Category Archives: Movie reviews

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Moonshine County Express (1977)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Moonshine County Express was on the CBS Late Movie on September 21, 1979 and October 16, 1981.

The Hammer Sisters are the kind of tough Southern girls that deal with their daddy’s murder by taking over his moonshine business, grabbing some weapons and being way tougher than any of the men they battle. Is that enough to get you to watch this movie?

What if I told you that it was directed by the same man who brought us The Evil, The Side Hackers and the movie based on the song Take This Job and Shove It?

Not yet? How does John Saxon playing a Southern stock car racer and moonshine runner sound? Not yet?

How about Susan Howard, former Dallas actress turned 700 Club host and NRA supporter?

William Conrad? Jeff Corey? Len “Uncle Leo” Lasser? Maurine “Marcia Brady” McCormick? Still not sold?

I get it. John Saxon was enough for me. But then I thought, I bet this movie has Claudia Jennings in it. And I was right. And that’s all it took.

What was it about American pop culture that took hicksploitation from the drive-in to the mainstream? I remember it myself — everyone had a CB radio, we all turned into The Dukes of Hazzard and watched Smokey and the Bandit on HBO. Heck, I even had a silver NASCAR jacket that made me look like a 5-year-old pit crew member.

From the very first moment that John Saxon appears on screen and does his best version of a Southern accent, I was thoroughly entertained by this silly trifle of a film. It’s a Roger Corman 1970’s drive-in movie, so you’re going to get plenty of cars getting smashed up, scummy bad guys and “100 proof women” like Candice Rialson (Chatterbox, Pets).

You can watch this on Tubi.

Blackout (2024)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Perry writes for the film websites Gruesome Magazine, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel, The Good, the Bad and the Verdict and Diabolique Magazine; for the film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope and Drive-In Asylum; and for the pop culture websites When It Was Cool and Uphill Both Ways. He is also one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast and can occasionally be heard as a cohost on Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast.

Lara Shultz (Nicole Cates) is a hitwoman with a difference — she suffers from dissociative amnesia. In Director Sean Justin Norona’s action/thriller short Blackout, Shultz goes on an existential journey she didn’t expect to take, but it’s one from which she can never turn back. 

Norona, who cowrote the screenplay with Kayla Lucky, packs quite a bit into Blackout’s 19-minutes running time. Along with learning how Lara came to be a killer for hire, plenty of well-choreographed hand-to-hand combat and gunplay are on display. The short offers much more than simply action, though, as it really takes viewers inside the mind of its protagonist.

Cates makes for a strong lead, delivering solid narration and an impressive physical performance. Norona helms the short well. His choreography captures the proceedings nicely and his editing keeps the events flowing at a brisk clip.

Blackout is a super-assassin origin story that works just fine as a complete tale in short-film time, but I think the world building on display here has the potential for a highly intriguing feature film. 

Blackout is currently on the film festival circuit.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: Something Weird (1967)

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Herschell Gordon Lewis week (July 14 – 20) HG seemed to truly love packing theaters. He’s most famous for introducing gore to horror movies, but he’d fill any need that the audience had. He made every genre of exploitation  – even kids movies! Gore movies would’ve happened eventually, but Herschell seemed to take joy in crafting gross-out shocks for unsuspecting cineasts. INTERESTING FACT! HG Lewis was a huge fan of Kentucky Fried Chicken and had them cater all of his productions. Col. Harland Sanders himself appeared in Lewis’ Blast Off Girls!

You know, if Herschell Gordon Lewis only made his nudie movies or just the gore, he’d be celebrated still, but for my money, the real good Lewis movies are the ones that almost frighten you by their incoherence or ability to fully create a world that is unlike any we will ever live in, like how She-Devils on Wheels gives us a reality — in 1968 — where female bikers are the alpha predator of all creation. Or the nihilistic mind blast that’s Just for the Hell of It which ends with a character saying, “Who cares man” when everyone he knows is dead.

Then there’s Something Weird.

Everything starts when Cronin Mitchell tries to help a man who has fallen from an electrical pole and gets rewarded with a face full of electricity which burns his face off. He wants to die — and why wouldn’t he — but he’s also gained ESP thanks to all that pure energy blasting him right in the brain.

At this point, most people would step back, see that their work is good and then finish the movie. But Lewis is a trickster god who felt the need for more, more, more.

Mitchell has become a bandaged hermit who gives psychic readings when the Bible of the Witches ends up in his hands, followed by a literal witch who promises that he can have his face back if he agrees to be her lover. Now he’s handsome again, but a slave to the sorceress.

She becomes his assistant Ellen and now Mitchell is hunting serial killers along with a karate chopping government agent who is in love with Ellen because he has no idea that she really looks like the cartoonist witch but hey, maybe love is blind. To find this elusive killer, it’s going to take some LSD.

But before that, Mitchell levitates for an audience and then finds a ghost inside a church. These side stories just pad the 80 minutes of running time but honestly, I’d pay whatever money is needed for more adventures of Mitchell being weird.

Anyways, Jordan can’t deal with the fact that he can’t have Ellen, so he goes nutzoid and attacks her. She escapes and demands that her psychic slave murder the government agent, so Mitchell psychically attacks him with several blue blankets which somehow the misogynistic loverboy escapes and what is this movie?

Then this whole thing goes proto-giallo as Mitchell takes the LSD and discovers that the cop that’s been leading them through the case is the killer, but the trip he’s on leads directly into a bullet between the eyes and our hero is dead.

The movie keeps going.

So now Jordan can be with Ellen and sees her, but at that moment he sees the witch and runs into traffic and burns his face off, which she heals but…

Time is a flat circle.

This is a movie that obsesses me. Like I can’t stop thinking about it. Who was it for? Why was it made? Yeah, Lewis was in it to make money, but who would pay to see this (me)?

All these Film Twitter kids writing about how movies stick in their head for life and how things are fever dreams and they’ve never had the moment where you randomly put on this movie and are not ready for its power. About as perfect a movie that’s filled with imperfections can be.

You can watch this on Tubi.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: A Taste of Blood (1967)

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Herschell Gordon Lewis week (July 14 – 20) HG seemed to truly love packing theaters. He’s most famous for introducing gore to horror movies, but he’d fill any need that the audience had. He made every genre of exploitation __ – even kids movies! Gore movies would’ve happened eventually, but Herschell seemed to take joy in crafting gross-out shocks for unsuspecting cineasts. INTERESTING FACT! HG Lewis was a huge fan of Kentucky Fried Chicken and had them cater all of his productions. Col. Harland Sanders himself appeared in Lewis’ Blast Off Girls!

A Miami businessman, John Stone (Bill Rogers) gets a package from England with two dusty and cobwebbed bottles of plum brandy from a recently dead ancestor. He drinks them both and, as these things happen, he becomes a vampire. He puts his wife Helene (Elizabeth Wilkinson) in a trance and heads off to England.

There, he fights Howard Helsing (Otto Schlessinger), the last survivor of the Van Helsing family. Well, as much England as Miami.

This was Herschell Gordon Lewis’ attempt to go mainstream, filled with better acting, less gore and, well, way too much running time. At least the makeup on the vampire version of Stone is cool, there is some nice lighting and unique camera angles. It was good enough for Roger Corman to offer Lewis a job, which he politely turned down.

In case you’re wondering where the music is from, it’s from the Dr. Who episode “The Tenth Planet.”

While not a bad movie, I come to a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie to be upset, shocked and nauseated. This did none of those things, but at least he stretched a bit.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: The Henderson Monster (1980)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Henderson Monster was on the CBS Late Movie on April 18, 1982.

Dr. Tom Henderson (Jason Miller) is in the midst of genetic engineering experiments with his ex-girlfriend and current assistant Dr. Louise Casimir (Christine Lahti) when the town’s new mayor, Frank Bellona (David Spielberg), bans their work. The problem is that Henderson is so close to a major breakthrough and doesn’t really have any ethics. There’s also the issue between Louise and her husband Pete (Stephen Collins), a drunk reporter given to drama any time there’s a society party.

This brings in a former Manhattan Project scientist Professor Leo Tedeschi (Nehemiah Persoff) who tries to bring in some oversight to what was, in 1980, the Wild West of genetic science.

Waris Hussein directed plenty of TV movies, including Copacabana and The Possession of Joel Delaney. The script is by Ernest Kinoy, who worked on big moments in TV like The Defenders and Roots.

If you see the title, you may think you’re watching a horror movie. The truth is, you’re nearly watching a stage play, a talk-heavy one, but I found myself fascinated by it. The science that the doctor is working on is common today, but the idea that someone would just flush a sample into the water supply is still scary.

You can watch this on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway (1976)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway was on the CBS Late Movie on September 11, 1979 and July 10, 1980.

Director Randal Kleiser went from TV movies like this, The Gathering and The Boy in the Plastic Bubble to Grease, The Blue Lagoon, Flight of the Navigator, Big Top Pee-wee and more. This was written by Darlene Young, who went on to write Panic In Echo Park, Can You Hear the Laughter? The Story of Freddie Prinze, The Plutonium Incident, Little Darlings, Marilyn: The Untold Story, The People Across the Lake and more, as well as acting in the TV series Grimm and the movie Pig.

Eve Plumb stars as Dawn, a role that ended up angering Brady Bunch fans when she took this instead of doing the Brady Bunch Variety Hour, which replaced her with Geri Reischl as Jan. Reischl was also in Brotherhood of Satan and I Dismember Mama. She was to play Blair Warner on The Facts of Life, but had a contract with General Mills playing Dorothy of The Wizard of Oz in commercials for Crispy Wheats-n-Raisins.

Plumb plays Dawn Wetherby, a runaway who has come to Hollywood and is instantly attacked and mugged. She soon meets sex worker Frankie Lee (Marguerite DeLain) and fellow runaway Alexander (Leigh McCloskey, Inferno) before working for a pimp named Swan (Bo Hopkins). TV watchers had to be shocked, as the first john she has — and loses her virginity to, saying  “I felt nothing—just stared at the ceiling and became a woman.” — is played by Patty Duke’s TV dad William Schallert.

You can blame her mother for not having a husband, I guess, or maybe not treating her well. It’s all very moralistic, as you would imagine — unlike a movie like Angel, in which yes, sex work is dangerous but you get to hang out with Rory Calhoun and Susan Tyrrell — but this was one of the first times that TV would tackle this hot topic. One imagines a young Bret Michaels was taking notes — “She stepped off the bus out into the city streets / Just a small town girl with her whole life / Packed in a suitcase by her feet” — in his Butler, PA living room.

This was so popular that a sequel — Alexander: the Other Side of Dawn — came out a few years later. I didn’t like Alexander too much in this, as he’s such a downer. Then again, Bo Hopkins is a lunatic and somehow he’s able to get his hooks into Dawn instead of this guy, but we learn in the sequel that Alexander has dealt with some issues, like a famous football star who pays him to pose.

You can watch this on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Beyond Evil (1980)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Beyond Evil was on the CBS Late Movie on April 24, 1986 and March 4, 1987.

Architect Larry Andrews and his new wife Barbara (horror movie super couple John Saxon and Linda Day George; if these two ever had a child it would either be a demon or a gleaming golden angel) have moved to a small island off the coast of the Philippines. Del (former minor league baseball player Michael Dante; he’s also in The Farmer and was introduced to acting by John Wayne), Larry’s business partner, had promised them a brand new condo. Instead, they’re moving into Casa Fortuna, the haunted former home of Esteban and Alma Martín (Janice Lynde), who died after a fight started by Alma’s obsession with the occult.

Within what seems like minutes, next door neighbors and psychic surgery experts Dr. Solomon (David Opatoshu) and his wife Leia (Anna Marisse) warn Larry that Alma wants his young bride’s body for her own. At the same time, Barbara is luring Del into the home with promises of sex and then shoving him off the balcony.

You know what this movie needs? An exorcism. Well, it gets it.

Herb Freed is kind of a forgotten king. I mean, the dude made Haunts, Graduation Day and Tomboy, which are three other movies I watch all the time. He wrote the script with producer David Baughn and Paul Ross.

You can watch this on Tubi or order it from Vinegar Syndrome.

CBS LATE MOVIE MONTH: Holocaust 2000 (1977)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Holocaust 2000 was on the CBS Late Movie on February 29, 1984.

Of all the things the devil’s done, I wonder exactly how he was able to get Kirk Douglas — KIRK DOUGLAS! — to be in an Alberto De Martino ripoff of The Omen? I mean, this is the same director who made The Antichrist and Miami Golem! What horrifying secrets does the First of the Fallen have to make one of the lead actors of Hollywood’s Golden Age appear in this burst of Satanic majesty?

Holocaust 2000 (AKA the Chosen and Rain of Fire) was written by De Martino, Michael Robson and Sergio Donati, who wrote some of the script for Once Upon a Time In the West and Duck, You Sucker! as well as Orca, early Arnold vehicle Raw Deal and the original version of Man On Fire.

You gotta hand it to Robert Caine (Douglas). No matter how many people protest, no matter the fact that his wife was stabbed in front of him at a party or the killer went nuts in a mental institution and sliced his own wrists in front of him, he’s not giving up his plan to build a nuclear power plant near a sacred cave in the Middle East.

He soon learns that he has bigger problems. His son Angel (Simon Ward, The Monster Club) is the Antichrist and the plant he wants to build looks just like the evil beast that the Whore of Babylon will ride at the end of the world.

Seriously, after a bit of crumpet, Caine falls asleep next to his way too young new girlfriend (Agostina Belliand, who was in the original Scent of a Woman) watches the nuclear plant rise from the sea, with multiple heads rising from the currents.

An Italian and UK co-production, this movie also features Ivo Garrani (Bava’s Black Sabbath) as The Prime Minister, Alexander Knox (who nearly won an Oscar for 1944’s Wilson before his liberal views got him chased out of Hollywood during the McCarthy era), Adolfo Celi (who wasn’t just Emilio Largo in Thunderball, he was also the Captain in Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man and the villainous Ralph Valmount in Danger: Diabolik), Geoffrey Keen (Minister of Defence Frederick Gray in six James Bond movies and one of the three noblemen using Dracula in Taste the Blood of Dracula), Peter Cellier (Sir Frank Gordon from Yes, Prime Minister), Denis Lawson (Wedge Antilles!) and Tony Clarkin, who played a stormtrooper in the second and sixth Star Wars movies, as well as appearances in The Monster Club as a vampire and Outland.

In Europe, this movie ends with Caine living in exile with his newborn child, as Angel begins developing the plant intended to cause Armageddon. But in the U.S., Douglas returns to his company and blows everybody up real good.

You can watch this on Tubi.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: This Stuff’ll Kill Ya! (1971)

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Herschell Gordon Lewis week (July 14 – 20) HG seemed to truly love packing theaters. He’s most famous for introducing gore to horror movies, but he’d fill any need that the audience had. He made every genre of exploitation __ – even kids movies! Gore movies would’ve happened eventually, but Herschell seemed to take joy in crafting gross-out shocks for unsuspecting cineasts. INTERESTING FACT! HG Lewis was a huge fan of Kentucky Fried Chicken and had them cater all of his productions. Col. Harland Sanders himself appeared in Lewis’ Blast Off Girls!

Reverend Roscoe Boone (Jeffrey Allen, who was the Mayor in Two Thousand Maniacs!) isn’t really a man of the cloth, but don’t tell the people in his deep southern town, who he rules over as he sells moonshine and keeps the law — Agent Colt (Tim Holt) and Markel (Prentis Smithson) — at bay by getting them wasted under threat of death and then taking compromising pictures of them with underage girls.

I mean, you can see why they follow him. He gets everyone in town drunk, gives them work and then is given to fiery sermons like “Corinthians done sayeth: “It is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.” Now, all you boys with passion get in line there.” And then all the young boys get to make out with the hottest women in town.

This is the kind of place where tourists like Sandy (Dana Demonbreun) and Jane (Joy Smothermon) come to visit and get crucified and one of the girls who set up the feds decides to tell the law that she lied, which leads to her getting stoned. There’s also a head that gets blown off that’s so brutal that I was like, “Oh yeah. This is a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie.”

It’s also Larry Drake’s first movie.

If you’re into scummy Southern movies with lots of blood and aberrant sexuality — and who isn’t — this will satisfy your urges. Kind of like moonshine, this stuff won’t kill you but enough might make you blind.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: Boin-n-g (1963)

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Herschell Gordon Lewis week (July 14 – 20) HG seemed to truly love packing theaters. He’s most famous for introducing gore to horror movies, but he’d fill any need that the audience had. He made every genre of exploitation __ – even kids movies! Gore movies would’ve happened eventually, but Herschell seemed to take joy in crafting gross-out shocks for unsuspecting cineasts. INTERESTING FACT! HG Lewis was a huge fan of Kentucky Fried Chicken and had them cater all of his productions. Col. Harland Sanders himself appeared in Lewis’ Blast Off Girls!

In the opening credits, Herschell Gordon Lewis is referred to as Lewis H. Gordon and David Freeman is listed as Davis Freeman. They’re also who William R. Johnson and William Kerwin based their roles on in this, two normal guys who decide to start shooting naked women on film. To make it even more meta, they’re inspired by a Lewis and Freeman double feature of Daughter of the Sun and The Adventures of Lucky Pierre.

Some of those models include Linda Cotton (who was in The Adventures of Lucky Pierre), Louise Downe (who would go on to write several films, including Blood Feast, The Gruesome Twosome, She-Devils On Wheels and Linda and Abilene, as well as acting in Diary of a Nudist as Bunny Downe, Scum of the Earth as Vicki Miles and uncredited in The Beast That Killed Women; she also was the second unit director for The Wizard of Gore, A Taste of Blood, How to Make a Doll and more), Christina Castel (also in Scum of the Earth), Joanne Stuart (Hollywood’s World of Flesh), Marge London (The Bare Hunt), Marlene Gage and Ginger Hale (The Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill).

It’s goofy, but you know, in 1963, this was how guys got to see women nude.