a theatrical feature: it was always intended to be a direct-to-video release.

Coutesy of Mike McGranaghan, with his May 2017 piece, “25 Lowest-Grossing Movies of All Time” at Screen Rant: We come to understand Playback was released by Magnet Releasing: a company that gives most of its films a token theatrical release to promote the digital on-demand release. Magnet debuted the movie on Amazon, iTunes, and satellite/cable services a full month before releasing the film in a solitary theater—effectively giving no one a reason to pay to see it on the big screen. McGranaghan additionally states Magnet utilized the same release-rollout for another of their “lowest-grossing” efforts: The Walking Dead-connected, Sarah Hyland (TV’s Modern Family) bomb, Satanic (2016), which earned a mere $252 in three theaters. It, as did Playback, earned a 0% Rotten Tomatoes score.

Yeah, not a Hyland fan, in whole, or Modern Family—with Sofía Vergara’s Charo-cum-Eva Gabor ripoff annoyances—and way over the whole walking dead cacophony, so whatever. However, the Slate deserves better.

The truth: This isn’t even a Christian Slater flick. His part is little more than an extended cameo (see Eric Roberts’s extensive 500-plus credit resume as an example) to help an indie-production market their film. So what you do get is an unrecognizable bit-player cast of relative nobodies (Ambyr Childers from TV’s Aquarius, Toby Hemingway from The Black Swan, Jonathan Keltz from HBO’s Entourage, Johnny Pacar from TV’s Make It or Break It, and Alessandra Torresani from TV’s The Big Bang Theory) carrying the film via their “legal loophole” low-balled below-SAG rates paychecks.

The story, such as it is, is an obviously rip-off of The Ring—as if we’re not having enough problems with all of the nobody-asked-for-them Americanized sequels and reboots of the superior J-Horror hit. (A more accurate comparison is one of Wes Craven’s lesser known and less successful post-A Nightmare on Elm Street and pre-Scream works: 1989’s Shocker (a failed horror movie written off as a “black comedy” to hide its failure as a horror movie), about an executed “supernatual killer” who becomes “pure electricity” and travels to his victim’s homes via powerlines and home outlets.)

Frank Lyons, a morally-void cop (Slater), gets a second change with an investigation of a missing local teen and comes to discover the town’s dark secret and that an evil spirit—a supernatural slasher—has been unleashed—from a VHS tape. That evil is unleashed by a group of teenagers producing their own indie-horror film when they stumble onto the VHS tape collection of a killer who videotaped the murders of his own family.

I don’t care who you blame Playback on: the writer, director, the producer, or the actors. But don’t blame the Slate: he’s barely in it, and when he is, he, as always, delivers the goods. The truth: his superfluous pedophilia-addicted police officer is the most engrossing character of the film—and seems like it was spliced in from a different movie; it offers no “plot twist” and has no reveal or revelation to the story. Slater fared much better with the two direct-to-DVD movies he did in the same year with Donald Sutherland (who rocks in everything he does): the action-thriller Assassin’s Bullet (trailer/full movie; You Tube) and the western Dawn Rider (full movie; TubiTv).

You can currently catch Slater on the small screen with his role as Dan Broderick on Bravo’s new limited-series Dirty John and Robert Rodriguez’s upcoming superhero action-fantasy, We Can Be Heroes.

* Be sure to check out “Nic Cage Bitch,” our Nicolas Cage blowout written by Paul Andolina of Wrestling with Film. It’s a must read for all fans of the Cage, so check it out and learn about some Cage films you may have missed, such as A Score to Settle, Between Worlds, Kill Chain, Outcast, Rage, and Seeking Justice.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.