April 14: Don’t Go Back to Amityville — An Amityville movie official or otherwise. Here’s a list.

Director, writer and star Michael Stone has had enough of Amityville movies.

He said, “Now because Amityville is the name of a town and it really doesn’t exist beyond this house and those iconic windows, it really can’t be a protected franchise like A Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th. So what this ultimately shakes out to is I could fart on camera for an hour and a half and legally release it as Amityville: Gas Chamber. And nobody would have any rights to sue me. If I wanted to actually make something about the Lutz or Defeo family not so much, but if you just want to make a movie on the cheap and attach a famous name to it, Amityville is a good one to do.”

This movie is the result of a joke that spiraled out of control. Amityville: Gas Chamber started as a concept for a 5-10 minute long video on my channel. However, every step of the way was met with “Why not?” Make it a full-length run-time? “Why not?” Give it proper artwork? “Why not?” Seek distribution methods? “Why not?” Now, here we are.”

It also has the best IMDB fact: “No dialogue is spoken in this film. Which means every time you aren’t talking, you’re quoting Amityville Gas Chamber.”

This is a movie where a man sits and reads The Amityville Horror while occasionally farting.

It also has occasional subtitles that start with “This is it. This is the movie. I’ll be periodically putting some trivia about Amityville here. But this is the movie.”

It also claims that this movie is better than Amityville Mt. Misery Road. 

I agree.

It’s a one note joke and that note is a brown one.

Actually, as someone who has made it through more than fifty Amityville movies, this is not the worst I’ve seen. That may speak to some of the horrors that I have endured as I struggle through the curse that I have to watch every single movie that has that name in the title and then some.

You can watch this on YouTube.

April 13: Yes No Goodbye — A movie about Ouija. Here’s a list.

Directed by Yuen Chor and Tun-Fei Mou, this Shaw Brothers movie has two, well, Haunted Tales.

The first, “The Ghost,” was originally a movie called Hellish Soul that was shut down and reshot a few years later (thanks Silver Emulsion!). The second, “The Prize Winner,” also started as a full-length movie before it was turned into a short and added to this movie.

“The Ghost” has newlyweds played by Ling Yun and Ching Li moving into a new oceanfront home but learning that no one around them is normal. Everyone sleeps throughout the day, even the livestock, and then the visions start. Then there’s a car crash. Then a ghost comes back. There’s also an eyeball in the closet. But this part is a traditional ghost story and shot as such. It’s really good. But where the movie really shines…

“The Prize Winner” has janitor Ah Cheng (Chan Shen) taking a spirit board away from some children in the building. He learns that it is haunted by a fox spirit that promises him all the riches that he can handle as long as he doesn’t gamble, have casual sex and murder people. Of course, he does all of those things and this story has numerous funny sex moments followed up by a totally gross ending that blew my mind out of my skull. Turns out that Hong Kong Ouija boards are gigantic and have a planchette that spins around it, which goes round and round until the man is transformed into hamburger. Also: A neighbor has an entire apartment filled with strange dolls.

The two stories don’t really work together but I could care less. I was pleased by both of them and the juxtapositive nature of this movie just makes me wish that there were more exactly like it but also happy because it is such a unique film all to itself.

You can watch this on YouTube.

April 12: 412 Day — A movie about Pittsburgh (if you’re not from here that’s our area code). Or maybe one made here. Heck, just write about Striking Distance if you want. Here’s a list.

Kevin Smith made two movies in Pittsburgh, this and Dogma. Well, this is Monroeville, but yeah, Pittsburgh. The director and writer had the idea wince the 90s and wanted it to be a follow up to Chasing Amy. It was almost a series called Hiatus that would have starred Jason Lee as a porn star who came back home. Also: That isn’t the Civic Arena, it’s the Rostraver Ice Garden but is now the cfsbank Event Center but everyone in town is still going to call it by its old name long after it changes its name all over again.

Zack Brown (Seth Rogan) and Miriam “Miri” Linky (Elizabeth Banks) are best friends since first grade, roommates and both work in Monroeville (she’s at the mall, yes, that mall and he’s at a coffee shop which is really a Dairy Queen in real Monroeville life). They have no money and the power gets shut off at their house before their high school reunion, where Miri learns that her crush Bobby Long (Brandon Routh) is dating adult star Brandon St. Randy (Justin Long). When they get home, they also discover that two teenagers shot a video of Miri changing that went viral because she wears bloomers. This gives Zack the idea that they should make an adult movie.

Working with a producer named Delaney (Craig Robinson), they start making a parody, Star Whores, before they get all their equipment stolen. That means that they have to use the surveillance camera at Zack’s work to make their next idea, Swallow My Cockuccino. All of the adult actors have porn sex; Zack and Miri make love, which weirds them out. She also gets upset when he sleeps with another actress, Stacey (Katie Morgan). When it comes time for Miri to do a scene with Lester (Jason Mewes), he tells her he loves her. She says nothing and he disappears.

Of course, Zack never slept with that girl and she never slept with that boy and they get together. But you knew that.

Smith said of the movie, “I was depressed, man. I wanted that movie to do so much better. I’m sitting there thinking, that’s it, that’s it, I’m gone, I’m out. The movie didn’t do well and I killed Seth Rogen’s career! This dude was on a roll until he got in with the likes of me. I’m a career killer! Judd’s going to be pissed, the whole Internet’s going to be pissed because they all like Seth, and the only reason they like me anymore is because I was involved with Seth! And now I fuckin’ ruined that. It was like high school. I was like, “I’m a dead man. I’ll be the laughing stock.”” Supposedly, the Weinstein Company’s lack of selling the movie caused their relationship to end. Smith saw himself as a failure and din’t work for some time after this.

Well, at least it’s very Pittsburgh. Zack plays hockey for the Monroeville Zombies, Tom Savini is in it and one of the adult stars, Bubbles, is played by Traci Lords who is from Steubenville, which is close. Smith has seen a lot of porn, because her scene at the end references one of her last films before it was discovered that Lords was underage, New Wave Hookers.

April 11: Get Slimed! — A movie that has slime in it.

Alex (Robert Sabin) and Lori (Mary Huner) have moved into a scummy New York City apartment where horrible people are all around them, like the neighbors who give Alex food and drink that transforms him into a yellow slime creature who goes by Zachary and Nicole (also Mary Humer) who he cheats on when Lori is away. If he wants to be normal, now Alex must start killing people.

Directed and written by Greg Lamberson, this is Street Trash and Brain Damage by way of The Abomination. Zachary is the cult leader who once ran this building and he is still the master of neighbors like Roman (Dennis Embry). Also, Alex works in a video store right down the street and he can’t get there on time, but man, if I worked at a video store near my house, I’d stop all the murder and just watch everything the store has.

If someone offers you cooked Himalayan yogurt, you know not to eat it.

By the end, Greg’s chest has opened up to eat someone, blood and yellow fluid has sprayed all over the screen and a kitchen battle between our once in love couple goes completely out of control with even more yellow scummy ooze spraying everything, everyone and even the camera. Oh yes — this goes for it, with someone’s head slammed repeatedly into pulp and the reveal of Alex’s dripping yellow face costing a sex worker her life as he messily slices into her throat. Seriously, the end battle is almost ten minutes long and it ends with just pieces being left in large puddles.

This is a down and dirty NYC movie shot in the muck and grime where it belongs. Sabin goes from a complete geek to being a beyond insane Satanist who lives to kill. What a transformation and what a revelation this movie is.

You can watch this on Tubi.

April 10: In 3D! — Write about a movie in 3D.

Also known as Gremloids, Hyperspace was the sixth and final 3-D film produced by the Owensby Studios in the 1980s (the others are Rottweiler: Dogs of Hell, Hot Heir, Chain Gang, Hit the Road Running and Tales of the Third Dimension in 3-D).

Just like Star Wars, Lord Buckethead (Robert Bloodworth) has come to Earth looking for Princess Serina and the stolen plans for his Galactic Alliance. He thinks that a woman that he’s seen, Karen (Paula Poundstone) is her and that a baker named Chester (R.C. Nanney) is Captain Starfighter. A man named Max (Alan Marx) falls for her and tries to rescue her from Buckethead and his Jawa-esque soldiers. The government is also trying to figure things out and brings in William Hopper, who is Hooper from Jaws played by Chris Elliot and if that makes you happy, this movie will make you beyond excited.

I love that a regional movie made in North Carolina has had such far reaching future impact on politics.

No, really.

Lord Buckethead — it was a man named Mike Lee — ran for Parliament in both the 1987 and 1992 general elections representing the Gremloid party and got 131 votes against Margaret Thatcher and 107 against John Major. Comedian Jonathan Harvey was the next Lord Buckethead in the 2017 general election. and by standing next to Prime Minister Theresa May, he went viral. He got the most votes, 249, but also drew the attention of this movie’s director and writer Todd Durham, who sued because Harvey was using his character,. Harvey became Lord Binface and David Hughes was now Lord Buckethead, running as part of the Monster Raving Looney Party, which was founded by musician Screaming Lord Sutch.

As for Durham, he created Hotel Transylvania and directed Tales of the Third Dimension in 3-D.

You can watch this on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKDJgAmCzCo

April 9: You’re With the Band — A movie that has a band cameo. Here’s an article to inspire you.

In 1994, director Tony Scott was sent an article by his business manager Neville Shulman. “My Gun for Hire: Why a Movie Star’s Rebel Daughter Turned Into a Bounty Hunter” by Sacha Gervasi was about Domino Harvey, a bounty hunter working for the Celes King Bail Bond agency in South Central Los Angeles and the daughter of actor Laurence Harvey, who was in Room at the Top, The Manchurian Candidate and Life at the Top, and British fashion model Paulene Stone, who refused to have her name be used for the movie, so she’s called Sophie Wynn and played by Jacqueline Bisset.

After completing a bail recovery agent training course, Harvey began working with her teacher Ed Martinez as one of female bounty hunters in the United States. She didn’t make much money, but did the job for the excitement. Living above her mother’s garage in Beverly Hills, she became friends with Scott, who started to observe her as she tracking her marks.

Scott taped hours of conversations with Harvey over twelve years and she spent three weeks on set, appearing in a featurette that’s on the DVD, as well as contributing to the soundtrack and appearing at the wrap party. There were rumors she was unhappy with how she appeared in the film, but sadly, she didn’t live to see it. While she appears as the end of the cast credits, she would not live to see its release, overdosing on fentanyl after years of drug addiction. The movie is dedicated to her.

The first two scripts for this movie were written by Steve Barancik and Roger Avary, but Scott felt they were too normal. He went to Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko, Southland Tales), who used transcripts of the interviews and wrote what he said was “one of the most subversive films released by a major studio since Fight Club.” As for Scott, he said,  “I didn’t let the movie breathe enough. The script was great — Richard Kelly wrote a great script — and I got overcome by the insanity of the world I was touching. I think I fucked up on that one.” He did say it was one of his favorites.

Domino (Keira Knightley) has been arrested by the FBI after the theft of ten million dollars from an armored truck. As criminal psychologist Taryn Mills (Lucy Liu) interviews her, she tells how she went from being a model and society girl to working with Ed Moseby (Mickey Rourke), Choco (Edgar Ramirez) and their driver Alf (Riz Abbasi), an Afghan whose unpronounceable name leads them to name him after the TV character because it’s said he eats cats.

Their boss, Claremont Williams III (Delroy Lindo) is having an affair with a DMV employee named Lateesha Rodriguez (Mo’Nique) who has a daughter suffering from a blood disease. The operation costs $300,000 so Claremont sets up a deal where some criminals will rob an armored truck from his other business and take the money of Drake Bishop (Dabney Coleman), the owner of the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino, the bounty hunters will track down the robbers, get back the money and get a $300,000 finder’s fee which will go to Rodriguez. Yes, it’s complicated. Yes, it gets much more complicated.

That’s because Lateesha has been running a counterfeit driver’s license scheme that the FBI learns all about. They want info on one of the licenses she made for Frances (Kel O’Neill), the son of the Cigliutti crime family. She throws the operation off by blaming them for the upcoming robbery, which she plans on doing with Claremont after she’s on Jerry Springer’s show talking about how she’s a grandmother at 28.

The bounty hunters apprehend Frances, his brother and his two friends and delivers them to Bishop, who learns that they had nothing to do with the crime. Thinking that his sons are dead, their father heads for the casino while Domino takes $300,000 of Bishop’s money and gives it to Lateesha for her granddaughter’s operation.

Meanwhile, there’s a TV show in the works called Bounty Squad — produced by Mark Heiss (Christopher Walken), which brings her into the orbit of Brian Austin Green and Ian Ziering, who speak to the actual bounty hunters and are terrified.

Of course, everything ends up in a Mexican standoff — and blow up — inside the Stratosphere. The money goes to the little girl — and Afghanistan — as Domino is told to retire.

This movie feels very early 2000s — well, of course — but also like you’re on coke when you watch it. That’s no accident. Scott claimed that there was a high usage of cocaine by the actual bounty hunters he consulted while researching the film and he wanted to get that across. As for that goldfish named Sammy that dies, the symbolism of that is pretty simple. Dakota Fanning told Scott during the making of Man on Fire all about her goldfish who had died.

One of the odder things — I mean, other than the constant snap zooms and the camera feeling its closer than its ever been to actors — is The Wanderer, a character who saves the bounty hunters in the desert and shows up to offer spiritual advice. Keep in mind these are the kind of people who would cut the arm off a man and show it to their mother to get her to open a safe. Waits’ songs “Cold Cold Ground” and “Jesus Gonna Be Here” are also on the soundtrack. Beyond his amazing music, Waits was also in the movies Paradise Alley, Wolfen, One From the Heart, The Outsiders, Rumbles Fish, The Stone Boy, The Cotton Club, Down By Law, Iron Lake, Greasy Lake, Candy Mountain, Big Time, Bearskin: An Urban Fairy Tale, Cold Feet, Mystery Train, The Two Jakes, Queens Logic, Night On Earth, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Short Cuts, Mystery Men, The Last Castle, Coffee and Cigarettes, The Tiger and the Snow, Wristcutters: A Love Story, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The Book of Eli, The Monster of Nix, Twixt, Seven Psychopaths, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, The Old Man & the Gun, The Dead Don’t Die, Licorice Pizza, The Absence of Eden and Wildwood.

Speaking of rock star cameos, Macy Gray also shows up as Lashandra.

On August 19, 2012, Scott jumped off Los Angeles’ Vincent Thomas Bridge. He had been fighting cancer but was supposedly in remission. His brother Ridley said that the suicide was inexplicable. One witness said he had no hesitation while another said he looked nervous and held off for two seconds before leaping near a tour boat. He and his brother both came from commercials. After this film, he made Déjà Vu, The Taking of Pelham 123 and Unstoppable, but is best known for Top Gun. He also directed the music video “One More Try” for George Michael and the love scene in his video “Father Figure.”

Domino seems like a parody of an action movie by being the kind of action movie that gets parodied. But I kind of love it for how ridiculous it is. Yet it also feels like a movie steeped in tragedy and pain. Kelly said, “The film opens with a title card that states: “This film is based on a true story… sort of.” The film is very tongue in cheek in its intentional distortion of the truth. This is part of its design… and this design is something that Domino loved about the project. I made it clear to her when I met her that we would capture her fiercely unapologetic, dystopian and ultimately tragic worldview. She saw America through a very subversive punk rock lens (Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols was a friend of hers), and Tony has captured this worldview in a way that she approved. This is a satirical interpretation of a biopic… one that shifts from fact to fantasy as a way of expressing her rebellious spirit and rejection of traditional values, restrictions and archaic traditions forced upon women.”

April 8: Eclipse — Protect your eyes, stay inside and watch a movie about an eclipse.

Luther Heggs (Duane Whitaker) escapes from prison and gets his old gang back together, which is made up of Buck Bowers (Robert Patrick), C.W. Niles (Muse Watson), Jesus Draven (Raymond Cruz) and Ray Bob (Brett Harrelson). As they wait in a motel, Luther’s car breaks down after he fights a bat. This leads him to the Titty Twister, where he gets a ride from bartender Razor Eddie (Danny Trejo). Soon, he and the bat — Victor (Joe Virzi) — turn Luther into a vampire.

Luther comes after Jesus, who has just finished making love to Lupe (Maria Checa). He turns her and she attacks Jesus, who cuts her head off and dives out a window. Luther gets turned and Buck doesn’t know as they head off to complete a robbery. By the time of the actual break-in, everyone but Buck has become undead and forces him to work with the police, who are commanded by Ranger Otis Lawson (Bo Hopkins) and Ranger Edgar McGraw (James Parks, who played the same role, sort of, in Kill Bill: Volume 1, Kill Bill: Volume 2, Death Proof and Machete).

The fun part of this is when the cops try to stop the vampires, an eclipse happens which empowers the vampires to kill just about everyone.

From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money and From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter were produced at the same time with Quentin Tarantino, Lawrence Bender and Scott Spiegel making this sequel and Robert Rodríguez and his cousin Álvaro Rodríguez making a prequel.

Tarantino and director Scott Spiegel met with Bob Weinstein — whom Spiegel worked with on a script for Halloween 6 — and Weinstein suggested that Spiegel direct this movie. Spiegel also directed Intruder and Hostel 3.

Unlike the original From Dusk Till Dawn, this is more about the gore effects than subverting what you expect. It was Miramax testing to see if they could make direct to video sequels — of course, they did — after The Prophecy II. It’s alright, but your expectations are probably as high as mine were.

April 7: Jackie Day — Celebrate Jackie Chan’s birthday!

A Hong Kong and American co-production, The Big Brawl was directed by the same man who made Enter the Dragon, Robert Clouse, along with a lot of the same crew. It was Jackie Chan’s first movie to try and make him a star in America, which would be followed by a smaller role in Cannonball Run and another movie that did even worse, The Protector, with Jackie not coming back for nearly ten years until Rumble In the Bronx.

Jerry Kwan (Chan) lives a quiet life in Chicago with his girlfriend Nancy (Kristine DeBell, who was in the erotic musical Alice In Wonderland and Meatballs). He protects his family’s business with the fighting skills he learned from his uncle Herbert (Mako), which gets mob leader Dominici (José Ferrer) interested in having Jerry fight his best brawler, Billy Kiss (H.B. Haggerty, a former pro wrestler), whose finishing move is a bearhug after he kisses his opponent.

After the bad guys kidnap his brother’s girlfriend, Jerry, Herbert and Nancy travel to Battle Creek where he fights a literal army of people, including Stroke (“Judo” Gene LeBell, the coach of Rhonda Rousey and the policeman for the LaBell wrestling territory; his name is where Bryan Danielson got the name the LaBell Lock from), Iron Head Johnson (Sonny Barnes, who is also in Golden Needles and Force: Five), Atashi (pro wrestler Phil Mercado), Spear (martial artist Donnie Williams), Jamaican (Earl Maynard) and unnamed fighters played by pro wrestlers Ox Baker (who fought Kurt Russell in Escape from New York) and Jeep Swenson (Bane from Batman and Robin). One of teh fight judges is Larry Drake from Darkman.

Speaking of wrestling, Lenny Montana is in this. He’s best known as Luca Brasi from The Godfather, but was a pro wrestler as Zebra Kid and as Lenny Montana. As his wrestling career slowed, he was trying to get into films as well as working for the Colombo crime family as an bodyguard, enforcer and an arsonist. During filming of The Godfather, he explained that he would tie a tampon to the tail of a mouse, dip it in kerosene, light it and let the mouse run through a building. This is where I remind you that Italian-Americans are not criminals and there is no such organization as the Mafia. His last role was in the Frankie Avalon slasher Blood Song, which he co-wrote.

To help Jackie break in America, producers surrounded him with American actors. This was strange for him, as his lack of English language skill and knowing cultural ways caused him to have no chemistry with them. Chan was in a self-imposed exile, due to a dispute with director Lo Wei, who was purported to have Triad connections. He threatened Jackie his contract which was resolved with the help of Jimmy Wang Yu, which is why Chan is in Fantasy Mission Force.

The big brawl that closes the movie has more than twenty fighters and over a thousand extras. There’s also a roller derby scene, which I was totally down with. It’s way better than I thought it would be, even if it’s so sedate by what you expect from a Jackie Chan movie.

You can watch this on Tubi.

April 6: Until You Call on the Dark — Pick a movie from the approved movies list of the Church of Satan. Here’s the list.

When Robert Altman left Hollywood, he directed a stage play and this movie version of Ed Graczyk’s play, which all takes place within a Woolworth’s five-and-dime store in McCarthy, Texas, as the Disciples of James Dean meet for the first time in twenty years. The store is close to Marfa, Texas, where Dean filmed Giant. The manager of the store, Juanita (Sudie Bond), welcomes Sissy (Cher in her first dramatic role), who has also been working at a truck stop, the first of the girls to arrive.

The others are Mona (Sandy Dennis), Stella Mae (Kathy Bates), Edna Louise (Marta Heflin) and Joanne (Karen Black), who — spoiler warning — used to be Joseph Qualley (Mark Patton, in his first movie, made a few years prior to A Nightmare On Elm Street 2), the only guy in the fan club.

A lot has happened in the last few years. like Mona claiming that she had a baby — we never see her son, who she believes is trapped as a child in a man’s body even if Sissy thinks otherwise — with Dean as she tried to be in the movie. Of course — another spoiler — it was with Joe and she’s upset now that Joe has become Joanne, which is a tremendously big thing today much less in 1982.

The girls all used to sing “Sincerely” by the McGuire Sisters and sing it one more time before we see the store closed, faded away, as all things do. This ending destroyed me, as the girls said they would meet again in twenty years, in the same spot, but the same place no longer exists.

This played a small theatrical series of dates at four theaters before airing on Showtime.

Critics didn’t like how the mirrors showed the past but I feel that it works well. Despite those mixed returns, Pauline Kael said, “When Robert Altman gives a project everything he’s got, his skills are such that he can make poetry out of fake poetry and magic out of fake magic.”

How is this film Satanic? According to the Church of Satan film list, “Some of the Satanic points in this wonderful film include touching upon the Satanic Sins of Pretentiousness, Self-Deceit, Herd Conformity, and Lack of Perspective. And the acceptance of all forms of human sexual expression between consenting adults.”

It’s also an exploration of how women must suppress their emotions, personalities and sexuality to be part of the male-dominated world instead of giving in to their true carnal nature. It’s also about the power of myth and how movie stars can transcend our reality.

It’s writer, Ed Graczyk, said of his play “Jimmy Dean can only be described as the result of my own observations and frustrations with progress that ignores a past; the lack of personalization and pride and the recurring need of people to build facades to conceal the truths of their lives. It is the facade that makes abnormal people seem normal and the sad people seem happy, a personal observation which I feel makes the people I write about colorful, theatrical, but most of all, honest. The inspiration for Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean came many years ago during my five-year association with the Midland Community Theatre in west Texas. While I was there I had the opportunity to visit Marfa, the site used by Warner Bros. in filming Giant. The only remaining evidence of the film was the facade of the mansion Reata used to film the on location scenes, now crumbling and supported by six telephone poles. It was the memory of that site, the pace of the people and the vivid recollection of the idol James Dean on the youth of the period that resulted in the writing of this play.”

I’m struck by the love that the girls have for one another despite all of the pain between them. Yet you feel as if they could murder one another at nearly any second.