31. “THE FINAL CHAPTER”: Last in a series… Get it?

Death Race: Beyond Anarchy is the most 2000s movie I have ever seen and I am astounded that it was made in 2018. It has people with rivet faces, distressed fonts everywhere, costumes that feel like they came from the back room of a Hot Topic in a forgotten box filled with JNCO jeans and Mudvayne shirts, a DMX song on the soundtrack right alongside nu metal, a vague anti-authority anti-jail plot that is never really explored, smoky eyeshadow for everyone, Danny Trejo double Dannying it up with Danny Glover (still too old for this shit 31 years after being too old for this shit in Lethal Weapon), Paul W.S. Anderson still writing movies (honestly, if you were married to Mila Jovovich would you be writing direct to video Death Race movies?), stuttery action with pauses before people attack, a strip club bar at the end of the world and yes, a sequel to the 2008 Death Race when there were already two other ones. You know that I bought the box set at WalMart.

Weyland International runs the Sprawl, a massive prison where Death Race — despite being illegal — is the most important thing in the world, a way of life that enables Frankenstein (Velislav Pavlov, voiced by Nolan North) to run the entire prison with his army of Slipknot fans. Even an army of cops can’t stop Frankenstein, who has his men chainsaw off a cop’s head and yells into the camera on the dead man’s helmet, telling the government and big business to send whoever they want.

A whole new bunch of prisoners are sent to the Sprawl and given silver dollars. That money is taken by Johnny Law (Nicholas Aaron) and his gang, who kill everyone but two ciphers: Connor Gibson (Zach McGowan) and Gipsy Rose (Yennis Cheung). She disappears, he is taken by a gang of women to meet Frankenstein and Buffalo Bob (Glover), who supplies the gasoline to the cars in Death Race. He also meets Jane (Christine Marzano), who will be the romance part of this movie.

Gipsy Rose qualifies for Death Race, as does Connor. Frankenstein reveals that he is Sergeant Connor Gibson, a special operative sent inside to kill him, and that puts everyone inside The Sprawl on him. Yet he will be in the Death Race alongside his navigator Bexie (Cassie Clare) while Frankenstein takes Jane with him for insurance.

They race against a field that includes Thin Lizzy (Neli Angelova), Matilda the Hun (Jasette Amos) — at least someone remembers the actual inspiration for this — Nazi Boy (Velizar Peev) and even a guy who is racing in what looks like a go kart. Johnny Law has a monster police truck and gets shot in the head and his vehicle blows up real good. Everyone does, leaving Frankenstein and Connor, but there are still a few turns before the end.

I know that Danny Trejo plays Goldberg, the same character he was in the last two movies. I have no idea what his deal is other than showing up in a bar, gambling and being around attractive women.

The character Lists (Fred Koehler) also returns.

Director Don Michael Paul is the sequel guy who made Jarhead 2: Field of Fire, Sniper: Legacy, Kindergarten Cop 2, Tremors 5: Bloodlines, Sniper: Ghost Shooter, Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell, The Scorpion King: Book of Souls, Jarhead: Law of Return, Bulletproof 2 and Tremors: Shrieker Island. Before he made movies, he was in Lovelines, Dangerously Close, Down Twisted and Rolling Vengeance.

That’s right, the guy who starred in a monster truck movie made one.

30. CAMPOTRONIC: A summer camp that puts the zing in blazing inferno, the spice in hospice, the fest in infestation, the fun in funeral. Go and have yourself a time. 

Ignore Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers and Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland, as this is a direct sequel to the first movie.

Camp Manabe is where Alan (Michael Gibney) is going through some things. He’s awkward and while he tries to be tough with the younger kids, he’s abused by his stepbrother Michael (Michael Werner) and even a girl named Bella (Shahidah McIntosh). He also gets into it with camp counselors Ronnie (Paul DeAngelo) and Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten, who was in the first movie) over the food. Ronnie feels bad for him and lets him go get an ice cream sandwich, which starts another argument between Alan and a cook named Mickey (Lenny Venito). A butcher knife gets thrown, Frank the camp owner (Vincent Pastore) screams at the kid and Alan runs away.

Mickey is soon killed by deep frying and being thrown into a trash compactor.

Alan keeps getting abused. They try and get him to smoke marijuana that is really cow manure and this causes him to fall into another student’s privates. As you can imagine, he’s really getting made fun of now. The kid who caused this, Weed (Adam Wylie)? Well, he’s forced to drink gasoline and smoke a cigarette.

Why would anyone keep after Alan? Why do Michael, T.C. (Christopher Shand) and Marie (Samantha Hahn) force Karen (Erin Broderick) to lure Alan up on stage where he’s stripped in front of the entire camp? Why does anyone let this go on so long?

Only Petey (Kate Simses) stands up for him, which makes Ronnie think that she could be the murderer. Well, the killings don’t stop. Even the owner isn’t safe, as rats eat through his face and come out of his intestines, while Randy gets his penis removed via rope tied to a jeep and Linda goes face first into barbed wire. T.C. gets a sharpened piece of wood to the eye and Bella gets impaled by a bed of nails. Ah man, this camp!

Michael saves Karen at the last minute and finds his stepbrother hiding. He beats him with a mallet, nearly killing him, before being stopped by Sheriff Jerry. He claims that the victims had it coming so…l don’t want to ruin the ending, but it’s pretty great because it gives you what you wanted for the entire movie. Of course, it would have been a better movie if this character was here from the beginning.

Director and writer Robert Hiltzik also made the original movie. This is not as well-recalled as that movie.

29. PHANTOM LIMB: Severed or not is optional but this extension of will has to have a different energy pushing it.

Bill Chrushank (Jeff Fahey) is a psychologist working with convicted killers who loses his arm while driving to work. Dr. Agatha Webb (Lindsay Duncan) gets his wife (Kim Delaney) to sign off on an experimental transplant surgery that gives him a new arm. One of his patients tells him that the tattoo could only be from someone on death row and it turns out that he has the arm of Charley Fletcher, who killed twenty people, and now it wants to kill more as it takes over Bill.

The others who got body parts from the murderer, Mark Draper (Peter Murnik) and Remo Lacey (Brad Dourif) aren’t upset about where their parts came from. It’s enabled Draper to be a better artist as he can see the same visions and Lacey is just happy to walk again.

They should have been worried. Fletcher (John Walsh) is still alive and has his head on a new body. He’s hunting down everyone with his body parts and is killing them. Why did the doctor go along with this plan?

The car crash is pretty brutal. That’s because Fahey’s stunt double got launched fifty feet when the safety harness didn’t work. They didn’t die and the real accident is in the movie.

Body Parts was directed by Eric Red, who wrote The Hitcher and Near Dark. He also co-wrote the movie with Norman Snider from a story by Patricia Herskovic and Joyce Taylor. It was based on Choice Cuts by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, who were the screenwriters of Eyes Without a Face.

28. THE BIG TAKEOVER: An A.I.’er that goes haywire.

Cyborg 2 is everything I wanted Cyborg to live up to.

Directed by Michael Schroeder, who wrote it with Mark Geldman and Ron Yanover, this is way better than I could even imagine. It’s like it was made for me: a movie with Casella “Cash” Reese (Angelina Jolie) on the run with her combat trainer Colton “Colt 45” Ricks (Elias Koteas), guided by the voice of a mysterious escaped cyborg named Mercy (Jack Palance, who also does the intro to this movie and it made me literally throw myself off the couch and scream out loud).

She’s been filled with Glass Shadow, an explosive that is meant to destroy the filled with the Kobayashi board of directors and increase the power of Pinwheel and their CEO, Martin Dunn (Allen Garfield). That’s a lot of power as they’re seemingly the two most important cybernetics companies in the universe of Cyborg 2.

Casella and Colton are being tracked by Chen (Karen Sheperd), a bounty hunter who wants to reverse her orders and have her kill the Pinwheel board, and Danny Bench (Billy Drago), a killer who has spent years fixing his face after a job gone bad years ago. He’s also a dandy 40s detective looking cyborg who challenges people to kickboxing matches. Man, Billy Drago is the best.

Mercy finally appears after years of being just an urban legend and activates his own Glass Shadow bomb and wipes out Pinwheel. Our heroes are able to escape and Colton grows into old age along with his immortal cyborg lover, who finally shuts herself down and lives in a dream state forever instead of living without him.

Of course Tracy Walter is in this. So does Sven-Ole Thorsen. If this was made a few years later, the soundtrack would certainly have God Lives Underwater on it. Or Sister Machine Gun.

Jolie told the New York Times, “After I saw it, I went home and got sick. I saw it and I threw up. Just nausea. But the kickboxing was fun. It was the first time I was sent to do kickboxing. But I was 17 and I think I thought I was making a real movie, which is odd, since there’s a scene when I’m decapitated and talking … as one does. But, yeah, I saw it and got really sick. I just remember my brother Jamie holding me and saying, It’s going to be all right.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about. I loved every second of this.

There’s also a sequel with Khrystyne Haje taking over the role of Cash, Malcolm McDowell as the bad guy and appearances by Richard Lynch, William Katt and Rebecca Ferratti. Sure, it ruins the perfect ending of this, but you know how much I love a sequel.

27. MONSTERS… ALL?: Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolfman are (universal)ly adored. It’s time we start seeing other “people.”

There’s really no reason for this movie to exist.

Many people have tried and almost as many have failed to bring their vision of Dracula to the screen. For every Tod Browning and Karl Freund, for each Francis Ford Coppola or John Badham, there are just as many poorly received versions of the tale.

The Dario Argento of 2012 does not seem to be the person to be making this movie. Made after Giallo, a film that was considered — charitably — not the best of movies, Argento seemingly had a lot to prove. The visual stylist that made Deep Red, Suspiria, The Bird With the Crystal Plumage and Opera suddenly had movies that looked like made for TV films or episodic television instead of the dramatic flights of fancy that fill Tenebrae or even Sleepless. His movies became the law of diminishing returns and instead of being excited by the prospect of a new Argento movie, fans started to worry. I mean, I still haven’t watched Mother of Tears or this movie for so long.

Jonathan Harker (Unex Ugalde) is sent to the castle of Dracula (Thomas Kretschmann, who would go on to play Van Helsing on the 2013 Dracula series that aired in the U.S. on NBC) and becomes the blood donor for the count and his thrall Tania (Miriam Giovanelli). Meanwhile, his wife Mina (Marta Gastini) comes to London to stay with Lucy (Asia Argento), both of whom will soon be bitten by the vampire. You know the story and you know that Van Helsing (Rutger Hauer) will show up but did you know that he has garlic bullets?

As I wrote, we all know the story of Dracula so when an artist like Argento tells his version, we hope that we see it from a new angle. Or, as Coppola showed in his movie, that a famous director can still be indebted to Mario Bava and Terence Fisher. As for the acting, I never expect much, but Ugalde gives Keanu a run for the worst Harker I’ve seen. At least Hauer and Asia are fine in their roles.

That’s before we get into the effects. Yes, this was made in 2012, but the effects looked dated on release, as if they were from another decade or even more before. The scene where the count turns into a grasshopper must be seen to be believed.

Keep in mind that this movie had Luciano Tovoli as the cinematographer. The same person who did Suspiria and Tenebrae with Argento. I have no idea how they made a movie that looks this cheap. The colors are often muted to the point of blandness or worse, it looks like a house from the 70s with the brightest carpeting possible.

At least Claudio Simonetti did the music.

Giovanni Paolucci produced this. He also was behind the late era Mattei movies. If Bruno Mattei made this movie, I would be singing its praises. One because he died eight years before and the fact that he was back from the grave would make me so happy. Second, this is the kind of movie I expect from Mattei. From Argento, I expect more. That’s unfair, I realize, but when you make at least four — maybe five? — movies that I consider some of the best of all time, you get put on a different level. I also realize that your first album is your best album and this would be several albums from where Argento began but when you call a movie Argento’s Dracula, we want to see your specific stamp on it. Your stamp should not be CGI wolves that feel like they belong on a shirt from Wal-Mart.

In his book Fear, Argento said, “I was able to experiment with new movements and close-ups; using the most innovative technologies on the market means rediscovering the original wonder of the director’s job. It was as if what I was shooting had turned into the first movie of my career, and I had to learn everything from scratch.”

He also claims that his goal was to show Dracula’s romantic side and his transformation ability. “…for someone like myself who founded their very career on animals this was a unique opportunity to give free rein to my imagination. As so during the course of the film — thanks to digital effects — the Count turns into an owl, a wolf, a praying mantis, and materializes as a swarm of flies and an intrusion of cockroaches.” He also says that this was inspired by Hammer.

He also tells a story where he and Tovoli got lost in the rain. That seems to be what this movie is all about. A film about a great director lost with technology that he thinks is the future yet holds him in the past, unable to create something that stands the test of time.

I want to love this movie and it does everything it can to keep that from happening. The idea of the town working with the count? Great. The idea that there are hatchet murders in that town? Awesome. It goes nowhere. And there’s so much nudity and gore that you wonder, “Is Argento making his Joe D’Amato tribute?”

Also: This music video makes me laugh. I mean, no one told the drummer not to wear a jersey in a castle and maybe at least try and feel somewhat in the appropriate era?

You can watch this on Tubi.

26. ANY WITCH WAY YOU CAN: Cast your eyes upon a spellbinder.

Adele Karnstein (Halina Zalewska, An Angel for Satan) is accused of witchcraft and burned, but really it’s because she wouldn’t sleep with Count Humboldt (Giuliano Raffaelli). When her daughter Helen (Barbara Steele) confronts him, she even offers her body to him to save her mother. The Count still watches as her mother is burned alive and tosses Helen off a cliff. To add even more pain to the Karnestein family, her sister Lisabeth (also Halina Zalewska) is taken in by Humboldt and eventually married to his nephew Kurt (George Ardisson).

As a plague destroys the country, a storm blows in on the night of the Count’s death, bringing Mary (also Barbara Steele) who inspires Kurt to kill his wife and be with her. Bad idea Kurt. This is an Italian Gothic and all men are morons who must be destroyed by the female ghosts of past tragedy and the curses of mothers whose daughters could not save them.

I mean, Barbara Steele is a ghost whose skeleton is reanimated by lightning. Can movies get any more magical? Do you know how much it makes me fall into a dream of movie drugs to have Steele walking through a cobwebbed castle in a white nightgown holding blazing candles?

While written by Ernesto Gastaldi and Tonino Valerii, neither had enough experience to direct — or so said producer Felice Testa Gay — which brought in Antonio Margheriti to make the film. For as much as Margheriti is known for his miniature-rich war movies, he had a talent for making movies like this. Just check out Castle of Blood, The Virgin of Nuremberg, The Unnaturals and Web of the Spider (which is the first film on this list but in color and without Steele).

You can watch this on YouTube.

25. FROM THE NIGHT OF: Any movie with “NIGHT OF” or “FROM THE” in its title.

James Riffel made this when he was working at a public access station. It combines several movies that he made at New York University, super 8 home movies and some video footage. Never released, it shows up on YouTube.

He also made Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Hellbound, Flesh-Eating Subhumanoid Zombified Living Dead, Part 3, Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Hellbound, Flesh-Eating Subhumanoid Zombified Living Dead, Part 4 — using footage from The Most Dangerous Game — and Night Of The Day Of The Dawn Of The Son Of The Bride Of The Return Of The Revenge Of The Terror Of The Attack Of The Evil, Mutant, Hellbound, Flesh-Eating, Crawling, Alien, Zombified, Subhumanoid Living Dead — Part 5 which uses Bonanza and The Andy Griffith Show.

I really have no interest in seeing Romero’s film have bad jokes and homophobia recorded over it, you know? I should have picked something else for this challenge, but the title got me and here we are with me watching a film that has one voice making poop and racist humor at the expense of the movie that invented modern horror. I just shut it off rather than go on.

24. STOP AND CHOP: The supermarket just became a shop of horrors! Cleanup on aisle 24.

It’s been a depressing last few weeks, so I figured I’d watch a movie and why did I watch this? Seriously, has there ever been a movie that has a bigger downer? Spoilers all over this one, because wow, this movie.

Based on the novella by Stephen King, The Mist has a different ending than the one King wrote. Frank Darabont, who directed and wrote this, is one dark person.

David Drayton (Thomas Jane), his wife Stephanie (Kelly Collins Lintz) and their eight-year-old son Billy (Nathan Gamble) have had their home hit by a major storm. David takes Billy to get supplies and brings along his neighbor Brent Norton (Andre Braugher). As they shop for food, Dan Miller (Jeffrey DeMunn) bursts into the storm claiming that there’s something inside the mist. Managers  Ollie Weeks (Toby Jones) and Bud Brown (Robert Treveiler) locked everyone inside the store as it becomes covered by the foggy cloud.

When the generator breaks down, a bag boy (Chris Owen) tries to go outside and is killed by whatever is out there. This scene points out the issues in town between the educated like David and the locals who have lived there their whole lives like Jim Grondin (William Sadler). They bully the young kid until he’s nearly forced to go outside.

David wants to get everyone to fortify the grocery store but Brent wants to go get help. He refuses to believe that there are creatures outside. He also becomes close with Amanda Dunfrey (Laurie Holden) and Irene Reppler (Frances Sternhagen) as they struggle to deal with the religious Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) who has started to preach and gain followers. She thinks that this is the end of the world which is not easy on anyone, particularly when reptilian creatures invade the store and as everyone fights them off, one of them is burned alive and multiple people die, which only strengthens the Carmody’s influence.

Private Wayne Jessup (Sam Witwer) reveals that the local military was opening new dimensions and these creatures emerged. Carmody and her followers beat and stab him, sending him outside to be killed. This finally makes David realize that they have to leave, just as the demand to sacrifice Amanda and Billy is shouted. Ollie shoots Carmody and the group allows them to leave, but in the confusion multiple people are killed by the monsters.

David, Billy, Amanda, Irene and Dan make it to a car and leave, but no one else is alive. David’s house is destroyed and his wife is long dead. Once they run out of gas, everyone decides to use the bullets in the gun to kill themselves. David is the only one left, having shot his own son, when the military arrives with survivors — including a woman who ran away from the grocery store — and starts to restore order and kill the monsters. David realizes that he killed his son and led everyone else to their death for no reason.

King loved the ending: “The ending is such a jolt—wham! It’s frightening. But people who go to see a horror movie don’t necessarily want to be sent out with a Pollyanna ending.”

There’s a lot of Night of the Living Dead in this movie. While Ben is the hero of that movie, the truth is that Harry had the right plan. You’re just supposed to root for the hero and think that they have it all figured out and will survive. David does survive but at a cost much worse than if he died. He must think about what happened for the rest of his life now. That’s darker than almost any other horror film ever.

23. VACANCY: Road weary are we? Pull over for one that’s set at a hotel or a motel. Goodnight?

A few years ago, I worked at the kind of ad agency that was too cheap to pay for creative directors to go on shoots. Well, when I got the chance to get a script developed by a food social media site for one of my clients, I couldn’t wait to get to be part of the production. And someone had to be there with the client, right? Well, I had to pay for everything out of pocket. Flight and hotel. So I stayed at the Hotel Normandie, which somehow had rooms for less than a hundred a night and was in the middle of Los Angeles’ Koreatown, the kind of place that has all night buffet dinners, so when I wanted dakgangjeong at 4:17 a.m., well…I was covered. It was also blocks from The Prince, the bar where Jake Gittes meets Evelyn in Chinatown, where Gene Wilder and Golda Radner went on a date in The Woman In Red and the bar where magicians hang out in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. Other movies that filmed there include Midnight Run, Crank, Body and Soul and shows like New Girl and Mad Men also were lensed there.

So yeah, the agency was cheap but I had a great time.

I was surprised to see the Hotel Normandie show up as the setting for this movie, but when I think about how every room had the look of a hard boiled detective’s office from the 1930s, it all kind of makes sense.

Babak Naderi (Shahab Hosseini) and his wife Neda (Niousha Noor), along with their daughter Shabnam (Leah Oganyan), get lost in Los Angeles and decide to stay for the night. There is only one room left and they’re told that they will be locked in for the night. Soon, both are seeing strange people who aren’t always there and are confronted by the odder front desk clerk (George Maguire). It turns out that the relationship between our protagonists is not strong at all and their secrets are what is keeping them trapped within the hotel.

Director Kourosh Ahari has a good eye for this kind of movie and it’s an interesting watch.

My stay was much better than this one. Originally built in 1925, the Hotel Normandie was selected as the official hotel for Stanford University alumni, as well as the University of Southern California and the University of California Los Angeles. It’s been fully restored and it looks gorgeous inside. I’d definitely recommend staying there if you’re ever in town.