EDITOR’S NOTE: Assault of the Party Nerds aired on USA Up All Night on July 6 and November 30, 1990; May 25, 1991; March 27 and December 5, 1992; May 21, 1993; May 31 and December 20, 1996 and June 28, 1997.
Richard Gabai directed, wrote and stars in this as Ritchie Spencer, one of the party nerds who will be assaulting us if the title is true. The goal is to join the Lambda Alpha Eta and, as they say, hijinks ensue.
Former idol Troy Donahue is in this, but the real draw, as always, would be Michelle Bauer and Linnea Quigley literally playing thirtysomething teenagers. Even wilder, Bauer was six months pregnant while this movie was being made.
Tantala Ray is also in this and she did plenty of adult with titles that make me laugh because I’m as always immature such as Let Me Tell Ya ‘Bout Fat Chicks,Tantala’s Fat Rack and Beverly HillsCox.
It’s basically Revenge of the Nerds with Bauer and Quigley and in my heart, that’s an upgrade. There’s also a sequel, Assault of the Party Nerds 2 that adds Burt Ward, Artie Johnson, Tane McClure (Elle’s mom in Legally Blonde), Maureen LaVette (Virgin High) and most perfectly, Rhonda Shear.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Student Affairs aired on USA Up All Night on February 2 and November 15, 1996 and April 5, 1997.
We are in Tag-Mur, a mysterious world where Corva (Lenore Andriel) and her sister Neema (Lisa Toothman, Hard Rock Zombies) are battling for control which will come with the two magic swords they call the Eye of the Serpent. They also have daughters who are involved in the battle.
Corva’s daughter Raven (Carlton Lynx) is destined to fight Neema’s daughter Fiona (Diana Frank, Monster High) and the two swords of the kingdom, when joined, will end the conflict that their mother’s father has created just because, well…because that’s what he wanted when he died.
In order to create an army, Neema gets Galen (Tom Schultz) on her side. He’s the kind of Han Solo-esque good guy who wears an eyepatch just because he likes how it looks.
There’s a bad guy with an iron pig mask who keeps getting wounded and coming back, including one scene where Raven straps him down on a table and the way she softcore sexes him up makes it look like he’s in the worst pain. I’m very immature and there’s a good guy named Merkin. Every time they say his name, I laughed out loud.
IMDB claims that this is a sequel to Time Barbarians but I don’t see a connection.
Eyes of the Serpent was directed by Ricardo Jacques Gale (Alien Intruder) and written by Stewart Chapin, Mark Seldis and Tracy Young. Nobody really did all that much after this. But this, well, this is like a made for TV sword and sorcery movie with way more nudity and BDSM than you expect.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Dialing for Dingbats aired on USA Up All Night on February 22 and September 28, 1991 and June 19, 1992.
All I Need to Know about Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger, which was written by Lloyd Kaufman and James Gunn, says that in this movie, “Troma tackles yet another socially important issue with the addiction of 1-900 party lines. This is the first film about phone sex.”
Directed by Peter Slodczyk, who co-wrote this with Michael Solton (Solton and “Weird” Al Yankovic were high school friends which is how Steve Jay, the bassist in Al’s band, scored this movie, including the song “Partyline”), this film tells the story of Randy (Michael Jeffries), an unlucky slob at love who is convinced by Ernie Bernay (John Caponera) to try out his party line to find love.
Somehow, at 78 minutes, this movie still has the entire trailer for The Toxic Avenger in it, as well as a phone sex ad made up of clips from that movie. There are also clips of other commercials, like this was a Kentucky Fried Movie style film that still tries to have a narrative.
It’s somewhat strange to watch this on an old USA Up All Night episode that has phone sex ads during every commercial, making you wonder what is real and what is the movie.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Witch Academy aired on USA Up All Night on June 18, 1994; January 27 and November 11, 1996; June 28, 1996; March 29 and November 21, 1997.
Did you watch Evil Toons and say, “I want a movie somehow even worse than this without Madison Stone to make up for the abject boredom that I felt while watching it?”
Good news! Or, well, horrible news.
Mark Thomas McGee, who wrote Equinox, wrote this for director Fred Olen Rey. It has Ruth Collins — yes, Bubbles from Firehouse and Tina from Doom Asylum — in it, as well as Veronica Carothers (who played two different roles in Vice Academy 3 and 4), scream queen Michelle Bauer and Priscilla Barnes, who was once Felix Leiter’s dead wife in Licence to Kill. You may know her from getting killed in Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects. Or maybe you remember her more fondly — and more alive — as Nurse Terri who replaced Suzanne Sommers on Three’s Company. And oh hell, let’s throw in Suzanna Agar (Shock ‘Em Dead, Evil Toons).
Playing Satan? Robert Vaughn who, as we all know, deserves better. So did Gary Graver, who shot this a decade after Orson Welles died and so did his dream of making a completed movie with him.
If you want to watch women paddle one another and somehow see what should be something every red blooded American boy — and hey girls too, the world is robust and filled with all manner of people and we love them all — should adore rendered into sheer boredom, then by all means, seek out this fecund steaming pile of trash.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Vals was on USA Up All Night on April 12 and 13 and November 15, 1991; April 25, 1992 and February 26, 1993.
Sam (Jill Carroll, Psycho II), Trish (Elena Stratheros), Beth (Michelle Laurita, who danced in Footloose and went on to be the cinematographer on Alanis Morrisette’s videos for “You Oughta Know,” “Jagged Little Pill” and “You Learn” as well as directing that last song’s video as well as “Head Over Feet”) and Annie (Gina Calabrese, The Dungeonmaster, Vicious Lips) are Valley Girls who decide to help Mr. Stanton (John Carradine) keep his house for orphaned boys.
They also get mixed up with the drug dealing Lance (Michael Leon) and Stone (Robert Dyer, Savage Streets), as well as battle the Bevs, girls from the other side of town. Plus Chuck Connors plays Trish’s producer dad who loves the cocaine, he’s on a plane with cocaine and yes Chuck is all lit up again. Sonny Bono plays a “spaced-out musician,” Tiffany Bolling is Sam’s mom (and you thought the MILF in these movies was first in American Pie), Shirley Rothman is Trish’s mother (and also co-wrote the script) and Sharana Lee from Gymkata is a rival Valley Girl.
The Vals was directed by James Polakof, who also made Demon Rage, and co-wrote this with Deborah Amelon, who went on to write Parent Trap III, and Rothman.
Obviously, this is unfairly compared to Valley Girl. It had the title Valley Girls before that movie was released. It was actually filmed first and went unreleased, but when that movie did well, it was finally put out. It doesn’t have the same level of soundtrack, as it features the bands Annine, Daphna Edwards and Unicorn Gang, Wet Picnic and Frankie Bleu. It didn’t even get to film at Sherman Oaks Mall, instead taking place in a secondary shopping plaza in Stockton, CA, the Weberstown Mall. Unlike so many malls, it’s still in business.
EDITOR’S NOTE: New York’s Finest was on USA Up All Night on July 12, 1991; May 2, 1992; March 20 and April 16, 1993.
Chuck Vincent and USA Up All Night just go together.
Dougie (Scott Baker) is a crossdressing man who decides to help three sex workers — Loretta (Jennifer Delora, Deadly Manor), Joy Sugarman (Ruth Collins, Cemetery High, Blood Sisters) and Carley Porter (Heidi Paine) — escape their pimp Bunny (Veronica Hart, adult star Sarah Jane Hamilton) and start looking for rich men to make their husbands.
It starts with a coke party and ends with the ladies actually falling in love. It’s How to Marry a Millionaire but you know, a Chuck Vincent movie. I mean that in the nicest way possible. I genuinely enjoyed every minute of this movie, which sure, is one that exists to show naked women, but it also has a cute sense of humor and some heart. Who knew?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Getting Lucky aired on USA Up All Night on May 24 and 25 and December 6, 1991; July 11, 1992; April 2 and July 31, 1993; August 19, 1994 and February 26, 1995.
Bill Higgins (Steven Cooke) is saving up for medical school by acting as the basketball team’s towel boy. He’s also has a crush on Krissi (Lezlie Z. McCraw), who he ends up pouring spoiled milk all over. So he quits that job and goes back to recycling for a living and finds Lepkey (Garry Kluger) the leprechaun, who gives Bill the three wishes you expect.
Those wishes include a date with Krissi that has her leave him for her boyfriend, a new car wish gets Bill a Pinto and then, as Tony tries to sexually assault Krissi — this movie got strange quick — Bill asks to be transformed in a way that he can protect her. So he becomes a cat. Later, he gets shrunken down into her underwear and somehow still gets to be her boyfriend and eventual husband, but first, he has to fight that rapist boyfriend again.
Michael Paul Girard directed and wrote this, but wanted to call it Wish Me Luck. Getting Lucky was remade, sort of, under that title in 1995 by Phillip J. Jones. Girard also directed Witchcraft 7: Judgement Hour, Witchcraft IX: Bitter Flesh and the recent Over-sexed Rugsuckers from Mars.
If you’ve seen Fraternity Demon, the entire opening of that movie is cut from scenes from this movie.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Return to Horror High aired on USA Up All Night on August 25, 1990; June 28, 1991 and October 18, 1996.
Filmed at John Hughes Junior High School in Woodland Hills, and Clark Junior High School in Glendale, this not a sequel to Horror High was directed by Bill Froehlich, who wrote the script with Mark Lisson, Dana Escalante and Greg H. Sims.
Cosmic Pictures has arrived at Crippen High School to make a movie about a series of real-life unsolved murders. Producer Harry Sleerek (Alex Rocco) moves the cast and crew into the high school and starts filming with star Callie Cassidy (Lori Lethin, Bloody Birthday, The Prey). The movie plays with time as we also watch the movie’s writer, Arthur Lyman (Richard Brestoff) share the on-set murders with Chief Deyner (Pepper Martin) and Officer Tyler. While the bodies are recovered from the school, Chief Deyner and Officer Tyler (Maureen McCormick).
An actor named Oliver (George Clooney) drops out and after yelling at director Josh Forbes (Scott Jacoby), Oliver is murdered and soon replaced by Steven Blake (Brendan Hughes), another area cop as well as a former Crippen High student. The producers want more skin and gore, but the murders keep happening, like an extra, special effects artist Choo Choo (Panchito Gómez) and another actor, Richard Farley (Philip McKeon).
Steve and Callie get close and he shares the past of the school and the disappearance of his girlfriend at the time and how he thinks people are dying on set. Kind of like the scene where bio teacher Richard Birnbaum (Vince Edwards) is dissected for real (which was cut down so this didn’t get an X rating). Then they find the bodies of the past massacre, all posed in a basement, 1982 massacre, before a janitor catches them. They reveal him to be Principal Kastleman (Andy Romano), who was jealous of Steve for dating Kathy. When he learned she was pregnant, he killed her and kept killing. Steve and Callie escape and end up throwing a javelin at the slasher administrator. But everyone killed in this movie is still alive and the cops end up shooting the still breathing Kastleman, who ends up being Arthur’s father.
It’s kind of all over the place, but there’s something interesting in this beyond it being George Clooney’s first movie role.
You can download the USA Up All Night episode on the Internet Archive or watch this on Tubi.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama was on USA Up All Night nine times: April 1, August 26 and December 1, 1989; June 1 and 2, 1990; February 2, September 13, and December 28, 1991 and February 7, 1992.
You know when they say that something is loosely based on something? I just read that this movie is loosely based on The Monkey’s Paw. Sure, they both have wishes that go wrong, but I think the similarities stop there.
Three frat guys spy on three sorority girls (Babs, played by Robin Rochelle from Slumber Party Massacre; Rhonda and Frankie, who is Carla Baron, now a real-life psychic profiler) as they prepare two new members (Taffy is scream queen Brinke Stevens and Lisa, Michelle Bauer, the scream queen who was Penthouse Magazine’s July 1981 Pet of the Month and also known as adult star Pia Snow) for an initiation, which consists of paddling and whipped cream. The boys get caught and to make up for it, they have to go with the girls to steal a bowling trophy.
While they try and get said trophy, they run into a burglar named Spider (scream queen supreme Linnea Quigley), who helps them break in. They quickly screw up and break the trophy, freeing Uncle Impy. That wacky little guy promises three wishes for freeing him. One of the guys wants gold, Taffy wants to be prom queen and one of the dudes just wants to have sex with Lisa (well, you can see his point). Impy senses that the sorority girls are watching him (indeed, Babs’ dad runs the mall) via cameras and he possesses both of hem.
Hijinks, as they say, ensue, with human heads being used as bowling balls, sorority girls getting turned into demons, bowling ball-fu (as Jim Bob would say), all-knowing janitors, Molotov cocktails, more severed heads and so much more.
Most of the cast stuck around to be in another DeCoteau film, Nightmare Sisters. Both are very much Charles Band direct to video films — a bit of gore, a little comedy and some T & A. And they’re the only two movies that have all three of the major scream queens — Quigley, Stevens and Bauer — appear in the same movie together.
I mean, if you like demons, bowling and attractive women, this movie would have everything you’re looking for. You can watch this on Shudder and even get commentary by Joe Bob Briggs.
Notably, none of those movies relate to one another at all. So go figure, the one film in the series that I never watched ended up being the only actual sequel.
That said, the start of the film completely ignores everything we’ve learned before. Mary Lou, now played by Courtney Taylor instead of Lisa Schrage, has been in Hell since she died at a school dance in 1957. But she has a nail file and has been chipping away at the chains that bind her for decades, finally escaping back into our world. As she returns to Hamilton High School — totally in Canada, but overly American thanks to “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and flags a plenty and non-Canadian football — she starts off on the right foot by killing a janitor and using a jukebox to blast the pacemaker out of an old lover’s chest.
Speaking of those American flags, one night totally average high school student Alexander Grey leaves his girlfriend Sarah Monroe (Cynthia Preston, who is in another beyond wild Canadian film, Pin) behind as he soul searches about his total average-ness. He’s discovered by Mary Lou and after some two person push-ups on the stars and bars, he’s under her spell.
It works. His grades go up. He becomes a football hero. And he’s never had better sex ever.
So what’s wrong? Well, Mary Lou is killing everyone in his way.
Like the guidance counselor who doesn’t believe in our protagonist? She gets her face burned off with battery acid. His football rival gets a ball thrown through his stomach. And soon, even Alexander’s slacker best friend Shane gets his heart ripped out.
Alexander is conflicted. He loves his average girlfriend, but she’s already dumped him for a nerd. Well, a nerd who gets killed by AV equipment. And as we’ve already learned about Mary Lou, she will not be stopped when she wants something, even if her female rival has learned how to use a flamethrower.
Ron Oliver wrote the screenplays for the second and third films in this series (and directed this one). The original title was The Haunting of Hamilton High, as there was no plan to connect these to the Prom Night series. The money for this came from Live Entertainment. A few days before filming started, Oliver ended up going to dinner with the family that owned that company, only to learn on Monday that production had been delayed because the sons had killed their mom and dad. You know them as Erik and Lyle Menendez. Another Oliver fact: he and his partner were married by Udo Kier. One more? He wrote and directed several installments of the Nickelodeon show Are You Afraid of the Dark?
This can’t live up to the proceeding version, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t try. I’ve always loved that Mary Lou is the lone slasher who embraces sex and forces men to become the final survivor — but never lets them live.
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