This movie was requested by my friend for life Adam Cicco, the only person I know that could fall asleep during Independence Day, one of the loudest movies I’ve ever seen in a theater. That said, I dozed during an incredibly loud Fantomas show once, so I get it.

The Monster Squad is a pre-teenager club of monster kids who find themselves in the midst of a battle against the very monsters they idolize. It’s everything I wanted to happen in my life before — and after — puberty. It was written by Shane Black and Fred Dekker and directed by Dekker, who was also behind Night of the Creeps.

The Monster Squad is Sean, Patrick, Eugene, Pete the dog and Horace, as well as Sean’s sister Phoebe, who keeps trying to join. I love how their clubhouse has a poster for Fulci’s Zombie!

They find the diary of Van Helsing, but can’t translate it from German until they finally talk to the owner of the scariest house in the neighborhood (Leonardo Cimino, who famously ended the first night of the miniseries V by spraypainting the red logo over the Visitors’ poster).

It turns out that there’s an amulet composed of concentrated good that keeps the monsters from getting too strong. For some reason, one day out of every century, the forces of good and evil reach a balance. That’s when the otherwise indestructible amulet can be destroyed. Also, by coincidence, that is in a few days and the kids are the ones who have to find the amulet and use it to send the monsters to Limbo.

Van Helsing had tried this a hundred years ago, but his old enemy Dracula survived. Van Helsing’s students hid the amulet in the United States, so the monster puts together his team of evil to get it back. There’s the Mummy, a Gillman, three teenage girls that Dracula transforms into his brides and a reanimated Frankenstein’s Monster (Tom Noonan!), all of whom he uses to get the amulet.

The Monster ends up meeting up with Phoebe and becoming a good guy. Even the Wolfman (Jon Gries!) isn’t too into the cause, as he calls the police to try to get them to help when he’s in human form.

The kids eventually go one-on-one with the very monsters they’ve grown up loving. This movie is packed with great special effects and has grown to inspire plenty of movie lovers, the same way that it was inspired by Universal horror movies. In fact, many people feel that this is the best version of Dracula ever.

While not a critical or commercial success, The Monster Squad has become a cult classic. Platinum Dunes was going to remake it at one point, but luckily that never came to pass. The end of this film, where Frankenstein willingly goes into the portal makes me as sad as the end of Son of Kong every single time that I see it.

Bonis: Listen to us talk about this movie after seeing it as the drive-in.

The Kentucky Fried Movie is one of my favorite films of all time. It’s one of my wife’s least. She feels exactly the same way about this spiritual sequel, which is packed with tons of talent doing stupid things stuck in even more stupid situations. Blame the five different directors: Joe Dante, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Horton, John Landis and Robert K. Weiss.

The title of this movie refers to its film-within-a-film, which is a takeoff of the movies Queen of Outer Space, Cat-Women of the Moon, Fire Maidens from Outer Space and Forbidden Planet. The structure of the film is someone watching WIDB-TV (channel 8) as it plays the film, which stars Sybil Danning as the queen of the moon, along with volcanos and giant spiders. That alone is enough to make me love this movie.

Here’s how the movie breaks down:

Mondo Condo: John Landis directed this segment, which has Arsenio Hall having a bad day.

Pethouse Video: This segment, by Carl Gottlieb who wrote the first two Jaws movies, is often cut from TV airings. That’s because it’s wall to wall nudity, courtesy of Monique Gabrielle (who is also in Deathstalker II and Evil Toons). There’s also a version where she’s in lingerie.

Murray in Videoland: Robert K. Weiss co-created the show Sliders and convinced Landis and Aykroyd not to quit The Blues Brothers. Here, he directs as an old man’s new remote takes him through a series of shows. Look for Phil Hartman in this part!

Hospital: This Landis-directed segment is packed with stars, such as Michelle Pfieffer, Peter Horton and Grinnin Dunne.

Hairlooming: This Dante-helmed commercial has Joe Pantoliano in it!

Amazon Women on the Moon: The main segment of this film, this 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 Phil Spector murder victim), the aforementioned Danning (who we can mention as many times as possible) and Forrest J. Ackerman as the President of the United States. If you’ve watched any 1950’s science fiction, you’ll get all of the jokes.

Blacks Without Soul: Three years before In Living Color, David Alan Grier plays  Don ‘No Soul’ Simmons, a man who literally has no rhythm.

There’s also Two I.D.s with Rosanna Arquette and Steve Guttenberg, Bullshit or Not with Henry Silva, Critics’ Corner with Joe Dante favorite Belinda Balaski, Groundling Archie Hahn and LA radio personalities Barkley and Lohman, food commercial Silly Pate, the saga of the Video Pirates with Blacula himself, William Marshall and even a takeoff of the Invisible Man with Ed Begley, Jr.

I love the longer sequence where Rip Tayor, Jackie Vernon, Slappy White, Henny Youngman, Charlie Callas and Steve Allen roast the dearly departed Harvey Pitnik. Balaski shows back up, as does a young Bryan Cranston as a paramedic and Robert Picardo. If you notice that several of these names show up often in Joe Dante films, that’s because he was behind this part.

There are also spots for a French Ventriloquist’s Dummy with Dick Miller (again, Dante directing), an Art Sale, a commercial for First Lady of the Evening, the Titan condom company giving an award for the millionth customer (Ralph Bellamy is awesome in this, as is Howard Hesseman and Kelly Preston), a Video Date gone wrong between Marc McClure (Jimmy Olsen from Superman and Marty’s older brother in the Back to the Future movies), Connie Wahl (wife of Ken and a noted Tarot card reader today) and a pre-fame Andrew “Dice” Clay (look for Russ Meyer as the video store owner) and finally, after the credits, there’s a health film about V.D. called Reckless Youth that stars noted character actor Herb Vigran, pro wrestler Mike Mazurki, Carrie Fisher and another man who may be the patron saint of our website, Paul Bartel.

I love this movie. I don’t care that critics — or my wife — hate it. I don’t care that some say that it’s the beginning of the end of Landis’ career. It makes me laugh out loud every single time that I watch it. What other movie would have video pirates steal a bunch of unreleased movies, one of them being Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind years before people discussed that movie or made documentaries about it?

Paul Andolina is back for another movie! His site Wrestling with Film is a lot of fun and he always sends me reviews of movies that I’ve never seen before!

In 2013 I watched Rigor Mortis, a more serious take on the Chinese Hopping Vampire films of the 80’s. Goeng-si are a type of reanimated corpse, dressed in traditional garb that hop around and suck people’s life force out. Discovering this movie had me searching high and low for other movies that featured Goeng-si. Unfortunately, they aren’t the easiest things to find on streaming platforms and most are very expensive on DVD. I did, however, find a movie called The Haunted Cop Shop, although it features a vampire it is not of the hopping variety. I watched it, often thinking about it but not revisiting it until Sam’s horror comedy week was announced.

I decided to re-watch The Haunted Cop Shop on Asian Crush, a streaming service that offers fare from most Asian countries, for horror comedy week because it left such an impression on me. It’s about Kim Macky, and Man Chiu, a pair of non-typical cops who accidentally get a perpetrator killed while he is in their custody. The police station is on the site of a former Japanese clubhouse that was the site of tragedy when the Japanese occupation ended during World War II and a general named Issei and his constituents commit suicide there. Turns out Issei has become a vampire ghost and has come to haunt the station again during the Hungry Ghost Festival when the gates of hell open.

Kim Macky and Man Chiu turn their perp sneaky Ming into a pile of ash after he is bitten by Issei, a vampire ghost dressed in a costume more akin to Dracula than any vampires featured in Chinese folklore. Sneaky Ming is a known thief, to get him to confess that he stole a diamond crucifix the on duty officers stage a fake haunting with Man Chiu as a headless ghost to get Ming to use the crucifix. Their commanding officer does not believe their story about Ming and the ghost and they are given 48 hours to find him.

Most of the comedy in this film is either slapstick, or potty humor, but it really works. It’s not only funny but it is pretty dang spooky as well. The ghosts and vampires in the film are scary looking and the film uses its sets to great effect to create an unsettling atmosphere. This is used extremely effectively during the fake haunting the cops use to scare Ming. The special effects for the vampires are gross as well and I couldn’t help but love the whole feel of the movie. 

The interactions between Jacky Cheung who plays Kim Macky and Ricky Hui who plays Man Chiu along with their newly appointed officer, Madam Fanny Ho, played by the attractive actress, Kitty Chan, really bring this film to life. It spawned a sequel which I haven’t been able to purchase yet. It is also of note that this film is an early outing by Wong Kar Wai, a director known for his films Chungking Express and Fallen Angels, here co-writing the script for the film and having a small cameo as a ghost in a sequence with sneaky Ming,

I don’t want to say too much about the movie as I really want you to seek it out for yourself and experience it. It can be watched for free with commercials on Asian Crush’s website or on the streaming app available on most platforms. 

Jeremy Capello (Robert Sean Leonard, Dead Poets Society) is a teenager in Houston who may have the attention of the school’s hottest girl, Candy, but he really has a strange crush on band geek Darla. Dude, I get it. I would feel the same way. But he also has a vampire woman named Nora (Cecilia Peck, the daughter of Gregory) who keeps infiltrating his dreams. What is a boy to do?

It turns out that Nora is real and one fateful night, spurred on by the advice of his friend Ralph, he ends up in her bed. She bites him just as vampire hunters Professor Leopold McCarthy (David Warner!) and his assistant Grimsdyke (Paul Willson, one of the Bobs from Office Space) burst in and chase him off. I wonder if the assistant is named for Peter Cushing’s character in Tales from the Crypt?

Soon, Jeremy is a full-fledged vampire, complete with an undead guidance counselor named Modoc (René Auberjonois). He still tries to win over Darla, but between his new condition and constantly being chased by those two vampire hunters, that won’t be all that easy.

I learned from this movie that Whole Foods was big in Houston all the way back in 1987 and also had a section where vampires could buy canned pigs blood, which also comes in a light version, as well as bottled like wine.

Also, Jeremy’s parents instantly jump to the worry that he’s gay and not a vampire. They’re played by Kenneth Kimmins and Fannie Flagg. Kimmins has been on Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm, but Kimmins career has really soared after being in this movie, as she wrote the book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, which of course became a blockbuster film. Another actor that went on to bigger things after this film is Kathy Bates, who shows up in a bit role as Darla’s mom.

This isn’t the best vampire film you’ve ever seen, but it moves quickly and has some laughs. If you’d like to see a vampire try and eat pizza with garlic on it, it’s the movie for you. The director behind this, Jimmy Huston, who also wrote and directed the Halloween ripoff that is Final Exam (1981), got his start with drive-in purveyor Earl Owensby, with a priest on a Death Wish tear in Dark Sunday (1976).

The beauty of 1987’s Dragnet is that you can tell that Dan Aykroyd is having the time of his life. “I’ve had a fascination with Joe Friday since I was a kid. Next to Clouseau, he’s the most famous cop in the world. I’ve studied his speech inflections, his mannerisms, his walk. During filming, I’d listen to tapes of the old shows. I even started dreaming in character. If there was ever a character I’d always wanted to play, it was this. I’m a huge fan of Jack Webb’s. I basically just love everything he did. Dragnet was something I’d always wanted to do, but I never thought the opportunity would come up, because I didn’t know who owned the rights to the idea. When Universal called and said they were interested in doing it, I think I made a deal to write the script the next week.”

A lifelong fan of cops, Aykroyd is a former reserve commander for the Harahan, Louisiana police department. He currently serves as a Reserve Deputy of the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department in Hinds County, Mississippi, who he supports with charitable endeavors.

In the film, he’s playing Joe Friday, the nephew of the original series character played by Jack Webb. Harry Morgan reprises his role from the television series as Bill Gannon, but now he’s the captain. And Friday’s new partner is Pep Streebek, played by Tom Hanks, and there’s no way they can get along.

It turns out some strange things have been stolen — the entire print run of the latest issue of Bait Magazine, published by Jerry Caesar (Dabney Coleman) as well as several animals and the mane of a lion.

Friday and Streebek discover that P.A.G.A.N. (People Against Goodness and Normalcy) is behind it all and Caesar’s limo driver Emil Muzz (Jack O’Halloran, Non from the Superman films) is a member. They follow him to a ritual where a masked leader is about to sacrifice the virgin Connie Swail (Alexandra Paul from TV’s Baywatch), who Friday saves and falls in love with.

However, Police Commissioner Jane Kirkpatrick is taken to the scene of the crime which is completely cleaned up. Our heroes are on thin ice already with a dinner at the Brown Derby leads to Connie accusing Reverend Jonathan Whirley of being the P.A.G.A.N. leader, which gets Joe kicked off the force.

Will Joe get back on the job? Can he save the virgin Connie? Will he and Pep ever get along? All of these questions will be answered with just the facts, ma’am.

The script was written by Dan Aykroyd and Alan Zweibel, who had worked together on Saturday Night Live. Tom Mankiewicz was brought in to direct. He’d previously written movies like Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, Superman and Ladyhawke, but this was the first movie he’d ever directed (his only other movie effort was 1991’s Delirious). He was also well known as script doctor and had been credited with saving several films. He was also the creative consultant for TV’s Hart to Hart!

Aykroyd is fabulous in this, with critic Gene Siskel saying that he deserved an Academy Award nomination for his acting. Hanks is, as always, really good. I love the part where he mentioned that Connie’s house looked like it was TV’s Leave It to Beaver, yet it’s his house from The ‘Burbs.

This movie has some ridiculous attention to detail, like Henry Morgan’s desk having the same photo of his wife from TV’s M*A*S*H* and Friday smoking Chesterfield cigarettes, who sponsored the Dragnet radio show. It’s also a total blast.

I always worry and think, “What is left? Have I truly exhausted the bounds of cinema? Have I seen all there is that is left to see? Will nothing ever really surprise and delight me ever again?” Then I watched Iron Warrior and holy shit you guys — this movie is mindblowing.

Alfonso Brescia made a bunch of Star Trek-inspired Star Wars ripoffs in the late 70’s, like Cosmos: War Of the Planets, Battle Of the Stars, War Of the Robots and Star Odyssey. Before that, he was known for working in the peblum genre with entries such as The Magnificent Gladiator and The Conquest of Atlantis. And some maniacs out there may know him from his Star Wars clone cover version of Walerian Borowczyk’s The Beast — complete with the same actress, Sirpa Lane — called The Beast in Space.

Today, though, we’re here to discuss Brescia taking over the reins of Ator from Joe D’Amato after Ator the Fighting Eagle and Ator 2: The Blade Master. I expected another muddy cave dwelling movie livened up only by nukes and hang gliders. What I received was a movie where a frustrated artist was struggling to break free.

This movie goes back to the beginning of Ator’s life, where we discover that his twin brother was taken at a young age. Now, our hero travels to  Dragor (really the Isle of Malta) to do battle with a sorceress named Phaedra (Elisabeth Kazaand, who was in the aforementioned The Beast) her unstoppable henchman, the silver skulled, red bandana wearing Trogar (Franco Daddi, who was the stunt coordinator for both Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and The Curse), who is the Iron Master of the Sword.

Princess Janna (Savina Gersak, who was in War Bus Commando) and Ator (the returning Miles O’Keefe) join forces and man, Janna’s makeup and hair is insane. She has what I can only describe as a ponytail mohawk and has makeup that wouldn’t be out of place on the Jem and the Holograms cartoon.

Imagine, if you will, a low budget sword and sorcery film that has MTV style editing, as well as gusts of wind, constant dolly shots and nausea inducing zooms. It’s less a narrative film as it is a collection of images, sword fights and just plain weirdness. Like Deeva (Iris Peynado, who you may remember as Vinya, the girl who hooks up with Fred Williamson in Warriors of the Wasteland) saying that she created both Ator and Trogar to be tools of justice? This movie completely ignores the two that came before — and the one that follows it — and I am completely alright with all of it!

Supposedly, D’Amato hated this movie. Lots of people hate on it online, too. Well, guess what? They’re wrong. This is everything that I love about movies and proved to me that there is still some cinematic magic left in the world to find.

How about this for strange trivia? When they made the Conan the Adventurer series in 1997, Ator’s sword was repainted and used as the Sword of Atlantis!

As far as I know, Iron Warrior has NEVER been released on DVD, much less blu ray. But you can watch a great looking version for free with commercials on VUDU.

UPDATE: RoninFlix has released this. I bought it and forgot to update this post! Thanks to Countess Anya Sanguina on Letterboxd.

John Terlesky replaces Rick Hill as the Deathstalker and he doesn’t really have the look that Boris Vallejo envisions on the box art for this one. And because Jim Wynorski is directing, you know you’re going to get exactly what you expect out of a sword and sorcery Roger Corman movie: breasts, boobs, bazooms and a few beasts. Maybe some blood if you’re lucky. And perhaps some more sweater meat.

Princess Evie of Jzafir (Monique Gabrielle, Penthouse Pet of the Year for December 1982) has been taken away from her rightful throne by Jarek (John LaZar, Z-Man from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls!) and Sultana (Toni Naples, who shows up in Chopping Mall and Sorceress) and replaced by a clone.

So Evie takes on the secret identity of Reena the Seer and hires Deathstalker to get her kingdom back. They have plenty of adventures — yay! — and maybe even fall in love — aww! — before the end of the film.

Look for Queen Kong from GLOW as the Amazon champion Gorgo in a wrestling scene, if you enjoy that sort of thing.

Is Deathstalker II better than the original? No. It’s pretty stupid. But isn’t that what you’re really coming to these movies for? It’s definitely entertaining and a great escape from reality, though.

You can watch it on Amazon Prime or get it on a Sword and Sorcery four movie set from Shout! Factory.

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 1980’s, 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 this mother (Mary Hartman, Mart Hartman star Louise Lasser). On the night of Thanksgiving, mom reveals that she’s about to marry Brad and 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 year, 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 1980’s films about incest — is the rampant gore.

Come for Ted Raimi as a 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. And it’s directed by John Grissmer, who was also behind 1973’s The Bride (Last House on Massacre Street).

You can watch this for free with your Amazon Prime subscription or watch it on Shudder complete with Joe Bob Briggs commentary.

Where do you go after the utter lunacy that is Death Wish 3? Well, you replace Michael Winner with J. Lee Thompson, who was the director for The Guns of Navarone, the original Cape Fear, the slashtastic Happy Birthday to Me and The Reincarnation of Peter Proud amongst many other films. He’d already worked with Bronson on 10 to Midnight, Murphy’s Law and The Evil That Men Do and would also direct Bronson in Messenger of Death and Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects after this movie wrapped. In fact, counting St. Ives, The White Buffalo and Caboblanco, they’d work on seven movies together.

Paul Kersey hasn’t learned anything from the last three movies. He has a new girlfriend, Karen Sheldon (Kay Lenz, The Initiation of Sarah, House) with a teenage daughter named Erica (Dana Barron, the original Audrey from National Lampoon’s Vacation) that you shouldn’t get to know all that well. That’s because — surprise! — she overdoses thanks to her boyfriend and her getting into crack cocaine and doing it an arcade. If you’re shocked that a Death Wish movie would prey upon the worst fears of America’s middle class, then you may have watched the last three films too.

Paul loved that girl like his own daughter, probably because she wanted to be an architect like him and also possibly because he hasn’t yet learned that the moment that he says something like that, tragedy is right around the corner. Honestly, the main message of the Death Wish films is that God hates Paul Kersey, will not allow him to die and will wait until he finds happiness again before visiting upon him great suffering, only for the cycle to repeat.

The night she died, Paul saw Erica smoke a joint with her boyfriend and was already suspecting the young dude, so he follows him back to the arcade the next night. That boyfriend confronts Jojo and Jesse (Tim Russ, Commander Tuvok himself!), two of the dealers who sold them the crack cocaine, and threatens to go to the police. This being a Death Wish film, they kill him pretty much in public. That murder unlocks the ability for Paul to start killing again, so he shoots Jojo and launches his body on to the top of bumper cars, where he’s electrocuted. No one dies in Death Wish without a flourish.

Meanwhile, Paul gets a call from tabloid publisher Nathan White (John P. Ryan from It’s Alive), who knows that he’s the vigilante. His daughter had also become addicted to drugs and died, so he knows what Paul is going through. The storyline becomes pretty much like The Punisher’s first mini-series where The Trust paid for him to wipe out crime, as White funds Paul’s one man war against drugs while his girlfriend starts writing an expose on the two rival gangs in town.

One of those gangs is led by Ed Zacharias (Perry Lopez, Creature from the Black Lagoon) and the other is commanded by Jack and Tony Romero. Two LAPD officers, Sid Reiner and Phil Nozaki are also on the case, trying to figure out who killed the drug dealers at the arcade.

This is the first Death Wish film where Paul feels more like an urban James Bond than a fed up war vet. Trust me, he gets even more gadgets in the next one. Here, he uses his skills as a master of disguise — he has none — to dress as a waiter and serve a party at Zacharias’ house. The birthday cake is…man, let me just show you the birthday cake.

After witnessing the drug lord kill one of his guys who stole some cocaine, he’s ordered to help carry out the body. Soon, he’s killing all of that drug dealer’s men, including three guys in an Italian restaurant with a bomb shaped like a wine bottle. Look for a really young Danny Trejo in this scene!

After all that mayhem, Paul also starts wiping out the Romero gang one by one, including breaking onto a drug front and blowing it up with a bomb. Yet Nozaki ends up being on the take for Zacharias and tries to kill our hero and you know how well that works out. Now Paul looks like a cop killer, too.

In the stuntman piece de resistance of this one, the two drug lords are lured into an oil field shootout where Paul kills Zacharius with a high-powered rifle, instigating the fireworks. Nathan comes out to congratulate Paul, but sets him up with a car bomb. It turns out that the Nathan that Paul has met is a third drug lord (!) who set him up to take out all the competition. Then, two fake cops arrest Paul and take him downtown, but they’re really just trying to kill our hero. Again, you know how well that works.

The film ends with Detective Reiner searching for Paul out of revenge for his partner’s murder, the third drug lord kidnapping Paul’s woman and everything coming together in a parking lot and a roller rink where Paul uses an M16 with an equipped M203 grenade launcher to unleash holy hell.

Only the drug lord survives, holding Karen. She tried to escape and gets shot numerous times with a MAC 10 submachine gun. He tries to kill Paul but he’s out of bullets. Paul may be, but he still has a grenade, which he uses to blow the villain up real good.

The film closes with Reiner coming and ordering Paul to surrender and threatening to kill him if he walks away. “Do whatever you have to,” says the old gunfighter as he walks into the sunset.

For all the mayhem and madness throughout this film — keep in mind our hero just used an explosive device to decimate another bad guy just seconds before — this is a poignant ending. But of course, Paul — whether he wanted to use the new last name Kimble he came up with in this film or Kersey — would be back one more time.