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.

IFD has a copyright of 1973 on this movie and describes it as so: “Eagle miraculously survives the massacre by General Lung in which his parents are killed and his wife is kidnapped. After spending months alone honing his fighting skills, Eagle sets out to rescue Jade from Lung and kill him and the others responsible for the massacre. But his biggest challenge comes from Boris, a Westerner who has come to old China to become a ninja master.”

Sure, I guess it’s about that.

It starts with Leon, a ninja wearing all pink everything and a headband that helpfully says ninja, battling two black ninjas who have chased one of his friends ad upset his meditation. They’ve been sent by Boris, the yellow ninja, who relates how he and Leon were once friends to his red ninja friend Luther. Leon has sent a message. “Tell Boris the Judge is here.” The henchman who delivers it relates that it was a frightening experience to battle Leon.

Well, Boris did burn down Leon’s house, setting his family ablaze and the last thing Leon said to him was “Justice will be done… and I’m The Judge!” so I assume that this is the same ninja, as does Boris.

Meanwhile, we move on to footage from Cheh Chang’s The Dancing Warrior, whose drunken fighter is now sober and referred to as Eagle. We get to see some of his fighting power as he cuts down a tree with a sword and then blows up some oranges.

Eagle has been looking for his wife Jade, who was taken by General Lo. That journey will take Eagle to some strange places, like a bunch of barbarians in furs fighting, a tiger-striped dude with a mohawk who throws fire at our hero, some ninjas and a chicken.

In between all of this fighting, Leon and Eagle meet one another. As always, the footage is totally different and it’s two people speaking that have and will never meet except through the magical lunacy of a Godfrey Ho movie.

Unlike most ninjas — well, other than Snake Eyes — Leon also will use a flintlock pistol in combat. He doesn’t use it all the time, but it freaks Boris out. I mean, Leon is cold, as he puts it right between the eyes of one evil ninja and says, “Bullets are expensive and hard to come by. Consider yourself lucky! Goodbye!” before letting the guy live. I’m shocked he didn’t piss his red shinobi shozoku.

At one point, Eagle saves a lady from some toughs who are threatening to beat her up outside her restaurant. It’s a ruse. The lady — who seems like she wants to pay Eagle back with a furtive handjob — instead drugs him and gives him over to the general, who ties him up and nearly kills him. Eagle recovers and kills nearly everyone as his woman is killed saving him. Just when he nearly kills the general, that man’s young daughter jumps into his arms and begs for her father’s life. That’s the same thing Eagle once did and an entire movie of being told that revenge is not the right path all hits him at once.

This kind of life lesson will not do in a Godfrey Ho movie, so we return to the last battle of white guy ninjas.

Pierre Kirby played Leon in this and unlike so many of the white ninjas in Godfrey Ho movies, he has some actual martial arts skills. Supposedly, he was a sailor who would act as the boat captain for wealthy people as well as a boat courier. He disappeared around 1990, as he was on the way to the Philippines to deliver a yacht when his ship was boarded by pirates. Yes, not in the movie. In real life.

Cinema Snob Brad Jones said, “His sister once got in touch with me after I did Pierre Kirby week, because she had no idea that her brother ever did any movies and she wanted copies of them. She said the weirdest part was seeing him with a dubbed voice, as he had a heavy British accent in real life.”

If you’ve seen Konan the Barbarian Swordsman or Metallic Fury, you’ve already seen this.

As for the music — always my favorite part of any Godfrey Ho movie, includes repeated use of “Toccata and Fugue in D minor,” as well as Gustav Holst’s “Mars, the Bringer of War,” Pink Floyd’s “Saucerful of Secrets,” “Rubycon part 2” by Tangerine Dream, several songs from the A Nightmare On Elm Street soundtrack, some of the Outland soundtrack, “Zig Zag Title” by Oliver Nelson and “Put Yourself In Los Angeles” by Chris & Cosey.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Let’s be perfectly frank. I’d watch a movie that was 85 minutes of people repeatedly making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as long as Linnea Quigley was in said movie. I’m sure they’d figure out some way to make her take a shower while the sandwiches were being made, which I find to be a bold directoral choice that I would explain to my wife was necessary for the foreign markets.

Anyways — Witchtrap.

You have to admire a movie that has a warlock as the final boss and still calls itself Witchtrap. Then again, the alternate title was The Presence and that’s not as good.

Kevin S. Tenney made two versions of Night of the Demons, along with two Witchboard movies. Here, he tells the story of a team of phenomena busters who have a special machine — a witch trap, if you will — to aid themselves in de-ghosting the Lauder House. Tenney even acts in this, as they couldn’t get another actor in time when one dropped out and hey — he already knew the script.

The whole movie is dubbed thanks to an on set filming error. If you watch Italian movies as much as me, you’ll gloss over that. I love reading reviews of this movie that decry its wooden acting and long stretches of dialogue. What did you really expect? It’s a direct-to-video 80’s movie about de-ghosters. Be happy that there’s a super gory head explosion and Linnea gets in a shower. That said, the shower kills her, but she does fulfill her contractual obligation to take a shower. If she did not take a shower in a movie, her parents would be threatened. Can you provide it didn’t happen?

Seriously, why has Bathfitter or ReBath not hired Linnea Quigley for a series of commercials? She could be like, “This shower stall is good enough for me, so it’d good enough for you. Hopefully, you won’t be stabbed in it. I probably will be. Call today and see what special offers we have!”

I love that the back cover of this says: NOTICE: This Motion Picture is not a sequel to WITCHBOARD.

The original idea for the new owner of this house was to make it into a bed and breakfast where people would go to be scared. The first night, he let a magician stay in it and that guy did a half-gainer into the concrete. This idea also should make you ignore the acting and dialogue and realize that this movie has ghost-powered bullets and face melting. Literally, face melting.

The MVD blu ray release of Wtchtrap is incredible. It has a high definition 1080p presentation of the main feature in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, scanned and restored in 2K in 2016 from the 35mm Interpositive. You get commentary with director Kevin Tenney, producer Dan Duncan, cinematographer Tom Jewett and actor Hal Havins; interviews with Tenney, Quigley, Jewett and special effects supervisor Tassilo Baur; an awesome VHS quality version — more releases need this! — and a photo gallery and trailer.

Plus. you also get reversible cover artwork, a collectible mini-poster and a limited edition slipcover.

Get it now from MVD.

VIDEO ARCHIVES NOTES: This movie was discussed on the April 11, 2023 episode of the Video Archives podcast and can be found on their site here.

Bull terriers can be independent and stubborn, but have a good temperament, get along well with people and can be a loving member of the family when socialized early. Like other terrier breeds, they were raised to kill rats and fight one another. In the U.S., we associate this breed with America’s party animal, Spuds MacKenzie, who if we are to believe the 1980s commercials was scoring human women thanks to his love of beer. Today, Spot, the Target dog, is also this breed.

So is Baxter.

Let me tell you, I don’t care what Baxter does in this movie, I love him more than any of the humans.

Baxter can’t find a family that he belongs to. The old woman is boring and must be killed. The couple across the street don’t understand when he tries to show his heart and when he brings them dead animals. They make a child that he hates and so he is given to the boy across the street. The boy wants to be Hitler and goes so far as to destroy Baxter’s puppies. Baxter wants to kill him in retaliation, but he can’t see the boy as anything other than his master, allowing him to kill him.

I wanted more for Baxter, as his voice (Maxime Leroux) speaks to you about what he desires in this world. He isn’t human. He’s a dog. He wants what a dog wants. He wants the firm hand of ownership, he wants discipline and he wants structure. I wish that Baxter found something else. I wish that he had a large field to run through and an owner that made him feel the belonging that he craves.

Directed by Jérôme Boivin, who wrote the script with Jacques Audiard, based on the book Hell Hound by Ken Greenhall (and republished under his pen name Jessica Hamilton), this is a bleak affair, a movie of darkness and constant looming death.It’s not an easy watch.

In the book — Will Ericckson brought it to light in a series of books he spotlighted for Tor Books — Baxter has a lot to say about mankind. “Pity is not something I want to encourage in myself. It is something for humans to feel, one of the jumble of odd sentiments they burden themselves with. Their emotions are like diseases, I think; diseases that can spread among those who try to understand them. Let their feelings be a mystery, like the dozens of other strange traits they have… The ways in which they deceive themselves are endless.”

Poor Baxter. Sure, he’s a sociopath, but he’s also a good boy.

You can get the reissued Paperbacks from Hell edition of Hell Hound here.