EDITOR’S NOTE: D.C. Cab was on USA Up All Night on May 30, 1992; January 8, 1994; May 14, 1995; May 4, 1996; November 16, 1997. 

D.C. Cab was one of the first videos I ever rented from Prime Time Video as a kid, and it’s got a great cast, which is probably what got me to grab it. Beyond Mr. T., you have Max Gail from Barney Miller as the owner of the cab company, Adam Baldwin as the son of his best friend who comes to help, Charlie Barnett (who actually won the SNL job over Eddie Murphy but was too nervous to come back for a follow-up; he sadly died of AIDS at the age of 41), Marsha Warfield from Night Court, a pre-Politically Incorrect Bill Maher, Gary Busey (speaking of politically incorrect, little to none of his dialogue could be in a movie made today), DeWayne Jessie (who literally became his Otis Day character and toured with that name), Paul Rodriguez, Whitman Mayo (Grady from Sanford and Son), the Barbarian Brothers (making this one of two Barbarian Brothers movies that Kino Lorber releases this month), Bob Zmuda,  Bloodsport director Newt Arnold, Jill Schoelen (the crush of all teen crushes), Timothy Carey as a maniac who calls himself the Angel of Death and Irene Cara as herself.

It’s directed by Joel Schumacher, who has either made movies that are remembered for the right reasons, like The Lost Boys, or those that are remembered for the wrong reasons, like Batman and Robin.

This is the ultimate hijinks ensue movie, as each character gets a moment and a little story of their own. It’s not a great movie, but it’s certainly a fun one, which sometimes is even better. The story is as simple as the boys of D.C. Cab against the city government and the Emerald Cab Company. Seriously, that’s pretty much as deep as it gets, but these are the kind of movies that you find yourself watching every time they come on cable, right? Do they still come on cable?

I’m happy to have this movie in my collection. It’s a great reminder of the time when you could find something like this movie on the rental shelves.

September Drive-In Super Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre, September 19 and 20, 2025. Two big nights with four feature films each night include:

• Friday, September 19: Mark of the Devil, The Sentinel, The Devil’s Rain and Devil Times Five
• September 20: The Omega Man, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the Grindhouse Releasing 4K restoration drive-in premiere of S.F. Brownrigg’s Scum of the Earth and Eaten Alive

Admission is $15 per person each night (children 12 and under – accompanied by an adult guardian – are admitted free). Overnight camping is available (breakfast included) for an additional $20 a person per night. Advance online tickets (highly recommended) for both movies and camping here: https://www.riversidedrivein.com/shop/

I’ve been obsessed with the trailer and artwork for this movie for years. Throw in the fact that it has ’70s teen idol Leif Garrett amongst its cast of pint-sized psychopaths, and it seems like a recipe for my kind of movie insanity. However, I just never found the time to sit down and watch it. With so many movies on our shelves and streaming online, my to watch list is constantly bulging with films all screaming to be enjoyed.

Five children have survived a van accident on a snowy road, and unbeknownst to everyone they encounter for the rest of the film, they were on their way to a mental institution for criminally insane young folks. They make their way to the secluded mountain home of Papa Doc, awealthyh businessman, who has all manner of guests staying with him, like his sex-starved wife Lovely (Carolyn Stellar, who beyond being Leif Garrett and Dawn Lynn’s mother, would go on to design the costumes for the 1978’s utterly brutal Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band), his daughter and her boyfriend, plus Dr. Harvey Beckman (Sorrell Booke, Boss Hogg from TV’s The Dukes of Hazzard) and his wife, Ruth (Shelley Morrison, Rosario from TV’s Will and Grace). Oh yeah, there’s also the dim-witted handyman, Ralph (original screenwriter John Durren).

Soon, the power is out, the phones are cut, and the kids are killing people left and right. Little actor and budding crossdresser David (Garrett), army lover Brian, Susan the pyro, Moe (Dawn Lynn, who played Dawna in the Walking Tall films) with her plush fish and usage of piranha, and last but not least, albino nun Sister Hannah will find their way into your heart, then cut it out and show it to you. Imagine The Bad Seed times five, with none of the great story or acting.

This movie is also known as Peopletoys, Tantrums and The Horrible House on the Hill. Of course, that last title has a Last House on the Left ripoff poster to go along with the similar title.

Devil Times Five was distributed by Jerry Gross’ Cinemation Industries, which also brought Son of Dracula, Teenage Mother (“She’s nine months of trouble!”), The Black Six and Idaho Transfer to audiences that had to be absolutely bewildered by their level of pure strangeness.

Original director Sean MacGregor was fired from the production after his footage was unusable, and David Sheldon finished the film (you can tell that they switched interior locations because there’s no continuity in the backgrounds). By the time those reshoots happened, Leif Garrett had cut his hair, so he wears a wig that you can easily point out several times.

Even stranger, MacGregor was in a psychiatric ward after leaving this movie and was also dating Gail Smale, who played Sister Hannah. That last bit doesn’t seem all that interesting until you realize that she was underage and was given a nun costume and rose-colored glasses to hide the fact that she was so young and a legitimate albino.

Seriously — how crazy is a movie where Leif Garrett watches as his real-life mom is nude and being murdered by carnivorous fish in the bathtub? This must have been a strange thing for people to watch, as Garrett was already well-known as Oscar’s son on TV’s The Odd Couple, and his sister was on My Three Sons.

If you’re looking for a movie where children annihilate adults, that isn’t The Children, Village of the Damned or Who Can Kill a Child?, then I guess you should watch Devil Times Five. Actually, I kid. This is a goofy little film that is pretty much the horror version of Home Alone. I enjoyed it, but you know, I also have no taste whatsoever.

The Last Horror Movie reunites the wacky lovebirds Joe Spinell and Caroline Munro, who previously starred in Starcrash and Maniac, and makes another appearance for Joe on the Video Nasty Section 3 list.

Director David Winters was one of the few stage actors and dancers in West Side Story to be in the film version. He then became a choreographer and was the first to choreograph the Watusi, as well as the originator of the Freddie. He also helped Elvis and Ann-Margaret dance in Viva Las Vegas. His first directorial effort was the Alice Cooper film Welcome to My Nightmare, and he produced everything from Linda Lovelace for President to Young Lady Chatterley, Killer Workout and owned Action International Pictures. He also dated Lovelace after she divorced Chuck Traynor. She credited him for introducing her to culture. The guy did so much! He directed Racquet, did the choreography for Roller Boogie, made Mission Kill with Robert Ginty and oh yeah, also directed Thrashin’!

Anyways, both Spinell and Munro are two people who make me love life the moment I see them. The blonde highlights in her hair in this movie got me through the rest of a tough week. This film is very 1982, and therefore, it is perfect.

Spinell is Vinny, a cab driver who lives with his mother (Filomena Spagnuolo, Spinell’s real mother, who ends the movie by asking if she can take a hit off his joint; that’s also Spinell’s real apartment) but dreams of making a horror movie with scream queen Jana Bates (Munro), who is going to be at Cannes to promote her latest film Scream along with her manager and ex-husband Bret Bates (Glenn Jacobson) and producer and current boyfriend Alan Cunningham (Judd Hamilton). She gets a note that says, “You’ve made your last horror film. Goodbye,” and finds Bret murdered, but the body disappears when the police come to investigate. This turns into more of a whodunnit than a slasher, but I mean, Spinell still gets to chainsaw someone to death.

Just like the movie within this movie, this was shot with no permits at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. If you think it’s not realistic for an actress in a horror movie to win an award, that same year Isabelle Adjani won the Best Actress award for Possession.

The Tromatic Special Edition of The Last Horror Film has an introduction by Lloyd Kaufman, “new” audio commentaries and interviews, the short Mr. Robbie, highlights from the Tromadance Film Festival and a full episode of Kabukiman’s Cocktail Corner. You can get this from MVD.

I just want to know why Depeche Mode is so highly billed and why Lloyd is on this, but what do I know?

September Drive-In Super Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre, September 19 and 20, 2025. Two big nights with four feature films each night include:

• Friday, September 19: Mark of the Devil, The Sentinel, The Devil’s Rain and Devil Times Five
• September 20: The Omega Man, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the Grindhouse Releasing 4K restoration drive-in premiere of S.F. Brownrigg’s Scum of the Earth and Eaten Alive

Admission is $15 per person each night (children 12 and under – accompanied by an adult guardian – are admitted free). Overnight camping is available (breakfast included) for an additional $20 a person per night. Advance online tickets (highly recommended) for both movies and camping here: https://www.riversidedrivein.com/shop/

The Devil’s Rain! is a movie that could only have been made in 1975. It united old Hollywood royalty, television stars, the visionary director of The Abominable Dr. Phibes and the Church of Satan in the Mexican desert.

It is not a perfect movie. You can’t even say that it has plot holes, as that would require something of a coherent plot—a fact director Robert Fuest was all too aware of. On the sparkling commentary track that accompanies the new Blu-ray release from Severin (picked up from the Dark Sky DVD release), he speaks about discussions with the writers (Gabe Essoe, James Ashton and Gerald Hopman, whose only credit is co-producing Evilspeak, so one assumes that he is Satan) where they assured him that the script made perfect sense. While Fuest claims that he did what he could to clear up his issues with the film, a movie that effectively decimated his promising directorial career emerged.

But you know what? I embrace plot holes the way some critics hold dearly onto their Criterion collection films and back issues of Premiere. There’s no way I can be objective about The Devil’s Rain! The only box it doesn’t check for me is a disclaimer stating that it’s based on a true story.

The film begins with close-ups of Bosch’s painting The Garden of Earthly Delights, along with the wails of the damned as they gnash their teeth in Hell. Then, we’re dropped into the lives of the Preston family, who have suffered under a curse for hundreds of years.

Turns out that at some point in the 18th century, the family screwed over Jonathan Corbis (Ernest Borgnine, Escape from New York), a Satanist who was eventually burned at the stake. He had a book containing the souls of all he had damned, which was stolen by Martin Fyfe (William Shatner, who I don’t need to tell you anything else about). Before he dies, Corbis vows revenge on the Fyfe family, which changes its name to Preston. He’s been stealing them one by one, selling their souls to Satan and trapping them in the devil’s rain. They then become living wax figures with melting eyes and black robes.

That’s how we meet Steve Preston, the leader of the family, who has escaped Corbis to warn his wife  (Ida Lupino, an actress and director known for noir classics like The Bigamist and On Dangerous Ground. She often referred to herself as the poor man’s Bette Davis, as she was usually offered the parts that Davis had turned down. She refused those parts so many times that Warner Bros. suspended her, so she used that time to learn the craft of directing on set. As roles for her slowed, she became the second female director admitted to the Director’s Guild, following Dorothy Arzner, the sole woman director of Hollywood’s “Golden Age.”) and son, Mark (also Shatner). As the old man tells them to return the Book of Souls, he melts in the rain.

So what does Mark do? He takes the book directly to Corbis, challenging him to a battle of faith in the desert. That battle quickly turns into Mark trying to escape, but Corbis’ disciples are too much for him. He shows a cross to the priest, who transforms it into a snake before using a ritual to erase Mark’s memory in preparation for a major ceremony.

Oh, the 1970s — when your main character gets wiped out minutes into a movie because he has to leave town for a three-day Star Trek convention in New York. That really happened, and I have no idea if that was why Shatner went from hero to geek in such record time.

Mark’s older brother Tom (Tom Skerritt, Alien) and his wife, Julie, must save the day. Oh yeah — they also have Dr. Sam Richards (Eddie Albert from TV’s Green Acres) along for the ride, as he’s a psychic researcher.

Finding Corbis’ church, Mark watches the ceremony that converts his brother into a wax follower. Anton LaVey shows up under a hood, and Corbis turns into a goat, which is an event that sent me scrambling through our living room in a paroxysm of glee. The Severin release also contains interviews with the Church of Satan’s High Priest Peter H. Gilmore, High Priestess Peggy Nadramia and LaVey’s wife and biographer Blanche Barton, all of whom share anecdotes of the Black Pope’s time on the set (indeed, it seems to be a madcap time by studying the photos they show, with LaVey in a jaunty leather cap smiling like a child on Walpurgisnacht) and input on the film. He’s nearly caught, but also discovers that the source of Corbis’ power is the devil’s rain, a glass bottle containing the souls that the priest has captured.

But wait — if he has the devil’s rain, why did he need the book? If he came back to life, why does he need revenge? Look — perhaps these questions will derail your enjoyment of The Devil’s Rain! But not me.

During the final battle — the film moves incredibly fast, making ninety minutes feel like half an hour — the devil’s rain is destroyed by Mark, who finds his lost humanity. Then, it starts to rain.

I love how the advertising for this film states that this is “absolutely the most incredible ending of any motion picture ever!” They aren’t lying. Corbis and his followers melt for nearly ten minutes of special effects, turning into piles of goop. It’s over the top and ridiculous and extraneous and totally awesome. I use this kind of scene to determine if I can be friends with someone. If you dismiss it, you’ll never share a beer with me.

Producer Sandy Howard (who was also responsible for Meteor, Blue Monkey and the A Man Called Horse series) based his whole ad campaign around the end of the film, so he took over the final cut to ensure that this sequence would last and last.

Tom and his wife — whose ESP is the sole reason we can see the flashbacks to know why Corbis is doing what he does — make it out alive, but as he embraces his wife, we know that he’s really hugging Ernest Borgnine! Where’s his wife? Trapped in the devil’s rain, in a scene that comes back at the end of the credits that is harrowing as she looks out into the darkness with no hope.

Is The Devil’s Rain! a good movie? Well, that depends on your perspective. Despite the flimsy plot, Fuest succeeds at delivering plenty of pure weirdness and gorgeous visuals. And there’s so much talent on the screen — I didn’t even mention that this is one of John Travolta’s first films and that Keenan Wynn (Piranha, Laserblast) shows up as the sheriff.

Plus, like all 70s occult movies, plenty of legends are behind the film. Like Ernest Borgnine claiming that there were so many accidents on set that he’d never work on a Satanic movie again. Or he was saying that the Mafia produced the film and that he was never paid. Cinefantastique magazine even wrote that Fuest had suffered a nervous breakdown during the making of the movie, a fact he disputes on the commentary track. And LaVey claimed that he did a special success ritual for Travolta.

PS – Here’s the link to a June 1975 Argosy interview with LaVey during the filming of The Devil’s Rain! where he discusses buying the panties of “MGM’s most famous stars- from Greer Garson to Liz Taylor – with the labels still on them,” being minimized on movie sets and Ernest Borgnine accepting an honorary priesthood.

Here’s a drink:

Fell Out of Heaven

1 oz. amaretto
1 oz. Malibu rum
1 oz. Midori
6 oz. pineapple juice

Pour all ingredients over ice. Stir and say these words: “O Mighty light and burning flame of comfort, enter this body and cleanse it of its unworthy soul.” Drink.