Tag Archives: 1985

25 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1985)

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Note: Obviously, I liked this enough to watch and review it twice.

We all know and love Rankin/Bass Productions from our childhoods, but have we ever stopped to consider the nightmare world of bureaucracy that their Santa Claus operates? That he enables the abuse of Rudolph, even after the movie in the sequel, learning nothing? That he sends toys to basically die on an island and punishes elves who may dream of another career path? Is he the Santa that we wrote to in our youth or some Old Testament version?

This special is based on The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum, the writer of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and it goes even beyond that, asking us to imagine a Santa that comes from the world of Ronnie James Dio album covers.

The final Animagic special from Rankin/Bass, this first aired on December 17, 1985. It’s not in Rankin?Bass continuity and yes, that is a real idea.*

Long ago in the Forest of Burzee, the Great Ak tells the story of Santa Claus to all of the other Immortals in the hopes that the man who is Santa can join them. Ak found him as a baby sixty years ago, abandoned in the snow, and Santa was raised by a lioness before being stolen by a wood nymph. Oh, your parents didn’t teach you that about Santa? Or that the Great Ak allowed a lioness and a wood nymph to co-parent a human child?

Assisted by the many magical races of the forest, Santa starts making gifts for children. This alerts the Awgwas to him, as they want children to be bad and basically act like organized crime — the magical creature community would like me to inform you that there is no such thing as the mafia, despite what you may have seen in the media — and keep stopping children from getting gifts. How do you stop the Angwas? The Immortals, led by the Great Ak, go to war with them and later tell Santa that all of them have perished. That’s right. Santa started a war over gifts and had a better equipped army, kind of like how he was a banana republic working with the CIA, and the balance of power against Communism needed better toys.

Santa then dies, telling his friends to decorate a tree every year to remember him. Luckily, he has fought orcs and slayed a dragon with a laser axe, so the Immortals allow him to deliver gifts forever. The Angwa are maybe not orcs but instead gorillas with fangs and horns. This was made at the same time as Thundercats, so if you wonder why Santa sounds like Mumm-Ra (and Vultureman, Captain Cracker and Jaga) and Mon-Star from Silverhawks, that’s because it’s Earl Hammond. Earle Hymon, who is the voice of King Angwa, was Panthro and Russell Huxtable, Bill Cosby’s TV dad). The Commander of the Wind is Larry Kenney, who was Lion-O and Bluegrass on Silverhawks. Lynne Lipton, the voice of Cheetara and Wilykit, is Queen Zurline. Peter Knook, one of the characters that aids Santa, is Peter Newman, who was Tigra, Wilykat, Tigra’s brother Bengali, Monkinian and many other Thundercats characters. Bob McFadden, the Tingler in this, was Snarf, as well as Commander Stargazer and Steelwill on Silverhawks.

*Oz and Santa are in the same shared L. Frank Baum universe with Santa being the ambassador for the North Pole to Oz.

You can watch this on Daily Motion.

VINEGAR SYNDROME BLU RAY RELEASE: Blood Tracks (1985)

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Blood Tracks will be available as part of Vinegar Syndrome’s Lost City of Black Friday sale. It will kick off at exactly 12:01 AM EST on Friday, November 29 and end at 11:59 PM EST on Monday, December 2 on Vinegar Syndrome’s site.

Imagine The Hills Have Eyes, but in a skiing lodge, with a hair metal band.

It stars Easy Action, the first Swedish band to ever get a worldwide record deal, which is a fact on their Wikipedia page that kind of smells fishy. Abba?

The band split up in 1986, a year after this effort, when guitarist and band leader Kee Marcello quit the band to join Europe. That band went on to sell 30 million albums, so he did pretty well. Singer Zinny J. Zan went on to join the band Kingpin, which you would know better by their later name, Shotgun Messiah.

American hair band Poison used the chorus of Easy Action’s 1983 single “We Go Rocking” in their song “I Want Action,” which led to a lawsuit that the Swedish band won.

The original lineup just played their hit album That Makes One at the Sweden Rock Festival. That makes me happy.

There’s a whole bunch of mayhem, hairspray and murder in this movie, including people getting their eyes eaten, axes to the head and impalings. It’s pretty grisly, which is great, because it juxtaposes the ridiculous antics of this band and its groupies trying to make a movie in the snow.

The best part of all of this is that Easy Action were all afraid to act, so director Mats Helge Olsson got them drunk. You can tell — they’re destroyed for most of the movie. I advise that you’re in the same condition when you watch this.

SEVERIN BOX SET RELEASE: All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium Of Folk Horror Vol. 2: Towers of Silence (1975) and Qâf (1985)

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These two short films appear with Born of Fire on Severin’s All the Haunts Be Ours Vol. 2 set.

Towers of Silence (1975): Directed and written by Jamil Dehlavi, this is the life of a Pakistani boy’s and how his obsession with death starts after he watches the Zoroastrian rituals of purification and regeneration. It’s a black and white semi-autobiographical movie about the gulf between faiths and how someone attempts to become a man caught between them.

The tower of silence is a circular, raised structure that is used to expose human corpses to the elements and help them decompose without contaminating the soil. As the bodies are left to the elements, vultures consume them, then what is left is gathered into a pit where further weathering and continued breakdown happens.

This allows the nasu, or unclean, dead bodies to be kept from contact with earth, water or fire, all three of which are considered sacred in the Zoroastrian religion.

I loved getting to see this, as Born of Fire was such an incredible piece of film. Seeing where its creator came from made me even more fascinated by it.

Qâf (1985): Another short by Jamil Dehlavi, this is totally what I’m looking for, a wordless exploration of a volcano exploding set to the music of Popol Vuh and Tangerine Dream. I mean, can it be more perfect? Just images of explosions and lava flowing down, shot while he was making Born of Fire. As strange and multilayered as that movie is, this is so simple. So mesmerizing. This may end up being something that I play when I need to write and just lose myself in music and motion. For something that I wondered why it was on the Severin box set, I have to say that this has become one of my favorite parts of it.

These short films are part of the new Severin box set, All the Haunts Be Ours Volume 2.

You can order this set from Severin.

ARROW VIDEO BLU RAY RELEASE: The Nico Mastorakis Collection: Sky High (1985)

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Man, Nico Mastorakis made some crazy movies. Like this one, in which a bunch of teens on a Greek vacation discover an entirely new kind of drugs: audio cassettes that deliver orgasms via hallucination filmed music videos. No, really. What is this, The Digital Underground’s Sex Packets: The Movie?

It also has a soundtrack filled with songs by Chris de Burgh, the guy who wrote “Lady In Red,” so it has that going for it. Also, Seiko paid big money to get their Data 2000 watch into this movie, as if the people who watch Nico Mastorakis movies are looking to upgrade their digital watches.

This is a movie about an old man inside the cassettes trying to get the three heroes to find the second tape, which will weaponize the music video orgy inside. So basically Porky’s meets Videodrome but Debbie Harry never puts out a cigarette on her breast.

Yes, it’s exactly as odd as it sounds.

This is part of Arrow Video’s The Nico Mastorakis Collection and has an interview with Dan Hirsch looking back on his role in the film and a trailer as extra features.

This set is available from MVD.

CANNON MONTH 3: Hell Riders (1985)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

James Bryan and Renee Harmon should have made a hundred movies together and it still wouldn’t be enough for me.

High class call girl or showgirl or lady from Las Vegas Claire Delaney (Tina Louise ) is trying to get her car to the big city when it breaks down, leading to her being attacked by the Hell Riders, who are led by Snake (Ross Alexander). Harmon is one of them, Knife, and they have spiritual guidance from former priest — maybe? — Father (Frank Newhouse). The rest of them have names like an off-brand G.I. Joe knockoff like America’s Defense or The Corps: Convict (Dan Bradley), Angel (Melanie Scott) and Rocky (Shawn Klugman). None of this gang matches, either in colors, logos, costumes or even seeming like they have the same goals.

Before they break into her car, another biker, Big Ed (David H. “Dutch” Van Dalsem) arrives and breaks it up. He has them leave and makes a member of his bikers, Ben (Kelly Green), drive her back to the highway. Then her car won’t start and the Hell Riders come back and piss all over her car, beat Ben straight to oblivion and drag her behind their motorcycles.

Claire makes it to the closest town, one with a sheriff (Jerry Ratay) who doesn’t want to deal with this situation, a mechanic named Joe (Frank Millen) who probably won’t fix her car well enough and Dr. Dave (Adam West), who is willing to stand up to the bikers and be as close as she gets to a love interest. So if you ever wanted to see Ginger get hot for Bruce Wayne, well, your TV dirty dreams get close to coming true. The only nudity is for Angel, who just walks around the town unclothed while the Hell Riders smash everything up.

Somewhere in the middle of all this mayhem, the sheriff’s daughter Suzy (Chris Haramis) decides that she no longer wants to marry Joe and needs to get out of this town.

Shot at a Western themed strip mall with Harmon’s acting students and only having Tina Louise and Adam West for one day of shooting, this is about as good as you’ll get. Other than the close-ups, most of the star’s scenes are played by doubles.

I knew I was going to love this and then when the credits at the beginning listed Lee Frost as one of the producers, I was completely won over. When you have the man who directed A Climax of Blue Power, Love Camp 7, The Scavengers and Witchcraft ’70 on your team, things just have to be good.

You can watch this on Tubi or get it from Vinegar Syndrome.

CANNON MONTH 3: Biohazard (1985)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

You know, there’s lots to love in this goofy little movie, from Angelique Pettyjohn being a psychic used to bring objects out of another dimension to a monster played by director Fred Olen Ray’s seven-year-old son Christopher to Aldo Ray playing a general and songs by Johnny Legend. It’s a rubber suit monster romp that really has no interest in being anything else which you have to respect.

This was released as Space Gremlins in other countries and I love that name.

Psychic Materialization, drugs, monsters, busty psychics, the military industrial complex, bad computer graphics, a comedy relief hobo in love with the E.T. poster he’s found and a shock ending that mixes blood, boobs and beasts all at once — you know that Biohazard isn’t good for you but have you ever huffed paint? Let me tell you, it’s cheap and it hurts your head for days and you know that you’ll be slowed down for a few minutes, probably unable to stand and then you realize that you’re doing way more than smoking or drinking, you’re messing with your brain for life because that rag or bottle you’re sneaking smells out of makes you forget things, sometimes for so long that you never remember them again.

21st Century licensed this to Continental Video.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Here’s a drink recipe.

Biohazard

  • 2 oz. vodka
  • 1 oz. Midori
  • 1 oz. Triple Sec
  • 4 oz. Lemon-Lime Gatorade
  1. Mix everything in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake it up.
  2. Pour it in a glass and get ready for Psychic Materialization.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: The Oracle (1985)

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Findlay Week (August 18 – 24) Husband and wife Michael and Roberta Findlay made mean-spirited films. They collaborated on films like Take Me Naked, The Ultimate Degenerate, and the notorious Flesh Trilogy, plus they actually looked like criminals – walking mug shots! You expect to see them glowering on the cover of one of those tabloids next to a headline like “KIDNAPPER COUPLE COLLECTED VICTIMS FINGERS.” Instead they were pornographers which did make them like criminals in their day. A lot of the filmmakers of their era would claim they only made this kind of movie because there was money in it, but Michael and Roberta were sincere adherents. Even when audience tastes changed and the couple were divorced they continued to make their own films that mixed in elements of kink and cruelty. 

Roberta Findlay knows how to make movies that entertain me and here, she takes a possession movie, sets it during the holidays and fills it with berserk set pieces and man, this movie got me through the day before all the family Christmas craziness begins and you know, Roberta has never let me down with a single thing she’s made.

Parker Brothers wouldn’t let this movie use Ouija, so there’s a stone hand that writes from the spirit world but who cares? This is so many times better than the Ouija films that got made by Hasbro years later and that’s because this is so strange. Jennifer (Caroline Capers Powers, in the only movie she ever made) and her husband Ray (Roger Neil) have moved into the apartment of a dead psychic who has left behind that fortune telling object which allows Jennifer to be taken over by industrialist William Graham who gets her to figure out who killed him.

You can’t destroy that hand. A garbage man tries and strange creatures appear all over his body and he ends up stabbing himself in a scene that kind of destroyed my mind and when Ray tries later, he literally loses his head. All this happens while Findlay shoots in the New York City apartments that could be next door to The Sentinel or Inferno and certainly have the Argento lightning style intact from that movie. Plus there’s a gender switching killer played by Pam LaTesta on the loose like a John Waters character in a Bill Lustig movie and there’s even a scene set in the legendary occult store The Magickal Childe.

I realize that Roberta hates her own movies but I won’t hold that against her. I always find something to enjoy, like how the heroine has the wildest clothes, all berets and puffed-out sleeves and even a pair of red overalls. She dresses like a lunatic and it’s frankly charming, plus she screams nearly as much as a woman in a Juan López Moctezuma movie.

There are people who will say that this movie is trash and boring and those are people you want nothing at all to do with. Yes, this is trash, but it’s glorious. It’s the kind of movie I leave on when people come over and hope they ask me what it’s all about so I can talk about it with them. Just writing about it now I want to go back and watch it again. Will you sit down and check it out with me?

You can watch this on Tubi.

Here’s a drink recipe!

Princess of Moscow (from the book Tarot of Cocktails)

  • 3 oz. ginger beer
  • 1.5 oz. vodka
  • .25 oz. lime juice
  • 1 scoop lime sherbert
  1. Pour ginger beer, vodka and lime juice in a glass and stir.
  2. Add the sherbert and enjoy your fortune.

The Sizzlin’ Something Weird Summer Challenge 2024: Tenement (1985)

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Findlay Week (August 18 – 24) Husband and wife Michael and Roberta Findlay made mean-spirited films. They collaborated on films like Take Me Naked, The Ultimate Degenerate, and the notorious Flesh Trilogy, plus they actually looked like criminals – walking mug shots! You expect to see them glowering on the cover of one of those tabloids next to a headline like “KIDNAPPER COUPLE COLLECTED VICTIMS FINGERS.” Instead they were pornographers which did make them like criminals in their day. A lot of the filmmakers of their era would claim they only made this kind of movie because there was money in it, but Michael and Roberta were sincere adherents. Even when audience tastes changed and the couple were divorced they continued to make their own films that mixed in elements of kink and cruelty. 

One of the few movies to be rated X for just plain violence, Tenement reminds me of exactly why I love Roberta Findlay. I’m not expecting high art. I’m expecting sheer spectacle and entertainment, which this movie overdelivers.

Also known as Game of Survival and Slaughter in the South Bronx, this movie is another that didn’t need a budget, just a Bronx high rise and a cast willing to do whatever it takes to make the movie, which involves rampant, bloody and over the top destruction of human beings.

A gang starts making their way from floor to floor of the building, acting like they’re the bad guys in a John Carpenter-style defend our home turf film. Imagine of the sad sacks in Death Wish 3 didn’t have Paul Kersey on their side to shoot people for stealing his camera.

Writers Joel Bender (Gas Pump Girls) and Rick Marx (Wanda Whips Wall Street, Warrior Queen, Gor, Doom Asylum) bring the sleaze, Findlay brings the sleaze, the actors bring the sleaze, man, everyone is on their highest volume and it just works.

The poster for this is by John Fasano, who was all over the place when it came to talent. In addition to art directing the magazines Muscle and Beauty, Race Car & Driver, Wrestling Power and OUI, he rewrote and appeared in Findlay’s Nightmare Sisters, directed Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare and Black Roses, and wrote  and script doctored movies like Another 48 Hrs., Tombstone, Color of Night and the Brian Trenchard-Smith directed Megiddo: The Omega Code 2.

Findlay has referred to this movie as a revisualization of her childhood, which is beyond wild. Man, Findlay is something else, doing everything from working in adult as a cinematographer under the name Robert Norman (she worked on CJ Laing’s ‘Sweet Punkin’ I Love You…. which she also wrote), photographed Shriek of the Mutilated and Invasion of the Blood Farmers (using the name Frederick Douglass), acted in several films as Anna Riva, provided Claudia Jennings’ voice in The Touch of Her Flesh and even composed music as Harold Hindgrind and the Cosmic Seven and Robin Aden. She rivals Aristide Massaccesi for alternate names!

You can watch this on Tubi.

SYNAPSE 4K UHD RELEASE: Demons (1985)

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They will make cemeteries their cathedrals and the cities will be your tombs. With that line, you know that what you’re about to watch better be the most mind-blowing horror film possible. Good news — Demons is all of that and then some, the kind of movie that has everything that I watch movies for.

I can’t be silent or still while it runs, growing more excited by every moment. It is the perfect synthesis of 1980’s gore and heavy metal, presented with no characterization or character growth whatsoever. It’s also the most awesome movie you will ever watch.

This is an all-star film, if you consider Italian 80’s horror creators to be all-stars. There’s Lamberto Bava directing and doing special effects, Dario Argento producing, a script written by Bava, Argento, Franco Ferrini (Once Upon a Time in America, Phenomena) and Dardano Sacchetti (every single Italian horror film that was ever awesome…a short list includes A Bay of Blood, Shock, The Beyond, 1990: The Bronx Warriors, Blastfighter, Hands of Steel and so many more), and assistant directing and acting from Michele Soavi.

The movie starts on the Berlin subway, where Cheryl is pursued by a silver masked man (Soavi) who hands her tickets to see a movie at the Metropol. She brings along her friend Kathy (Paola Cozzo from A Cat in the Brain and Demonia) and they soon meet two boys, George (Urbano Barberini, Gor, Opera) and Ken.

The masked man has brought all manner of folks to the theater: a blind man and his daughter and some interesting couples, including a boyfriend and girlfriend, an older married one and Tony the pimp and his girls, one of whom is Shocking Dark‘s Geretta Geretta. As they wait for the movie to begin, a steel mask in the lobby scratches her.

The movie that unspools — a slasher about teenagers who disturb the final resting place of Nostradamus — also has that very same steel mask. When it touches anyone in the movie, they turn murderous. At the very same time, one of the prostitutes scratches herself in the bathroom and her face erupts into pus and reveals a demon. From here on out, the movie becomes one long action sequence, as the other prostitute transforms into a demon in front of the entire audience.

Meanwhile, four punks do cocaine in a Coke can and break in, releasing a demon into the city as the rest of the movie audience attempt to escape and are killed one by one. Only George and Cheryl survive, as our hero uses a sword and motorcycle to attack the demons before a helicopter crashes through the roof. But then the masked man attacks them!

I’m not going to ruin the rest of the movie, only to say that even the credits offer no safety in the world of Demons. And oh yeah — Giovanni Frezza (Bob from House by the Cemetery) shows up!

Look for Argento’s daughter Fiore as Angela and Ingrid the usherette is played by Nicoletta Elmi, who was the baron’s daughter in Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, as well as appearing in Baron Blood, A Bay of Blood and Who Saw Her Die?

Demons is ridiculous. Pure goop and gore mixed with power chords, samurai swords, punk rockers and even a Billy Idol song which had to blow the budget. It also looks gorgeous — filled with practical effects, gorgeous film stock and amazing colors, no doubt the influence of Bava’s father. The scene where the yellow-eyed demons emerge from the blue blackness is everything horror movies should be.

This doesn’t just have my highest recommendation. It earns my scorn if you haven’t seen it yet!

Want to know way too much about this movie and everything connected to it?

Check out this article and the video I created: So what’s up with all the Demons sequels?

The 4K UHD release of Demons is newly remastered in 4K from the original camera negative in Dolby Vision. There are two versions of the film: the full-length original cut in English and Italian and the shorter U.S. version featuring alternate dubbing and sound effects. There’s new audio commentary by critics Kat Ellinger and Heather Drain and an audio commentary with director Lamberto Bava, SPFX artist Sergio Stivaletti, composer Claudio Simonetti and actress Geretta Geretta. There’s a feature about Dario Argento producing this movie, interviews with Argento, Claudio Simonetti, Luigi Cozzi and Ottaviano Dell’Acqua, the original Italian and English international theatrical trailers and the U.S. theatrical trailer. You can get it from MVD.

SHAWGUST: Journey of the Doomed (1985)

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Shui Erh (Fu Yin-yu) is the illegitimate daughter of a prince, yet she was raised in a brothel by Kao Lao-ta (Tan Hui-wei) and has become a courtesan. The royal prince (Tony Ka Fai Leung) learns that she is his sister and wants to use her to gain power. Yet before that can happen, another prince sends assassins to kill her. She runs from the destruction of her brothel home and finds safety in the woods, where she’s saved by a young fisherman (Tung Wei).

Directed by Cha Chuan-yi, this is the last theatrical Shaw Brothers martial arts movie for decades. It’s pretty sleazy and filled with sex, nudity and outright exploitation, as there’s a lot of sexual slavery in the plot. It also has a moment that completely rips off Romancing the Stone.

It starts with two teams of killers chasing our heroes and then settles into a shack for most of the movie and becomes a soap opera and then has an ending that blows up a lot of the Shaw sets. The male protagonist can’t fight and it ends up that his sister is one of the assassins coming to kill Shui Erh and when those two female fighters kill one another, he feels guilty and even hates Shui Erh, but soon, they fall for one another. There’s also kung fu mental powers and a downbeat ending, if you like that kind of thing. I do.