If you learn anything today, know that Linda Blair and Murray Langston, AKA The Unknown Comic, made two movies together: the romantic comedy Up Your Alley and this film, which takes Police Academy to an even filthier and more ridiculous level. Seriously: there’s no way this movie could have been made in 2019.

Jackie Kong directed four movies: The Being, The Underachievers, Blood Diner and this one, all with Bill Osco. Osco started his career producing adult films and would go on to star in The Being under the name Rexx Coltrane before starting to direct his own projects, starting with the comedy special The Unknown Comedy Show, a vehicle for Langston. Seeing as how two of his directing efforts are The Art of Nude Bowling and Cat Fight Wrestling, you’ll get an idea of where this film is heading.

Officer Melvin White (Langston) wants to be a stand-up comic, so to hide from his boss Captain Lewis (Billy Barty!), he becomes The Unknown Comic. At the very same time, a man with a paper bag over his head — and here I am assuming anyone in 2019 knows who The Unknown Comic is or what he looks like — is committing crimes.

Linda Blair comes in as Officer Sue Perman, who operates the switchboard for the police. Then there’s comedian and perennial Presidential candidate Pat Paulsen as Melvin’s partner, Officer Kent Lane. Pat Morita also shows up as a sexual assault victim and there’s an ongoing joke with Sydney Lassick (Charlie from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) as a peeping tom.

Jack Riley, who played Bob Newhart’s patient Elliot Carlin has graduated from patient to doctor, here playing Murray’s therapist Dr. Zieglar. Throw in comedians Johnny Dark, Bill Kirchenbauer and Vic Dunlop, as well as Jaye P. Morgan, disc jockey Machine Gun Kelly (who is also in Roller Boogie and Voyage of the Rock Aliens) and an incredibly young Andrew Dice Clay.

There really isn’t any story here, but you do get Billy Barty farting throughout the film and the heroes donning blackface to solve a crime. There’s also a gay copy team, so this movie goes out of its way to offend nearly everyone. That said, it does have Linda punching a really obnoxious rich girl, which makes the movie.

I adore Pia Zadora. Nothing you say to me will ever change my mind. Pia could go on a murder binge and it’d only make me love her more. She could start a sweatshop, perpetuate the opioid crisis and make fun of Lucio Fulci movies and I’d still cut her a break. She’s everything wonderful and joyous about the 1980’s. At around 15 minutes into this film, she shows up in red leather pants and cutoff sleeve Union Jack shirt while a sea monster menaces the beach, belting out a tune and it was all I could do to not explode in pure joy.

To create a movie about aliens who have come to Earth to discover the power of rock and roll, of course you would turn to James Fargo, the director of Clint Eastwood’s The Enforcer and Every Which Way But Loose. 

Somewhere in space, Robot 1359 has the same voice as Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and is leading a crew in search of the origin of rock ‘n roll, which takes the entire crew to Earth. That’s where Dee Dee (Pia!) sings all about her love of Frankie (Craig Sheffer, Aaron Boone from Nightbreed) to her girlfriend Diane.

The aliens — led by ABCD (Tom Nolan, who was once the child star Butch Bernard and was the writer who reported the phrase “don’t fuck with the formula” in an article about Mike Love and The Beach Boys for Rolling Stone) — land in Speelburgh, a fact only noticed by the sheriff (Ruth Gordon!).

Dee Dee’s dream is to sing with Frankie’s band, The Pack. ABCD gets a dream too — to win over Dee Dee, who makes him lose his mind to the point that his head blows up.  And oh yeah — there are two serial killers on the loose, Chainsaw (the ever-wonderous Michael Berryman) and The Breather (Wallace Merck, who was in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives and Super Mario Brothers). The band Rhema plays most of the aliens while Jimmy and the Mustangs are The Pack.

None of this movie makes any sense whatsoever. And it’s awesome. Imagine a series of music videos with Pia Zadora dancing on top of planets and wearing some of the most mindbending science fiction outfits ever in a world that seems perpetually stuck in the 1950’s as filtered through the lens of the early 1980’s. If that sounds like perfection, good news. We’re gonna be best friends.

Now, you may be wondering — why the hell did this movie start with a music video for Pia Zadora and Jermaine Jackson singing “When the Rain Starts to Fall?” It has nothing to do with the rest of the film, appearing to be an Italian post-apocalyptic movie. I can only assume that this decision came about as all movie decisions were arrived upon in 1984. Cocaine. Glorious, glorious cocaine.

Needless to say, this movie enjoyed an incredibly limited theatrical release in the United States and a somewhat wider one in Europe. It made it to a Vestron Video VHS and occasional HBO viewings four years later, but then disappeared off the face of the Earth, other than in Germany, where it’s had numerous releases on DVD and blu ray.

I got my copy of this from VHSPS. Be warned — if you come to my house and ask me to pick a movie, chances are I’m going to make you watch this while I sing its songs at extreme volume.

On April 1, 2011, the Criterion Collection announced that it was releasing a special-edition DVD and Blu-ray Disc of this movie. It was just a joke to them but then Arrow Video did exactly that in 2016. Short for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller (there is also a scene where some crates say Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal), this is a film that went from failure to video and cable success. In fact, the beginning of Jordan Peele’s Us directly references this movie with its VHS box clearly visible.

While they don’t share any screen time, C.H.U.D.‘s two main actors, John Heard and Daniel Stern, would later go on to play roles in the Home Alone films. Here, they are battling human beings who have been transformed by toxic waste into cannibals that target New York City’s homeless population.

C.H.U.D. also stars Kim Greist in her first movie role. She’d go on to be a star of plenty of cult 80’s movies, like the angel in Brazil and William Petersen’s wife in Michael Mann’s Manhunter. This is the kind of movie where you can spot talent left and right, like John Goodman and Jay Thomas (who acted on TV’s Mork and Mindy and had a radio show on Howard Stern’s channel until his untimely passing) as cops.

This is also a movie that has led to better memories than it really is, thanks to its incredible name and great poster art. It’s not bad, but it’s talky and boring in parts. What you really want the movie to be about is the battle against the C.H.U.D.s, not folks discussing their relationships. Plus, the main creatures rarely show up, often only being hands.

You can watch this on Shudder with and without commentary from Joe Bob Briggs.

If it wasn’t for the book Teen Movie Hell, I would have never discovered this film. I feel like my life is infinitely better for watching this, a movie that surprised me every single step of the way with how out there it was willing to be. Every time I thought that it had reached the limit, it climbed over, under and above it.

The movie starts with these words:

“Long ago in “The Good Old Days”, surfers ruled. It was bitchin’! That was before the threat of chemical pollution, nuclear waste and the horror of Buzzz Cola.

Menlo Schwartzer was a high school genius who hated surfers. He invented a weird soft drink, involved local businessmen and set out to rule the coast. He nearly succeeded. This is the story of Buzzz Cola and Menlo’s revenge.”

This is a movie that is willing to be every genre. It’s a parody, a teen movie, a slasher, a zombie movie and more. It’s all about Menlo, played by Eddie Deezen. A practical joke went wrong — an 80’s slasher trope if I ever heard of one — and he’s now putting chemicals into Buzzz Cola that turns drinkers into zombie punks that eat garbage. Yet even though he’s angry at the world, he still has a girlfriend named Sparkle (the beyond beautiful Linda Kerridge from Fade to Black).

After several of their friends become zombies, surfers Chuck (Eric Stoltz) and Bob try to fix things, along with their weird science teacher, all so they can do the big surf contest.

There are plenty of fun spot the actor moments: Tom Villard (Popcorn, High School U.S.A.); Corinne Bohrer, who is pretty much a teen movie all-star with appearances in Zapped!, Joysticks, Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love and the fourth Police Academy movie); Cleavon Little from Blazing Saddles as the principal; 70’s heartthrob Lyle Waggoner as police chief Boyardie; Ron “Horseshack” Panillo as Inspector Underwear; America’s first ska band The Untouchables and an early Brinke Stevens appearance.

The parents in this film are played by an all-star cast. And by that, I mean all-star in my world of 70’s TV and exploitation adoration. Chuck’s parents are played by Morgan Paull (the only person I know to be in both Mitchell and Blade Runner) and Laugh-In‘s Ruth Buzzi. Bob’s mom is played by Brandis Kemp from Fridays and Biff Manard from the first two Trancers movies. And Jocko’s folks are Terry Kiser, Bernie himself from Weekend at Bernie’s, and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson model/actress Carol Wayne.

Ironically, Wayne would die from accidental drowning after an argument with companion David E. Durston. It gets weirder. Durston was also present when Diane Linkletter jumped out of a window, a suicide that her father, TV star Art Linkletter blamed on LSD. Want to go one step stranger? Durston is also the director of I Drink Your Blood.

Writer/director Randall Badat came up with this movie after suffering a surf injury where the board went into his butt cheek. While enjoying heavy doses of painkillers, he came up with a movie that he called “Frankie and Annette Go to Hell.” He wrote the film in two days, saying, “We set out to make the most brain-dead movie of all time. In that regard, I believe we succeeded.” His agent told him that it was, “the worst piece of shit.”

He still made his movie, permitting actors free reign with their characters and dialogue. And somehow, he was able to get cinematograph Alex Phillips, Jr. (Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Demonoid, Fade to Black, The Devil’s Rain!), composer Peter Bernstein (who worked on both Hot Dog…The Motion Picture and Hamburger the Movie) and make up artist Greg Cannom (who won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for 2018’s Vice; pretty good for a guy who did effects for this movie and Dr. Alien).

In Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film, Badat says that, “The target audience loved it. Their parents hated it. My family hated it. People that I was doing other business with hated it. I remember going to meetings and people would find out that I’d done this movie and that was it”.

This is a movie that can have slasher-esque sequences mixed with cops blowing up buildings and barely harming the heroes, along with a sequence where a punk is dissected and a Dick Dale record is found inside his stomach, like something out of Jaws. It’s pretty much the dumbest and smartest movie you’ve ever seen, often at the same time.

It also has a soundtrack that features the expected — The Beach Boys, The Ventures and Dick Dale — with bands like Oingo Boingo (Danny Elfman was briefly involved in producing the soundtrack) and The Circle Jerks.

If you haven’t seen Surf II, you don’t need to see the previous film. It doesn’t exist. If you find that funny, then you’re on the right wavelength for this movie.

Hikmet Avedis was the director of 1974’s The Teacher. Howard Avedis is the director of this film (as well as Mortuary). They’re similar films. And the same person. So there you go.

This movie is all about Jay (Eric Brown, Private Lessons), who gets caught up in a film noir-like murder mystery. And see, you thought that this was going to be all about teen comedies and not death! Wrong!

What sold me on this movie were the two leads: Andrew Prine (The Town that Dreaded Sundown, Simon King of the Witches) and Sybil Danning (Battle Beyond the Stars). They’re a married couple who want to get his mom into a retirement home, but things go wrong and she gets killed. Jay gets way too deep into their affairs, but look: if you were a 19-year-old college kid and Sybil Danning regularly rumbusticating you, chances are you’d do anything she asked.

This movie has a lot in it, to tell the truth. It’s somewhat a sex comedy. It’s sometimes a slasher, like when a hidden Santa Claus beats a woman with a baseball bat. It’s got Dominick Brascia in it, who played the candy bar eating heavy guy in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. It’s got Alvy Moore in it, who was Hank Kimball on TV’s Green Acres. It was the best role Sybil ever thought that she acted in. And by the end of the movie, it’s become a giallo complete with a room full of horrific artwork, dead bodies and a secret sibling!

Despite the tagline, “From his French maid, he got Private Lessons. Now his English professor is giving him a REAL education,” this is not a sequel to that film. Also: I kind of hate Eric Brown, as he got to do love scenes with both Sybil and Sylvia Kristel. That’s kind of getting way too much out of your life. No one deserves that much.

Just listen to this song and remember: Eric Brown got to do three love scenes with Sybil Danning. Try not to get enraged.

You can get this from Kino Lorber.

Somehow, Claudio Fragrasso and Alice Cooper made a movie together and no one talks about it. Well I am! How does this movie not get talked about more often? It’s completely deranged! If you think that all Fragrasso did was Troll 2 (well, I can go way deeper than that, thanks to my devotion to his works like Night Killer and Shocking Dark), good news. He’s ready to blow your mind all over again.

Vince Raven (Alice!) starts the film in a music video for his song “Identity Crisis.” Soon, he’s taking his girlfriend Sandra and a film crew to his childhood home to shoot another video.

Before they get there, the house’s caretaker is preparing a party for Vince. He hears the howls of some wild dogs and is soon attacked by them. The next morning, our hero makes his way home when he’s stopped at a barricade by two police officers. It turns out that there have been some attacks in town and they advise Vince to not even go home, but if he does, to lock the door and have weapons. As soon as the van drives away, a dog kills both of the cops. But not just any dog — a Monster Dog!

The van then hits a car and instead of watching the dog suffer, Vince smashes its head with a rock. if that’s not rough enough, a blood-covered man appears from the woods telling everyone that they’ll die, except for Vince.

Angela keeps having bad dreams, such as the bloody man from the woods killing everyone and Vince reading a book on werewolves which reveals that he is the Monster Dog. Later, she finds him in the same chair as her dream, reading the same book and he reveals that his father was a werewolf that was blamed for the deaths in town. He was then stabbed, covered with gasoline and burned alive. What a vacation!

Soon, they are recording the video for “See Me in the Mirror” when the caretaker’s body crashes through a window and lands on Angela, who runs in fear. Vince follows just as a carload of armed men arrives at the house and takes everyone hostage. Angela runs back into the house just in time to get shot by one of the men, then wild dogs invade and bite everyone and anyone they can.

Two of the girls, Sandra and Marilou run upstairs, as the dogs give chase. Vince is somehow able to control the dogs, appearing in the midst of fog as if he were in a music video. Everyone is able to make it to the car, but Marilou is killed by the Monster Dog, which also attacks Vince.

It turns out that the dog was the old man from the woods, who has now transformed Vince into the next generation of Monster Dog. Sandra finds him and he asks her to kill him before he transforms. So she does, then we see another music video for “Identity Crisis.”

This movie is inane, it makes no sense and it’s gorgeous. I loved every single second of it, loudly applauding nearly every twist of its plot that made less and less sense the longer the story went on. I also love that everyone’s lines are dubbed, including Alice Cooper’s, who speaks English.

Here’s another reason to love Fragrasso. When the dogs chase the girls up the steps, that was supposed to be a single take, which was a hard shot to get. Adding to the difficulty was the fact that the dogs had been deprived of food so the actresses were worried that they’d be attacked, as they had their clothes packed with warm meat. And then, halfway through the shot, the still photographer ran out of film and yelled “Cut!” instead of Fragrasso, who went full shithouse, grabbed a shotgun and began firing it into the air as he chased the photographer around the set, dogs barking and snapped and running with him.

So how did this all happen? Well, Alice Cooper had been an alcoholic for most of his adult life and then got into cocaine. His career and health paid the price, so he got sober in 1983 as his record label dropped him. Unsure of what to do next, he was offered this movie and decided to do it, but was promised that it would never come out in America. Oh Alice — don’t trust an Italian filmmaker.

Fragasso edited a cut that he liked in Spain, where this was shot, then headed home to Italy. That’s when the producers took it to America and dropped twenty minutes of footage, changed the dialogue and added the music video at the end. Frgassso had no idea this was happening and was obviously crestfallen. Luckily, the Japanese version has his cuts and the recent Kino Lober release has all of the deleted and altered scenes.

Alice said of the film, “I didn’t want to do a heavy budget movie. I said if I do one of these I want to make sure it’s sleazy. I want it to be really cheap. I said, “How many people do we get to kill in this?” They told me it would never get released in the movie houses, and I said, “Great. It should just be one of those movies you can rent at the video place.: And they said that’s what it would be, so I did it … I got a lot of money for it [laughs]. I think I was the biggest part of the budget.”

I’d recommend grabbing the Kino Lober blu ray of this movie. It’ll entertain the hell out of you!

We featured Monster Dog as part of a “Drive-In Friday: Heavy Metal Horror  Night” alongside Blood Tracks, Rocktober Blood, Terror on Tour, and Hard Rock Zombies.  Join in the fun, won’t you?

When he was concepting the idea for this film, writer/director Thom Eberhardt (Sole Survivor) met several real-life teenage girls while filming a special for PBS. He asked them how they’d relate to the end of the world and they answered that they’d see it as an exciting adventure, with dating being the only downside. That real insight informs this film, taking what should be a depressing scenario and making it into a light-hearted romp.

The Earth is about to pass through the tail of a comet. The last time this event happened, the dinosaurs died. However, on this night, eleven days before Christmas, large crowds decide to party and greet the comet’s arrival.

Regina “Reggie” Belmont (Catherine Mary Stewart, The Last Starfighter) stays late at the movie theater where she works, determined to wipe out the initials DMK on the Tempest arcade game that she’s laid claim to. Oh yeah, she also has sex with her boyfriend in the theater’s steel-lined projection booth. Meanwhile, her sister Sam (Kelli Maroney, Chopping Mall) gets into a fight with her stepmother and sleeps in the family’s steel backyard shed.

Those steel structures save our heroines, as the rest of the world has become piles of red dust and clothing where humans once were. Larry goes outside and is killed by a zombie. The girls find each other, as well as another survivor named Hector (Robert Beltran, Raoul from Eating Raoul) who slept in his truck and lived.

They decide to try and find the radio station that’s still broadcasting, only to learn that it’s prerecorded. Once there, Sam speaks into the microphone (she asks for requests from “all of you teenage mutant horror comet zombies,” which was the working title for the movie) and is noticed by a group of scientists. Hector goes to see if his family made it while the girls leave and decide to go to the mall for a shopping spree. After battling a gang of zombie boys, the scientists show up to save them.

Only Reggie is taken back to their base for testing while Audrey White (Mary Woronov!) stays behind to kill Sam with a lethal injection. However, she fakes killing her and instead murders the other scientist with her. It turns out that the researchers knew how the comet would destroy humans and prepared for it, but left on the ventilation in their base and were impacted by the dust. Now, they’re vampires living off the blood of humans. Audrey kills herself as Sam reunites with Hector and they go to save her sister.

The scientists are dealt with, Reggie falls for Hector and they save all the kids. Rain washes away the dust, leaving the world clean again and Sam is nearly run over by a sports car driven by Danny Mason Keener (DMK from the Tempest machine) who invites her for a ride.

If you only watch the surface of this movie or read the descriptions of it, you may think that the girls are vapid stereotypes. However, as the film progresses, they grow and become independent women who don’t wait for men to save them. Even Audrey, though twisted, chooses the girls to survive over the male-dominated scientists.

I love this movie. It’s not remembered as much as it should be. If you’ve never seen it, do yourself a favor and check it out on Amazon Prime. To get the best version of this film, Shout! Factory has you covered.

The artwork for this post comes from the incredible Pizza Party Printing, where you can always find some amazing shirts for so many of your favorite movies. You can watch it on You Tube HERE and HERE.

According to David Carradine’s book Spirit of Shaolin, he called out Roger Corman before shooting began on this film, telling him that this was just a ripoff of Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 samurai epic Yojimbo. Corman replied, “Yes, it is rather like Yojimbo.” Carradine then said, “It’s not like Yojimbo. It is Yojimbo.”

That’s when the Corman BS began. He told Carradine, “Let me tell you a story. When Fistful of Dollars opened in Tokyo, Kurosawa’s friends called him up and said, “You must see this picture.” Kurosawa said, “Yes, I understand it is rather like Yojimbo.” They told him, “No, it’s not like Yojimbo; it is Yojimbo. You have to sue these people.””

That’s when Kurosawa dropped a bombshell: “I can’t sue them. Yojimbo is Dashiel Hammet’s book Red Harvest.”

The only problem? This story is absolutely untrue. Kurosawa successfully sued Sergio Leone (And to paraphrase Patton Oswalt, I’m not going to bore you and tell you how Last Man Standing is a ripoff, too).

The big difference is, none of these movies had David Carradine with a sword or a witch who is naked for the entire running time of the movie.

Originally known as Kain of the Desert Planet, this was directed by John C. Broderick, who was a supervising editor on The Exorcist. It was co-written with William Stout, an artist who storyboarded Raiders of the Lost Ark and both Conan films. He was also the production designer for the Masters of the Universe movie. Beyond that, he’s worked in comics, on theme parks and was the designer of Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch.

Note: For the full story on this movie and how William Stout had no idea it was being made, check out my interview with him.

So anyhow, let’s get to the movie. It’s all about the planet Ura, which exists under twin suns and has two rival leaders, Zeg (Luke Askew from Easy Rider, who would also play the villain against Carradine in Dune Warriors. Even better, Carradine would wear the exact same outfit from this film in that one, too) and Bal Caz, who are eternally at war with one another over the only water on the planet.

Kain (Carradine) arrives to make money by playing them off one another until he meets Naja (María Socas, who is also in Deathstalker II), an always naked sorceress who convinces him to save her people.

Keep an eye out for one of the baddies named Kief. He’s played by stuntman extraordinaire Anthony De Longis, who tried to save my childhood as Blade from the aforementioned Masters of the Universe. He’s really the only awesome part of that movie, other than Stout and Moebius’ character designs.

Carradine’s outfit is rather ridiculous. That’s helped by the fact that before shooting, he got in a fight with his girlfriend and punched a wall, messing up his hand. That’s why he wears a black glove throughout this movie.

The star’s own summation of the film is that Broderick was obsessed with María Socas (just watch the movie and see why) and kept her topless for the entire movie. He liked the swordplay and the fighting style he designed for the action, but claimed that it was uneven and warned readers of his book to not expect a great movie. 

You can watch this on Amazon Prime or on the Shout! TV streaming page.

If you’re looking for unique deaths, Blood Theater has them. Fried by a popcorn machine, electrocuted by a film projector, smoke inhalation from burning film and various stabbings ensure that the Beverly Warner Theater — where Xanadu was filmed — is awash in the blood.

The only good reason to watch this one is Mary Woronov, who plays Miss Blackwell, who is either in on or oblivious to the evil intentions of the theater. It doesn’t really matter, as most of her role is to sit on a desk and stretch out her legs. No complaints here!

Throughout the film trailers for other films appear: Clown Whores of Hollywood, Chainsaw Chicks, Amputee Hookers and Nightmare Of The Lost Whores. Obviously, Rick Sloane is a respectful lover of the ladies.

I must really have great admiration for Ms. Woronov, as I made it through this dreck because she was in it. But just barely.

You can watch it for free with your Amazon Prime subscription.

Simon isn’t going to have a good Christmas. He’s bullied by his fellow classmates and the janitor, who throws spackle at his face. Oh yeah — his parents have also been kidnapped in Africa and the French government isn’t going to negotiate with the people who did the deed. Yep, it’s enough to make you take your friend Élodie and sneak onto a flight to Rovaniemi, where of course Santa Claus lives in Lapland. If you’re ready to drink in all that you’ve read above, you are ready for the kind of Christmas film that caused my wife to say, “Well, it looks like you’ve finally found your movie to post on Christmas day.”

The kids find Santa the only way they know how: deliriously wandering through the snow until they pass out. Then, they meet the fairy that works with Santa, who looks a lot like the teacher who forgot them at the airport and never acknowledged that they were missing. Basically, as soon as they are safe, Élodie takes Santa’s puppy and goes to see a child eating ogre. It’s kind of like Adam and Eve by way of Adam and Eve vs. the Cannibals.

When the kids finally escape thanks to Santa and go to Christmas Mass, no one even realizes they were missing. Oh yeah — Santa was also in Africa trying to free Simon’s parents. Seriously. Also, this might be a French movie, but everything is shot with English words in the classrooms and in the songs.

This whole movie feels like a vehicle for Karen Cheryl, who plays both the schoolteacher and fairy. Her songs sound like a maniacal melange of 1980’s pop, kind of like “99 Luftballoons” played at Chipmunk speed. Ironically, the first edition of this film’s soundtrack was quickly taken out of stores because Cheryl didn’t ask for permission from her producer if she could appear in the film or sing on the soundtrack. Soon, the album was re-recorded with singer Tilda Rejwan.

This is probably the only Santa Claus movie I’ve ever seen where he’s almost eaten by an alligator. So I guess it has that going for it. It’s also the kind of mind-altering movie that people say, “I was watching this movie that I couldn’t deal with and didn’t finish, but it felt like the kind of thing you’d put on and make me watch.”

You can watch the Rifftrax version on Tubi.