EDITOR’S NOTE: Hot Splash was on USA Up All Night on September 28, 1991; February 14 and September 5, 1992; April 9, 1993.

Sometimes I think about the people who took things from me and how they sleep well at night, and here I am, writing about a teen sex comedy in the middle of the night, unable to visualize being able to rest because I have so many of these films to discuss. They can never take that from me. They don’t want to.

Directed by James Ingrassia, Hot Splash is shot in Florida and has Woody (Richard Steinmetz), Jennifer (Andrea Thompson, Detective Jill Kirkendall on NYPD Blue) and Jimbo (James Michael Hall) getting ready for a surfing contest, but then Jimbo angers gangster  T.J. Caruso (Jeremy Whelan). He gets kidnapped, and the surfing kids have to save him.

Then they surf, and you realize that the waves in Florida aren’t like the ones in the California beach movie. They’re pretty small. There are also two scenes at an Arby’s that go on so long that you start to understand that the filmmakers followed the ways of another man who made movies in Florida, Herschell Gordon Lewis, who got KFC to feed every film he made down there. So yeah. Arby’s. This movie will make you hungry for a French Dip and potato cakes.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Beach Balls was on USA Up All Night on August 30, 1991; February 22 and September 25, 1992; May 1 and July 2 and 24, 1993. 

Charlie Harrison (Phillip Paley, Cha-Ka from Land of the Lost) wants to be a rock star, so he puts his own concert together. He has Christian parents, a sidekick named Scully (Steven Tash and a girl he wants that’s out of his league, Wendy (the late Heidi Helmer). He’s also on probation for driving drunk, which was less of a big deal in 1988. Our hero introduces her to the lead singer of Severed Heads In A Bag, Keith (Douglas R. Star), which is not the way to get the girl. Maybe if he gets his own guitar, he can win her back.

Director Joe Ritter wrote The Toxic Avenger and is a Steadicam guy now. This is the only film David Rocklin wrote.

The band in this is the D.R. Starr Band, led by Douglas Randall Starr. Yes, the guy who plays Keith., They were known for jazz-infused rock and glam metal. If you went to Gazzarri’s on the Sunset Strip in the 1980s, you might have seen them. Apparently, Steve Vai contributed to some of the songs on this album.

One of the punks, Mollusk, is Gary Schneider, Bozo from The Toxic Avenger.

This is a more innocent teen comedy than most. The artwork for it promises, well, beach balls. You get none.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Uninvited was on USA Up All Night, but I can’t find a date when it aired. Do you know?

I love George Kennedy and want to state for the record that he deserved way better than this film, which is a total piece of shit. That said, I’ve proved time and again that my favorite movies to watch are mostly made out of fecal matter, so let’s dish.

Genetic Laboratories has decided to create a poisonous mutant cat that lives inside the body of a cute house cat. Why would they do this? Who knows, but it’s a good thing they did, or we wouldn’t have a movie.

The cat ends up on the yacht of “Wall Street” Walter Graham (Alex Cord, Michael Coldsmith Briggs III of TV’s Airwolf), who is running away to the Cayman Islands to escape the SEC. Along the way, he’s brought his bodyguard (Kennedy) and a bunch of hot girls and their boyfriends. Holy shit, there’s Clu Gulager, Burt from Return of the Living Dead! There’s Austin Stoker (Assault on Precinct 13, Horror High, Battle for the Planet of the Apes)! And Rob Estes from USA’s Silk Stalkings!

This Japanese box art should tell you all that you need to know:

Or perhaps you’d like to see the German artwork:

The Uninvited was written and directed by Greydon Clark, who also directed Joysticks, Wacko and Satan’s Cheerleaders. I would hope that any of those films is better than this. Becca looked at a photo from this movie and said, “Is that a stuffed animal?” Yes, it is. That’s the level of special effects you’ll see here.

There’s also George Kennedy getting bitten by a demonic cat. If that doesn’t make you want to watch this, I don’t know what will.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Howling IV was on USA Up All Night on July 3, 1992, April 23, 1994 and April 13, 1996.

John Hough has some great movies in his directorial history, including Twins of Evil, The Legend of Hell House, The Watcher in the Woods, The Incubus, American Gothic, Escape to Witch Mountain, Return to Witch Mountain and Biggles. That’s a great run. He also made this movie, which attempts to revive The Howling series, bringing it closer to the original film.

Author Marie Adams keeps having visions of nuns and werewolves attacking her from a fire. It seems that the same imagination that helps her write is also driving her to madness. Her husband takes her moving all the way to madness, to Drago, where a small cottage will be the place that she plans on resting and relaxing away all the terror that she is going through. That would work if she didn’t keep hearing howling in the woods.

Much like the first film, her man can’t stay faithful. The small town is also rife with werewolves, ghosts and visions of the nun. The whole thing ends in a burning church, and yes, that same werewolf leaps through the flames.

Well, if anything, this is the only werewolf movie I’ve seen that has a theme song by the lead singer of the Moody Blues. So there’s that.

That said, this is a more faithful version of the book than The Howling. Yet it’s not as good a movie. Writer and co-producer of the film, Clive Turner, was originally going to direct, but when the financiers pulled out, he had to get Hough on board.

That’s one story. The other is the one that Hough told Fangoria. The script was written by someone named Freddie Rowe and he would also receive notes and messages from him, as well as additional pages of the script, while making the movie. However, when the director asked for Rowe’s contact information, he was never given it, leading him to suspect Rowe of actually being Clive Turner, who really wanted to be the director of the movie. Seeing as how Rowe only wrote one other movie — Howling V: The Rebirth, which Turner also wrote — that may or may not be true.

Making that story sound even more true is the fact that Turner recut and re-edited the film, adding scenes like the one where the evil werewolf queen Eleanor went bobbing for hot dogs with Marie’s husband.

You can watch this for yourself on Tubi and try and make better sense of it than I did.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Alien Nation was on USA Up All Night on July 11, 1997.

Rockne O’Bannon created Farscape, seaQuest DSV, Defiance, Cult and the movie (and later TV series) Alien Nation. It was a spec script sent to Gale Anne Hurd, and she saw a lot of opportunity. What is the difference between other science fiction films? Herd explained, “We wanted the aliens to be more like a different ethnic race than like lizard people, … We didn’t want our audiences thinking, ‘Gee, look how different these aliens are.” Rather, after about five minutes, we wanted the audience to accept them as different from us, but not so different that no one would buy the storyline. We wanted the aliens to be characters–not creatures.”

In 1988, 300,000 enslaved aliens known as Newcomerslandedd in the Mojave Desert. Within three years, they’re settled in Los Angeles and some, like Sam Francisco (Mandy Patinkin), become cops. His partner, Detective Matthew Sykes (James Caan) wants nothing to do with him, as he doesn’t trust the aliens once his partner is shot and killed in a robbery by several of them.

A case involving the wealthy newcomer businessman William Harcourt (Terence Stamp) and his henchman, Rudyard Kipling (Kevyn Major Howard, brings them together. There’s also a drug called Jabroka that can transform Newcomers into an even more dangerous form, and keeping it off the streets could be the difference between the two races existing as one.

This led to a 22-episode TV show, five TV movies, comic books and novels, all of which advanced the story.

Director Graham Baker also directed the last Omen movie.

You know who didn’t like this movie?

James Caan.

He told the AV Club, when asked about this movie:

James Caan: Why the f****…Why would you bring up that?

Will Harris: Many people actually like the film. I do, for one.

Caan: Yeah, well, I don’t know. I don’t have too many…I mean, I loved Mandy Patinkin. Mandy was a riot. But…I don’t know. It was a lot of silly stuff, creatively. And we had this English director whom I wasn’t really that fond of. I mean, nice guy, but…it was just one of those things where, you know, you don’t quit, you get through it. It certainly wasn’t one of…I wouldn’t write it down as one of my favorite movies. But it was pretty popular.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cameron’s Closet was on USA Up All Night on July 10, 1992.

Directed by Armand Mastroianni (He Knows You’re Alone, The Clairvoyant) and written by Gary Brandner, who was the author of The Howling, Cameron’s Closet is about Cameron Lansing (Scott Curtis), a psychic boy living with his father (Tab Hunter), who has been studying his son’s abilities since he was born. One night, he falls on a machete — sure, I guess — and Cameron goes to live with his mother Dory (Kim Lankford) and her boyfriend Bob Froelich (Gary Hudson).

Sergeant Sam Taliaferro (Cotter Smith) — who has prophetic dreams — and his partner, Pete Groom (Leigh McCloskey), are at odds due to Sam’s absent-mindedness, which stems from his inability to sleep. Hey — there’s William Lustig as a porn director! Sam is sent to Dr. Nora Haley (Mel Harris), who soon becomes part of the investigation team as Bob is killed when his eyes are burned out of his head and he’s thrown out a window. Both murders are connected to not just Cameron, but also Sam’s dreams. Also, Dead bodies come back to life as murderous zombies, and Cameron is obsessed with the Deceptor, a statue of a demon that his father gave him.

Why would they trust the dad’s old assistant, Professor Ben Majors (Chuck McCann)? Well, I don’t know. He soon gets his blood boiling in his body, and Cameron has to fight the demon in…the closet.

Cotter Smith and Mel Harris met during this movie and married soon after.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Demonwarp was on USA Up All Night, but I can’t find a date. Do you know?

Whoa, boy, Demonwarp.

Originally meant to be directed by John Carl Buechler and star Jack Palance, budget woes changed things up and this ended up being made by Emmett Alston (Nine Deaths of the Ninja, New Year’s Evil) on board and George Kennedy — who stipulated that his daughter Shannon must have a role, that he’d only be on set for three days and that he’d get $15,000 for his work.

Jack Bergman has led four of his friends — Fred Proctor, Carrie Austin, Cindy Ossman* and Tom Phillips (Billy Jacoby!) — to his uncle’s cabin for a weekend of booze, sex and hijinks.  That was the plan, but the truth is that his uncle was taken away by a sasquatch, and a woman was killed right in the place where they’re supposed to be hanging and banging.

Then there’s Bill Crafton (Kennedy), an angry older man who is both the crazy man warning them all to stay out of the woods and the tough elder seeking his missing daughter. After the girls get naked, the beast attacks and wipes out everyone but Jack, Carrie and Cindy, who survive the night only to have to wander a path back to civilization.

If you’re like, “Oh, cool, another Bigfoot slasher ala Night of the Demon,” just stay tuned.

That’s when they meet Tara (Kennedy’s daughter Shannon) and Betsy (Michelle Bauer!), who are seeking a field of marijuana, which leads to Bauer getting nude — shock of shocks! — and zombies showing up. That’s when this movie goes off the rails, seemingly throwing everything you’ve ever seen in ten horror movies, proving you a 5 for $5 for 5 nights rental experience all in one film.

Shot in the Bronson Cave section of Griffith Park — a setting for many a science fiction and horror film and TV show — Demonwarp then piles on everything it can, like space devil worshippers in a giant UFO experimenting on teenagers, zombies in The Residents t-shirts, George Kennedy running around and Bauer remaining naked for nearly the entire time she’s on screen, as well as a trick ending.

Have you ever put Chinese food on top of a pizza and then dunk it into a bowl of chili? This film Taco Towns that concept and throws you a crepe, some gruyere cheese, a layer of special guacomolito sauce, wraps it in a corn husk filled with pico de gallo and then layers it with zombies, a Bigfoot who looks more like a gorilla, shoots it all in broad daylight and serves it up in a commemorative tote bag filled with spicy vegetarian chili.

More movies should be this wild.

*Note that Bergman, Proctor, Ossman and Austin’s last names are all taken from members of the Firesign Theater.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nest was on USA Up All Night but I can’t find an air date. Do you know?

Directed by Terence H. Winkless and written by Robert King — and based on the novel by Eli Cantor — The Nest has a great poster going for it. I stared at it in the video store for the longest time and now, decades later, I’ve finally watched it.

Sheriff Frank Luz (Richard Tarbell) has a lot to deal with. Dead dogs are showing up all over town. Books are falling to pieces. And his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Johnson (Lisa Langlois, Happy Birthday to Me, Deadly Eyes) is back.

I dated a bug scientist — an entomologist — for a few months and I always told her that her experiments would lead to situations like this. She thought I was stupid and she was right, but I know that Dr. Morgan Hubbard (Terri Treas) is behind all of this, experimenting on cockroaches until they get cat sized and who needs that? How was that supposed to help?

This movie has human cockroaches and a cat cockroach, because it wants to make you puke. I mean, well done, you know?

Also: the studio this was made in dealt with cockroach infestations for years.

Also also: All of the explosions came from Humanoids from the Deep.