Olivia Holt played Dagger in the adaption of the Marvel Comic Cloak and Dagger. She stars in this series — which is a little like Elsa Bloodstone from the Marvel Universe — as Skylar Lewis, the daughter of two monster hunters who must deal with Deimata, the demon that haunted her grandfather and now is making her life horrible.

Seeing as how this is a Disney Channel TV movie, this is closer to a song and dance teen dramedy than the slam bang monster mash that you may be hoping for. That said, there’s fun here for younger viewers and solid direction from Stuart Gillard, whose career stretches from the Willie Aames and Phoebe Cates adventure film Paradise and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III to the remake of The Initiation of Sarah, the sequel WarGames: The Dead Code and plenty of episodic television.

What I liked most was the design of the weaponry, which really feels steampunk in the best of ways, and the fact that every main character had their very own fear demon that can only be defeated in very specific ways.

Fuzzbucket is a hairy creature that lives in the swamps of Dead Man’s Marsh — does he know Dr. Syn? — with many other fuzzbuckets and yet here he is, in the life of a junior high kid, creating all manner of hijinks. And yet I demand that you gaze upon him — he’s invisible at times, so you’ll have to wait for a bit — because Fuzzbucket looks like some kind of naked humanoid rat, the kind of creature that one imagines lives beyond the Wall of Sleep, some Lovecraftian menace sent here to take root inside our minds and then destroy them from the inside out instead of a loveable Disney Channel creature.

You know who is to blame? Mick Garris.

Yes, the man who directed Critters 2, Psycho IV and Sleepwalkers got his first directing credit with this Disney film.

I guess that also explains how John Vernon ended playing the principal. And Teen Witch Robyn Lively being in this. And Phil Fondacaro — the voice of Creeper in The Black Cauldron, as well as Sir Nigel Pennyweight from Ghoulies II and Greaser Greg in The Garbage Pail Kids Movie — playing the monster.

All I know is that if Fuzzbucket suddenly appeared in my movie room, after years of speaking to me only as a ghost, I’d react as if there was no God.

Yes, this is just the first in the Sharktopus saga, followed by Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda and Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf, all produced by Roger Corman for SyFy.

In Caribbean folklore, the Lusca is a type of sea monster said to exist near Andros, an island in the Bahamas, that is half dragon, half octopus. That’s what inspired S-11, an intelligent shark with the arms of an octopus because, well, science. The science of Dr. Nathan Sands, who is played by Eric Roberts, so instantly this movie has won me over.

This is also a shark with a computer brain and no sense of paternal love, so you know that it’s going to make a meal of the man who once contended for Oscars and now appears in every streaming movie released that Nicholas Cage refuses.

Sharktopus was directed by Declan O’Brien, who made the sequels for The Marine, Wrong Turn and Joy Ride.

Speaking of science, Sharktopus has tentacles instead of fins. So how does it get thrust in the water (also, I have no idea what Sharktopus’ pronouns are, my apologies)? After all, octopi — thanks to an intrepid IMDB user for pointing this out — use the siphon under their heads to push themselves through the ocean. Also, sharks — contrary to the psychic monster in Jaws: The Revenge — cannot make barking noises. They also have gills to breathe underwater, but Sharkopus spends most of its time on land.

You can watch this on Tubi.

One of the joys of Disney+ is discovering things that you never knew existed. Did you ever know that Robert Townsend — yes, the man who made Hollywood Shuffle — directed and starred in a superhero movie two decades before the recent Marvel movie boom and The Incredibles?

Bronze Eagle (Townsend) is super strong and can fly. His wife, Warrior Woman (Alex Datcher), is just as strong and can outfight nearly anyone. Their children Silver Charge (Kasan Butcher) and Molly have all manner of powers. Even the grandparents in this family, like Steel Condor(Sherman Hemsley!) and Doris (Joan Pringle) are superheroes. The only one that isn’t is Scott (Michael J. Pagan), who may never get powers if he hits puberty before they manifest.

Writer Dan Berendsen was also the scribe for numerous episodes of Sabrina, the remake of The Initiation of Sarah and the movies for Hanna Montana and The Wizards of Waverly Place.

It’s not the best superhero movie you’ve seen, but the idea that aluminum foil is the kryptonite for our heroes is pretty funny. And I dig the eventual hero name that Scott gets, Warrior Eagle.

Based on the novel Sandy and the Rock Star, this episode of Disney’s Wonderful World aired on April 20, 1980 and treated us all to the tale of Paul Winters (Timothy Hutton), a teen idol who escapes from the cruel world of being famous on Sportsman’s Island, becoming friends with a bengal tiger named Sultan who also was once in the business of show.

The only problem is that the owner of the island is planning on killing the tiger in a hunt. So Paul has to somehow save his friend. Crispin Glover’s dad Bruce is also involved.

This was written by Steve Hayes, who also wrote Time After Time, and directed by Ed Abroms, who was the man behind plenty of episodic TV shows as well as the editor of Street Fighter and Cherry 2000.

Sometimes when you watch a Disney live action movie, they change your life. Other times, you watch a tiger make friends with Timothy Hutton, who would win an Oscar for his very next role in Ordinary People.

Can you believe that there’s an entire Multi-Headed Shark franchise? There was a 2-Headed Shark Attack and 3-Headed Shark Attack and 5-Headed Shark Attack and now, a six-headed one that ends up on an island near Corazon where several couples have come to work out their various issues.

This thing is absolutely horrifying, because it’s not just a shark but a monstrous starfish-esque six-headed great white shark that can regrow heads immediately after they’re chopped off. I should by all rights hate this movie — The Asylum are notorious for their Troma-esque films —  but you know, when you see a six-headed apex predator wandering the beach like a demented sand crab you just have to lie back and enjoy it. After all, how many movies discuss government animal experiments in the 70s as the reason for all of this?

Mark Atkins already made Sand Sharks, Planet of the Sharks and Empire of the Sharks, so why not this movie? Obviously I am in for 7-Headed Shark Attack at some point.

The Reverend Doctor Christopher Syn comes from a series of novels by Russell Thorndike and was inspired by 18th-century smuggling when brandy and tobacco were smuggled into the U.S. to avoid British taxation. The books were originally made as movies in 1937 as Doctor Syn and in 1962 as Captain Clegg, which starred Peter Cushing.

The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh was produced for the Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color TV series. Shot on location in England, it was directed by James Neilson, who also made the Disney movies The Moon-Spinners and The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin.

Patrick McGoohan (The Prisoner) plays Dr. Syn in three different parts, which were all edited together to run in British theaters as Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow on a double feature with The Sword in the Stone.

Dr. Syn, a country priest, leads his rebels against the armies of the King of England, who is enslaving American colonists for his Royal Navy. Think of Zorro in the pre-Revolutionary War and you have a good idea of what this is all about,

The first part of the film deals with General Pugh, who has come to the New World to destroy the smuggling ring of Dr. Syn, who is dealing with a traitor in his midst. Finally, Syn rescues his men from General Pugh before faking his death.

I’ve always been fascinated by Dr. Syn/The Scarecrow, who is nearly a horror movie character within the Disney universe. I was so happy when Disney Adventures magazine started featuring his stories in the 2000s, even crossing his story over with Jack Sparrow from The Pirates of the Caribbean.

I love Vincent Price and stand against anyone who dislikes how hammy he was. But hey, if you feel that way, perhaps you should avoid An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe, which features Price all alone on the stage — with props and outfits that change with every story — matched with only music by Les Baxter, recorded at the same time and with the same orchestra as Cry of the Banshee.

Produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff and Kenneth Johnson (who wrote, produced and directed this; you may know him from creating The Incredible Hulk TV series, as well as The Bionic Woman and V), this is an opportunity to see Price go wild telling the stories “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Sphinx,” “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.”

The really cool thing about this is that it seems like every single story was shot in one take, which speaks to Price’s ability as an actor as well as his endurance, as he really goes full Vincent Price on every one of these stories.

The Casteel series started after VC Andrews wrote the Dollanganger books — which includes Flowers in the Attic — and My Sweet Audrina. Only the first two books appeared before her death and the series tells the story of a troubled West Virginia family, starting with Heaven, a gir whose mother died in childbirth, which leads to a hate-filled relationship with her father.

Lifetime made all five books in this series into films following their success with the Dollangager movies. Directed by Paul Shapiro (whose career is all over the place in the best of ways, working on plenty of TV movies and episodic TV) and written by Scarlett Lacey (who also was the scribe for the My Sweet Audrina TV movie and Wendy Williams: The Movie), this film places Annalise Basso into the role of Heaven Leigh Van Voreen Casteel.

Heaven is the oldest child in her family, driven to escape Winnerow, West Virginia with her academic abilities. It takes until late in her teens before she learns that she’s the daughter of the rich Leigh Cateel, who died in childbirth, causing her father to never love her. Yet when he father’s drinking grows out of control, she and her siblings are sold off to other family members, sending her to live with his ex-wife Kitty and her new husband, a writer named Cal who starts an affair with her.

Man, I’m behind in my VC Andrews TV movie watching. What is wrong with me? I have no priorities!

This is the kind of movie I love, one where a woman on her deathbed tells a teenager that it’s good with her if she keeps arrdvarking with her husband, a man who should be her father figure yet asks to be called daddy.

Now I have to stop writing this and get to watching like twenty more of these. My work is never done.