Ten Tubi picks (week 5)

It’s week 5 of our Tubi picks. Yes, there’s so much to watch on this amazing free app and I’m ready to help you find the weirdest stuff on it.

Here are ten more picks. Want to share yours with me? Just reply below.

1. Tokyo Gore Police: TUBI LINK

Bring an umbrella, don’t eat before and watch your eyeballs: this movie is literally under blood there’s so much gore. I mean, it’s the film’s middle name! Eihi Shiina is most gorgeous person you’ve ever seen with a giant lobster claw hand and glowing cybernetic eye and if she has to chop up every monster in Japan, she’s going to get it done.

2. Bad Channels: TUBI LINK

Full Moon didn’t used to make bad movies. They once made deranged movies about aliens, all night polka marathons, miniaturized people and music videos. Bonus for letting Blue Oyster Cult do most of the music. Becca says, “It’s wonderfully weird.”

3. The Sister of Ursula: TUBI LINK

Ursula (Barbara Magnolfi, Suspiria) and Dagmar (Stefania D’Amario, Zombie) decide to escape to the seaside resort town Amalfi which is filked with the wrong guys, the wrong girls, the wrong couples and a killer who tears people apart with the biggest member this side of Incubus.

4. Firecracker: TUBI LINK

Jillian Kesner from Raw Force battles and beds Darby Hintor from Malibu Express in a movie where people watch battles to the death as dinner theater. It’s made by Cirio H. Santiago, it’s a video nasty and it’s incredible.

5. My Name Is Nobody: TUBI LINK

Jack Beauregard (Henry Fonda) is a gunslinger who wants to retire. Nobody (Terence Hill) dreams of being better than Beauregard and plans on taking out all 150 members of Geoffrey Lewis’ gang. This is one of my favorite Italian westerns and a great introduction to Hill if you’ve never seen him before.

6. Night Killer: TUBI LINK

How did this get to be five weeks of a continued article on this site and I didn’t bring up this movie? Oh man. I’m not warning you. Just get ready to get destroyed by this one.

7. Death Drop Gorgeous: TUBI LINK

Prepare yourself for a slasher world that we haven’t seen nearly ever: a campy, gay-positive glitter, makeup neon and booze and gore-filled saga that never lets up.

8. Powaqqatsi: TUBI LINK

Directed by Godfrey Reggio, Powaqqatsi is the sequel to Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi and the second film in the Qatsi trilogy. This is one of the few, if only, Cannon movies in the Criterion Collection. It’s also the only Golan and Globus released film with a Phillip Glass soundtrack.

9. Backtrack: TUBI LINK

Dennis Hopper directed this movie but let it get the Alan Smithee name because he wasn’t happy with it, but let me tell you, it’s seriously out there in the way that only he could make it. I tend to give Hopper way more credit than most but it also has Vincent Price and a subplot about installation art and advertising.

10. Grave Robbers: TUBI LINK

Satanic axe murderer gets reborn and wipes out a whole bunch of kids and makes me go nuts every time I watch this movie, because it’s like Ruben Galindo Jr. watched five hundred Mexican movies while mainlining some kid’s hyperactivity pills and then forced all of his friends to make whatever was inside his head. It’s even better than that.

If you’re looking for more movies on Tubi, click on our Letterboxd list. You can also send us your picks and we’ll share on the site.

Ten Tubi picks (week 4)

Tubi is filled with so many movies, it can sometimes be rough to pick what to watch.

I’m here to help.

Here are ten more picks. Want to share yours with me? Just reply below.

Click on any of the film’s titles to read a more in-depth discussion of the movie.

1. Phenomena: TUBI LINK

If you haven’t watched this movie, you need to fix that now. It’s an absolutely astonishing mix of giallo, science fiction, true crime and, well, a chimp. It also contains one of director Dario Argento’s most honest revelations about his life. I literally could, can, do and will discuss this movie at length any time I’m given the opportunity to do so, a film so wonderful and strange and dangerous — Jennifer Connelly nearly lost a finger to said chimp — and so rewatchable.

2. Monster Dog: TUBI LINK

The first thing Alice Cooper did when he got out of rehab? It wasn’t record “The Ballad of Dwight Fry.” It was to make a movie with Claudio Fragasso.

3. Out of the Dark: TUBI LINK

The girls of Suite Nothings — a phone sex line — are being killed by a clown-masked killer. Sure, you’ve seen movies like this before, but have you seen them with Karen Witter, Paul Bartel, Divine not in drag, Karen Black, Tracey Walter, Silvana Gallard, Tab Cort, Geoffrey Lewis and Karen Mayo-Chandler. There’s also an astounding bring the house down moment when one caller begins loudly repeating “No one can handle nipples better than Bobo!” I’ve seen just about every 90s erotic thriller — Americanized giallo — and this is one of the better ones.

4. Malibu Express: TUBI LINK

It’s a struggle not to just list ten Andy Sidaris movies here every week. So let me share one of the best ones, starring not just Darby Hinton but Sybil Danning. A gender swapped remake of Sidaris’ 1973 film Stacey, the very mention of the words Malibu Express were enough to nuke the minds of young boys struggling through puberty. How were we to be able to handle Contessa Luciana when even Cody Abilene struggled?

5. Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo: TUBI LINK

There are a lot of people online who like to look down on the films of Cannon. That’s fine — Golan and Globus don’t need defending from small-minded cretins. Those fools need only to watch this Sam Firstenberg-directed blast of joy to be converted.

6. Bloody Moon: TUBI LINK

Jess Franco got hired to make a slasher, but he couldn’t help himself but make a Jess Franco movie with incest, roller disco, gorgeous women and, yes, a saw blade tearing a woman apart. You can take the boy out of the gutter, but you cannot remove the sleaze from his heart. I still think about the fact that the producers convinced Franco that Pink Floyd was going to do the soundtrack.

7. Contraband: TUBI LINK

Lucio Fulci made one cop and crook movie. The budget ran out two weeks in and real mobsters paid for the film, asking for a title change and more violence. Did they think Fulci was going to say no?

8. Keoma: TUBI LINK

Directed by Enzo G. Castellari and written by George Eastman, Keoma begins with Franco Nero returning home from war to a town where even his brothers have turned to evil, a plague runs loose and a ghostly woman follows his every move. It’s a supernatural-ish western with great songs by Oliver Onions and one of the Italian tales of the west that I feel is most underseen.

9. Evil Toons: TUBI LINK

Well, it is Fred Olen Ray week on the site. You could do worse — Monique Gabrielle, Barbara Dare, Suzanne Ager, forever crush object Madison Stone, Arte Johnson, David Carradine, Dick Miller, Michelle Bauer and a cast of, well, evil cartoons star in a film that even Roger Corman said couldn’t be made for the budget.

10. Tulpa: TUBI LINK

A woman visits the club Tulpa, which unlocks the hidden side of her libido that improves her self-confidence, except the bad side is everyone she has slept with soon dies a violent death. A modern giallo, this was written by director Federico Zampaglione, Giacomo Gensini and Dardano Sacchetti, the master who wrote every Italian movie worth anything.

If you’re looking for more movies on Tubi, click on our Letterboxd list.

Ten Tubi picks of the week (week 3)

What have you been watching on Tubi? Here are ten more picks. Want to share yours with me? Just reply below.

1. Red Nights: TUBI LINK

A modern giallo that isn’t just copying camera angles and colors, this film somehow brings together films like Olga and Ilsa with the work of Argento and Martino. It also features a green weapon that unleashes a mixture of pain and pleasure in those it victimizes.

2. Even the Wind Is Afraid: TUBI LINK

A nightmare tower and a haunted school are part of this gothic-infused Mexican horror film that predates Suspiria by nearly a decade.

3. Conquest: TUBI LINK

So much fog. Fulci makes his barbarian movie and the results are wild, as if that smoke is all coming from a magical bong that shoots lasers every time you exhale long plumes of multicolored fumes. This is every heavy metal album cover come to life, a world where heroes bear the mark of The Beyond and sharks don’t fight zombies, but dolphins save men with stone nunchucks.

4. Howling II: TUBI LINK

You can say that this movie is stupid. I don’t care. It’s a werewolf movie with Christopher Lee and Sybil Danning where wolves dance at punk rock discos. That’s all it needs.

5. Vice Academy: TUBI LINK

Police Academy ripoff with Ginger Lynn and Linnea Quigley. I don’t think I can write anything else to sell this movie any more than that sentence.

6. Angel 2: Avenging Angel: TUBI LINK

If this week’s picks are feeling like Cinemax on a Friday night in 1987, that’s because I’m writing this at 3 AM on a Friday and may be wishing I was 15 again. There are four movies about Angel, none of them really play off the other and the first three are all pretty good, if not great. This one somehow is even better than the first.

7. The Mummy Theme ParkTUBI LINK

You’re either going to love or hate me for recommending this. It’s a movie that at once has the best and worst special effects and tells the story of, you know, a mummy theme park. It also proves that the only thing that can slow a mummy down are big breasts.

8. Neon Maniacs: TUBI LINK

In another better reality, people cared about this movie. Just imagine — a place where you can buy action figures of the Neon Maniacs. Let’s make this come true.

9. The Majorettes: TUBI LINK

One of Becca’s favorite things to do is to get me to talk about Pittsburgh and how much I love it. I usually start crying in a few minutes because I’m so much in love with this place. That’s probably why I love this movie so much.

10. The Child: TUBI LINK

Tonight, I was looking through movies and thought, “I live in a world where Harry Novak produced The Child.” That made me feel alright.

You can see all of the past weeks of Tubi picks on the Letterboxd list.

Ten Tubi picks of the week (week 2)

Tubi can be overwhelming. Allow me to help you find ten movies every week that I think are worth your time. If you have some that you’d like to share, get in touch. I’d love to feature your picks.

1.  Mannaja: A Man Called Blade: TUBI LINK

Blade is a bounty hunter in the Italian Wild West years after the genre has died off, yet Sergio Martino infuses this movie with a horror element and near Conquest level fog to make it one of the weirder cowboy movies you’ll watch. Throw in a prog soundtrack by Oliver Onions for extra bonus coolness.

2. Arabella: Black Angel: TUBI LINK

I love Tubi for the same reason I once loved budget DVD sets sold at brick and mortar stores. They offer a way for truly deranged movies to get seen by people who would never track them down. Right now, an unsuspecting viewer is about to see Arabella and her impotent wheelchair-trapped husband fix their marriage by smashing a cop in the head with a hammer, then making sweet married love right next to his twitching corpse.

3. 10 to Midnight: TUBI LINK

Bronson at his most deranged, aided and abetted and egged on perhaps by an even more lunatic J. Lee Thompson, who pushes the man in a scene where he shoves a sex toy in a criminal’s face and barks “You know what this is for, Warren? It’s for jacking off!” Bleak doesn’t even describe this one. You should probably know that every one of these lists is going to have a Bronson movie on them.

4. Amityville: Mt. Misery Road TUBI LINK

I’ve watched more than thirty Amityville movies, most of which are on Tubi and all of which are on this ever updated list. This one — shot on an iPhone for what had to cost $17 — still baffles me because I’ve watched it so many times that Becca and I can quote it back and forth. Somehow, even after the review, the two-person team that made the film — Chuck and Karolina Morrongiello — consented to this interview which is one of the most meta experiences of my life, because they were extraordinarily kind and I also got to ask burning questions about a movie that may only be obsessed over by two people, Becca and myself. Maybe you too. Maybe I am trying to infect you with a curse by making you watch this.

5. Edge of the Axe TUBI LINK

José Ramón Larraz started his career making movies that mixed sex, art and horror like SymptomsVampyres and The House That Vanished, but by the late 80s he was stuck making direct to VHS slashers. That said, this one combines the slasher that I adore with other things I love, like computers that at once look obsolete and yet do things no computer can do today along with a movie where the exteriors are in California and the interiors are in Spain. Also this has a car wash kill at the beginning that is better than anything else that follows it.

6. Cannibal Ferox AKA Make Them Die Slowly: TUBI LINK

Umberto Lenzi must have taken Ruggero Deodato taking his cannibal king title away seriously. What followed was a movie that seems to want to destroy you and any lack of numbness that you have as a viewer. I can’t claim to love all of this — animal violence is one of my big head turning moments — but I can’t deny Lenzi as a filmmaker.

7. Bach Ke Zara: TUBI LINK

What if Evil Dead moved out of the woods of Michigan and found its way to India? Would you be ready for it? You better be, because this movie exists, it’s on Tubi and I just gave you the link.

8. Sorceress: TUBI LINK

Leigh and Lynette Harris play twin sisters who battle a giant woman’s head with the help of a flying lion and man, Jack Hill took his name off this as director because Corman wouldn’t pay for Sid Haig to be in it. If Tubi is our mom and pop video store, this movie has a big clamshell calling your name.

9. Invasion U.S.A.: TUBI LINK

I wish that Joe Zito and Chuck Norris never had a falling out because this movie needed so many sequels. I also feel like Richard Lynch is the dark side of William Smith in my world and all movies need more William Smith and Richard Lynch. This is the best movie ever inspired by Reader’s Digest.

10. Voyage of the Rock AliensTUBI LINK

Could they make a musical about aliens, rock and roll and have Michael Berryman play a slasher killer? They could. They did. This is why Tubi is astounding because you can’t get this on blu ray but can watch it right now.

Ten Tubi picks of the week (week 1)

I was discussing Tubi with Bradley Steele Harding this morning and we were just stunned by how many movies are available, all in one place, with just a few commercials to deal with to find some movies that had — until now — been somewhat difficult to find.

The only problem?

There’s just so much!

This conversation made me think: what if I picked ten movies on Tubi that I’d recommend? And here it is! Once a week, I’ll be sharing links and quick write-ups of some films on the service — sometimes all in one genre, often just whatever I am watching.

Are you interested in sharing your list? Let me know!

1. Devil Story: TUBI LINK 

My summary of this movie will make you say, “That’s not a real movie.” Here goes nothing: A mutant killer in an SS uniform is wandering the countryside while a couple’s car breaks down and leads them to a castle that looks over a pirate ship wrecked into the rocks, all while they’re watched by the mutant’s mother, a gypsy who lives with a mummy. Also: a horse that’s either possessed by the devil or Satan himself.

2. Cemetery of Terror: TUBI LINK

Directed by Rubén Galindo Jr., this movie is like mixing up Evil Dead, Halloween, the video for “Thriller” and Scooby-Doo all with tons of gore. It’s like the lost horror rental you never saw from a country you’ve never been to.

3. The Lost Empire: TUBI LINK

What if Russ Meyer directed Enter the Dragon? This is a movie that I want more people to obsess over, with three gorgeous women — Raven La Croix, Angela Aames and Melanie Vincz — battling Angus Scrimm.

4. Too Beautiful to Die: TUBI LINK

A fashion agency is shooting videos that feel very BDSM and feature really long, intricate daggers, all while making videos for Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Warriors of the Wasteland.” We all need more late 80s giallo in our life.

5. Party Line: TUBI LINK

All hail absolute junk! The most 1988 movie that I have ever seen, this is Cinemax After Dark semi-sleaze mixed with Leif Garrett, a slasher and even giallo-esque elements all with the gimmick of sex talk party lines, which before the interest used to dominate late night airwaves. This movie wants to use you and not even leave a note.

6. Mr. Majestyk: TUBI LINK

All Bronson wants to do is grow his watermelons. People get in his way. People get killed. Man, I could watch Bronson do just about anything and be happy.

7. Season of the Witch: TUBI LINK

Isn’t it incredible that we can just instantly watch this George Romero movie — once nearly lost at worst and hard to find at best — as easily as pressing a button on our remote? This is straight-up Yinzer GialloA Lizard In a Woman’s Skin if it was set in North Versailles.

8. Hard Ticket to Hawaii: TUBI LINK

There are so many Andy Sidaris choices on Tubi. For those who haven’t stepped into his world, this would be a good start, as it’s a deranged film filled with inflatable love doll bombs, radioactive toilet snakes and gorgeous men and women. Get into it! Killing is an art form!

9. Django the Bastard: TUBI LINK

The best Django sequels are the ones that push the story as far as it can go. Like this one, where Django is a dead man come back to set the scales of justice back where they need to be. This is more horror than western and all the better for that.

10. BatwomanTUBI LINK

Rene Cardona kept trying to make the same movie until he got it right: fabulous wrestling women, grotesque monsters, lots of real surgery scenes, lucha libre matches and a nonsenical plot to try and make it all work. Guess what? It always works.