Poachers want to kill a 25-foot alligator, and it turns the tables on them, with only John Besser (Max Phipps) surviving. Ranger Steve Harris (John Jarratt), Aboriginal leader Oondabund (Burnum Burnum), and his second-in-command, Adjaral (David Gulpilil), come to save the man, who decides that he must kill the gator.
After the alligator kills a kid, Rex Garret (Ray Meagher) Steve’s boss, demands that the giant be killed. Oondabund tells Harris that it’s more than a living creature. It’s really Numunwari, who holds the souls of the dead of his village. They’re able to capture it and take it down the river, but Besser and his men show up, guns and all, killing the old man and nearly getting Harris and his girlfriend Cathy Pope (Nikki Coghill) too. Luckily, the gator snatches the man, biting off his arm and then taking his entire body below the water.
So, yeah, it’s Jaws in Australia, but what’s the big deal? Arch Nicholson also made Fortress , and writer Sonia Borg mostly wrote movies for the little ones. This would not be one of those movies.
Directed by Michael Gornick, who was the cinematographer for Romero’s Martin, Dawn of the Dead, Knightriders, Day of the Dead and the original Creepshow, this follow-up is based once again on King stories (but screenwritten by Romero).
Creepshow 2 was originally going to be five stories (Pinfall and Cat from Hell went unfilmed, although Cat does appear in Tales from the Darkside: The Movie), but a lower budget forced the film to only include three tales.
Pinnacle was to be about the rivalry between two bowling teams, with one coming back from the dead to kill the other. It reminds me a lot of the story in Haunt of Fear #19, Foul Play!
Instead of what wasn’t filmed, let’s get into what was: In Dexter, Maine, a delivery truck pulls up and drops off the latest issue of Creepshow, with the driver being the Creep himself!
In Old Chief Wood’nhead, an elderly couple named Ray and Martha Spruce (George Kennedy and Dorothy Lamour in her last role) live in an old town on its last legs. No one in the city has money, and soon, the store they own — and their lives — will fade away, too. Chief Whitemoon comes to visit and gives them sacred jewelry to pay back his debt. It’s not money, but the thought is what counts.
As the wise old man leaves, the wooden Indian that stands guard in the store nods to him, which frightens him. It foreshadows what happens next, as that night, the chief’s nephew, with Sam and his gang, rob the store and kill the kindly old couple. Their blood splashes all over the old wooden chief as they depart with the stolen sacred jewels.
The gang plans to go to Hollywood, where Sam thinks his long hair will make him a star. But he and his entire gang are killed, with their scalps and the jewelry left for the old chief.
In The Raft, four teens (one of them is Page Hannah, the sister of Daryl and all of the characters share the surname of the actor playing them) try to go swimming but have to contend with a black blob that wants to kill them all. Again — this is a straightforward tale told well. I’d say it’s the highlight of the film, but the more I write about these, the more I remember how much I genuinely enjoy this movie.
Finally, The Hitchhiker concerns a businesswoman who is trying to get home from a tryst with her lover before her husband notices. Along the way, she hits a man who keeps coming back. And coming back. And coming back. Again, a simple idea, but told really well. Ironically, the hitchhiker is played by Tom Wright, who played the civil rights activist who comes back from the head in Tales from the Hood. It’s an amazingly similar role! Even stranger is that Barbara Eden was to play the woman before her mother’s illness caused her to drop out.
Ed French was the original effects guy for this, but got upset when director Gornick asked Howard Berger for advice, as he wasn’t happy with the look of the creature in The Raft. Greg Nicotero and Berger finished the movie, and they enlisted Tom Savini to play The Creep.
Creepshow 2 doesn’t have the gloss of the original. That doesn’t make it a horrible movie. The longer I’ve been around, the more I’ve come to like this film. Over the past few years, I’ve re-evaluated it and have come away liking it so much more than I did on first watch.
The Arrow Video release of Creepshow 2 has a brand new 4K restoration by Arrow Films from the original negative. Extras include an audio commentary with director Michael Gornick; interviews with screenwriter George A. Romero, actor and make-up artist Tom Savini and actors Daniel Beer and Tom Wright; a special effects featurette; behind-the-scenes footage; an image gallery; Howard Berger discussing Rick Baker; trailers and TV ads; screenplay galleries; Creepshow 2: Pinfall, a limited edition booklet featuring the comic adaptation of the unfilmed Creepshow 2 segment Pinfall by artist Jason Mayoh; an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring writing on the film by festival programmer Michael Blyth and a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Mike Saputo. You can order this from MVD.
Aug 11-17 Whoopi Goldberg Week: She’s become a corny tv lady these days, but let’s not forget that at her peak Whoopi was one of the funniest people alive.
Based on The Burglar in the Closet by Lawrence Block, this has Whoopi as former burglar Bernice “Bernie” Rhodenbarr, who is blackmailed into doing jobs for a corrupt cop named Ray Kirschman (G. W. Bailey, who is pretty much the go-to guy for bad cops after Police Academy). Then, Dr. Cynthia Sheldrake (Leslie Ann Warren) hires her to break into her ex-husband’s house, only for him to be killed. Another set-up, this time by her and her lawyer (James Handy).
With the help of her friend Carl Hefler (Bobcat Goldthwait), she investigates the case herself, learning that Christopher (Stephen Shellen), the dead husband, had plenty of girlfriends. Boyfriends, too, including the man who killed him, who ends up being — spoiler warning — the lawyer.
Is this a Giallo?
In an interview with Kevin Smith, writer Jeph Loeb — who went on to write comic books — said that this was going to star Bruce Willis with Whoopi Goldberg playing a neighbor. Bruce dropped out, and Goldberg moved into the lead. Not everyone was happy, as Roger Ebert said that Burglar was “… a witless, hapless exercise in the wrong way to package Goldberg. This is a woman who is original. Who is talented. Who has a special relationship with the motion picture comedy. It is criminal to put her into brain-damaged, assembly-line thrillers.”
Loeb wrote this along with Matthew Weisman and its director, Hugh Wilson, who created WKRP in Cincinnati and Frank’s Place in addition to directing the aforementioned Police Academy. He also made The First Wives Club and Dudley Do-Right. I bet Ebert loved that movie. Actually, he did! He gave it 2 1/2 stars out of 4 and wrote, “I did a little wincing the ninth or tenth time Dudley stepped on a loose plank and it slammed him in the head, but I enjoyed the film more than I expected to. It’s harmless, simple-minded, and has a couple of sequences better than Dudley really deserves.”
In the year 2037, genetically engineered Mati (Gabriel Damon) has been programmed by an evil doctor (Jürgen Prochnow) to design an AI named Monster, which drives a giant truck in a race for $100 million. Somehow, this brings together its human driver, Gus (Karen Allen) and French Elvis Johnny Hallyday as Stump as they navigate the end of the world.
Directed by Pierre-William Glenn and written by Patrice Duvic, Alain Gillot and Wallace Potts, this is a so out of left field post-apocalyptic cash-in, a film where a truck has a human mouth, where goth kids float in labs, an intro song by Stan Ridgway from Wall of Voodoo, three parts for Prochnow, Howard Vernon’s voice, a Philip K. Dick license plate, a shout-out to Heavy Metal artist Enki Bilal and despite all the car stunts, it has the core DNA of an art film beating inside what should be a total theft of Australia end of the world cinema.
The MVD releaase of this film has the U.S. and extended French versions of the film, as well as an interview with star Jürgen Prochnow, We All Descend – The Making of Terminus with Vincent Glenn (son of director Pierre-William Glenn), star Julie Glenn (daughter of Pierre-William Glenn) and archival interviews with Pierre-William Glenn, photo gallery, reversible cover artwork, a poster, a trailer and a limited edition slipcover. Get it from MVD.
A strange meteorite crashes to Earth in the United States, and the near-tragedy combines the three-person Flying Angels acrobatic team—Scott Masterson (Michael Lembeck), Chuck Gavin (Chad Everett), and Beth O’Brien (Adrienne Barbeau)—with Ultra Heroes who have come from Nebula M7. A mysterious old man — Walter Freeman (Stacy Keach Sr.) — recruits the three to become Ultra Force and face a series of monsters, including King Maera.
According to Ultrafandom, “Between 1981 and 1983, Tsuburaya Productions established a planning department in the United States called ULTRA COM, with the aim of creating a film script titled Ultraman: Hero from the Stars. This film, written by Donald F. Glut, focused on the story of an Ultraman active in the United States. The initial plan was to produce a live-action tokusatsu film, with Jackson Bostwick and Anne Lockhart cast as the main actors.”
That eventually became this movie, jointly produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Tsuburaya Productions and animated by Studio Sign and Ashi Productions. It was initially intended to become a series. Still, it became a TV movie in the U.S. and a theatrical release in Japan as part of the 1987 Ultraman Festival with Ultraman: Terror on Route 87, Ultraman Ace: Giant-Ant Terrible-Monster vs. the Ultra Brothers and Ultraman Kids.
Also known as Ultraman U.S.A., this finds the new Ultras assisted by robots — Ulysses (William Callaway), Samson (Ronnie Schell) and Andy (Charlie Adler) — and operating out of a high-tech superbase under the Georgia National Golf Club that has a hangar that opens up near Mount Rushmore. Now, Ultraman Scott, Chuck and Beth they’re ready to destroy the aliens from the planet Sorkin.
The U.S.A. Ultras also show up in the Ultraman Legend short, Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legend The Movie and Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Destined Crossroad.
Directed by Mitsuo Kusakabe and Ray Patterson (who also made GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords and A Flintstone Family Christmas), this has a very American look — almost like how Bionic 6 and Mighty Orbots combined American and Japanese styles.
Also: Writer John Eric Seward isn’t a single person but a collective name for several people who worked together on the story.
This is a fun film, as all Ultraman films are, and feels quite a bit like Team America.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Stepford Children was on the CBS Late Movie on June 29, 1988.
The second of three TV movie sequels — there was also Revenge of the Stepford Wives, directed by Robert Fuest, and The Stepford Husbands — The Stepford Children is based on the Ira Levin novel The Stepford Wives and the films that came after.
Laura and Steven Harding (Barbara Eden and Don Murray) have brought their kids, David (Randall Batinkoff) and Mary (Tammy Lauren), to Stepford, Connecticut, the same place where Steven’s first wife died. Laura just wants to become a lawyer, but Steven joins the Men’s Association, which is still turning wives into robots. It’s also turning the kids into homework-obsessed drones.
David and neighbor girl Lois (Debbie Barker) start hanging out, as they both love motorcycles. Laura becomes friends with Lois’ mom, Sandy (Sharon Spelman). And she soon learns that while she lets her kids be who they want to be, her husband seems obsessed with making them perfect.
During a school dance, everyone starts to dance to big band standards and when David and Mary switch it up to some rock and roll, they do more than lose control. They freak out and the cops have to come, as the Stepford Children have not been programmed for 80s music. All the men of Stepford chase Lois, causing a motorcycle crash and then David sees them removing her arms at the hospital. The next day, she shows up brand new and dumps him.
A movie that somehow has “replacement Ginger” Judith Baldwin, James Coco, Dick Butkis and Hedwig and the Angry Inch star John Cameron Mitchell all in it? Yes, and it ends in the most astounding of ways, as the entire town must die for the humans to live.
Directed by Alan J. Levi and written by William Bleich, this is way more entertaining than you’d expect. Usually, I say fuck those kids, but this time I rooted for them.
Identical blonde twins Todd and Terry are at the drive-in with their mother, who is making out with her boyfriend in the front seat. Seeing so many people having sex — including his mom — from the back seat flips out Terry, who starts killing people with a hatchet. He smears the blood all over his brother, because that’s how forensics worked in the 1980s, and he escapes scot free. That’s how Blood Rage — one of the few films to be set on Thanksgiving — begins.
Ten years later, Terry (Mark Soper in a dual role) lives with his mother (Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman star Louise Lasser). On the night of Thanksgiving, Mom reveals that she’s about to marry Brad. We also learn that Todd has escaped from the mental hospital. Terry doubles down to keep his brother locked up by killing Brad by chopping off his right hand — which still clutches a can of Old Style — before splitting his head in half with a machete.
Todd’s doctor and her assistant are looking for him, but run into Terry, who stabs and dismembers both of them before hooking up with new neighbor Andrea who is planning a house party.
Meanwhile, Mom is freaking out learning that Todd is getting closer, but Terry is the one we should be worried about. He’s on a real tear, wiping out all sorts of people, like a tennis-playing couple. All manner of mistaken identity occurs, ending with a swimming pool battle between the twin brothers, and Mom kills Terry when she really wanted to kill Todd. And oh yeah — her incestual relationship with her son is revealed as the reason for his insanity. She blows her brains out and Todd just stands there as the police close in.
This movie is also Nightmare at Shadow Woods, with none of the gore left. You should avoid that one as the real reason to enjoy this — I mean, unless you enjoy 1980s films about incest — is the rampant gore.
Come for Ted Raimi, condom salesman. Stay for hatchets to the face and a doctor’s assistant sliced in half, as well as rampant synth music from Richard Einhorn, who also scored Shock Waves and Don’t Go in the House. It was directed by John Grissmer, who was also behind 1973’s The Bride(Last House on Massacre Street).
June 19: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Free Space!
Director Robert Michael Ingria directed one movie.
You’re reading about it.
Manny Diaz worked as a dialogue coach on and wrote The Seven Minutes, was an assistant on Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and wrote the 1989 AIDS movie The Victims.
Somehow, they made a pro wrestling movie.
Hammerhead Jones is the champion of the American Council of Professional Wrestling, based in Miami, the literal heart of all wrestling in this real world. Kayfabe isn’t even a thing because all of the violence really happens to people. Hammerhead is played by Ted Vernon.
Vernon was a professional wrestler and manager for NWA Florida, D1PW and Future of Wrestling (all Florida-based promotions), but he’s done so much more. Let him tell you, in his own words, from his car dealership website, South Beach Classics:
“Ted Vernon has established worldwide recognition as an actor, writer and executive producer, since he played the title role in his own screenplay of Hammerhead Jones, which was released worldwide and still frequents HBO. Ted was the executive producer of the major motion picture of John Carpenter’s Village of the Damned with Universal Films starring Christopher Reeve, Kirstie Alley and Linda Kozlowski. Ted Vernon’s credits as star, actor and executive producer are in the all time cult famous film Scarecrows as Lead Role of Corbin, Mercenary. As an actor, Vernon filmed South Beach with Peter Fonda, Gary Busey, Fred Williamson; “Silent Hunter” with Fred Williamson and Miles Okeefe; The Unholy with Ben Cross and Trevor Howard; The Victims he played Arnold Cutter, Real Estate Mogul and Tough Guy; Deadly Rivals with Andrew Stevens and Margot Hemmingway; Played Kojak for Kojak Series Commercials on Channel 4 WTVJ; starred in commercial for Arequipena Beer.Vernon also appeared in the popular teen series S Club Seven, as the hilarious bodyguard wearing a dress. (Ted still insists he had the best legs in the group!) Vernon was also executive producer of a horror film shot in South Florida called Angel of Death.
Theatrical Performances include: Twice starring as The King in The King and I, Twice in Annie as Oliver Warbucks; Best Little Whorehouse in Texas as C.J. Scruggs;.Vernon’s additional ventures include two films by Accord Productions; Special Angelz and Death Print, both directed by Aiden Dillard, starring Ted Vernon. And of course, we can’t forget the worldwide hit SOUTH BEACH CLASSICS. Seasons 2,3 and 4 are available on Amazon Prime.
In addition, Vernon has done numerous music videos including “My Blue Angel” with Aaron Tippin; Miami High Boy Music video with Don Johnson and Andrew Hugger and has had his own Rock and Roll Music Band for many years and was lead singer of Ted Vernon and the Bulldogs, The Chromatics and The Autotones. Miami also followed Vernon back in his days of wrestling and boxing. As a boxer, he had a record of 21:1.”
Anyways, this movie.
Numbers Cooper (Anthony Albarino) has inherited the promotion from his kindly father. You know, like that kid in New York. He gets the idea to make all of his fights death matches where people fight with no referee until someone can’t move. Hammerhead retires instead of fighting in matches like that and supports an orphanage until his friend Mark Coleman (Joe Mascaro, the wrestling consultant; he’s also in Invasion U.S.A. and Dutch Treat, two Cannon movies) is put in a wheelchair. And now he has to fight. You’ve seen underground fight ring movies before, right?
The problem is that there aren’t many known wrestlers in this. Hammerhead is built like a car dealer who used to box when he was young because, well, that’s who he really is. But there are some real workers:
Rusty Brooks is in this. He had his own wrestling school and did enhancement matches for the WWF as well as wrestling as Super Duper Mario. Despite being born in Denton, Texas, the home of World Class Championship Wrestling, he was trained by “Gentleman” Jim Isler and Boris Malenko, spending most of his career in Florida.
Ricky Hunter is Butcher Block Barnes, a masked wrestler who wrestled under that name and as The Gladiator (I wonder if he gave that name to Florida wrestler Michael Lee Alfonoso, who wrestled as Mike Awesome in the U.S. and The Gladiator in Japan).
Joe Mirto was a lineman for the University of Miami Hurricanes, lettering from 1965 to 1967, and was a pro wrestler mainly known for doing jobs on WWF TV. He’s a tag team wrestler in this, along with Jim Young, who also appeared on WWF TV in a similar role. Crusher O’Brian is CWF wrestler Big Jim Haley; Joe ‘The Undertaker’ Markowitz is Bryan Carreiro, a former Mr. Jr. Florida who wrestled as The Terminator and The Thing.
Yet final boss Zarek is a very famous wrestler. It’s “Uncle Fred,” Fred Ottman, who wrestled as Tugboat and Typhoon in the WWF before leaving for WCW to become The Shockmaster. He fell face-first during the interview that introduced him, ruining everything. He also wrestled as Sigfried the Giant, Big Bubba and Big Steel Man. Today, he’s a WWE Hall of Famer along with Earthquake, his tag team partner as the Natural Disasters.
What amazes me most — look, I know you take any job — but this was edited by Angelo Ross, whose entertainment career started in the 30s as the dance partner of Rita Hayworth before he became an editor. Beyond this movie, he also worked as the music editor on The Hustler and edited Who Killed Teddy Bear, The Cross and the Switchblade, Smokey and the Bandit (he was Academy Award nominated for this!), Mr. No Legs, Jaguar Lives!, Masterblaster and King Frat.
Hammerhead Jones loves orphans and is prayed for by nuns, but if he wants to be seen as a man, he’s going to have to do a death match. Kids show up at these death matches — the credit “child at death match” is incredible — and this is the most carny wrestling movie ever, made by guys who would never make the big time, so they’re creating their own. A film where Rusty Brooks has better promos than the hero and little kids love him so much that they buy bald caps at the merchandise table so they can look like him. I bet Hammerhead is making all of that money and if he’s old school enough, he’s sharing a bit with the heel who puts him over strong.
You can watch this on the Crud Buddies YouTube channel.
June 12: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Cartoons!
Back in the pre-Internet days of buying fifth-generation VHS dubs at conventions, Battle Royale High School was one of the first anime I owned. There were no subs or dubs—just demons and karate while wearing a Tiger Mask.
Based on the Shin’ichi Kuruma manga Majinden (Legend of the Demons), this starts with high school asskicker Riki Hyōdo, who loves to fight. He’s also the chosen body for Lord Byōdo, demon king of the Dark Realm, who comes to Earth to challenge him. There’s also Space-Time Continuum Inspector Zankan, a robotic man who has come to protect reality from the demon, and Toshimitsu Yūki, a student who knows how to fight these dark creatures.
They all face Fairy Master Kain, who has started to take over the bodies of students and attack others, like Megumi Koyama, who is in love with Riki.
As you can imagine, a 50-minute adaptation of a long-running manga leaves a ton out. Director and writer Ichirô Itano worked on tons of famous anime, including Fist of the North Star, Violence Jack, Tekkaman Blade, Gantz and started as an in-between artist on stuff like Galaxy Express 999 and Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato: Warriors of Love before graduating to being an animator on Mobile Suit Gundam. Today, he designs kaiju for anime like SSSS.Dynazenon and SSSS.Gridman.
This is the kind of movie that has a woman explode all over the hero, then he rebuilds her from a gore-filled mess and says, “Nice tits.” You can only guess how much 15-year-old me loved this.
John Pressman (Michael Lerner) is a barely controlled diabetic who works for an eye doctor but is also going blind. And his mother, Alice (Zelda Rubinstein), is controlling him, making him kill people for their eyes. One night, he decides to escape from his mother and hide in a theater that’s showing The Lost World, killing people one by one until the cops arrive with his mother as a hostage negotiation tactic. Except she gets shot and he gets arrested. Cue the credits.
Maybe not.
Because The Mother is the movie playing at The Rex, it’s disturbing everyone who views it. There’s even one man who keeps coming back and has decided to kill people in perfect union with the movie. Even as the police arrive in The Mother, they are showing up in Anguish, but the movie never ends. Even with the death of the killing machine, John Pressman shows up in one of the survivor’s minds and he wants her eyes.
Maybe not.
Because this is another movie in a movie.
Bigas Luna seems like he’s directing a slasher, pulling every rug out from under you, and dropping the floor and the earth under you. Originally, Bette Davis was asked to be The Mother in this and wow, except that Rubinstein is beyond exceptional. Also, it starts with this disclaimer: “During the film you are about to see, you will be subject to subliminal messages and mild hypnosis. This will cause you no physical harm or lasting effect, but if for any reason you lose control or feel that your mind is leaving your body — leave the auditorium immediately.””
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