Category Archives: SOV

Doctor Bloodbath (1987)

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Dr. Thorn (Albert Eskinazi) isn’t your average medical professional. He’s a man who treats a turkey baster like a surgical instrument, and his patients like scraps for the bin. In a brisk yet grueling 57 minutes, Thorn balances a busy schedule performing cut-rate abortions, moonlighting as a serial killer to finish the job at his patients’ homes and ignoring his wife, Claire (Irmgard Millard), in favor of staring blankly at the wall or dreaming of ritualistically stabbing baby dolls.

If you’ve already left from that description, well, you aren’t reading this.

For the rest of us who have stuck around, welcome to the world of Nick Millard.

The doctor is in, and he brought a cleaver, a hammer and a knife. You will see what happens in grisly detail, and by that, I mean the effects of magic you may have come to expect from Millard.

Like a true SOV auteur, Millard doesn’t let a good asset go to waste. Much like the Criminally Insane/Crazy Fat Ethel naming shell game, Doctor Gore is a masterclass in recycling. It features the same droning, hypnotic soundtrack and even reuses the credit sequence from Crazy Fat Ethel, listing actors who aren’t even in the building. It’s not just a movie; it’s a lore-heavy puzzle for the depraved.

The plot thickens when Claire reveals she’s been funding and bedding a Polish poet. When she ends up pregnant and asks her husband to handle it, the movie shifts from a standard slasher into a domestic nightmare of epic, low-fi proportions.

Less than an hour of your life lived in endless drone and muddy VHS distortion. You should be so lucky.

Vampire Trailer Park (1991)

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The Twin Palms Trailer Park isn’t just a setting; it’s a buffet. Wilma and Buddy’s urban renewal plan via supernatural pest control is peak landlord villainy. By weaponizing John Devereux Laporte, they’ve turned a 17th-century aristocrat into a glorified hitman. A man who once owned plantations and lived in opulence is now reduced to hunting in a trailer park, his refined palate ruined by the gamey flavor of the elderly and the marginalized. His projectile vomiting isn’t just a gross-out gag. It’s his body literally rejecting the low-class blood he’s forced to consume. He’s a bulimic blue-blood in a Walmart world.

Between the vampire and a teenage crime duo, Buzz (Bently Tittle) and Jana (Blake Pickett), they’re clearing the place out and getting ready to sell the trailer park at a profit, even if every old person has to die.
How do you catch a vampire in a regional SOV horror movie? Well, if you’re this Florida-made wonder, you hire Jennifer Baiswell (Kathy Moran), a psychic who is joined by Detective Andrew Holt (Robin Shurtz). I have no idea how they’re getting paid, as their client has been killed by one of the bloodsuckers. And then there’s Aunt Hattie (Ethel Miller), who seems to drive our vampire anywhere they need to go.

Meanwhile, Jennifer has a psychic connection to her grandmother, often finding herself possessed by her. Can you be possessed by someone who isn’t dead yet? As for the vampire, he was a plantation owner and certainly a rich man, now left to be bulimic because he isn’t eating the best of food. Old people are kind of gamey, I guess. Just listen to what the dialogue has to say about him: “John Devereux Laporte, died 1746. Our job was to make sure he died again, this time for keeps. In life, Laporte was an obscenely wealthy Louisiana planter and slaveowner, the last of his line, a true aristocrat, a born leader of men. You know, a real asshole!”

There’s a hypnotic TV, SOV drone, original songs, way too much plot and a few laughs, some of which work.

Director Steve Latshaw would go on to make Jack-O, Return of the Killer Shrews and Biohazard: The Alien Force with Moran writing.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Chucky Meets Frankenstein (1996)

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IMDB says this came out in 2023, everyone else says 1996. No matter: After being chased down by an angry mob, the Frankenstein Monster is resurrected by Chucky. When we’re not watching a band practice, we’re seeing Chucky and Frankenstein’s greatest creation just walloping on people. Mostly, that effect is achieved by throwing the Chucky doll at people and Bela Lugosi wrestling with an octopus-style acting.

Director Tom Zarzecki also plays the host, Count Cat, a “horror host catpire from the CATpathian Mountains in the 13th dimensional land of Trithulania.” The film functions half as a horror-comedy and half as a promotional vehicle for Zarzecki’s musical interests. The tonal whiplash between a monster attack and a garage band session is what gives it that public access TV energy.

You can watch this on YouTube.

The Games Children Play (1990)

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Written by Ralph Griffin and Peter Lalonde, this is the kind of Satanic Panic that I love. Lalonde would go on to produce and write the Left Behind and Apocalypse: Caught in the Eye of the Storm movies. 

This gets the most basic thing about He-Man incorrect. He-Man said. “I have the power,” not “I am the power.” That said, Thundercats was super Satanic. 

Eastern mysticism was the boogeyman of this, as teachers used visualization in school, and that’s how they were taking over your child’s soul. All of the lessons — caring for yourself, we are all one people, meditation — are just Satan laughing as he spreads his wings. If this keeps up, we’ll have a cashless society, and kids will be killing each other as they play Dungeons and Dragons. Or Nintendo.

While I find these artifacts of the past amusing, I also know that the Satanic Panic never ended. Now it’s Muslims, and you can be super religious and also incredibly happy that brown people are being pushed out of your country. Didn’t Jesus — a long-haired black man who spent time with sex workers and lepers — throw the changemakers out of the temple?

You can watch this on YouTube.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Blood Orgy of the Leather Girls (1988)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Slasher!

Supposedly, director Meredith Lucas was unable to find distribution for this movie and unable to pay back her debts, killed herself. Her brother, Michael A. Lucas, eventually was able to distribute the film in 1988. But she never existed. She’s just Michael A. Lucas.

Joe Morton has been on the beat for three decades but he’s never seen anything like these girls. Sarah (Robin Gingold) is a Jewish girl who loves Hitler. Rawhide (Melissa Lawrence) wants to be John Wayne. Fleabrain (Jo Anne Wyman) is, well, a fleabrain. And the religious Dorothea (Simone Margolis) rounds out the crew. They cut classes at St. Jerome’s School for Girls, they drink, they abuse men. And when someone kills Dorothea, they get revenge.

It’s also got a black velvet Charles Bronson.

Sarah gets it, other than the obsession with the Third Reich. At one point, she says, “I hate life. I hate school. I hate my parents. Most of all, I hate every day that passes.” I get it. I feel that way at 53.

Also, there are ninjas.

“When the material and creative forces of women become corrupted by the brutality of the everyday world, a force of incredible violence is unleashed, its bloodlust insatiable. In this modern, enlightened, yet terrible age, even religion seems powerless against the wrath of the female who is, it has been maintained, the deadlier of the species.”

I get why Lucas wanted to have a female name direct this, as it would take away the exploitation of the male gaze. But Ed Wood and Russ Meyer also made movies like this and weren’t afraid to put their name up front. The girls in this would probably abuse him just like every man in this.

Someone gets sodomized with a drill, so there’s that.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 3: The Bloody Ape (1997)

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3. SIMIAN CINEMA: Grab a six-pack of bananas and watch a primate film. Something appeeling.

Directed by Keith J. Crocker, who co-wrote it with George Reis (who organizes the twice-a-year drive-in events), this is also known as Son of Sweetback vs. Kong.

Lampini (Paul Richichi) runs a carnival, and when you do that, you get a gorilla. This one is named Gorto. And when people do you wrong, you send the giant ape out to get revenge. Did you break up with Lampini? An ape is going to kill you. Even if you’re an innocent in this movie, there’s a good chance that a gorilla will kill u and that’s if you’re lucky. If you’re not lucky, you will also get raped by the monster. Then killed. Meanwhile, Detective LoBianco (Reis) is a racist cop (is that a double negative) who suspects black man Duane Jones (Christopher Hoskins) of these killings.

You will believe that an ape can not only drive a car, but rip heads and cocks clean off. Well, not clean. You know what I mean. People used their day jobs as locations, topless dancers from local strip clubs who got paid $100 dollars to get naked and it took five years to finish. That’s a labor of love. Well, as much love as you can make when a murderous ape is scalping people as if he were Joe Zito. And what if someone’s stomach gets torn out? And what if there’s also a castration?

Edgar Allen Poe spun in his grave, screaming, “Is this a loose remake of Murders in the Rue Morgue?” What he should be excited about is that a mayhem-loving gorilla can drive a car, much less drive over a cop’s head. And hey, Joe Zaso shows up. I mean, if you make a shot on video movie — I know, Super 8, I’m a big nerd too, you don’t need to start writing a comment that shows me how much you know — in New York City in the 80s or 90s, he knew you were out there and would show up. He can cook, so he usually brings cookies. Or hot dogs!

Anyway, many people say online that this is total trash. Perhaps this is the first time they’ve encountered actual, absolute trash in their lives. They should shut up and wallow in it.

You can get this from Crocker’s Cinefear Video site.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Invocación Satánica (1989)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Bleeding Skull!

I love that the VHS cover for this seemingly rips off the art of Stefano Tamburini and Tanino Liberatore’s RanXerox.

This is a Mexican SOV horror film that begins with extended sequences of a women’s locker room and billiards, punctuated by sinister killers scored to old Slayer tracks, which is the best Slayer. Slayer over Mexican SOV horror is even better. Throw in an Ouija board and I’m there, even if this is boring for long stretches.

I’m patient.

Director Xorge Noble — or Jorge — also made El virus del poder, Masacre en Matamoros: la secta satánica, Cartel de la droga, El reloj de la muerte and Asesino de medianoche, Mexican movies that you can’t tell if they’re slashers, narco or giallo movies from the covers, but sure can tell that Luis Aguilar is in them. Noble is often in his films, and he’s Ivan here, the killer, which is a good evil name.

Here’s what I do know: if you find a spirit board, don’t use it. Nothing good that can outweigh a killer coming back from the dead can make up for it. This combines public domain organ classical music with a totally ripped-off Slayer cover of “Hell Awaits” played over and over, which is a strange mix, but I am there for all of it.

Silvia (played by Rebecca Silva, who bears a resemblance to Lina Romay) is the one who brings Ivan back. He’s the same guy who killed her mother and assaulted her sister before her dad bashed his brains in with a bottle of beer, which is fitting, as he’s the only horror movie killer I’ve seen wear a straw Corona hat.

I wanted more blood and Satan and got, well, not a lot. I did get a fog that can eat away the clothing of nubile teens, and I’m, again, OK with that.

If you want to know more, TrashMex said it much better than I can.

You can watch this on YouTube.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Fatal Images (1989)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

Today’s theme: Bleeding Skull!

You know you are in the right place when a movie has a throwaway line like “I gotta start buying a better cut of coke”.

I love that the alternative title to this film is Alison’s Revenge, and there is absolutely no character named Alison in this movie. A better alternate title would have been I Was Prom Queen Too. 

Seems as if everyone was the prom queen in high school except for our protagonist Amy (Lane Coyle). A professional photographer, she finds herself shooting high school cheerleaders, prom queens, and swimsuit models. But with her alleged artistic flair, she has higher ambitions. When she comes across an interesting camera in a random pawn shop, she cannot resist a little retail therapy to help soothe her current career path. Little does she know that this camera contains the spirit of a serial killer. Now with every click of the shutter, her subjects become victims, with the photos predicting how they will die (similar to David Warner’s photos in The Omen I guess).

It took me a while to accept the treasures that SOV films have to offer. But once I bought in, I went all in. It does not take much for me to find value in these films. Likable characters (or at least interesting characters). An unhinged plot. Doing a lot with a little. That is just about all I can ask for. Who cares if it looks like they filmed inside someone’s heavily carpeted house in the 1980s with no budget for decent lighting? Does it matter that these actors have no experience, and may never be seen again? It does not. I’m always amazed that people can make a movie for $10,000, and here I am, about 35 years later, wishing that I had the gumption to try to create something people might be discovering for the first time decades from now. 

Bleeding Skull ranked Fatal Images at #46 on their list of the best shot-on-video films. Feels okay to me. Now we just need one of these boutique labels to give this one a nice release so more people can become exposed to the delights of sassy models, roommates who wear their pajamas under their street clothes “to save time”, and supernatural cameras that never run out of film.

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: The Dirk Diggler Story (1988)

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Sept 15-21 Mockumentary Week: “Ladies and gentlemen, by way of introduction, this is a film about trickery – and fraud. About lies. Tell it by the fireside, in a marketplace, or in a movie. Almost any story is almost certainly some kind of lie. But not this time. No, this is a promise. During the next hour, everything you hear from us is really *true* and based on solid facts.”

Nine years before Boogie Nights, Paul Thomas Anderson made this movie, which is not a drama but instead a documentary on the life of a dead porn star. This is all ragged charm without the crazy camera work, and yet it gets a lot of the same story beats, even if so much comes from the John Holmes documentary, Exhausted.

We learn the fact early: Dirk Diggler (Michael Stein) was born as Steven Samuel Adams on April 15, 1961, outside of Saint Paul, Minnesota. His father is a construction worker, and his mother is a boutique shop owner who attends church every Sunday.

Jack Horner (Robert Ridgely) discovers high school dropout Diggler at a falafel stand, and he soon meets his best friend, Reed Rothchild (Eddie Delcore), while working for the director. Then comes fame. Then comes drugs. Then comes the fall.

Anderson made this film when he was 17 years old and a senior at Montclair College Preparatory School. Anderson’s father, Ernie “Ghoulardi” Anderson, narrated the movie — he was the voice of ABC — and Robert Ridgely, a friend of his father, played Horner.

Shot on camcorder and edited with two VCRs, this is so close to Boogie Nights, even if in this, Dirk has a successful music career (and died after coming back to do gay porn, which is treated as the worst think ever, which is not PTA being homophobic; this feels like it was made by someone who was reading porn star interviews in Hustler regularly — ask me how I know that…)

You can watch this on YouTube.

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: F.A.R.T. the Movie (1991)

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Sept 8-14 Sketchy Comedy Week: “…plotless satires, many of which were only excuses for drug humor or gratuitous nudity sprinkled with the cheapest of gags. The typical form was a channel-changing structure, which would go from one sketch to the next under the premise that this was just another night at home watching the old boob tube. The medium is the message, baby!”

When I talked about King Frat a few years ago, I wrote that “a farting contest is announced and everyone battles to have the best farts in a scene that goes on longer than you’d expect, then goes about another seven minutes past that.”

This is an hour and thirty-one minutes of farting.

One of seventy-five movies that Ray Etheridge has made, this has eight writers, with Curly Smith and Ray Atherton (the writer of Meatcleaver Massacre and the producer of Death Scenes) working with Etheridge to finish the script. One wonders what the writer’s room smelled like.

Russell (Joel Weiss) thinks he loves Heather (Shannandoah Sorin). He is more certain that he enjoys watching TV and, yes, farts. He loves farts like I love Jess Franco movies. He loves flatulence like I like my dog. Maybe more. He’s obsessed with ass flapping, air biscuits, butt tubas and anal audio.

This has hundreds of people, real sets and feels like it was blown up from SOV to 16mm at certain points. I have no idea how they got the money and the people to stay involved to make this, because it’s a torture test to watch, and yet, I feel the pull of Stockholm Syndrome, and by the end, I was just trapped by it. It made me change my name to Tanya and rob banks.

Somehow, this has a thirty-day shooting and a $43,000.00 budget. When seeking crew for the film, Daily Variety refused to run ads until the word fart was replaced with wind-breaker.

Does it have an elevator fart sketch? You know it.

An extended New Year’s Eve party that nearly breaks up the couple? Yes. The Soup Nazi is also in that scene. He’s not the Fart Fuhrer, but imagine if he were.

There’s an Evening at the Improv looking show; a Sneak Previews moment; plenty of commercials; the voice of Lord Zedd shows up; a game show called Bong Show that has a very young Kesha show up, as her mom wrote the music for this film; Conrad Brooks from Plan 9 from Outer Space and dialogue like this:

Russell: Say it. Bomber. The real gazoo. Slice city, the little sneaker, the big…

Heather: As far as I’m concerned, I do not wish to discuss the subject any further. Case closed.

Russell: Fart. Fart, fart. Fart.

Heather: Are you coming with me tonight, or not?

Russell: When you say fart. Say it, fart, fart. Fart, fart, fart, fart, fart.

There’s also a long moment where Russell keeps trying to make the pizza he is eating create more farts.

The Farley brothers were in a movie called Big Wind on Campus that was also sold as F.A.R.T. the Movie. What do these acronyms stand for? Well, the F.A.R.T. started as a 30-minute VHS sold at Spencer’s Gifts before the full 90-minute version was shat upon us.

This is a movie where child Kesha farts on an old woman. Honestly, we are gonna die young.

The back of the box says: IT’S DEFINITE FART ART.

I’m never watching a movie after this.

You can watch this on Tubi.