Fire and Ice is a movie packed with talent. You have the union of Ralph Bakshi, whose films American Pop, Cool World, The Lord of the Rings, Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic and Wizards redefined animation in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Then you have perhaps one of America’s — if not the world’s — foremost fantasy artists in Frank Frazetta. Throw in a script by Roy Thomas and Gary Conway, Marvel Comics scribes who wrote a good chunk of the Conan adaptions that the House of Ideas released. Then gather an array of animators and painters, including Dinotopia creator James Gurney, Aeon Flux creator Peter Chung and even Thomas Kinkade, the painter of light whose mass marketed works are in suburban homes everywhere.

The look of Fire and Ice was achieved by rotoscoping, a process in which the action is filmed, then traced onto animation cels. This is probably the best realization of Bakshi’s technique, as the faces look incredibly human while retaining some cartoon emotion.

In Icepeak, Queen Juliana and her son Nekron unleash a wave of glaciers that continually push humanity further and further south toward the equator. King Jarol, the leader of Firekeep, is asked to surrender but it’s all a trick to kidnap his daughter, Princess Teegra, who Juliana wants her son to marry. However, he rejects that plan and the peace that it would bring to the world.

Teegra makes her escape and she and Larn, the only survivor of a village destroyed by those pesky glaciers and Nekron’s subhumans, try to make it back to Firekeep. However, she gets recaptured and he’s left for dead, only to be saved by the mysterious Darkwolf, who is pretty much Barbarian Batman.

Man, just like Conquest, this is another fantasy film where the guy helping the hero is way cooler than the hero!

Will they save Teegra and Firepeak? Will there be giant dinosaurs? Will Teegra wear the flimsiest of bikinis that somehow manages to stay on? Will Darkwolf kill everything in his path? Or course. But that doesn’t mean that this movie is slow or boring! It’s 81 minutes of Frazetta coming to life — evil monsters, voluptuous women, swordplay and lots of violence.

As recently as 2014, Robert Rodriguez has discussed making a live action version of this. Bakshi wanted nothing to do with it, but he and Frazetta agreed to license the rights to the filmmaker right before Frazetta’s death.

Blue Underground finally released this on DVD in 2005. You can grab a copy at Diabolik DVD or watch the film on Amazon Prime.

We have too many movies. At current count, we have around 2,642 DVDs. Every time I walk into a used video store, I try and tell myself, “You don’t need anything.” But then I have a rough day of work. Or a great day of work. And then I’m in a store and see a movie that has George Eastman wearing a giant lion head and killing everyone he sees in a ripoff of Quest for Fire and I just throw my wallet at the closest person in the store and run around the store screaming like a loon.

George Eastman’s best roles — like Nikos Karamanlis in Antropophagus, One in Warriors of the Wasteland and Big Ape in 2019: After the Fall of New York — are beloved because of the moments where he goes fully unhinged and becomes a maniac. In this movie, as Vood, he’s berserk minutes into the movie, killing Zod, the leader of his tribe in a bid for taking over, then murdering the wise elder who tries to make peace. He’s sent away from the tribe, where he ends up learning how to forge metal in a volcano and make weapons!

That’s when he meets Lith, who shows up out of nowhere to tell him that the fire god Enferon has picked him to take over the world. With his new sword, he easily takes over his former tribe and makes all the members his loyal servants.  Let me set up this arms race for you: he’s the first dude and the only dude to have a sword. Vood (or Vuud, who am I to quibble) is basically bringing nukes to a knife fight. Well, actually he’s bringing a big knife. You know what I mean.

He kicks his main rival, Ela, out of the tribe and ties him to a giant X, where he faces off against cavemen. He’s saved by Isa and her tribe, who are good at medicine but also whose peaceful ways are little match for George Eastman killing everything in his path and demanding that all others do the same.

Of course, a final battle has to happen between cavemen maniacs and cavemen hippies. There is some romantic intrigue and plenty of blood along the way. What else would you expect from director Umberto Lenzi (Ghosthouse, Cannibal Ferox, Nightmare City, Eaten Alive!)? This is total entertainment.

I may have too many DVDs, but this one was so worth getting. This movie is pure garbage in the best of ways. It even recycles the music from Mountain of the Cannibal God and Adam and Eve vs. the Cannibals, two other prime pieces of Italian cinematic goofiness.

You can grab the Code Red blu ray version on Diabolik DVD!

Is there an actor that can save any movie for you? There is one for me: John Saxon. I have sat through many a piece of absolute shit only because Saxon shows up to be the hero of the day, even if he’s usually the villain.

TV reporter Carrie Madison (Kay Lenz, The Initiation of Sarah, House) is trying to meet with mad scientist Dr. Hartmann when she literally runs into Dan Roebuck’s (Richard Hatch, TV’s Battlestar Galactica) truck. Once they find the scientist, his machine causes them all to disappear to the parallel world of Vonya, which is populated by cavemen and the warlord Kleel (John Saxon, of course) who has plenty of Earth technology.

Director Terry Marcel also was behind the films Hawk the Slayer and Jane and the Lost City, so obviously sword, sorcery and science fiction was his bread and butter. Too bad that his bread and butter tastes so bad.

If you want to see John Saxon outact everyone around him — sadly I wish this were higher praise — and a ragtag group of aliens fight cavemen, I guess you should watch this. I can recommend several much better movies in this genre, though. That said, it’s free to watch on Amazon Prime.

This is the first VHS tape I ever rented. It was 1983. Prime Time Video had just opened. And the tape box promised delights we’d never dreamt of before. I was thinking this was going to be the best parts of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Mad Max. And wow, was I disappointed. But how would I feel 35 years later?

After trying to raise a Russian sub, the descendants of Atlantis attack our heroes, but they look a whole lot like punk bikers from an Italian post-apocalyptic movie. Which they totally are. Our heroes have to uncover the secret of Atlantis and stop them before they take over the world.

Christopher Connelly is Mike, our main hero. You may recognize him from Benji or TV’s Peyton Place. Or more likely, you know him from Manhattan Baby or 1990: The Bronx Warriors.

Plus, there’s Gioia Scola (Conquest), Tony King (The Toy), Stefano Mingardo (Blastfighter), George Hilton (The Case of the Bloody Iris), Ivan Rassimov (need I regale you with my love of his films?) and a young Michele Soavi before he became a director!

I’ll be super honest. This movie is a complete piece of shit. There are moments of greatness, such as whenever Crystal Skull appears or when a corpse keeps turning a jukebox off and on. I wanted to love this movie as a child and I wanted to love it even more as an adult. But sadly, that love never filled my heart.

There are people that love this film. And I get it. I like Ruggero Deodato. I just can’t get into this movie.

You can watch it for free with an Amazon Prime membership, so maybe you might have a totally different point of view!

Amazon Prime video is amazing. This isn’t sales pitch. It’s the truth. What finally sold me was the sheer amount of movies that I can search through. It’s the closest thing I’ve found to the shelves of an old mom and pop video store. Ah, the old days of Prime Time Video, where I’d look at all the lurid horror boxes and try to decide how many I could watch in a weekend.

Blood Beat is one of those box covers you’d look at over and over again, trying to decide whether or not you should rent it. Then, when you finally sit down and take it in, it blows your mind and you try to describe it to your friends and they think you have to be making it all up. Ah, the pre-internet days. Well, now that we’re all online, I’d like to think of you as my friend. And I’m going to tell you all about this crazy movie.

Fabrice A. Zaphiratos has two directing credits to his name and this is one of them. That’s a shame — his direction here tends toward the strange and unexpected. There were moments here where I just yelled in glee at the TV, shocked at what was happening. It’s not the best movie you’ve ever seen, but it aspires to be one.

This feels like a regional horror movie made by a bunch of European art directors on too many drugs. It’s also the only Christmas horror movie I’ve ever seen that has a psychic samurai slasher. But it really isn’t even about Christmas. It’s also the only film I’ve ever seen that has a murder scene synched up with a girl’s orgasms. Also, the house the family lives in tries to kill everyone at one point, but no one decides to leave it.

This all starts with Cathy and Gary talking about how they’ll never get married, despite him wanting to be a father to her children. This scene feels like something out of a pure drama and not in a tacked onto a horror film way. I actually thought I had accidentally loaded up a student film or an attempt to film a 70’s hard and honest look at relationships. But soon enough, Dolly and Ted come home. Ted’s girlfriend Sarah is the cause of great concern, as Cathy’s psychic abilities warn her of the young girl. Surely, she’s seen her before. And when Sarah finds a samurai sword in her bedroom, things get strange.

As weird as the film gets, it never plays anything for laughs. It’s earnest and deadly serious. Unlike a modern film, it explains nothing. You’re open to explain for yourself why the mother and girlfriend have a psychic link. Why is the killer a samurai? Why are there strange video effects throughout? Why is the mom a painter? I’d love to discuss this film at a party with a roomful of people who have just watched it.

This movie is why I love movies. It feels like a discovery. I want to share it with you.

Vinegar Syndrome has put out what has to be the definitive release of this film. It’s packed with extras and an embossed slipcover. You can also find it, like I did, streaming on Amazon Prime.

I love horrible movies. I always wonder, “What’s my limit? How bad can it get to make me hate a movie?” The new barometer for bad has been found and it is Microwave Massacre.

Donald (Jackie Vernon, a raunchy comedian who was also the voice of Frosty the Snowman, which still kind of blows my mind) works construction by day and has another job by night: dealing with his wife. She keeps cooking gourmet foods that all come out bad and he yearns for the bologna and cheese sandwiches that his co-workers are chowing down on. Then, his wife buys a gigantic microwave, which makes even worse meals.

Our hero, such as he is, comes home and loses his temper about all the bad meals and ends up killing his wife. He doesn’t remember any of it the next morning as he has a big hangover. He starts cutting up his wife’s body and rolling it in foil. Once he accidentally eats some, he learns how delicious she is. And oh yeah, her head is still alive.

Soon, he’s sharing the meat with his friends and starts killing prostitutes to make more of his secret recipe. Of course, all this cooking leads to a heart attack. And a visit by his wife’s sister, who he has to tie up and gag with bread.

Of course, all good — or bad, this movie is Troma level bad — things must come to an end. Donald dies of a heart attack, the pacemaker in his chest canceled out by the microwave, which still has May’s living head inside.

The box art is amazing. That’s the nicest thing I can say. Otherwise, it’s a painful exercise in puerile humor and poor effects. Watch with caution. That said, if you want to see it, you can get the Arrow release at Diabolik DVD or stream this at Amazon Prime.

Call it Carnivore. Or Campsite Massacre. How about one of its working titles, like The Creeper, The Forest Primeval, Three Blind Mice or Bump in the Night? Or the name that it was released as, The Final Terror. What you get is a backwoods slasher film packed with actors before they got famous, like Daryl Hannah, Adrian Zmed, Joe Pantoliano and Rachel Ward.

We start with Jim and Lori, who wreck their motorcycle in the woods. Jim’s hurt and Lori goes to get help, only to return and find Jim dead and hanging from a tree.

A group of campers make a campfire and tell a story about the rape of a young woman who goes insane and now lives in the forest. Why this would be a fun tale to share is beyond me. When they wake up, two of the crew, Marco (Zmed) and Eggar (Pantoliano) have disappeared.

Meanwhile, Mike (Mark Metcalf, Neidermeyer from Animal House) and Melanie go swimming and have sex, which means they will soon be killed. As always, don’t fuck in the woods. This prophecy comes true as Mike is killed and Melanie taken.

Nathaniel and Dennis (John Friedrich, TV’s The Thorn Birds) search a cabin, only to find a severed wolf’s head. And the killer appears to Margaret (Rachel Ward) while she sleeps. Even worse, Vanessa (Akosua Busia, The Color Purple) tries to take a poop and Mike’s severed head falls onto her.

It turns out that the killer has been in the basement of the cabin all along and he’s just waiting to do insane things to the group, like keeping a jar of human hands and tossing Melanie’s dead body into their raft while they’re going down the river trying to escape. Wendy (Hannah) gets attacked by the killer but narrowly survives.

Everyone begins fighting, with everyone thinking that Eggar is the killer. But the truth? It’s his mom who gets killed by a trap that Dennis has set.

The stories about shooting the film are a lot more interesting than the movie. One night, locals gave the crew marijuana brownies, which sent several to the hospital. Later, someone put a Redwood tree into the middle of the road to damage one of their cars. Get out of the woods, Hollywood weirdos!

Director Andrew Davis would go on to create Above the Law, Under Siege, The Fugitive, Chain Reaction and Holes. Any of these films are better than The Final Terror.

You can grab the blu-ray from Shout! Factory or watch this on Amazon Prime.

There are two movies named Frightmare. Both are enjoyable on their own merits, despite the fact that Prism re-released the 1974 film as a sequel to the 1983 one, which makes no sense. Whether you choose an older British cannibal or a movie star who seems to defy death, both films are quite entertaining. Consider the following the “tale of the tape” to determine which one best matches your filmgoing fancy!

This article originally appeared in Drive-In Asylum issue 11. Grab your copy here.

Lando San Miguel just got out of jail and he’s already been given an impossible task. Hunt down and kill Satan. Not someone named Satan. Yep. The devil himself.

Luckily, Lando’s uncle takes a bullet meant for him and gives him all of his powers. Of course, he has to deal with the devil’s men taking his wife and daughter after killing his son. Lando says stuff like, “Every day I pray to God that he doesn’t fill me with murderous rage again.” Guess what? God is sending you to kill Satan! You better get ready, Lando.

His big power is to make spirals come out of his hands that deflect bullets. Sure the bullets still leave holes in his shirt. But at least they don’t kill him.

There’s also a dude along for the ride whose wife gets turned into one of Satan’s slaves, so the dude makes her breasts explode. Yes, that really happens.

Lando also meets God, who gives him a powerful weapon: a stick. This allows him to fight more dudes and a woman who turns into a dog before battling Satan, who is getting ready to marry his kidnapped daughter.

There’s also a scene where a snake gets tied into a knot. So there’s that.

80 minutes of a horrible movie. One great poster. And that’s about it. I don’t know if you should waste your time, but if you choose to, it’s on Amazon Prime.

You might watch Sole Survivor and say, “Didn’t Final Destination rip this movie off?” Or you might be like me and say, “Didn’t I already see Carnival of Souls?”

TV producer Denise is the — Sole Survivor, sorry, I had to say it — of an airplane crash, but she feels like she’s constantly being chased by something. Her combination doctor/boyfriend Brian (Kurt Johnson, The Fan) thinks it’s survivor’s guilt. But Karla, a psychic ex-actress, predicted the crash and has a warning for Denise. Then, you know, everyone around her starts getting killed and turned into zombies, leading even a skeptic like David to start to worry.

Of course, the dead kill everyone. They kill her best friend. They kill her boyfriend. They even kill kids and cab drivers. Anyone and everyone could be the living dead, out to drag Denise to the afterlife. And if the Carrie shock ending is to be believed, death isn’t about to stop with her.

Director Thom Eberhardt would go on to direct the vastly better film Night of the Comet. Here, the film drags at a very slow pace. We all know where it’s going and it feels like it may take forever to get there. But hey — there’s a Brinke Stevens cameo along the way. You can grab the Code Red blu-ray from Diabolik DVD. You can also watch it on You Tube.