Filmed at Six Flags Over Georgia in Austell, Georgia, this is the kind of movie that I can’t really figure out. Who is it for? What is it really all about? Is it a slasher, which it seems like from that poster? Is it a comedy? Is it even funny? It’s a complete mess. But yet, I’ve watched it more than once.

It was written by Bonnie and Terry Turner, who would write for Saturday Night Live for six years before creating 3rd Rock from the Sun and That ’70s Show, as well as the scripts for Coneheads, the two Wayne’s World movies, Tommy Boy and The Brady Bunch Movie. We can forgive them for the Whoopi show, That ’80s Show and this movie, right?

For this, they were joined by Michael A. Simpson. Who? Oh, you know, the guy who made the two Sleepaway Camp sequels, Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers and Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland.

I mean, this is the kind of movie where the line, “I’m a graduate of State University. I also attended the David Lee Roth University where I studied rear projection,” is the highlight. So just know what you’re getting into.

So what is Funland? Well, it’s a theme park owned by Angus Perry (William Windom, Dr. Seth Hazlitt on Murder, She Wrote) that used to be owned by its clown mascot Bruce Burger, who is really former accountant Niel Stickney (David Lander, Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley). And now that the mob has rubbed out Angus and taken over, Niel has gone completely out to lunch, seeing hallucinations of his dead boss and trying to kill the new owners.

There are a lot of comedy names in this, like Bruce Mahler, Robert Sacchi (yes, the Bogart cop from one of the strangest giallo you’ll see, The French Sex Murders), Clark Brandon from Fast Food and Mr. Merlin, Michael McManus (who, like Mahler, did time in a Police Academy film), Mary Beth McDonough (one of the Waltons) and a very young Jan Hooks, who had worked with the Turners in Atlanta comedy (and got them on to SNL).

If you’re looking for a movie where a demented clown slashes his way through a theme park, well, this is not it. But it’s…something.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We originally wrote about this movie on January 30, 2019. However, with a new blu ray coming from Kino Lorber, we felt it’d be a good idea to bring this movie back to our readers’ attention.

Ruggero Deodato has been celebrated on this site, not just for Cannibal Holocaust, but for movies like Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man; Concorde Affaire ’79; House On the End of the Park; Raiders of Atlantis; Cut and Run; Body Count; The Washing Machine and Dial Help. From those movies, you can tell that Deodato has hit nearly every genre. Now, with this one, he returns to his peblum roots — Hercules, Prisoner of Evil was the first movie he directed — and enters the post-Arnold Italian barbarian boom with not one but two American swordsmen who look like living and breathing He-Man toys, David and Peter Paul, better known as The Barbarian Brothers.

I honestly can’t be impartial about this movie, as it’s packed with so much that I love. I mean, just from the voiced over credits, when the names Golan, Globus and Deodato come up, I can’t help but cheer. This is the kind of feel good junk food movie that I love, a film that completely rips off Conan the Barbarian in all the best of ways — times two.

Instead of reciting the script over again — the old review does a decent enough job of that — let me extol the reasons why I love this movie so much.

It’s got an amazing cast. And the Barbarian Brothers. Perhaps realizing that the Brothers may look like a 1983 first wave Masters of the Universe figure but have the acting skills of, well, a 1983 first wave Masters of the Universe figure, Deodato wisely fills the film with all manner of amazing people. There’s Michael Berryman as the Dirtmaster, the henchman tasked with running The Pit, or the place where slaves do manual labor. George Eastman shows up for a few seconds to arm wrestle in a cantina scene. Eva LaRue — who somehow is both of the third installments of RoboCop and Ghoulies — as the long-lost adopted sister of the brothers. And perhaps, most importantly, Richard Lynch, who as always turns in a game performance despite the absolute silliness of the proceedings. I mean, the dude has hair extensions and fake fingers after the young brothers bite his fingers off.

It’s got the Barbarian Brothers. For two guys who look like they should be serious warriors — or barbarians, if the title has anything to say about it — they spend much of the movie making fun of one another. They seem to screw up everything they touch and mostly only escape from situations by being bulls in a proverbial China shop. You have to love that despite the movie being set in what seems to be the distant past — unless Deodato is pulling a Yor Hunter from the Future fakeout on us — they speak as if it were 1987, calling one another bonehead repeatedly.

It’s got a great score. Pino Donaggio has written music for everything from Don’t Look Now and Tourist Trap to Dressed to Kill, The Howling and Body Double (and yes, Giallo In Venice and Gor II), so you know that when you hear his music, it’s going to elevate anything it plays behind.

It’s got fun effects and sets. One of the craziest thing about the new blu ray of this is that it’s so crystal clear that you can see the strings moving a dragon’s mouth up and down, which is rather disconcerting. That said, the swamp set — where most of the film takes place — looks awesome otherwise. This is also a movie with magical belly button jewelry, which is a sentence I’ve never written before.

It’s got Mad Max wrapped up in its sword and sorcery. Despite — again — being set in the past, most of Kadar’s warriors look like they should be in the employ of Immorten Joe. Also, Kutchek and Gore — our heroes — live with a band of traveling circus performers who use their skills to throw knives and blow fire at their attackers. It’s like the hard-driving armanda of — again! — Immorten Joe, but only 28 years earlier.

If you ever want to sit down and have me talk over a movie and extol its virtues — of which many would say there are none — then let it be this movie. I even have the great new blu ray from Kino Lorber, so it looks fabulous!

You can get a copy of your own right here. This has my highest recommendation.

We covered this movie on February 23, 2019, but to be perfectly honest, I could watch this movie every single day. Directed by five different people — Joe Dante, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Horton, John Landis and Robert K. Weiss — and starring tons of folks that I love, it’s the most perfect of all cinematic junk food.

Rather than give you a breakdown of everything that airs on WIDB-TV (channel 8) during its broadcasting day, I’ll just touch on the fact that this movie unites so many of my favorite people in one place.

There’s Russ Meyer as, well, Russ Meyer the video store owner, because what other place would have giant movie posters all over it for Supervixens? An assortment of comedians enacting a roast in the place of a funeral, with Charlie Callas, Rip Tayor, Jackie Vernon, Slappy White, Henny Youngman and Steve Allen being upstaged by Joe Dante favorite Belinda Balaski, who goes from sadness to anger to comedic force in one incredible performance. Ed Begley, Jr. as the Invisible Man. William “Blackula” Marshall as the leader of the Video Pirates. Henry Silva appearing in Unsolved Mysteries years before that show was a thing (it debuted in 1987, most of this film was shot in 1985). David Alan Grier as Don “No Soul” Simmons, something that never fails to make me smile. Andrew “Dice” Clay before anyone knew who he was, shooting Ken Wahl’s wife and getting Jimmy Olsen in trouble. And oh yeah — the main segment has Steve Forrest (the star of S.W.A.T. and Mommie Dearest‘s Greg Savitt), John Travolta’s older brother Joey, Lana Clarkson (Barbarian Queen and, sadly, a future Phil Spector victim), Sybil Danning and Forrest J. Ackerman as the President of the United States in a movie that should star Zsa Zsa Gabor. Stick around after the credits or you’ll miss a picture-perfect Kroger Babb riff starring Carrie Fisher and one of my favorite movie people to ever exist, Paul Bartel. Oh! I almost forgot Monique Gabrielle as Taryn Steele!

I have no idea who this movie was for other than for me. It’s a movie that speaks the language of the movie geek long before the internet existed and was doomed to bomb (or play HBO forever and find worshippers).

I’m so happy to have the new Kino Lorber blu ray of this. Beyond featuring a documentary with interviews with nearly everyone involved, it also has the deleted segments Peter Pan Theater, The Unknown Soldier and The French Ventriloquist’s Dummy. Plus, there are outtakes of every single routine from the roast of Harvey Pitnik and audio commentary from Kat Ellinger and Mike McPadden.

You can get the new blu ray from Kino Lorber, who were nice enough to send us a copy. This is one of those movies that I feel that everyone should have in their collection. There is no way that I can be unbiased on this one.

Lester Bacon misses the old days of slaughtering food, when you got to do it with your hands. Now everything is automated and the local cops and government want to buy him out for $50,000. He’s pretty much forced to take the deal and has thirty days to get out.

But then again, there is his son Buddy, who is really, really good at slicing up anything in his way.

Of course, the slaughterhouse would be exactly where the sheriff’s daughter would go along with her friends to make a horror movie. Because that’s what teenagers did in 1987, go make shot on video films. They get scared off, but one of the boys bets them $20 — which seems like a small amount of money even 33 years ago — to survive a night back at the Bacon Slaughterhouse.

Whoops.

That said, this is a movie with a killer who grunts throughout the film* and an unexpected ending, so it has that going for it. It also has way more new wave on the soundtrack than you’d expect, seeing as how it has a very rural setting.

This being a late 1980’s rental slasher, you know there’s only one place to get it, right? Vinegar Syndrome. I should really just sign over part of my pay to them every year pre-tax, like I do for healthcare.

*Joe B. Barton, who played Buddy, did a radio tour where he stayed in character the whole time.

If you saw Shocker, Prison and House 3/The Horror Show, yet wanted more movies where killers supernaturally survived the electric chair, let me introduce you to 1988’s Destroyer, which is also a slasher with one of the genre’s pioneers, Anthony Curtis, in a supporting role.

Ivan Mozer (Lyle Alzado!) has been convicted of the rape, torture and murder of 23 — he claims 24 — people. An electrical storm breaks out during his electrocution and a riot breaks out. Supposedly, he dies, but we all know better. He’s now in a feral state — still smoking, too — and can regenerate from any injury.

Meanwhile, a movie called Death House Dollies is being made in the prison. What are the odds? And how about the fact that a jail guard named Fingers is really Ivan’s dad and has been keeping him alive?

Beyond Perkins as the director of the film within a film, Clayton Rohner from I, Madman and Deborah Foreman from Valley Girl are on hand. Between this, April Fool’s Day and Waxwork, she had a pretty good run as a scream queen.

Destroyer is way better than it has any right to be, a very late in the game direct to video slasher that still gets in some cool effects, a decent — if overdone — premise and a fun cast. It’s a great Saturday late afternoon watch and you can find it on Tubi.

Well, since we covered the other movie named Scalps this month, I feel like I wouldn’t be doing my job on this site if I skipped a movie by the same title, but directed by the titanic twosome that is Werner Knox and Vincent Dawn.

You know who I mean. Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragrasso. Yes, the men who gifted us with magic like Shocking Dark, Night Killer and Troll 2. They’re the literal bread and butter that makes this site churn, baby.

The Civil War may be over, but try telling that to Colonel Connor (Alberto Farnese), who has taken over a Texan fort and is brazen enough to try and buy Yari (Mapi Galan, Phantom of Death) from her tribe. When they refuse, they kill everyone but her.

She escapes and meets up with one of Connor’s ex-soldiers named Matt (Vassili Karis, The Arena). While he hates Native Americans, he despises Connor even more and nurses her to help. Together, they get the revenge they both need, which mostly consists of Yari scalping everyone she can.

Made with the same crew and much of the same cast as White Apache, the amazing thing is that this movie feels more like a late 60’s Italian Western than a 1987 exploitation movie. This is way better than you’d believe, especially from the men who made Robowar. It also has way more scalping than the other version of Scalps, if you’re looking for a scalping movie.