In the 80s, Jess Franco seemed to go between adult films and adventure movies that looked back to cinema’s past. Bangkok, City of the Dead — directed by Franco as Clarence Brown and soundtracked by him as Pancho Villa –finds rich girl Marta (Helena Garret) kidnapped by Akuto and Aminia (Lina Romay), who decide that since they’re not getting a cut of the 20 million dollar ransom from their boss Malko (Antonio Mayans), they should just keep her for themselves and make sure her boyfriend Riao (José Llamas) can save her. Except that Malko kills Akuto, Aminia tries to make him give the girl back, Riao tries to save her, and her father Flanagan (Eduardo Fajardo) hires Panama Joe (Bork Gordon), a private detective who is not Al Pereira, to also save her.

There’s no hardcore sex — but Lina dancing in a leopard bikini, which I can appreciate — and no diamond theft, either. If you’re a frequent guest in the Jess Franco Cinematic Universe, you’re used to seeing Lina eat bananas, amongst other things, and the camera being pulled into the tractor beam it seemed to have between her thighs.

Shot at the same time as Trip to Bangkok, this has Lina as a pirate queen and a talking parrot, as well as Jess making an Oriental adventure movie — again — and that’s fine because sometimes I like to sit back and watch his films as if they are waves cresting over me as my feet are buried in the sand.

Michael Jai White has been a dependable action hero for years. He’s never reached the JCVD or Dolph level, but he’s always there when we needed him.

Originally known as Sunset Superman—yes, named for a Dio song, which is in the movie—it was directed and written by Jason Krawczyk, who also made He Never Died.

White plays JT, who just wants to get drunk and spend his military retirement hanging out with his grandmother (Jackie Richardson). To pass the time, he works for Trusted Trays, delivering meals to other older people and stopping men in pig masks from breaking into his Grandma’s house. These home invaders are almost all idiots, led by scrap owner Stan (Billy Zane, wearing a goofy mustache), who wants the copper pipes in the house, not anything important. JT keeps drinking and uses this time to bond with Rufus, her grandmother’s dog, who hates him for most of the movie. But after all they go through, they end up becoming pals.

As for Grandma, she doesn’t see or hear any of it. Maybe she should move closer to JT, whose life is so quiet these days that he’s trying to pick up the female henchpeople who are breaking into the house. I enjoyed this because it never takes itself seriously while giving opportunities for character development. It seems like everyone in it was having a great time making it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

As always, Chris Stokes remains the undisputed king of the Tubi Original. 

When Faith Parker (La’Myia Good in the present, Kalani Jules in the past) was young, three boys were out to scare her, tying her up and making it seem like they were going to kill her. To each of these men, as they grow up, she becomes the perfect woman, whether her name is Diana, Summer or Samantha. Then, she kills them.

I don’t know if Chris Stokes has ever seen a Giallo, but darn it if he doesn’t keep making them. Nearly every month, he has a new movie that shows up on Tubi, filled with love, lust, twists, turns and murder. I get beyond excited when I see his name in the credits, as if he’s a modern-day Umberto Lenzi. 

The crux of the matter is whether Faith’s revenge is justified. Has she gone too far in her elaborate schemes? Is she sacrificing her own happiness in her quest to destroy these men? These moral questions keep us engaged, making us ponder over the complexities of her actions. But then again, without these dilemmas, we wouldn’t have this movie. 

You can watch this on Tubi.

Already made by Jess Franco as Elles font tout in 1979 and El Hotel de los Ligues in 1983, Para las Nenas, leche calentita (Warm cream… for the babes) is like a commedia sexy all’Italiana except because Jess and Lina Romay is involved, we see the sex.

On the Spanish coast, we have three couples looking for something. For Lulu (Lina Romay) and Apollo (Antonio Mayans), it’s a good time, even if he can’t perform because his sister is with them everywhere they go. A lesbian couple is being watched by Pepito and several of his friends. And then there’s Jean and Rossy (Mari Carmen G. Alonso), who can’t stop getting it on.

That’s it. 67 minutes of sex action in the Hotel Venus. Probably made in the hotel where Jess and crew were making something else because, in 1986, he made 12 more movies using names like Clifford Brown for his own adult and Lulu Laverne and Candy Coster for the film he made with Lina.

In these three movies, people who have issues with sex resolve them through sex. How often did Jess feel he had to make something until it was right? Was it ever right? What was he trying to accomplish by going back again? Just adding insertions? Or was there a more significant message at work here?

Directed by Sam Coyle (The Marriage Pass, Meet the Killer Parents) and written by Mary Risk (Killer Nurses), this is everything that a Tubi Original movie should be.

Ariel (Sofia Masson, who was in another fun Tubi film, Castaways) is a photographer who has only sold one of her photos, the only one her agent feels shows her edge. It has her on a chain and is called “Daddy Issues.” She soon meets Derek (Stephen Huszar), and their first date becomes a relationship. She lives in his summer house, where he sets up a state-of-the-art photo study to explore her creativity when she isn’t horizontally dancing with him in every room and fulfilling his need to be called daddy.

However, she soon learns that Derek really is Daddy—stepdad—to Chloe (Jasmine Vega), who surprisingly shows up for breakfast one morning.

If you’ve seen enough Giallo, you may wonder, “How long until we learn that Derek and Chloe are a couple?” Fatal Exposure ups the odds by having the girls take Molly together and end up in bed with each other, which is filmed by all of the security cameras in the house, as well as Derek joining them, which is at once hot and very gross. Still, like Italian psychosexual movies, boundaries are only there to be stomped on like grapes.

I’ve often bemoaned the lack of erotic thrillers, having grown up on them in the 90s, and here we are with one that would totally fit in and actually be better than most of them. This is the third of Coyle’s movies I’ve noticed and found to be way better than expectations. This has an ending that is made for our era, instead of the Giallo of the 70s or erotic films of the 90s, and leads with no real sense of morality, which is what I demand from movies like this. If only this had Bruno Nicolai, Nora Orlandi or Morricone doing the soundtrack!

You can watch this on Tubi.

I use movies to escape reality, and here I am, watching something that I don’t want to because my OCD demands that I watch every Tubi Original and fuck me; if I don’t cross this one off my list, I won’t sleep well and feel like something terrible is about to happen.

“From Tesla to Twitter, Elon Musk has become the most influential businessman ever, but it required the masses to support his seemingly unreachable visions — the cult behind the man.”

This is about the people that worship Elon Musk more than who he is. It also immediately feels dated because as of February 2025, every day is ten years, like we’re living in the Catholic idea of Hell, where each second is 10,000 years. We are in shock and awe, a world where someone can seig heil a crowd twice. Everyone has an excuse and tells us not to look too much into it, but everything is being dismantled. An efficiency group named after a dog meme and Bitcoin have ruined the careers of numerous people, but yeah, an overwhelming part of the country — 50% is pretty close, right? What are you, a mathematician? — voted for this.

It’s hard for me to write about this without revealing what an utter cynic and unbeliever I am. I hate when people make articles about movies about them instead of the film they watched, so I should probably close out here.

This is a documentary about people gushing over the fact that they’ve had a minute-long chat with Musk or that he retweeted them. Parasocial relationships lead to an oligarchy. Watch it at 11 or whenever you choose to watch the news.

You can watch this on Tubi.

El fontanero, su mujer, y otras cosas de meter… (The plumber, his wife, and other things to mess with…) is not a Jess Franco-directed movie, but it does feature his muse, Lina Romay and was directed and written by Carlos Aured, the director of Horror Rises from the Tomb, The Mummy’s Revenge and Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll. If you watch Euro horror, sooner or later, the same actors and filmmakers that you enjoy will inevitably do adult films. You should not be offended and be happy they could keep making films and money from them).

Mario (Ricardo Díaz) is a plumber continually offered favors by every woman he works for. He loves his wife (Montserrat Prous, Un silencio de tumba, Demon Witch Child), so he turns them all down. Then, he catches her in bed with his best friend and decides to start taking what is offered. And when one of the ladies is his best friend’s wife (Lina), this seems like the best way to get back at those who did him wrong.

Imagine an Italian sex comedy, only with Lina wearing a man out so completely that she has to use a toilet plunger to get off.

Aured also made Apocalipsis sexual with Sergio Bergonzelli (Blood Delirium), which was shot in both explicit and R-rated versions. Aured discovered that the Spanish porn industry had not yet learned the secrets of staying performer ready and rigid; these days, Viagra solves this.

Let me suggest that if you’re flying to Texas, take the time to watch as many movies on the plane as you can. I’d wanted to see Reagan for some time and figured there was no better way to watch it than on an iPhone screen while trapped thousands of miles above the Earth, wedged between two people at 6:10 AM, while all I had to eat was packages of Biscoff cookies delivered by air hostesses.

Based on Paul Kengor’s 2006 book The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, this starts as Russian politician Andrei Novikov (Alex Sparrow) arrives at the home of former KGB agent Viktor Petrovich (Jon Voight) to learn why America defeated Communism. But did we? Oh well — let’s just go with it, right?

Ronald Reagan (Dennis Quaid; also Tommy Ragen and David Henrie when he was a kid) is the son of a mean drunk and a saint (Jennifer O’Neill!) who becomes a born-again Christian, lifeguard, radio announcer and, eventually, movie star. Despite losing his status as a leading man, he becomes the President of the Screen Actor’s Guild and battles the commies as they try to take over Hollywood. Horrible people like Dalton Trumbo (Sean Hankinson) and union bosses. This costs him his marriage to Jane Wyman (Mena Suvari), but he soon rebounds into the arms of Nancy (Penelope Ann Miller) and begins his political career.

Along the way, we get cameos from all sorts of Hollywood stars, as if this were The Greatest Story Ever Told 2K24, but instead about Reagan. Robert Davi? You’re Leonid Brezhnev. Olek Krupa, the bad guy from Eraser and Home Alone 3? Gorbachev. Dan Lauria is Tip O’Neill. Lesley-Anne Down is Margaret Thatcher. C. Thomas Howell as Caspar Weinberger. Pastor George K. Otis, who foresaw that Reagan would become President if he “walked uprightly” before God? It’s Pat Boone, in a scene with Chris Massoglia playing Pat Boone, that threatens the space-time continuum. Darci Lynn, who has been credited with the revival of ventriloquism, is a drowning girl. Kevin Sorbo is a holy man! Scott Stapp from Creed is Old Blue Eyes! What? Yes!

John G. Avildsen died before he could make this. The director of Joe, Rocky and A Night in Heaven? You have no idea how much I wish that had happened. Instead, Sean McNamara, the man who made Bratz, came in.

The first cut of this was 3 hours and 40 minutes, and yes, I always complain about long movies, but I want that version. Give us The Gipper cut. My favorite part of this, however, is the people being mean to Reagan montage, as people hold up Silence=Death si, guns and see most of the Genesis video for “Land of Confusion.”

Regan was shot in Oklahoma due to a state tax rebate launched in 2020, as well as lighter COVID-19 restrictions. For some reason, there was a COVID-19 outbreak amongst the crew during the shooting, which used the Temple of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry as The White House. Nothing to see there.

The soundtrack to this is something else. There’s contemporary Christian artist — and Youngstown, OH native and member of Glass Harp — Phil Keaggy playing “Sweet Child O’ Mine;” Bob Dylan covering Cole Porter’s “Don’t Fence Me In;” Robert Davi singing Lee Hazelwood’s “This Town” and “Nancy With the Laughing Face;” a Clint Black take on “Take Me Home, Country Roads;” Scott Stapp’s “Swinging on a Star” and Gene Simmons performing “Stormy Weather.”

Kitty Kelly’s sexual revelations about Nancy Reagan never come up. And Scott Baio isn’t in this. Otherwise, 200 stars out of 5.

If anyone other than André Øvredal directed this, I wouldn’t give it the time of day and wonder, “Why do we need a Dracula movie about things we already know about?” Yet the director of Trollhunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe and Umma generally gets a pass from me.

This was an adaptation of “The Captain’s Log,” a chapter from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and was in development for twenty years. In most Dracula movies, we never see what happened to the Demeter other than it washes ashore in England, empty or occasionally filled with dead bodies.

Here, we get the story of new ship doctor Clemens (Corey Hawkins), Captain Eliot (Liam Cunningham), his grandson Toby (Woody Norman) and the crew of the ship, which includes David Dastmalchian as the quartermaster. Of course, Dracula (Javier Botet) and one of his slaves, Anna (Aisling Franciosi), are on board, lying inside a dragon-etched coffin.

What follows is Dracula systematically using the crew to bring him back to youth before he makes it to England, starting with the animals on board and moving up to the young child while feeding Anna. It’s a dark film—not just in how it was shot—with children and women bursting into flames, Dracula killing everyone in his path and even an ending that suggests a way for the story of Clemens and Dracula to continue.

Writer Bragi F. Schut came up with the idea for this movie while working in a Hollywood model shop where he saw the miniature of the Demeter used in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He and Øvredal have referred to it as Alien on a ship, which is a great way to explain the film. I enjoyed this way more than I expected and suggest you look at it.