Alien is one of those movies that launched a cottage industry of imitators. This haunted house in space movie changed the way we see, well, aliens. No longer would they look human or like little green Martians. Everything from here on out was going to be HR Giger xenomorphic grossouts with multiple mouths and dripping ooze. The following ten movies — and then some — are films that took a page — or  three — from the adventures of the crew of the Nostromo.

1. Xtro: For those of you that watched Alien and felt there weren’t enough things that turned your stomach or blew your mind, allow me to introduce you to this film. A man is abducted by something that’s either a Lovecraftian race or aliens, then comes back for his son. He’s also reborn at full human size from a woman and instructs his boy on how to make his Action Man doll come to life and kill people. Also: Maryam d’Abo gets cocooned and not in the nice Steve Guttenberg hot tub love scene kind of way.

2. The Intruder Within: People wanted to see an Alien sequel so badly that even Starlog magazine hyped this as a sequel set on Earth. In fact, the creature here looks so much like an HR Giger design that for years, it’s been erroneously reported that he worked on it.

3. Alien 2: On Earth: Speaking of Alien making it to Earth, you have to hand it to the Italian film industry. Director Ciro Ippolito rushed this one out before copyrights for the original were finished — that never stopped any Italian ripoff film before, as we’ll soon see — and they even have Michel Soavi, the future director of Cemetery Man and The Church, in the cast. Bonus points for getting Oliver Onions to do the score!

20th Century Fox was enraged by the title of the film and attempted to sue Ippolito $10,000,000 for using the word alien in the title. Luckily, a British lawsuit pointed out a novel from the 1930s with the same title. Speaking of lawsuits, Ippolito later tried to sue the producers of 2005’s The Descent for stealing the plot to this film.

4. Alien Contamination: Speaking of Italian films, Starcrash director Luigi Cozzi took his love of the look of the film Zombi — and its star, Ian McCulloch — and made this gory and demented cover version of Alien. Best of all, he got Goblin to do the soundtrack, which makes any movie so much better.

5. Shocking Dark: Call it Terminator 2. Call it Alienators. Whatever you call this Bruno Mattei film, shot from a Claudio Fragasso script, you will never call it boring. Sure, the Space Marines all wear rollerblade gear and scream racial slurs at one another, but they also randomly get thrown off high structures by aliens that are living in the sewers of Venice. Just writing about this movie for a paragraph makes me want to watch it again. You can get it from Severin.

6. The Deadly Spawn: The Italian film industry isn’t the only one that can rip off a film’s title and present a film as a sequel. Witness this 1983 movie, which was also released as Return of the Aliens: The Deadly Spawn and The Return of the Alien’s Deadly Spawn. That said, Ridley Scott’s film does not have a scene where a bunch of old society ladies decimate one of the xenomorphs.

7. Forbidden World: Somehow, this shot in the time it took to write this article movie has entertained me through multiple digit watches. The best way I can explain this movie is that it’s the arthouse version of Alien, except that halfway through it turns into softcore lesbian porn. If you’re not rushing to watch it right now, you don’t know how good life can be.

8. Galaxy of Terror: This movie may share sets with the film above it, but while that one at least attempts to not be a sleazy take on Alien, this one revels in absolute wanton alien roughie terror. A host of your TV and horror movie favorites are menaced, maimed, mutilated and molested on the way to the planet Morganthus. This one isn’t for the easily upset.

9. Inseminoid: This movie has been criticized for bad sets, poor acting and bad special effects. In truth, these are all things you truly need to make a great genre film. But right there in the title, you know what you’re getting if you want to get it. Someone is getting inseminated by something from space. Shudder…

10. Lifeforce: Alien scribe Dan O’Bannon wrote this Tobe Hooper-directed film that — for the first half — feels like it could be an Alien ripoff. Then it wildly veers from expectations, like a man unsure of his place in Hollywood doing mounds of coke and trying to make a Quatermass movie with tons of nudity. Oh wait — that’s exactly what it is.

Argh! There are too many movies to fit them all into one list of ten, so let’s summarize a few more:

Creature: Klaus Kinski is frightening enough, but this movie also has special effects from Robert and Dennis Skotak, who would later work on Aliens.

Deepstar Six*: If this movie was made in Italy, it would have been called Alien: Under the Water. Or Leviathan, a movie that came out the same year with the very same idea. Or if you make an Italian rip-off in the Philippines, you’d call it The Rift or worse, The Evil Below.

Parasite: Demi Moore — in her first movie — falls in love with a man who has an alien parasite. They went with the first title they came up with.

Scared to Death: That’s not a serial killer. That’s a Syngenor (SYNthesized GENetic ORganism), who also stars in Syngenor, a movie that isn’t a sequel to this. Sort-of-kind-of sequel-cum-remake: Creature.

Nightbeast: Alien was just Friday the 13th without the woods, right? Homegrown filmmaker Don Dohler gave us more of the same with The Alien Factor and The Galaxy Invader.

The Critters movies: Big teeth aliens, minus the size.

Split Second: Rutger Hauer and Kim Cattrall versus a Giger-ish monster.

Star Crystal: The alien GAR kills everyone until it reads the Bible and becomes a good guy. No, I didn’t make that up.

Pitch Black: BIg teethed xenomorphs meet Vin Diesel.

Species: Is it really a ripoff if Giger designed the creature?

Lily C.A.T.: This Japanese anime about xenomorphs battling the crew of a ship that has a robotic cat also is influenced by John Carpenter’s The Thing.

Biohazard: Fred Olen Ray put his son in an alien costume and told him to menace aging Hollywood star Aldo Ray and burlesque queen Angelique Pettyjohn.

Dark Side of the Moon: This one changes up the alien-threatening-the-crew-plot: this time Satan escapes from The Bermuda Triangle and “soul jumps” from crew member to crew member.

Nightflyers: Based on a 1985 novella by George R. R. Martin (HBO’s Game of Thrones), this has a group space voyagers search mysterious alien being. Instead of a gooey alien, we get a ghost that possesses the ship’s computer that goes “Hal” on them.

Within the Rock: The Sci-Fi Channel’s (before the “Ys”) answer that meshed Armageddon with Alien.

*Let’s round up the underwater-based Aliens into one convenient list . . .

Well, way back, there was 20^th Century Fox’s The Neptune Factor (1973),
And MGM Studios’ “snakes on a submarine” variant, Fer-de-Lance (1974),
And the aforementioned TV movie with its prehistoric eggs on the ocean floor, The Intruder Within, aka, The Lucifer Rig (1981)…

Then came James Cameron’s The Abyss (1989) . . . and the aquatic crop of The Abyss knockoffs released around 1990:

Leviathan: Bad Russian vodka-fed monsters.
DeepStar Six: Carolco Pictures’ giant anthropoid “sea scorpions” jarred loose-by-drilling.
Lords of the Deep: Roger Corman’s psychic aliens and damaged ozone layer horseplay.
The Evil Below: Wayne Crawford of Jake Speed fame with haunted ocean floor shipwreck baloney.
The Rift, aka Endless Descent: The great R. Lee Emery stars in a tale of an evil underwater lab conducting DNA experiments.
Alien from the Deep: Antonio Margheriti’s film about Greenpeace discovering a local factory dumping radioactive waste into an active volcano that spews forth a creature.

Spaceballs — Also, never forget that Mel Brooks even brought back John Hurt to redo the chestburster scene in a diner. I love that the crew of Alien had no idea that this effect was about to happen when they filmed the dinner scene.

Finally!

Alien itself is a ripoff of…

Queen of Blood: This 1966 science fiction film stars John Saxon, Basil Rathbone, Dennis Hopper and Judi Meredith as astronauts responding to a distress call and taking an alien on board that slowly kills them off, one by one. Its director, Curtis Harrington, said, “Ridley’s film is like a greatly enhanced, expensive and elaborate version of Queen of Blood.”

Planet of the Vampires: Mario Bava directed this 1965 film where, after a crash landing, the disembodied inhabitants of an alien planet possess the crew of a rescue ship and take over their bodies. There’s a scene when the crew examines an alien ship and discover the gigantic remains of the long-dead inhabitants of this planet that is 100% stolen in Alien, no matter what Dan O’Bannon and Ridley Scott said otherwise.

It! The Terror from Beyond Space: This 1958 black and white horror film — about the sole survivor of a crashed ship being rescued and slowly killing the crew of another vessel — is incredibly close to the ideas in Alien.

What are your favorite Alien ripoffs? Let us know!

Aren’t you sick of playing your own game and controlling your own outcome? Wouldn’t you rather have someone else play a video game and you can just watch instead? No, us neither. But for some reason, video game movies keep getting made. Here are just ten of them. And if we miss one you love — or hate — let us know!

1. Double Dragon: We ended up reviewing this movie twice, thanks to its incredibly MVD Rewind release that let us see it in a whole new light. Based on Technos’ 1987 arcade game Double Dragon (which is the spiritual successor to Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun, known to the US as Renegade), this film only uses its source material as a template to go crazy and became a Mad Max in LA neon fantasy world send-up.

2. Super Mario Brothers: My wife’s first Super Mario Brothers experience wasn’t the game. Instead, it was this movie, so she’s never understood why people think said Nintendo game is so much better than the film. When asked why he did the film by his son, Dennis Hopper replied, “So you can have shoes.” His son replied, “Dad, I don’t need shoes that badly.”

3. Mortal Kombat: You could argue that this movie is basically Enter the Dragon with more crazy special effects and magic, but that’s pretty much the game, too. Watching this movie is like mainlining the 1990’s right into your brain. You can do the same with its inferior sequel, where several of the main characters get killed off or worse, replaced by other actors.

4. Alone in the Dark: This is a game few of you may have played. That said, it is a movie that nearly all of you should avoid. Uwe Boll wasn’t done, though. He’d also make movies out of the games House of the Dead, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, BloodRayne, Postal and Far Cry. You should avoid all of those as well. Also, please don’t confuse it with Alone in the Dark, a superior slasher movie.

5. Street Fighter: If you ever wanted to see Raul Julia face off against Jean-Claude Van Damme, good news. This movie has you covered. Then again, Kylie Minogue makes a great Cammy. That’s probably all of the goods news I have for you, but full spoiler: I kinda love this big dumb movie.

6. Doom: Someday, I’m going to make an IMDB list of movies where The Rock plays a bad guy. It’s pretty short. I can count them on my fingers. But this is on that list. It’s also on my two movie list of movies where Karl Urban plays an awesome hero with giant guns, along with Dredd.

7. Rampage: Another video game movie. Another appearance by The Rock. That said, this one blows Doom away. It’s a big dumb monster movie that’s not afraid to be both big and dumb. They could make a hundred of these and I’d watch them all.

8. The Resident Evil series: I had to look up how many of these there are. The answer? Six. Six different times that Milla Jovovich battled the Umbrella Corporation. I know that I’ve seen at least two of them, but I can’t tell you a single thing other than Milla looked great in both.

9. Silent Hill: The original Silent Hill game was one of the most frightening I’ve ever played — I used to wear headphones so I could hear where enemies were coming from and it was so tense that it made me jump every time a monster got close. The film is one of the few decent video game adaptions.

10. Tomb Raider: Lara Croft has made it onto the big screen three times now: twice with Angelina Jolie in the lead and once with Alicia Vikander. She’s a character perfect for films — a female Indiana Jones that you can put in any manner of story.

That’s not every video game movie ever. We didn’t count films like Wreck-It Ralph and Pixels that used multiple video game characters. And didn’t get to movies like Prince of Persia, Wing Commander, Dead or Alive, Hitman, Max Payne, Tekken, Need for Speed, Warcraft or Assassin’s Creed. 

That said — when you see that movies like Sonic the Hedgehog and Pokémon: Detective Pikachu will be out soon, it just proves that this is a trend that isn’t going away.

As for video games adapting movies? That’s a whole other story.

1945’s Dead of Night is one of the few British horror films of that decade, as the genre had been banned from production during World War II. In decades to come, its influence would be felt on Amicus, a study that often battled Hammer for the crown of British horror while using many of the same actors.

Please consider this list an overview of some of our favorite horror portmanteau anthologies. We’re not going to get every single one into this one. And as always, it’s in no particular order.

1. Creepshow: What happens when you unite Stephen King and George Romero, then let Tom Savini run wild with the special effects? You get this tribute to 1950’s horror comic books, particularly E.C. Comics. From swampy zombies to an HP Lovecraft-style story starring King and even a fluffy beast in a crate, this one has it all and then some. The sequel isn’t all that bad, either. And I guess you could consider Tales from the Darkside a spiritual successor.

2. Tales from the Crypt: Speaking of E.C. Comics, Amicus took some of their stories and created this, perhaps one of the finest horror anthologies there will ever be. Any movie that starts with Santa Claus killing Joan Collins is one that’s going to grab and sustain your interest. It also ends like just about every Amicus movie: the main narrator looks right at you and talks through the fourth wall, then everyone else walks to their grave. Or Hell. Or into the fog. There’s also a sequel to this, The Vault of Horror.

3. Asylum: Asylum boasts an epic cast and assured direction from Roy Ward Baker. And it also has what I feel is the absolute best single story in any of the Amicus films, “The Weird Tailor,” which features Peter Cushing, the occult and a glowing suit that brings a mannequin to disturbing life.

4. Trilogy of Terror: Karen Black stars in three stories as a vampiric teacher, opposite twin sisters and finally, a woman whose battles with her mother are nothing compared to her war with a doll possessed by a Zuni warrior. Amazingly, a movie this frightening was on regular TV! There was a sequel made years later that wasn’t quite so good and producer Dan Curtis also made the anthology Dead of Night later in the decade.

5. Trick ‘R Treat: The adventures of little Sam on one particular Halloween night and the strange things he sees (and does), this 2007 movie slipped past my radar for years, but now I’m dying for a sequel as much as everyone else!

6. Tales from the Hood: Rusty Cundieff’s 1995 anthology follows the fates of the bodies in Mr. Simms’ Funeral Home, which is way more than it seems. I consider this a lost classic of 1990’s horror, a perfect blend of social commentary and scares. Sadly, the 2018 sequel didn’t live up to the original.

7. Bizarre: Are these lists I spend all this time researching and writing just an excuse to get people to watch this completely deranged 1970 movie’s combination of William S. Burroughs cut-up techniques, philosophy, British sex magazines and mummies talking directly to the camera? Yes. Completely.

8. Cat’s Eye: Stephen King comes up a lot on this list, doesn’t he? Well, this one holds a special place in our heart because it was the first film we talked about on our podcast. And how can you not love General the cat meeting mobsters who stop people from smoking, watch a man try and walk across a skyscraper and then battle a gnome?

9. Night Train to Terror: You mean to tell me that in a world of great Amicus movies and all these recent horror anthologies that are littering Amazon Prime that I picked this piece of total junk? Yep. I love this piece of total junk, a film where God and Satan watch uncompleted direct to video films while a few cars over, teenagers dance to the same song for two hours. If you don’t like this movie, leave this site and never come back.

10. The House that Dripped Blood: Look, I tried to not make this ten Amicus movies. I could have had Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, Torture Garden and From Beyond the Grave on this. I could have even listed movies that were spiritual sequels to the Amicus brand like Tales that Witness Madness and The Monster Club. My devotion to that studio runs deep. But this is the one I picked, basically because Ingrid Pitt is in this one. I’m joking. This film fits together so well and has such a perfect central theme that it was the one I had to select. But yes, it does have Ingrid Pitt in it.

Your favorite movie may not be on the list. There’s no Twice-Told Tales or Nightmares. I also skipped Black Sabbath, which is a total sin. Or Twilight Zone: The Movie. Or any of the more modern films like V / H / S, XX, Holidays, Southbound or ABC’s of Death. You could even consider Grindhouse a horror anthology. And don’t even get me started on TV shows like Monsters, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Tales from the Darkside, Tales from the Crypt, Night Gallery…it’s all too much!

So what’s your favorite horror anthology?

Following the success of 1982’s Conan the Barbarian, filmmakers the world over suddenly saw the opportunity to rip off — make their own — versions of that film and make some money. It came easy to the Italians, who had their own peblum crazy of Hercules films in the 1950’s and 60’s. To quote Joe Bob Briggs, these films have the three B’s: babes, beasts and blood. And because I was around ten years old when they started getting big, they’re some of my favorite movies. Here are ten that I like.

Disclaimer: These aren’t a top ten. If your favorite movie isn’t on this list, make your own. Or tell me about it — maybe I’ll find a new favorite!

1. Conan the Barbarian: Robert E. Howard may have died in 1936, but the paperback boom of the 1960’s ensured that his characters would live forever. A movie of his Cimmerian barbarian had been proposed since 1970, but it would take twelve years — and the discovery of Arnold Schwarzenegger — before it could happen. The cycle established in this movie — tragic childhood, body breaking torture and eventual revenge in adulthood — forms the muscle-bound backbone of nearly every movie that came in its bloody wake. Arnold would appear in a legitimate sequel, Conan the Destroyer, and a spiritual one, Red Sonja. To this day, rumors of Conan the King still circulate. 2. The Sword and the Sorcerer: This Albert Pyun film was amongst the first to emerge in the wake of Conan’s success. Here, the rogue Talon uses his triple blade sword to battle RIchard Lynch — look for him in plenty of these films — to win a night with the princess Alana.

3. The Beastmaster: If you had cable in the 80’s and 90’s, there’s no way that you missed this series of movies. Dennis Miller once joked that HBO stood for “Hey, Beastmaster’s On.” Originally created by Don Coscarelli, this series is all about the adventures of Dar, a barbarian who can speak to animals. There are two sequels: Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time and Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus, as well as 66 episodes of a syndicated TV series.

4. Deathstalker: There are four movies about the Deathstalker character and you really don’t need to watch them in any particular order. The first one does have plenty of great gladiator fights and an appearance by future Phil Spector victim Lana Clarkson, who would go on to star in Barbarian Queen before her unfortunate demise.

5. Fire and Ice: So much of the success of Conan can be attributed to its paperback covers, which boasted the artwork of Frank Frazetta. This animated film, directed by Ralph Bakshi, also features the writing of Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, who adapted many of Howard’s Conan tales in the Marvel Comics adaptions. This movie is like those covers come to life and worth finding.

6. Ator the Fighting Eagle: Joe D’Amoto made four of these movies and you’ll either love them because you grew up watching them on VHS or on cable, or you’ll be shocked at how shoddy they get. I’m in the former camp, of course.

7. Conquest: What happens when you let an absolute maniac like Lucio Fulci create a barbarian movie? One shot in eternal fog, that starts with werewolves ripping a woman in half and has dolphins save our crucified hero and a villain who is naked for the entire movie. They could have stopped making sword and sorcery movies after this one. In fact, all movies should have stopped after, as it’s really a senses-shattering assault.

8. Sorceress: Imagine if someone infused the Corsican Brothers, but as Playboy centerfold sisters, and then had them fight people with swords, then the whole movie ended with a flying tiger battling a giant witch head. Stop dreaming and start watching!

9. Ironmaster: This movie is more than just swords. This movie is about how metal was first used to make swords. And George Eastman — nearly a patron saint of this site — wears a giant lion head and kills people left and right.

10. The Barbarians: Instead of one Conan, why not have two? Ruggero Deodato takes a break from cannibals to instead give us this tale of a traveling sideshow battling the evil Richard Lynch and brings George Eastman and Michael Berryman along for the ride.

Of course, I left so many movies out. I know someone is going to write an angry comment like, “How dare you leave out Throne of Fire!” or “How dare you forget the Kevin Sorbo Kull the Conquerer movie!”

Check out our Letterboxd list of sword and sorcery films to see every one we’ve covered on our site!

There are so many 80’s sword and sorcery movies that at times, it’s hard to make a definition as to whether or not they fit. Masters of the Universe is based on the He-Man toys that were influenced by Conan, but it’s such a science fiction movie that it’s hard to put it squarely into the sword and sorcery category. The same can be said of Krull and Yor Hunter from the Future, films that have many qualities that get them close, but not all the way.

Additionally, there are plenty of Hollywood blockbusters that have elements of the genre, but aren’t strictly sword and sorcery. Movies like Legend, Clash of the Titans, Willow and Dragonslayer are more on the side of fantasy.

Did we miss any of your favorites? Let us know!

Does anyone even pay attention to ratings any more? Growing up, I was never one of those kids who wasn’t allowed to see an R rated movie. That said, the sheer violence and insanity of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom did seem quite shocking. That’s one of the films — along with Gremlins — that led to the PG-13 rating. These days, if a horror movie comes out and it’s anything but R rated, it seems pointless. But I’m also here to tell you that for a time — let’s call them the 1970’s and 80’s  — some truly demented and frightening films came out and got a PG rating. Here are but a few of them.

1. Poltergeist: Yep. For all the scares Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg put into this 80’s thrill ride — including legit skeletons and a clown that induced nightmares for an entire generation — any kid could see this movie in a theater.

2. Jaws: I’m starting to get the idea that Spielberg loved the idea of luring kids into the movie theater to scare the shit out of them. Yes, the movie that made people afraid to go to the beach was totally not an R. Yes. I’m as surprised as you.

3. Invasion of the Body Snatchers: As much as I love the original film, the 1978 remake is just as good, if not better. It’s a bleak slice of 1970’s science fiction with a downbeat ending that scared the hell out of me as a child, along with an out of nowhere scene of a dog with a human head that gave me night terrors. And yes. I could have totally gone and seen it in a theater with parental guidance suggested, but not necessary.

4. It’s Alive: The TV commercial for this movie was so scary, I would cover my eyes and ears and scream until it was over. I have no idea how I’d handle watching this movie as a kid, even with my folks in the theater. And yet I totally could have seen this alone and been scarred for life. Thanks, Larry Cohen. Thanks, MPAA.

5. Tales from the Crypt: Yes, a movie that begins with Santa breaking in and killing Joan Collins, then ends with a man being sliced open by razors and devoured by his own dog — before everyone walks into Hell — is rated PG. Of course.

6. The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane: There’s no outright gore or nudity in this movie. But man, is it unsettling. There’s just something off in this tale of Jodie Foster not needing a family, falling in love with young magician Scott Jacoby and fighting off the upsetting advances of Martin Sheen. It just feels…wrong.

6. The Baby: Then again, if you want unsettling, upsetting and just wrong all in one tight little 84-minute package, may I present this 1973 Ted Post directed masterwork. Seriously, this is a film so strange that people I’ve forced to watch it have pulled me aside and confessed that it still is inside their brain months later. Good. We should all be so lucky as to witness such a film.

7. The Devil’s Rain: I love that the poster above is for a PG rated movie. In fact, I love everything there is about this movie, a 1970’s occult shocker that even had Church of Satan leader Anton LaVey as a technical consultant and an ending that has people melting for over ten minutes. You should just buy the Severin release and watch it all weekend with every child you know — because yes, in case you didn’t get it, it’s rated PG. Tell their parents and they’ll understand.

8. Burnt Offerings: Oh yeah. A movie where Oliver Reed flips out and tries to drown his son in a swimming pool. Kids are totally prepared to deal with that.

9. The Last House on Massacre Street/The Bride: Look, I think kids should totally watch this movie and learn not to go into marriage lightly, especially if your ex-wife is prone to murdering chickens.

10. Mommie Dearest: As the only nine-year-old I know that wanted to see this when it was in theaters, I’d like to thank Jack Valenti, the head of the MPAA, for making sure that I could go see it by myself. Sure, you hacked so many of my favorite slashers to bits, but I could totally go see this and scream the dialogue at the top of my lungs.

Here are a few other movies that I’m frankly shocked aren’t rated R or worse: The Legend of Hell House, Salem’s Lot (even though it was made for TV, the MPAA rated it), Twilight Zone: The Movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Soylent Green, The Witches, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Watcher in the Woods, Jaws 2, Asylum, Deathdream, Tombs of the Blind Dead, Orca, The Car, Prophecy, Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, Lemora, Phantom of the Paradise, Patrick, One Dark Night, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times and The Vault of Horror. And get this — Planet of the Apes is G rated!

Man! I didn’t even get to Tourist Trap! How is that PG? Obviously, this list should have been more than ten entries! What did we miss? What are some of your favorites?

Oh! The Village People starring Can’t Stop the Music has an extended YMCA scene with male nudity! How could I forget?

There’s nothing like a band that you love showing up unexpectantly in a movie. Here are some of our favorite moments when a band showed up, blew our minds and rocked our eardrums. Keep in mind for this list, the band or artist had to actually be playing themselves. When it comes to musicians showing up as characters in movies, that’s a whole other list.

1. Cannibal Corpse playing “Hammer Smashed Face” in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective: Jim Carrey asked for the Buffalo, New York by way of Tampa, Florida death metal masters of offense album covers and even more upsetting lyrics to play a scene in this film. Turns out he was a legit fan, even name dropping their name and Napalm Death on the Arsenio Hall Show that same year.

2. Ministry playing “What About Us?” in A.I. Artificial Intelligence: I love this moment in this bloated film as much as I dislike the rest of it, as the Detroit synth rockers turned industrial drug taking menace to society known as Ministry are transformed into broken down machines that play the Flesh Fair, where humans protest against robots.

3. My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult playing “After the Flesh” in The Crow: Speaking of Detroit, no band is a better pick to play Devil’s Night at Top Dollar’s club than this Chicago based disco/Satan/industrial/movie quoting collective. Their music is also all over Cool World, too. ”

4. Gwar playing “Saddam-a-Go-Go” in Empire Records: Of all people to show up in this 90’s teen ensemble, the last you’d expect to see is a band that spent thousands of years trapped beneath Antarctica before giving the people what they want, which can only be the senseless slaughter of the gutter-slime that litters this nation. Gwar was made for movies, but them being in this one still is a shocker.

5. The Donnas playing the prom in Jawbreaker: Remember when The Donnas were all over the place? Jawbreaker is a reminder of 1999, a time when four tough girls could battle the entire world.

6. The 5,6,7,8’s play the House of the Blue Leaves house band in Kill Bill: If you’re going to run a Yakuza bar and earn the rage of Beatrix Kiddo, you better have the right band playing for the battle that soon follows between her and the Crazy 88’s. Luckily, these ladies are able to provide the perfect soundtrack for all the bloodshed that follows.

7. Digital Underground in Nothing But Trouble: I’m so happy that people are starting to discover just how amazingly wonderful and ridiculous this 1991 Dan Aykroyd comedy is. It’s one madman assembling an army of artists to create something strange that nobody wants to see on an incredibly immense scale. You could call it a folly. I’d call it a secret success — and Tupac’s first movie role, too.

8. Sorcery in Stunt Rock: Sorcery was more than a band. They also had two master magicians who would battle it out as Merlin and Satan while they played. I was literally seconds into the trailer for this movie when I bought it and that was all because of this part, where Merlin blasts explosions across the stage. Is magic real? Watch this and find out for sure. Also: Stunt Rock is a “death wish at 120 decibels.” I’d recommend watching it a hundred times.

9. Motörhead playing “Eat the Rich” in Eat the Rich: Only Lemmy could rhyme Shetland pony with extra pepperoni. This The Comic Strip Presents… movie may have flopped hard, but the song lives forever.

10. Queens of the Stone Age as Gown in Hot Rod: Yep. That’s the desert rockers playing the intro for the final stunt in this ode to falling off motorcycles and beating up your stepfather.

There’s also The Afghan Whigs in Beautiful Girls, Alice Cooper’s awesome speech in Wayne’s World and Anthrax in the movie Calendar Girls. 

Honorable — or dishonorable — mention goes to every 1990’s pop punk band that showed up in a movie, such as Good Charlotte in Not Another Teen Movie, Simple Plan in New York Minute, The Offspring getting killed in Idle Hands, Smash Mouth in Rat Race, Mighty Mighty Bosstones in Clueless, Save Ferris in 10 Things I Hate About You, Bowling for Soup in Britney Spears’ Crossroads (not the Ralph Macchio Crossroads, which has Steve Vai as Satan’s guitarist) and Blink-182 in American Pie.

Do you have a favorite? Let us know.

Cats. We love them around here at B&S About Movies, as Becca moved in with two cats, Elvis and Lola, to join Sam’s boys, Norris and Anderson. So we often look for movies that star cats. We could list lots of kid-friendly films, but we’d rather find some strange movies that just happen to have cats in a featured role.

1. Clovis from Sleepwalkers: There have been many cats who have been in films. But Clovis is one of the few that I can think of that is an official police cat. And definitely the only one who assembles an army of cats to avenge his dead human and decimate an incestuous union of vampiric creatures.

2. General from Cat’s Eye: General moves the entire story of this film, from being captured by mafia guys who can get you to stop smoking to running along the ledge of a building and battling an evil creature that steals the breath of little girls. The end of this movie, where he’s finally asleep and secure in a home of his own, warms my heart.

3. Jones in Alien: Sure, that xenomorph wipes out every human but Ripley, but Jones (also called Jonesy, but we know he prefers his proper name) easily survives (and even shows up in Aliens, staying behind on Earth). In the novelization of the first film, there are even chapters from his point of view.

4. Church from Pet Sematary: Ever had a cat completely lose his or her mind and slice your puny human flesh to ribbons in an act of pure feline madness? Church was prone to do things like that even before he was brought back to evil life by a Native American burial plot. Once he returns, everyone pays.

5. Rufus in Reanimator: What is it with dead cats coming back as evil? But check out this amazing Rufus sticker from the amazing folks at Cavity Colors!

6. The black cat in Fulci’s The Black Cat: This is one black cat that gets it done. If by gets it done you mean casually lead humans to their doom and go to war with his human owner. Bonus Fulci points for another cat, this time the one that lives inside his insane and eye-damaged obsessed skull in Cat in the Brain.

Image from the wonderful site http://www.cinemacats.com

7. The killer cat from Uninvited: A cat that escapes from a government lab that somehow has another creature living inside it that ends up killing George Kennedy and messing up a drug-fuelled cruise caper. Oh man — this movie! Of course Vinegar Syndrome is re-releasing this!

8. All of the cats in Eye of the Cat: Old ladies love their cats. And guess what — cats love their old ladies. Everyone tries to take Aunt Danny’s money, but the cats? They got her back. This somewhat lost film was finally re-released by Shout! Factory.

9. The cats in The Uncanny: This post-Amicus portmanteau is all about Peter Cushing’s book on cats, who he feels are Satan in fur. Look, any movie where Samantha Eggar is Donald Pleasence’s mistress is getting watched in this house.

10. Claude in Black Christmas: I have a theory about Claude. He’s totally annoyed at having to live with sorority girls, so he’s decided to work with the killer. He even shows us his complicity by licking the plastic bag that was used to murder Clare!

Honorable meows go to Blanche the blood spitting cat from the Japanese film House, the homeless cats that menace Timothy Busfield and Kathleen Quinlan in the made for TV Strays, the cat in Tomb of Ligeia, the human/cat hybrids of the Cat People series of films, Satan in Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key and the black cat in The Legend of Hell House.

There’s a great site that you should check out, Horror Cats, which has featured over 400 cat appearances in horror movies and television.

Which cat is your favorite? Did we miss one? Let us know!

Remember music videos? Well, once the bands you like used to have them on a channel called, get this, Music Tele Vision, or MTV. Now, you have to go to YouTube to see your favorite videos. Here are ten that feature your favorite horror movie characters, too.

1. “What’s This Life For” by Creed from Halloween H20: 20 Years Later: For all the reasons to hate this movie, perhaps the biggest one is that when Creed offered to do the music, The Shape didn’t stab Scott Stapp in the throat.

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

2. “Leatherface” by Lääz Rockit from Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III: Yet another movie we’d like to forget, but a decent song from an unsung Bay Area thrash band.

3. “Trick or Treat” by Fastaway from Trick or Treat: If you spend longer than two minutes with me, chances are I’m going to bring up how much I love this movie and how I wish Sammi Curr was a real metal artist. I’m fist pumping on my couch as I type this.

4. “Love Kills” by the Vinnie Vincent Invasion from A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4: The Dream Master: How many times is Freddy going to be on this list? As many times as he wants. How many lists does Vinnie Vincent get to be on, anyway?

5. “No More Mr. Nice Guy” by Megadeth from Shocker: This one makes me ask a question: what do I hate worse, how wimpy Dave Mustaine’s voice sounds in the talking part of the opening or the movie Shocker? I honestly don’t have the answer.

6. “He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask}” by Alice Cooper from Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives: No less a horror icon than Alice Cooper himself could compose a theme for Jason Vorhees, then lead the homeless satanic army in Prince of Darkness, then play Freddy’s dad. Don’t forget that he was also in the Claudio Fragrasso directed movie Monster Dog!

7. “Dream Warriors” by Dokken from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors: You’d have to look long and hard to find a better band/movie tie-in. Seriously, just knowing this song was going to be in the film was enough to get me to rent it. And bonus points for Taryn when she rocks a Dokken tour shirt early in the movie!

8. “Are You Ready for Freddy” by the Fat Boys: This isn’t even from a movie, but the Fat Boys meet Freddy in a haunted house. This was yet another part of the babyfacing of a former child killer.

9. “Hellraiser” by Motörhead from Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth: Lemmy was more unkillable than any 80’s horror icon and I’ve never gotten over his death. Beyond inspiring the name for Hawk and Kensuke Sasaki’s New Japan tag team, this song is pretty amazing on its own (and yes, I know it’s really an Ozzy song).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ8jr1v5TgI

10. “You Could Be Mine” by Guns ‘n Roses from Terminator 2: Judgement Day: Yes, we realize that T2 is closer to science fiction than horror, but you get both T1000 (brother of former Nine Inch Nails guitarist and Filter singer Richard Patrick, who wore a NIN pin on his uniform in this film) and Arnold as the good old Terminator. Plus, this video came out long before the long-delayed Use Your Illusion albums.

Honorable mention goes to…

“Who Made Who” by AC/DC from Maximum Overdrive: I can’t really put this one on the list because the actual movie doesn’t appear in the video, but it’s a great original song from a movie with wall to wall AC/DC, who had never allowed their music to be in a film before. Writer/director/major fan Stephen King won them over by singing “Ain’t No Fun” in its entirety to them at their first meeting.

“Pet Semetary” by the Ramones from Pet Semetary: I have some rules when it comes to music. Don’t trust metal dudes with short hair. And if someone doesn’t like The Ramones, their taste is suspect. For all the shit people give Joey and the boys for every song sounding the same, this one doesn’t follow the formula.

“Månelyst” by Kvelertak: While this video isn’t from any movie, it has references to tons of great films, from The Exorcist to Happy Hell Night, I Spit on Your Grave, Antropophagus and more. Plus, I love this song!

The image for this article comes from Cavity Colors, but this shirt is sadly sold out. They have so much other stuff, so head there and order something! Do you have a favorite that we missed? Let us know!

Christmas is nearly here. It’s the most wonderful time of the year — unless you accidentally play one of these movies at your holiday gathering. Don’t say we didn’t warn you — these are guaranteed bah humbug films.

1. Santa Claus vs. The Martians: There has never been a Christmas movie so insidious, nor a holiday ditty so devoted to making you want to murder yourself (although “Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney comes close). And because I love Christmas so much, I shared that song above. Watch for a young Pia Zadora!

2. Silent Night, Deadly Night: Does your season need a little bit of Santa Claus killing nuns in it? Good news, chum. We’ve heard your wish and have delivered it. Go for the sequel too and Shout! Factory will throw in a doll of the killer Santa!

3. Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny: A lot of parents wonder how old their children should be before they tell them the truth about Santa. Here’s an easier way to do it: make them watch this movie. They won’t ever talk about Kris Kringle ever again.

4. Gremlins: In 1984, parents took their kids to see the adorable Gizmo and then learned that they’d have to explain that daddy wasn’t going to die at Christmas. Blame Joe Dante.

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

5. Christmas Evil: John Waters said this about this movie: “I wish I had kids. I’d make them watch it every year and if they didn’t like it, they’d be punished.”

6. Elves: Dan Haggerty plays an alcoholic homeless ex-cop Santa who battles elves and incestual Nazis. Have yourself a merry little Christmas!

7. Black Christmas: Somehow, the same director who made a movie that has become a Christmas tradition in many homes also made this one, a movie that has become a holiday tradition in the homes of absolute maniacs. This is as dark as the season gets. The remake isn’t as good, but it does have a mother making love to her son who is yellow because of a liver condition, so there’s that.

8. Santa Claus vs. The Devil: Forget everything you ever knew about Santa. This movie is about to destroy everything you ever believed or held dear, with evil children and demons out to ruin the holiday and Merlin coming to the aid of St. Nick. There is absolutely no way that I can prepare you for this movie. You know when someone has a traumatic life event and people act like they understand but they don’t and everything said is just empty, awkward and poorly chosen words? That’s anyone talking to me who hasn’t endured this film.

9. Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas: If there’s a war on Christmas, consider this the opposition’s mother of all bombs. This is a movie so poorly rated that its star suggested that a pagan conspiracy was behind its bad buzz. The fourth wall is so broken by this film that all you can do is blankly stare at the screen and try and salvage what’s left of your sanity while an EDM cover of “Angels We Have Heard On High” brings the spirit of dance to everyone at Kirk Cameron’s holiday gala. Even writing these words gave me flashbacks and stomach pain.

10. Santa Claus The Movie: John Carpenter was originally going to direct this movie. While you ponder just how sad it is that we never got to see (and hear, just imagine his version of a carol) that film, we’ll always have this. And this is the kind of movie that schools show to kids on the day before vacation begins, the day that feels like an eternity before the holiday gets here and gives way to the crushing ennui of the January and February months where nothing good or happy happens. Also: The Big Lebowski plays Santa.

Looking for more? There’s also Don’t Open Until Christmas, a movie filled with Santa Clauses being murdered; Santa’s Slay, which features Bill Goldberg battling Robert Culp and Sint, the horrifying tale of Sinterklaas and the coverups that have kept holiday murders a secret.

Here’s a Letterboxd list full of the good and bad Christmas films we’ve watched.

Finally, a Christmas wish. I’m looking for a translated copy of 3615 code Père Noël, a French film that was supposedly the inspiration for Home Alone, but only if the child in the film was obsessed with American action movies and was going up against a murderer. Can you help? And what are your favorite movies to watch for Christmas?

If we’ve learned anything over this last BASTARD PUPS OF JAWS week, it’s that there are plenty of other fish (and bears and alligators and devilfish and piranha and barracuda) in the sea. These are the ten best ones that we’ve found and as you’ve read above, a movie doesn’t have to have a shark in it to be a Jaws ripoff. Note: Anything made post-Sharknado isn’t going to make this list. It seems like all of those movies are trying to hard to be silly and/or clever and failing spectacularly. Nope — we’re looking for genuinely oddball and earnestly made shark chum here, chum. Have a problem? MAKE YOUR OWN LIST.

1. The Last Shark: No matter what you call it — Great White, The Last Jaws, Jaws Returns and L’ultimo Squalo — Enzo G. Castellari’s 1981 shark movie earned the ire of Universal Pictures before it played one screen here in the U.S. A month into the film’s release, a federal judge finally wised up and realized that this movie is basically Italian Jaws and got it pulled from theaters.

2. Alligator: Not only does this one ripoff the ending of Jaws — they all do, spoiler warning, the offending creature always gets blown up real good — it even had a board game that was incredibly similar to the Jaws game. Don’t believe me?

I also love that this ad promises “a sense of FUN” when Alligator is a movie that features a scene where numerous dead dogs float down a sewer. Now that’s fun!

3. Piranha: This Joe Dante-directed bloodfest truly defies its source material and was the only ripoff that Spielberg spoke well of. Well guess what, Steven? Your movie didn’t have Barbara Steele in it. So there.

4. Killer Fish: If you can’t just ripoff Jaws, why not do the same with Piranha? And hey — can we have two James Franciscus movies on the same list?

5. Blood Beach: John Saxon and Mariana Hill have to do more than battle a shark in this one. They have to fight the entire beach. Yes, an entire land mass. It happened. The film exists.

6. Deep Blood: You have to give it to Joe D’Amato. Instead of just Jaws, here he reimagines that mos if Stephen King had written it, with four teenage boys growing up and coming back to battle a Native American demon turned apex predator of the deep.

7. Orca: Richard Harris’ entire crew gets devoured by a cousin of Shamu after its wife and unborn child are killed as graphically as a PG movie allows. Being that this was made in 1977, it’s pretty unsettling. Also — Bo Derek gets her leg bit clean off. If SeaWorld near you is closed, let me recommend this. The kids will love it!

8. Cruel Jaws: The only thing bigger than the shark in this movie is the size of director Bruno Mattei’s balls. Anyone that can have a fake Hulk Hogan as one of his heroes while stealing the actual shark attack footage from The Last Shark and the first three Jaws films, not to mention the music from Star Wars, must have a beanbag that can be seen from orbit.

9. Grizzly: Just the act of thinking about this movie makes me want to watch it all over again. It’s literally Jaws in a national park, complete with POV killings of park rangers and unfortunate female campers. Also, you guessed it: the bear gets blown up real good.

10. The Car: Some Jaws ripoffs don’t even have aquatic — or even animal — bad guys. Nope. This one features a demonically possessed 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III mowing down people before James Brolin, well, blows it up real good.

Honorable mention goes these little swimmers: the killer fish in Orca, the medallion controlled sharks that will only obey Richard Jaeckel in Mako: Jaws of Death, Cornell Wilde’s passion project Sharks’ Treasure, Sergio Martino’s The Great Alligator, Franco Nero kung fu fighting, loving and battling sharks in The Shark Hunter, Lamberto Bava’s octopus meets prehistoric shark opus Devilfish, the sharks that battle gangsters in Tonino Ricci’s Night of the Sharks, the Barracuda who disappear halfway through their own film before it turns into a conspiracy movie, Tintorera…Tiger Shark which shows the sexy side of shark movies and Up from the Depths, a movie that is more Jaws than Creature from the Black Lagoon, no matter what the poster looks like. One of the newer entries is Mark L. Lester’s Sand Sharks and the always welcomed Mark Polina with Shark Encounters of the Third Kind. Mark also gave us Noah’s Shark.

Want to see even more? Check out our Letterboxd list. You can also watch all of the shark flicks we’ve reviewed — and more — over on Tubi (already searched it and got the list ready to go).

Did we miss any? What are your favorites? Let us know!

Update July 2021: Never say die: We rolled out a “Shark Weak” of reviews on the modern takes on the genre. GULP!