Tag Archives: 1988

WATCH THE SERIES: Fright Night

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Fright Night was the first modern horror film I ever watched. I remember painting in my parent’s kitchen and my father telling me not to be afraid and just watch it with him. It’s a great start — combining the Hammer films that I loved that didn’t scare me with new school special effects and metacommentary.

The very first film in the series, this one really speaks to me as I was part of the last generation to grow up with horror movie hosts on UHF channels. Sure, there’s Svengoolie today and some internet shows, but it’s not the same. Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) is one such host, a washed-up actor who was in a few great movies decades ago and now goes from town to town, playing the same old 1960’s Z list horror films, saying the same lines. 

The defining moment for him is that Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale, Mannequin 2: Mannequin on the Move) believes in all his bull. And when Jerry Dandrige (the untrustable Chris Sarandon) moves in next door and shows all the signs of being a vampire, Charley finds he needs Peter Vincent more than ever before.

Plus, you get a pre-Married with Children Amanda Bearse as Charley’s love interest and a pre-gay pornography/976-EVIL Stephen Geoffreys as Charley’s best friend/worst nemesis Evil Ed. And I just love Billy Cole (Jonathan Stark, House II) as Jerry’s thrall.

This is a movie made for those who love horror movies. After all, Peter Vincent is named after horror icons Peter Cushing and Vincent Price. Creator Tom Holland wrote the part for Price, but the acting great had stopped appearing in horror movies at this time in his career. As they made the film — and the sequel together — Holland and McDowall became life-long friends, with McDowall introducing the young director to Price, who was flattered that the part was written to honor him and thought that Fright Night “was wonderful and he thought Roddy did a wonderful job.”

He’s right — this is a movie that taps into the mind and heart of horror fans, as so many of us have wondered, “What if the monster — and the monster hunter — was real?” The lighthearted yet dangerous tone of the film is letter perfect. That scene in the nightclub, where Jerry takes on the security guard? As good as it gets.

Want to watch it now? You can catch it streaming on Hulu.

Also of note: I’m glad the original ending wasn’t used. It was to close with Charley and Amy making out with Peter Vincent coming on the TV to host Fright Night, saying “Tonight’s creepy crawler is Dracula Strikes Again. Obviously about vampires. You know what vampires look like, don’t you? They look like this!” Then, he would transform, look into the camera and say, “Hello, Charley.”

After the unexpected critical and financial success of this film, a sequel was inevitable. Holland and Sarandon were both making the first Child’s Play, so they couldn’t commit to the film, although the actor did visit the set. Stephen Geoffrey’s didn’t like the script, opting to star in 976-EVIL. Ultimately only Ragsdale and McDowall would return.

Three years and plenty of therapy later, Charley Brewster now believes that Jerry Dandrige was a serial killer and that vampires don’t exist. Now a college student with a new girlfriend, Alex Young (Traci Lind, who dated Dodi Fayed before Princess Diana), Charley sadly discovers that Peter Vincent is back to hosting Fright Night. As they leave Peter’s apartment, a new nemesis, Regine steals Charley’s attention. There’s even a new version of Evil Ed, a vampire named Louie (Jon Gries, who is great in everything he’s done from Joysticks and Real Genius to The Monster Squad and TerrorVision) who is making Charley and Alex’s lives hell.

It turns out that she’s Jerry Dandrige’s brother and here for revenge. Now, the tables are turned and Peter Vincent is the one who has to convince Charley that vampires are real. Even worse, she’s turning Charley into a vampire and has stolen the Fright Night hosting job away from Peter! There’s also a transgender rollerskating vampire, putting this movie years ahead of others in presenting LGBT roles (even if Belle is evil).

One small trivia note: the vampire form that Regine transforms into at the end was modeled after 45 Grave lead singer Dinah Cancer. If you don’t know her band, they sang the song “Partytime” from TThe Return of the Living Dead.

There’s no way that this movie could live up to the original, but it tries. It hasn’t really been seen much, as LIVE Entertainment barely released it on home video. Artisan Entertainment released it on DVD in 2003, but it’s been out of print for a long time and commands big bucks. You can often find a bootleg of the high definition TV edition of the film at conventions (that’s where we got it!).

Written by Holland and directed by Tommy Lee Wallace (Halloween III: Season of the Witch and the original It, as well as the writer of Amityville II: The Possession, a movie I never cease trying to get people to watch), this movie suffered at the hands of a very real tragedy.

McDowall loved playing Peter Vincent and was eager to bring Holland back to make a third film, so he set up a meeting with the two of them and Carolco Pictures chairman Jose Menendez. Legend has it that the meeting did not go well. Later that night, Menendez and his wife were infamously murdered by their sons, Lyle and Erik. When McDowall learned of the news, he called Wallace and said “Well, I didn’t do it. Did you?”

As a result of the murders, Fright Night Part 2 lost its nationwide release schedule and only played in two theaters before being released directly to video. All of the planned advertising and public relations were canceled as well, which meant that most folks didn’t even know it was released until it showed up on video!

If you thought Hollywood was done with Fright Night, you’re wrong.

Colin Farrell plays Jerry here as “the shark from Jaws.” Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays Evil Ed as a geeky kid who was once best friends with Charley, who is now one of the popular high schools (remind me to tell you about the child vampire that used to chase me through my grandparent’s backyard someday). And former Dr. Who David Tennant is more Criss Angel than Zacherley.

This is a film that I really tried to get past and enjoy, but I just couldn’t be entertained by it. I’m not the only one. Tom Holland said, “Kudos to them on every level for their professionalism, but they forgot the humor and the heart. They should have called it something other than Fright Night, because it had no more than a passing resemblance to the original. What they did to Jerry Dandrige and Peter Vincent was criminal. Outside of that, it was wonderful.”

That said, there is a nice moment where Chris Sarandon makes a cameo as a victim of the new Jerry. Otherwise, this one is mean-spirited where it should have heart. No part of it feels fun. I was shocked to learn that it was directed by the same person who made I, Tonya and Lars and the Real Girl, Craig Gillespie.

And if you think that one is bad…

This direct-to-video sequel completely ignores the first remake, instead being a simultaneous remake of the first two films. The Gerri Dandridge in this one is a Romanian history and culture professor who teaches Charley, Evil Ed and Amy when they take a class trip to Romania. And this Peter Vincent hosts a reality show where he hunts vampires.

For some reason, Fox greenlit the movie and rushed it into being at a record pace. The first draft was written in a week and it was finished in 23 days. If only it didn’t feel like it went on for 24. This movie is a complete waste of time and the name of this franchise. It was like they heard someone say, “Nobody can make a worse remake than the last Fright Night.” And replied, “Hold my cup of blood and apple.”

Here are some other spinoffs:

NOW Comics released 27 total issues of a Fright Night comic that adapted both movies, as well as starting new stories where Peter and Charley battled a spider boy, squid people, aliens, a minotaur and the Legion of the Endless Night, which eventually brings back Jerry Dandrige to begin a new army of the undead peopled by French prostitutes!

Terror Time put out a new Fright Night comic book this year, Fright Night: The Peter Vincent Chronicles, which explains what happened to Peter between the first two original films. You can grab it — and the Fright Night coloring book and the screenplay too — right here.

In 1988, an Amiga video game was released. Strangely enough, you play as Jerry, trying to make it through your home and transform people into vampires. Everyone from the original Fright Night appears in the game as enemies and potential victims except Billy Cole.

And in 1989, the Indian film Kalpana House was released. It’s a loose remake, with Peter Vincent’s character being a priest and plenty of musical numbers. Yep. Really.

Finally, there’s the exhaustive 3 hour and 37-minute documentary You’re So Cool, Brewster! The Story of Fright Night. In addition to pretty much everything you’d ever want to know about the original two films, the filmmakers also created a series of trailers for the fictional movies The Resurrection of Dracula, Psychedelic Death, I Rip Your Jugular and Werewolf of Moldavia, which starred Peter Vincent (Simon Bamford, Ohnaka from Nightbreed and the Butterball Cenobite from the first two Hellraiser films) and Christopher Cushing (Nicholas Vince, Kinski from Nightbreed and the Chattering Cenobite from the first two Hellraiser films).

Sadly, these trailers are on the hard to find physical release of the documentary. You can watch it on Shudder right here, though!

Last year, Tom Holland announced that he’s writing Fright Night 2 as a book, with the goal of obtaining the rights to the series by 2019 and making a new movie. In the past, he’s talked about continuing the series by having single-father Charley Brewster inherit his mother’s home with his two teenage children learning that something evil is in the house next door — Evil Ed, who is trying to bring Dandrige back.

Whew! Here’s hoping you enjoyed our look at the past, present and hopefully future of a horror classic. And if you haven’t seen the original sequel, hunt it down! It’s pretty good!

The Blob (1988)

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When I first started dating Becca, I was at her apartment and we were looking for something to watch. This is what she picked, making me aware of my luck. It’s one thing for me to find a hot girl. It’s another when that lady loves great movies.

We were excited to catch this in the theater recently and this is one remake that does not disappoint. It was great to hear people loudly gasp during the gore in this. It was made in 1988, when life must have been much cheaper than today, because hardly anyone makes it out alive.

Just like the original, The Blob starts with a meteor crash being investigated by an old man and his dog. But unlike that 1950’s science fiction film, this movie exists to confound expectations. It spends so much time setting up Paul (Donovan Leitch) and Meg (Shawnee Smith, Saw II) as the leads that when Paul is eaten by the Blob early in the film, it really comes across as a surprise. The real hero is Brian (Kevin Dillon), who is constantly in trouble with the cops and always rides a Triumph motorcycle, a nod to the star of the original, Steve McQueen.

For the rest of the film’s running time, Meg and Brian have to convince the town that the Blob is real. By the end, they’re trying to expose the fact that whatever the Blob is, it’s not from space. No, it’s a U.S. government-made weapon.

The Blob is packed with familiar faces, like Jack “Eraserhead” Nance as a doctor, Candy Clark as a doomed waitress, Second City braintrust Del Close as a priest who starts to worship The Blob, Paul McCrane as a cop (he’ll always be Emil Antonowsky in RoboCop to me) and Bill Moseley as a memorable soldier who mutters a strange soliloquy about The Blob before dying.

The credit for this movie being a sequel that actually works belongs to the team of Chuck Russell and Frank Darabont, who started working together on the film Hell Night and co-wrote A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. There’s enough to remind you of the original while aspiring to be a movie on its own merits. It may have been a box office failure, but time has been quite kind to this movie.

Here’s a drink for this movie.

Sewer Jelly (from the book Let’s Get Monster Smashed by Jon and Marc Chiat)

  • 8 oz. vodka
  • 8 oz. water
  • 1 1/2 oz. cherry Jell-O
  • 1 1/2 oz. grape Jell-O
  • 8 oz. cherry yogurt (they recommend vanilla, but I’m going bloody)
  • About 20 or so small pineapple chunks
  1. Combine gelatin and 8 oz. water in a pot over low heat ad cook until the gelatin is dissolved.
  2. With the heat off, add the vodka and mix thoroughly.
  3. Combine pineapple chunks with the gelatin and mix.
  4. Pour into a bundt cake pan and add the yogurt. Mix thoroughly.
  5. Chill overnight or until set.

2018 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 23: 976-EVIL (1988)

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Day 23 of the Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge is 23. Creepy Phone Calls. Reach out and touch someone before they reach out and touch you. At one point, 976 numbers were everywhere. You could call anyone and everyone — the Cory’s, Santa, Freddy — all for just 99¢ a minute. Most people have forgotten about them with the rise of the internet, but it’s important to remember them before watching this film, the directorial debut of Robert Englund.

Spike and Hoax (Stephen Geoffreys from Fright Night) are cousins who live under the overly watchful eye of Hoax’s super religious mother Lucy (Sandy Dennis, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, God Told Me To). They couldn’t be more different. Hoax is a nerd that’s afraid of everyone while Spike is a motorcycle riding bad boy with the girl of his cousin’s dreams, Suzie (Lezlie Deane, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare).

Both boys start using the novelty phone number 976-EVIL, which reads them creepy-themed fortunes for a few dollars. The real truth is quite sinister: Satan uses the line to find people to give them what they want in exchange for their souls. There’s a great scene here where a religious investigator goes to the home of 976-EVIL, After Dark, Inc. There is room after room of people, Santas, phone sex women and so much more, but in one dusty, cobwebbed closet lies the machine that powers this foul enterprise.

By the end of this movie, the cousins’ power dynamic has shifted and the literal gateway to Hell appears in front of their home. The way there is littered with 80’s cliches and a tone that is never sure if it fully wants to be comedic or horrific.

Still, this movie is not without its charms. The Deftones wrote the song “Diamond Eyes” about the film and it was popular enough to bring Spike back for the direct-to-video sequel 976-EVIL II: The Astral Factor. And England met his wife, set decorator Nancy Booth, while directing this movie. She would sneak R+N into the backgrounds of scenes that he would discover each day while watching the dailies. And hey, how many movies have uber religious old women get devoured by cats?

PS – There’s an entire chapter about this film in the book Satanic Panic: Pop Culture Paranoia in the 1980’s that is must reading.

Saigon Commandos (1988)

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Thanks to Paul Andolina, whose website is Wrestling with Film, for sending this to us!

Every October since about 2014, I’ve participated in a friendly movie watching competition called the Halloween Horror Movie Marathon Madness. The first couple years I joined in I tried to stick to horror movies as much as possible. However since certain actors and directors are considered Wild Cards during the Madness I can get away with non horror fare. Such is the case with today’s film, Saigon Commandos. I came across this film while searching for movies starring P.J. Soles, who most will recognize from Carpenter’s film Halloween.

Saigon Commandos centers around a Military Police officer named, Stryker, during a drug war, a series of murders and an election happening in Saigon, Vietnam during the Vietnam War. It is based on a book in a series of novels written by Nicholas Cain, who served as an MP in Vietnam. He couldn’t get his memoirs published but was told they would publish his works if he fictionalized them with more violence and sex. The series ran for twelve novels, Saigon Commandos being an adaption of the ninth one.

Released in 1988 and starring Richard Young as Stryker, and P.J. Soles as a journalist, Saigon Commandos is not too easy to find. This is a shame as I found it to be a decent film concerning the Vietnam War that didn’t solely focus on what was going on in the jungles but more on what was happening in Saigon. Corruption is running rampant, heroin flows freely in the city streets, and someone is going around killing people with hollow point rounds. I knew I was in for a treat when it opened with a Vietnamese band singing House of the Rising Sun in a bar/stripclub. At times it felt like it was unintentionally funny especially when an AWOL soldier is shot in the ass by drug dealers. As he is on the examination table in the medic’s office in Camp Pershing, he screams in a manner that has to be heard, I found myself cracking up. 

There are quite a few plot points happening at once in this film, with Stryker dealing with an AWOL Specialist who has made it his mission to get vengeance when some of the corrupt politician Trui’s men kill his fiancee when trying to get to Stryker. There is also an investigation into who exactly the hollow point killer is, as well as Trui and his men trying to win the election by fear mongering.

This film has a bit of action and even a small skirmish in the jungles of Vietnam when Stryker is forced to head into the shit to get two of his friends to sign a disposition backing up his alibi when his commanding officer of the military police turns up shot in the head in his bed after a night of Stryker’s heavy drinking.

I had very low expectations for this film and it turned out to be quite fun. If you can manage to track down a copy, I highly recommend it. I bought a German DVD that has both German, and English audio tracks. The picture quality isn’t the greatest but I think it adds to the enjoyment of it. 

2018 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 4: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

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Day 4 of the Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge is Franchise Day. Pick something from any franchise that has four or more entries. Bonus points if it has a fast food eating scene in it – have it your way.

There was no choice other than 1988’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. I bought two collections of these films last year with the intent of doing a WATCH THE SERIES post of them (which I still fully intend to finish). I’ve often written off all of these films after the first three — one being the originator, two being a strange metaphor for growing up gay and the third being a bravura Dokken soundtrack sporting thrill ride that was amongst the first slasher films I ever watched.

The thing is, part four is slick and as commercial as it gets, but isn’t that what you want? Aren’t we all wistful for the movie theaters of thirty years ago, when films like Bad Dreams, the Chuck Russell remake of The Blob, Child’s Play, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, Fright Night II, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Phantasm II, Poltergeist 3, Pumpkinhead and so many more graced the silver screen? This is a movie made for teenagers to devour in the same way that they chow down through a pizza — more on that in a bit.

After the final battle in the last film in this series — Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors — which was intended by Wes Craven to end the franchise. With original protagonist Nancy sacrificing herself to stop Krueger, the rest of the Dream Warriors have been released from the insane asylum and are back to being normal teenagers.

However, Kristen (Tuesday Knight, replacing Patricia Arquette) believes that Freddy isn’t dead, drawing Joey, Kincaid and Kincaid’s dog Jason into her dream, where they show her that Freddy’s boiler is cold. There’s been a rift between these former friends, as the boys are seen as freaks and Kristen has joined the popular crowd with her martial arts practicing boyfriend Rick (Andras Jones, Sorority Girls in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama), Alice, Sheila and Debbie.

Soon, Kincaid has been killed in the junkyard from Dream Warriors, where Freddy comes back after a dog pisses fire onto him. Yes, that really happens. Then, Joey finds a naked girl swimming in his waterbed in a sequence that’s glossy, ridiculous and awesome all in equal measure. He’s soon dead and Kristen passes out when she finds out, bringing Freddy after her. She swears to get revenge, but once her mother gives her sleeping pills to ensure that she gets rest, she is felled by the “Bastard Son of a One Hundred Maniacs.” However, she is able to give her dream power to Alice which she’s gonna need because with each kill, Freddy gains the abilities and personalities of Alice’s dead friends.

Sure, these movies would get much worse, but if you’re looking for a movie that’ll make the middle of the night just fly past, you can’t go wrong with this one. I was surprised how much I liked it, which is kind of the point of this challenge, right?

This movie is filled with plenty of out there kill scenes and flip dialogue that finally makes Freddy the actual hero of the film. There’s a girl that gets turned into a cockroach and smashed into a Roach Motel. And then there’s the scene where Freddy shows Alice all of his victims on a “soul pizza” that must be witnessed to be believed.

Say what you will about Renny Harlin, but in this follow up to his American debut Prison, he really takes the series all the way into the surreal, basing each of the murders on actual nightmares that he had, as well as crazy moments that push the film into meta territory when Alice goes from a movie theater into an actual movie while the rest of the cast watches.

This was the highest grossing movie in the series until Freddy vs. Jason, which it earns with an all-star team of special effects artists, a soundtrack boasting bands like the Vinnie Vincent Invasion, Blondie, and the Fat Boys, and an ending that boasts a twenty foot tall practical model of Freddy being destroyed by the souls of those he has taken.

For even more fun, here’s a video from fast food lovers The Fat Boys that features them getting Freddy’s house as an inheritance and having to spend the night there.

EVEN MORE FUCKED UP FUTURES: Empire of Ash (1988)

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I’m going to tell you right now that this movie’s poster is like the metric system that Canada — this post-apocalyptic flick’s country of origin — uses. Whatever you plan on rating the film, double that and add thirty. That’s how much better the poster is than the actual thing you’re about to watch.

You should also know that one year after this movie was made, the filmmakers re-released it as a sequel to itself with new art and a new title, Empire of Ash II. It is, however, the same movie. This is the kind of absolute bullshit that makes me love movies and confounds me as I attempt to organize my collection.

Let me see if I can explain this properly: There are a bunch of bad guys called LARD (Leukocytes Acquisitors for Remission of Disease) who are killing everyone under the orders of a preacher. They also like to steal blood. There’s also an evil girl who dances in her leotard while staring intently at the camera.

There’s also a bad guy that has a rocket launcher hat. Yes, a rocket shoots off from his head, which seems to be the kind of dumb shit that even Cobra Commander would frown upon.

If the idea of chubby bikers shooting computers in Canada dressed up as New Idaho while post-apocalyptic vehicles meander about while hair metal plays makes you as happy as it does me, let me say that this movie is for you. It makes 1990: The Bronx Warriors look like a multi-million dollar movie, however. This is as low budget as it gets without a camcorder. But hey — we’re here to see people dress up in shoulder pads and shoot one another, not talk about how much movies cost.

You can grab this at Cult Action, which seems like some kind of scheme invented to take most of my paycheck. That site has way too many movies that I want.

MARK GREGORY WEEK: Thunder 3 (1988)

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It’s time for our favorite Native American warrior, Thunder, to return. This time, he takes on a racist militia in Las Cruces, New Mexico. They’ve refused to pay the very specific amount of $53,000 for attacking and abusing him (yes, Thunder gets beat up again) after destroying his village.

If the promise of Mark Gregory wearing buckskin and teaching children how to shoot arrows seems like a good idea, then you’re ready for this one. Actually, this feels incredibly prescient, as a bunch of good old boys get all trashed on beer and male bonding before entering his village en masse and starting some shit.

Yes, director Fabrizio De Angelis is back for a third Thunder film, along with Mark Gregory and the man who seemingly wrote every Italian movie in the 1980s and 1990s, Dardano Sacchetti. Coming along for the ride as Sherriff Jeff? Diabolik himself, John Phillip Law!

The bad guys are beyond bad here, as they whip our hero and drag him behind a truck before blowing up his village. Of course, Thunder has been dragged behind a truck before. He just wants paid in cash this time, trying to be peaceful.

That said — we all know why we’re watching a Thunder movie. We want the slowly simmering, bad acting of Mark Gregory to explode into violence, baseball batting, gathering an army of Native American warriors and jumping dirt bikes. It’s more of the same, but watching this film in the pst-Trump era makes me feel like it could really happen. You get frame after frame of heavy set MAGA types shooting up a reservation while their leader watches from a helicopter. Actually, it feels way too real.

So how does Mark Gregory react to these red staters blowing up his home and making him run behind their trucks while tied to the bumper? By getting all pouty. Such are the acting chops of Gregory!

How did three Thunder movies get made? Was there such a demand for them? Were video stores really that awesome that they potentially could have an entire Thunder section? Dare I dream of a video store with a Dardano Sacchetti section, where I could choose to rent favorites such as Manhattan Baby and Warriors of the Year 2072?

Keep in mind, this movie may give you a seizure like you’re in a Cronenberg film. I mean, just to set up the scene where Thunder decimates a classic car with a baseball bat, we get a long, loving look at an old redneck in short shorts lovingly washing said car. Then Mark Gregory tears that car apart like only he can. And by that, I mean he stares off into space while absentmindedly hitting it with a bat before heading off to a hardware store filled with people and going buck futter in the aisles until the shop owner pulls a gun — in front of paying customers, no less!  You’ve never seen a store so shitty or one that sells stuff that is near unnecessary that isn’t called the Red White and Blue Thrift Store in your life! And then to top this all off, Thunder fills the aisles with gasoline — that he pulled off the shelf, because that’s how it’s stored — and sets the store on fire! And it’s a drugstore, not a hardware store, a store that has full cans of gas right next to TV sets. The world of Thunder is not our own. It is a parallel universe of goofball lunacy, one where one lone man who walks as if he has a tomahawk up his ass can wear tight jeans, a fringed shirt and turquoise whilst leading the local fuzz on one hell of a manhunt.

How many times must they burn down Thunder’s home, tie up his woman and beat him? Well, once he brings an entire army of Native Americans on horseback to beat up three rednecks, that seems like it should be the last time, right? If Thunder had this whole posse on his side the whole time, where were they when he was being dragged behind a car? It’s best not to ask these kinds of questions and just sit back and watch them chase those guys down and give out some justice, I guess.

This movie also makes some major leaps of tone, such as how we go from this chase to a wacky truck stuck in the desert scene, complete with goofball synth. Then, Thunder lays down the law to the cops. It’s time for his brand of law with the white man. And right after that, an entire lineup of big fat white dudes shoot up the shack where Thunder is hiding as he makes big goofy eyes and runs away. Man, Thunder. You can’t catch a break.

Our hero replies by busting up a political rally by blowing stuff up real good as he rides in on a dirt bike, face painted up and ready for a fight. He ends up trying to bury one of the fat politicians alive rather than take a payoff, but gets held up by the sheriff. He gets the money and uses it to rebuild the village before heading off into the sunset with his woman.

One supposes that because we never got Thunder 4 that this was the last time he got in trouble with the law. Me, I’m still holding out hope. I mean, after a week of Mark Gregory movies, I realize that I have watched every single second that he ever committed to film. And now, I have both a sense of completeness and sadness. Do I have to use Go Fund Me to make the Italian action film of my dreams, a movie where Thunder meets Trash in the future and they walk in way too tight denim down an alley before somersaulting through fire?

You can grab this at Revok. Or use the internet to find double dubbed versions of it like me.

MARK GREGORY WEEK: Just a Damn Solder (1988)

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Before Dr. Strange was in big time movies, he was in TV movies. There, he was played by Peter Hooten. Why am I telling you this? Because Pete is here to star with our man Mark Gregory today in Just a Damn Soldier.

The story here is that Hooten’s character gets together his mercenary pals to steal some gold from a bad guy and sell it to the Afghan rebels that would one day become the Taliban because his girlfriend was killed by the Russians. That Taliban part is me editorializing. It’s also totally true.

Ferdinando Baldi is back in the chair for this one, as he must have had a deal to create every Mark Gregory commando style movie. Also: Mark gets shot in the knee, limps and is fine by the very next scene.

You should do what I do. Shoot roman candles at the TV while drunk, screaming Mark Gregory’s name over and over while savoring every second of this film. You can watch it for free at Amazon Video!

MARK GREGORY WEEK: Tan Zan Ultimate Mission (1988)

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Terrorists are making genetic experiments on kidnapped girls. And Professor Larson has a dream. That dream is probably your nightmare, as he wants to create a master race to rule the world. Luckily, some scientific organizations in Asia and Europe have hired a group of mercenaries to kill everyone. Yay!

But wait! This movie is a North Korean/Italian co-promotion! Kim Il-Sung actually allowed this movie to be made in his country and, well, it’s a total piece of shit.

That said — Mark Gregory is the bad guy, the leader of the terrorists. And who is being paid $65,000 by FSR (Final Solution Research) to stop him? Frank Zagarino — Stryker himself! Plus, Sabrina Siani (Conquest, The Throne of Fire) came along too. Did you know her mother used to come to nearly every set she was on and get in the way? Well, she also encouraged Jess Franco to film her daughter naked, so there’s that.

There is also a veritable army of North Korean extras ready to do whatever it takes to make this entertaining. They failed!

There is one goofball scene where Lou, a commando, talks about how he spent the last year with the Bolshoi Ballet and how he had to kill a ballet dancer who was ready to stop disarmament talks between Russia and the U.S. Not only does this sound like the kind of script conversation that Quentin Tarantino used to get paid to write (like that discussion about the Silver Surfer that comes out of nowhere in Crimson Tide) and a way better movie than what I suffered through.

But Mark Gregory is in it! That has to count for something.

An interesting trivia note: the evil Professor Larson was played by Charles Robert Jenkins, a United States Army soldier who lived in North Korea from 1965 to 2004 after deserting his unit and crossing the Korean Demilitarized Zone. He immediately regretted this decision and was treated poorly for years. In 1982, Jenkins appeared as Dr. Kelton, painted to be the mastermind behind the Korean War, in the film Unsung Heroes. This was the first evidence to the Western world that he was alive, but the U.S. government did not acknowledge this fact until 1996. He was given a Japanese wife, who was allowed to go back to Japan and he eventually was able to go there, where he spent the rest of his life.

The country of Japan asked for the U.S. to pardon him for treason, but they refused. Jenkins put his conscience to rest by reporting to Camp Zama on Patriot Day, September 11, 2004. He showed up in full uniform with all of his medals and saluted the military police.

On November 3, he pleaded guilty to charges of desertion and aiding the enemy, but denied making disloyal or seditious statements. Those charges were dropped and he was sentenced to 30 days in the brig. He was released early for good behavior and received a dishonorable discharge.

He published a biography in Japan called To Tell the Truth, which was re-published nearly a decade later in the U.S. as The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea. He died in Japan on December 11, 2017.

His story would make a much better movie than Tan Zan: Ultimate Mission. But you can still watch this movie for free on Amazon Prime.

MARK GREGORY WEEK: Delta Force Commando (1988)

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I thought that I had watched every Mark Gregory movie there was. I’d made it through 1990: The Bronx Warriors, Escape from the Bronx, Adam and Eve vs. the Cannibals and even Thunder. But now you’re telling me that he’s playing a terrorist who goes up against Bo Svenson and Fred Williamson in a movie written by Dardano Sacchetti (Zombi, The House by the Cemetery, The Beyond, Blastfighter, Demons, Demons 2, Hands of Steel)? Holy shit, it’s like getting a Christmas gift months after the holiday is over!

Latin American revolutionaries — led by Mark Gregory, who still hasn’t learned how to walk properly but has cut his hair — invade a military base on Puerto Rico, steal a nuclear bomb and kill Lt. Tony Turner’s (sure, Brett Baxter Clark was in Teen Witch, but he’s also the gardener who sexes up Harlee McBride in the Cinemax After Dark classic Young Lady Chatterley II) pregnant wife.

Lt. Tony decides to steal a jet and its pilot: Captain Beck, played by Fred “the Hammer” Williamson! They follow the terrorists back home, take them out and almost die when the weapons are due to go off. Funny story — it was just a training weapon and a story to get the U.S. media excited about the Delta Force again.

Your enjoyment of this film is based around how much you enjoy seeing Mark Gregory loopily walk around with a nuclear weapon on his back and Fred Williamson wiping out an entire army while dropping one liners like, “Hey, this beautiful brown body’s got a lot of living left to do, pal!” This is a movie that has a puke grenade. This is a movie that has Fred driving a bus while a helicopter shoots at it point blank. Me? All in.

Good news. Not is this movie amazingly and ridiculously awesome, there’s a sequel. And you can watch both of them for free at Amazon Prime or buy them at Revok.