Made in Indonesia two years after Hellraiser by director Susilo S.W.D. and writer Djoko S. Koesdiman, this remake remix ripoff follows the same beats as the original, but has a heart and energy that makes you love it. While later sequels seemed to not even be about the Cenobites — and often weren’t as they were films that started as other stories and had the Lament Configuration shoved in — and the recent film that has none of the lunatic joy and sexiness of the first two or three movies, it seems like everyone is having a blast making this.

Nadia — who is Kristy — has a bad relationship with her recently widowed father Bramasto — Larry — who has married an evil stepmother named Astria or Julia, as we know her in the Clive Barker-directed inspiration. Astria has a secret, as she slept with Bramasto’s brother Lukito — Frank — before her husband and the affair has continued beyond his death, as she’s now part of his occult rituals from beyond the grave.

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The sex has been toned down, as you can imagine with this being made in a highly Muslim country, and the effects and Cenobites do their own thing. The Lament Configuration looks like a vegetable with a strange face in it, the Cenobites appear to be zombies in latex masks joined by a pretty decent female follower of Leviathan.

The effects are pretty fun, too. They often take the form of puddles of blood with eyes in them, which is kind of scary when you think long enough about it. Frank, I mean, Lukito’s transformation is also pretty close to the real thing.

You can get this on DVD from Sloppy Second Sales.

Damian Lee is a Canadian filmmaker responsible for Ski School and Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe, as well as writing Watchers. H.G. Welles may not have made a sequel to his book, but that didn’t stop Lee or writers Richard Bennett and Mike Werb.

Bobby could never grow, so he was given an experimental serum from Dr. Kate Travis (Jackie Burroughs) that instantly made him a full grown and super violent adult. Travis’ student Dr. Neil Hamilton (Paul Coufos)  is trying to find a cure, all while animal activists that include his girlfriend Alex Reed (Lisa Schrage, Mary Lou Maloney herself!) and Mark Hales (Réal Andrews) are protesting Prof. Edmund Delhurst (Colin Fox), who is trying to cure baldness with animal experiments.

Of course the rats get huge just in time for protestors to unleash them on the world. Dean White (David B. Nichols) has his Amity Island moment and refuses to shut down the college, all while big rats are just straight up gnawing — yes, this was also called Gnaw — humans.  “But the swim competition,” you hear him yell and yes, you knew it, the rats descend on the swimmers and have a smorgasbord.

The end of this movie is amazing, as they use a rat in heat to lure all the male rats into the open and kill them in the least original way ever: machine guns. But what of Bobby? He’s even bigger and angrier. He kills Dr. Travis and escapes, setting up…well, nothing. There’s no Food of the Gods III.

Travis (John Travolta) and Wendell (Arye Gross) are clubgoers who get hired and taken to Indian Springs, Nebraska to teach the town the modern ways of life before their first nightclub opens. They make big changes, because everything is stuck in the 50s, and soon are even dating two locals, Bonnie (Kelly Preston) and Jill (Deborah Foreman).

The only problem is that they aren’t in the U.S.

They’re in Russia, taken by KGB agent Cameron Smith (Charles Martin Smith) and used to teach Russian agents how to pass for Americans.

The Experts is silly fun and I was surprised to learn that it was directed by SCTV genius Dave Thomas. There’s also a great cast, including Brian-Doyle Murray, James Keach and Rick Ducommun. It was written by Steven Greene, Eric Alter (Hardbodies, Hardbodies 2) and Nick Thiel.

The Kino Lorber blu ray release of The Experts has a brand new HD master from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative by Paramount Pictures, a new interview with director Dave Thomas and a trailer newly mastered in 2K, You can get it from Kino Lorber.

Based primarily on an article written by Daniel Lang for The New Yorker about Hill 192 in Vietnam, which was later published as a book, this was directed by Brian De Palma and written by David Rabe. It was filmed in Thailand, including one scene shot on the same bridge as the one in The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Max Eriksson (Michael J. Fox) is home after Vietnam and remembers incidents throughout the film. There was the time that Sergeant Tony Meserve (Sean Penn) saved his life after he fell into a tunnel. The death of “Brownie” Brown (Erik King) and how that affected Meserve. And the time that Meserve, Corporal Thomas E. Clark (Don Patrick Harvey), Private First Class Antonio Diaz (John Leguizamo) and Private First Class Herbert Hatcher (John C. Reilly) kidnap a Vietnamese girl, Tran Thi Oanh (Thuy Thu Le), and repeatedly assault her while Eriksson is forced to stand watch. He attempts to free her but by the end, each man shoots her multiple times and throws her body off a bridge.

Eriksson realizes from Lieutenant Reilly (Ving Rhames) and Captain Hill (Dale Dye) that no one cares what the men did. But after meeting with a chaplain, an investigation happens with Meserve getting 10 years hard labor and a dishonorable discharge, Clark life in prison, and Hatcher and Diaz 15 and 8 years of hard labor. as Eriksoon wakes on a train from his dreams, he sees a young woman who looks exactly like Tran. She forgets his scarf and he runs after her. She smiles and thanks him as he gets some closure.

Quentin Tarantino told Samuel Blumenfeld, co-author of Brian De Palma: Conversations with Samuel Blumenfeld and Laurent Vachaud, how important this movie was to him: “It’s the greatest film about the Vietnam War. Apocalypse Now would be classified in another category as Coppola’s film goes beyond the war. De Palma adapts a very small news article, which must have occurred on several occasions in Vietnam or elsewhere. Elia Kazan had also been inspired by it for The Visitors. He had made an intimate film. De Palma treats that same news item in the epic, operatic style that was his signature since Obsession and Blow Out. Soldiers capture a young Vietnamese girl. Before her murder, every member of the unit, with the exception of one of them, tortures and rapes her. The cowardice associated with the forced courage of the character played by Michael J. Fox — who does not participate in the rape and denounces his friends — is very moving. Casualties of War presents the most traumatizing rape sequence in the history of cinema. It’s also one of the best performances from Sean Penn, terrifying as the sergeant squad leader.”

Leonard Miller (Michael Todd) created Robot Ninja, a comic book that makes lots of money for his publisher Stanley Kane (Burt Ward) — named for two men who did the exact same to artists, Stan Lee and Bob Kane — but none for him. They even turn his violent comic book into a cartoon for kids.

As he grows depressed, he witnesses several crimes. When he tries to stop one, he’s put into the hospital, which leads him to seek out a way to become his creation in real life.

Directed and written by J.R. Bookwalter (The Dead Next Door, Ozone), the story finds Leonard going to Dr. Goodknight (Bogdan Pecic) for weapons and powers, then going out into the world and acting like a 80s grim and gritty black and white comics explosion vigilante hero — think Tim Vigil’s Grips, shout out to Matty Budrewicz for calling out how this is similar to Vigil’s layouts in his article on the essential The Schlock Pit — along with tons of gore and violence.

This was produced by Dave DeCouteau, who it seems like is behind nearly every other movie that I watch.  He was able to get Linnea Quigley for this.

I knew a dude in art school that spent some time trying to police his old high school, somewhere in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, wearing a Batman costume under his street clothes, waiting for the time when he was needed. He’d broken up with his girlfriend and had what I only figure was a break with our world and went into his own. I asked him why he told me his origin story, as I wondered if what if I was his arch enemy and he’d told me exactly what I needed to know to strike at his loved ones. He tried to throw me against a wall like he was Frank Miller Batman, except that, well, he didn’t have any training or strength. I just laughed, to be honest. I thought that this was really funny at the time, but today that I’m older and look back on my younger days with a mixture of sadness and headshaking cringe, I feel very upset for him. If you stay away from reality and think that comics — or movies — are real, this is what happens.

Unless you decide to become a Robot Ninja.

That’s totally fine.

You can watch this on Tubi.

You can buy the comic book and blu ray at MakeFlix.