Tag Archives: 1989

Fatal Exposure (1989)

Posted on by

Oh, this friggin’ SOV’er . . . it’s a bizarre gem that wastes no time and is everything that the SOV porn-backed Spine strove to be — and failed. It skips the opening title cards and gives us two 30-year-old virgin teenagers making out for the first time — well, Marybeth gives herself away for the first time — on a backwoods rural road — and goes porn. Then the tits and dicks are a-floppin’ (we don’t see any penis, but you get the point). One silhouette figure in the fog later (it’s not an owl, Marybeth) and we get an ice pick in Biff Preppy’s ear and Marybeth — breasts a-flyin’ — gets another ice pick through the mouth into the tree trunk, and that’s after our black-clad killer in a beret — and no mask — gives her a quiz about dying and blood. So, you see: if you fail, you die. (And that’s an important “plot point,” so keep that under your beret, for later.)

Okay, so two kills are on the tote board. Roll the opening title cards with the not-Whitesnake metal tune about “moving violations” and “being under the gun” and “lost desires.” Is the SOVness as cheesy as the unpoofy hair metal?

Oh, hell yes. And so much more. This is a movie where, if you’re not a baptist, you’ll be forced into being a baptist. So, yeah, baptists are dying here: brutally. Luckily, the female ones wear lingerie and, once they take off the glasses and let down the hair bun — they’re “hot” as you know what. Yeah, so we think this is a bunch of adult film stars nom de plumin’ for mainstream legitimacy between the Penthouse reels.

Not Body Heat. Not Basic Instinct. Not Fatal Attraction. But wants to be. But Jack likes his ice picks like Catherine Trammel. But he’s no Michael Douglas.

In case you’re wondering — and if that opening kill salvo doesn’t put you wise: Fatal Exposure isn’t a repack of Dennis Devine’s SOV debut, Fatal Images (1989), although this, as with Devine’s flick, centers around cameras. But the camera isn’t haunted. But the photographer is: by Jack the Ripper.

I know. I know. Another Jack the Ripper movie? As if Christopher Lewis’s The Ripper, and Jeff Hathcock’s Night Ripper! and Peter Sasdy’s Hands of the Ripper, and Jess Franco’s (who fucks up any genre) Klaus Kinski-starring Jack the Ripper, and Lucio Fulci’s nothing-to-do-with-Jack Halloween ripoff The New York Ripper wasn’t enough . . . now we get SOV’in Jack Rippington, he the great, great grandson of the pride of White Chapel. So, Jack Jr.’s not possessed by a spirit, just a couple of f’d double helices from granddad Jack’s semen sacs.

So, what’s Rip’s (Blake Bahner, formerly of the U.S. soap Days of Our Lives) glitch? He photographs women . . . and drinks their blood, as it’s his “viagra,” if you will — so Jackie is a sort of vampire. As with this week’s review of Murderlust pinching-foretelling the serial killer exploits of Dennis “BTK” Rader, this time we’re getting a pinch of ex-race car driver and faux-photographer Christopher Wilder who used women to lure other women under the guise of “modeling” for him.

So, to than end, Jackie finds, not a new victim, but “love” with Erica — he picks her up in a cemetery; she’s “turned on” by death. She’s perfect: he uses her as bait to lure women for him to photokill. Of course, Erica (Ena O’Rourke, in her film debut; vanished shortly after) is as dumb as Marybeth who kissed the ice pick, earlier. And Erica will make — finally, after all the searching — a great incubator for Jack’s son to carry on the family’s business: making great art for: okay, you see, the real reason the original Jack the Ripper killed all those women: for his photography endeavors. Oh, and it gets weirder: Erica is a doppelganger for Jackie Rippington’s great grandmother. Calling Dr. Freud: Jack wants to oedipal grandma. Lovely. Let loose the semen sacs o’ double helices.

So, speaking of the ice picking that opened the movie: under 20-minutes in, we get a stockade decap and a gym drink tumbler blood refill. See, we told you baptists were going to die . . . in a soft-core sex slasher that ended up on Showtime’s late night “after dark” weekends all those cable-years ago. Circular saws, electrocutions, and a wide array of SOV-cheap gore, long, soft-core bedroom sex scenes padding the short running time, moonshine jugs of chloroform, a lingerie bondage scene, bumbling sheriffs, serial killers breaking the fourth wall, serial killer inner thoughts via voice overs, southern plantations that aren’t Dunsmuir Mansion but wants to be such, wooden actors (trying), and Bloody Mary drink jokes cut footloose across Alabama — with nary a banjo on anyone’s knee — ensues.

Master-pieces. Yuk, yuk. And Bits and Pieces is the title of another, earlier, SOV. A homage? Probably not. “Shocker,” meaning Wes Craven? Nah.

If you read our reviews for our “SOV Week” tribute, we’ve sunk pretty deep into the analog mire — but the quagmire gets quaggier via Google as you’ll find so many more SOVs from the ’80s and ’90s to overwhelm the VHS shelves of your analog mind. And this directing effort from Peter B. Good, the producer behind the death-docs Faces of Death III and IV (he made his directing debut with the 1978 sci-fi/haunted forest romp The Force on Thunder Mountain*) is one of the better SOV’ers of the ’80s that will be one of those analog scuzz’ers you’ll return to for a few more views over the years — as have I. It’s a shame this was Good’s final directing effort, as Fatal Exposure showed a lot of potential for future growth.

We found a nice, clean VHS rip on a really great, You Tube retro-VHS page, The Burial Ground 5. Enjoy!

* Yes, you know us all too well, for we have since reviewed the VHS slopper that is The Force on Thunder Mountain. Once a film title is dropped, the tape worm bores into the cortex and it must be excised by sheer QWERTY force.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Cannibal Hookers and Demon Queen (1987) and Scream Dream (1989): A Donald Farmer Three-Fer!

Posted on by

Kansas cult filmmaker Donald Farmer made his first film, the short Despondent Yearning, in 1973; by 1976, he completed his sixth short, A Taste of Flesh: based on those titles, we’re guessing they’re skin flicks. After Christopher Lewis single-handedly birthed the home video SOV-market by bypassing con-fest screenings, Grindhouse theaters, and four-walling Drive-Ins for one-off showings, instead opting for distribution exclusively on the new “screens” created by the home video market for Blood Cult (1985), Donald Farmer was inspired to shoot his first feature-length film (90 minutes): Cannibal Hookers (1987).

As you can tell from the artwork, in conjunction with the title, the major and regional chains didn’t stock Cannibal Hookers: only the more out-of-the-way mom & pop outlets for us wee-lads with more discriminating tastes carried it (see Snuff Kill); even then, it was behind the beaded curtain at most of those outlets. While Farmer cleaned and shortened the running time for the impossible-to-find Demon Queen (1987), it was his third film, Scream Dream (1989), that was his first film to receive the most wide-spread distribution on the main floor in the horror section. And for a wee-metal head (moi), the cheesy mixture of rock and horror of the Hard Rock Zombies and Shock ‘Em Dead variety made Scream Dream an instant rental.

Since his meager SOV ’80s beginnings, Donald Farmer has amassed another 30-plus credits, with titles such as Vampire Cop (1990) and Cannibal Cop (2017), the too-irresistible-not-to-rent Chainsaw Cheerleaders (2008), Shark Exorcist (2015) and, we’re guessing, its sequel, Bigfoot Exorcist (2021). In between, Farmer also completed two documentaries on cult film: The Bizarre World of Jess Franco (1988) and Invasion of the Scream Queens (1992), the latter features Janus Blythe of fellow SOV’er, Spine (1986).

Cannibal Hookers

So, when you’re renting a film such as Cannibal Hookers, the title, in conjunction with the cover, its tagline, and a couple of film stills on the back cover of a ripped-out neck and chest is all you need to get the gist of the situation. Plot means nothing, as the copywriters opted to only tell us to “be prepared for a film that is depraved, with bloodsucking terror” that includes ne’er-do-well johns being sliced n’ diced. Of course, in the SOV greylands adrift on the boarders of the adult film industry, there’s more than likely a couple of incognito adult film actresses in the cast and more than likely — like Spine — shot by a porn company looking to move into the legit horror realms. But guess what: there’s hardly any nudity here, just like Spine. But Sheila Best, aka Tara the Southern Bell from G.L.O.W. for your wrestling fans, is pretty good as the bitchy “Carmilla” of the sorority.

Regardless of the suggestive box art, Cannibal Hookers is not the all-out slaughterhouse cross-pollination of the cannibal and vampire genres marketed: this is a “comedy,” after all. And when you’re dealing with a movie that concerns two sorority pledges forced into Sunset Boulevard hooker-servitude for the night, you know you’re getting a T&A comedy. Of course, the sleazy Gamma Zeta Beta sorority is a lesbian vampire coven — and our two pledges are the newest flesh-eating zombie hookers (a great cult title if there ever was one) to join these ladies of the night.

The gore . . . well . . . this is a film where you see the blade coming down, the scene cuts to a scream, and a limb falls into the shot, à la The Spirits of Jupiter comes to my mind. But at least it’s all shot-in-camera practical effects (CGI blood splatter is the bane of my existence). In terms of SOVs overall: Cannibal Hoookers is a rougher VHS ride than most, one that’ll make you load up your copies of the superior Spine and Snuff Kill (1997) for one more spin.

You can view the trailer for Cannibal Hookers and learn more about Donald Farmer’s early career as he talks about the making of the film in the third episode of the SOV The True Independents web series as a You Tube sign-in. You can learn more about the full documentary at SOV Horror.com, your one-stop shop for all things horror.

Scream Dream

Donald Farmer impressively upped his game in this story about heavy metal’s newest superstar, Michelle Shock — whose albums are in the racks next to the faux metal gods of Black Roses (1988). As with those hypnotizing rockers led by the demon-morphing Damien in that film, Michelle Shock lords a supernatural power over her fans: a power so strong, just watching her videos has an effect on the males of the metal species. As with Black Roses, and the guys from Holy Moses in Hard Rock Zombies (1985) before her: when Shock’s band arrives in town to put on a concert, the town rises up in protest.

Needless to say: when the rock starts, the teenagers start to disappear. And when the rumors of Michelle Shock’s (a brunette) devil worship proclivities cause the promoter to cancel the show, her manager replaces her with (a blonde) Jamie Summers (ex-Playboy Playmate Melissa Moore, who’s done her share of Jim Wynorski flicks, such as Sorority House Massacre II and Linda Blair’s Repossessed). Shock then calls forth a demon (an impressive on-a-budget full body-and-mask by Tom Savini-crew member Rick Gonzales) to extract revenge on her band. We soon come to learn Michelle was actually possessed by a demon that’s been body-hoping metal singers over the years — and it now possesses Jamie to carry on the carnage.

The rock and the gore . . . well, we’ve always said Rocktober Blood (courtesy of its first and third acts, natch) is the best of the heavy metal horror flicks, and that hard fact still holds true. We’ll even go as far to say that, in a neck-to-neck race, Dennis Devine’s all female-rocking Dead Girls, crosses the finish line against Farmer, first.

While it’s as campy as Cannibal Hookers, Scream Dream ditches the comedic to play as a straight horror piece, one that’s helped by the familiar and experienced Moore adding a bit of thespin’ class to the SOV proceedings. And it’s kind of hard to hate a film that gives an unknown band, in this case, Rikk-O-Shay, a chance to get their hair-metal grunge tune “Ball Buster” out to a mass audience via a movie . . . that starts with a chainsaw-to-the-vagina bondage dream sequence and a blowjob-castration by demon-babe mouth.

You can view the trailer for Scream Dream as a You Tube sign in.

Demon Queen

Thank you, Massacre Video, for supporting the cause.

So, thanks to the fine folks at Massacre Video, the once hard-to-find Demon Queen is easily accessible for us horn-doggers who need it in our home library.

Ditching the sorority sister hi-jinks of Cannibal Hookers and cheese metal of Scream Dream, we’re now inside a video store with another ne’er-do-well clerk who implores members to rent his favorite horror films, for no other reason to pad out the film’s already-thin plot. The “plot,” such as it is, concerns a homeless female demon, natch, who’s actually a vampire (a bitch’s gotta drink), who moves in with a drug-dealing couple on-the-hook to a dwarf coke dealer for 6Gs.

Hey, it’s an easy swallow at only 46 minutes (40 if we cut the 6 minutes of end credits) — even with its cochlea-straining sound and repetitive Casio-whining synth music, so what’s the problemo? You know you love this stuff: it has all the over-the-top on-the-cheap gore and analog-tape effects that remind of those cheesy Missing Persons and Simple Minds camcordered-hits of early ’80s MTV yore. Oh, yes: the out-of-place “dream sequence” set piece from Scream Dream is back: only our succubus hottie does the dreamin’ as she de-hearts a guy. Meanwhile, those real-life heart-rips turn her victims into fine, Romeroesque citizens. Torn, bloody hearts against naked breasts and fleshy face rips, ensues.

Oh, yes! As with Cannibal Hookers and Scream Dream: I love every minute of the SOV-heart of it all; your own Dalton-ness down by the roadhouse, may vary.

While there’s no online streams of Cannibal Hookers, there’s a streaming copy of Scream Dream on You Tube. You can find DVDs of both films — which are not digitally restored, but straight VHS-to-DVD rips — on a couple of different imprints specializing in cult horror films. You can find Cannibal Hookers DVDs at Amazon and Walmart, while copies of Scream Dream are available at DVD Planet.

Oh, and guess what?! The SOV-lovin’ lads at Letterboxd Funtime You Tube makes my night, as I can sit and watch Demon Queen for the first time, ever. I’m stoked! Sam the Bossman is equally stoked, as he’ll be reviewing that film for our “SOV Week” blow out in September 2021.

Wow, it’s good to be home again, jammin’ on a “new” Donald Farmer SOV’er. Sweet!

From the Never Say Never Department: During the last two weeks of January 2023 we had, yet another, another “SOV Week” blow out — and gave Scream Dream a second, alternate look. Be sure to click through our SOV tags at the bottom of any of our SOV reviews to populate our ever-growning SOV catalog of shot-on-video films from the ’80s and beyond.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Summer Job (1989)

Posted on by

If you need to see another film starring Amy Lynn Baxter, the adult actress-model who posed for the inside cover of Howard Stern’s book Private Parts — who also turned up in the also Florida-shot Golfballs! . . . but lets not forget Karate Warrior 2 and Cyber Vengeance — then you’ve found your film. And if having that Penthouse Playmate isn’t enough incentive . . . if you wanted to know where Sherrie Rose, the star of Giannetto De Ross’s Cy Warrior, Sergio Martino’s American Rickshaw, the really fine Me & Will, and David A. Prior’s Relentless Justice, got her start, then you’ve found your movie.

Watch the trailer.

Ugh, is this another trivia-cum-backstory heavy review with no plot information?

Nope. But there ain’t much of one to tell.

The “plot,” such as it is, concerns the usual gaggle of four dumb n’ hot college coeds out for a vacation of sexual discovery and a bit o’ Animal House-styled college revenge — in between their summer job duties at a Miami resort. Then things, as we say to wrap it up, ensues . . . such as pranks, laughs, humor that’s not too raunchy but a whole lot of groan-inducing by way of rim shot sex jokes about “crabs” and “polar bears,” people accidentally dyeing their whole body in blue, and out of shape lifeguards. The guys our nubile college quartet are teasing follow the usual ’80s comedy tropes of being a cowboy, a geek, a fat dude, and a buff jock, you know, the eclectic types who are only friends in the movies and never in real life.

And that’s pretty much it as far as the plot goes. It’s a movie about horny guys and horny girls that we stumbled upon by way of USA’s Up All Night weekend-overnight film blocks. So collect your empty soda and popcorn paraphernalia on your way out.

Now, onto the more interesting film soundtrack.

Yep. This movie was a pretty big deal in South Florida, back in the day.

So, how did two ex-ELO members — bassist Kelly Groucutt and violinist Mik Kaminski — become involved in an ’80s T&A comedy?

Well, Peter Kuys, who was Kelly Groucutt’s executive producer for his solo album, Kelly (1982), and the debut album, Beyond the Dream (1991), by his band OrKestra, served as the soundtrack consultant for Summer Job. Teen comedies were a hot commodity at the time, so Kuys seen it as a great way to promote the band, convincing Groucutt and company to provide six tracks from the album to the film (“Some Kind Of Magic,” “Bring On The Dancing Girls,” “Hold On To Love,” “Don’t Give Up,” “Don’t Turn Away,” and “Rock & Roll Fever”). The band also appears towards the end of the film as a band hired to play at a pool party (to promote the single “Some Kind of Magic”). A Croucutt solo tune, “Old Rock & Roller,” also appears in the film.

There’s more flicks with real life band cameos to discover in our “Ten Band Cameos in Movies” featurette.

A solo bound Jack Green — a Scottish musician who served as the bassist in classic rockers T.Rex and the Rolling Stones-related the Pretty Things — provides four more songs with “Sweet Lover,” “Win Your Love,” “Another Day, Another Dollar,” and “I Really Love Your Money,” which appear on his third RCA solo album, Mystique (1983). (Several of Green’s tunes also appears in the Lynn Redgrave-fronted low-budget comedy-horror, Midnight (1989), which also appeared on his forth album, Latest Game (1986). Members of Rainbow — with whom Green briefly toured as their bassist — guested on Green’s albums, most notably, Ritchie Blackmore.)

Keyboardist Ike Stubblefield, who also appears on the soundtrack with four songs, served as a Motown studio and touring keyboardist for their artist roster throughout the ’60s and ’70s, as well as touring and recording with Eric Clapton.

Okay, enough soundtrack trivia, let’s back to the movie.

Director Paul Madden made his feature film debut with the only other film of his we really care about, Medium Rare (1987), since it stars a pre-Rocky Burt Young . . . and Brad Dourif (!) . . . and Sy Richardson (!!). If you want a movie about pet poodles dying by microwave (it’s a comedy, after all!), then you found your movie. Writer Ralph Gaby Wilson gave us one more flick, again, the only one we care about since it’s a ’70s TV movie starring Yvette Mimieux, CBS-TV’s Outside Chance (1978). Oh, Pamela Collyer of Evil Judgement and Meatballs III (itself subtitled “Summer Job,” so don’t confuse the two) is in the frames, as well.

You can watch the full movie on You Tube and enjoy the complete soundtrack on You Tube. Here’s Orkestra’s big scene at the pool, on You Tube.

Oh, and fans of the old USA Network programming of the ’80s may want to pop on over to our “Drive-In Friday: USA’s Night Flight . . . Night!” featurette as we discuss the USA-ran films Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, Liquid Sky, The Brain, and Kentucky Fried Movie. Fans of ’80s comedies may also want to surf on over to our “Exploring: ’80s Comedies” feature.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.

The Urge to Kill (1989)

Posted on by

Bono Zorro is a famous music producer, or so this movie tells us, but most of the time he’s bringing new ladies into his apartment which is under the control of the proto-Alexa unit named Sensual Environment Control System. Yes, she’s called SEXY and she’s definitely a she. That’s because she’s in love with Bono and she’ll murder every other band aid, groupie and woman in his life to keep him.

This sounds like it could be a very exciting movie but this thing is the very definition of plodding and for some reason, I kind of love that it’s so slow and pointless, a movie where models just lounge around and the dialogue sounds like the first time anyone has ever seen the script.

Writer/director Derek Ford made British smut like Secret Rites; I Am a Groupie; Keep It Up, Jack; The Girl from Starship Venus and was the uncredited director of Blood Tracks. He made this for Dick Randall, whose career has the kind of moments that we can only hope to live through. Starting as a joke writer for Uncle Miltie, it took a failed George Jessel Broadway play to send him to Italy where he figured out that Americans wanted to see some sleaze. So he sent us stuff like Primitive Love, The Wild Wild World of Jayne Mansfield, The French Sex Murders, The Real Bruce Lee and so much more. He was the writer of Pieces and Lady Frankenstein as well as the writer/director of The Girl In Room 2A and Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks. Man, just when you think you have scratched everything Randall made, he surprises you with more — Slaughter High, Death Dimension, For Your Height Only, Don’t Open ‘Til Christmas, Crocodile, King of Kong Island…what an amazing contribution to our lives he has made.

Anyways, this movie features a woman being killed by a laser to the nipples, another burned by an acid shower and yet one more woman finding her doom at the bristles of an electric toothbrush before SEXY somehow possesses Bono and makes him drown his girlfriend in the hot tub, which is the most 80s way to die.

SEXY is also kind of like Synergy from JEM because she can manifest herself as a body-painted woman and run people over with her car. I don’t think Synergy ever did that, but trust me, it’s a good comparison.

Also: SEXY could be CECS and stand for Central Environment Control System. This movie is so brain-destroying that either answer is correct and you know, this movie is such a mess that you can just sit back and enjoy it. I mean, a naked woman who looks like she has makeup out of Liquid Sky kills and kills and kills in-between ladies taking bubble baths and having BDSM finger-licking sessions that are grosser than watching Peter Hooten eat the Colonel’s eleven secret herbs and spices in Night Killer.

Obviously, this movie has my highest recommendation.

Catch Me If You Can (1989)

Posted on by

Well, as with the previously-reviewed-this-week Corey Feldman-fronted Round Trip to Heaven, this Down Under car flick is a doublesploitation whammy: we all know what makes a carsploitation movie . . . but what makes a teensploitation movie, now that’s the question.

Well, for me, it’s when your film has 30-year-old teenagers — in this case, our stars of Matt Lattanzi, Loryn Locklin, Grant Heslov, and Billy Morrissette (Severed Ties!), who were 30 and 21, 26, 27, respectively — and no matter the filmmaker’s intentions — you’ve made a teensplotation movie. Yes, even when your film is loaded with classic cars, hot-rods, and muscle cars and qualifies it as a carsploitation movie.

The filmmaker in this case . . . isn’t the usual, expected filmmaker. No, it’s not Albert Pyun. It’s not David DeCoteau. It’s not Fred Olen Ray.

It’s Stephens Sommers.

Yes. The same Stephen Sommers — in his writing and directing debut — known as the writer, director, and producer behind The Mummy, The Scorpion King, and G.I Joe franchises. Meanwhile, actor Grant Heslov became a producing partner with George Clooney and received four Oscar nods and one win (2012’s Argo).

As with the countless teen movies dating back to the ’50s, we have a gaggle of teens who — in addition to not being teenagers and are far more intelligent and resourceful than your typical, goofy teenagers (at least when I was in school) — work together in the ‘ol “Let’s save the teen center, gang!” plot of old. Only this time: it’s the ol’ “save the school” plot.

Of course, the school will be saved by resident “bad boy” Dylan (Matt Lattanzi of Xanadu and My Tutor) who sidelines between the reading, writing, and arithmetic as an illegal street racer. Dylan convinces the school’s resident goody two-shoes (Loryn Locklin, in her acting debut; her next was the inane Jim Belushi comedy Taking Care of Business) to bet the $3000 already raised on an illegal race he knows he can win — and turn that 3-grand into the needed 200-grand to save the school.

That’s right. He doesn’t win.

Explore the soundtracks of Tangerine Dream! Catch Me If You Can is one of their many scores.

Now, the adults — school board administrators, mind you — are sanctioning an illegal, winner-take-all road race, with Dylan against the town legend. You know, just like any school board would handle a funding crunch that’s closing a school.

Look, the proceedings are cliched and utterly unbelievable. The teens don’t behave like teens (as in my Bruno Kirby guilty pleasure with the high school politics comedy, 1978’s Almost Summer) and the adults don’t carry themselves as roll models (of which Almost Summer had none, well, except for the adult-as-teens actors). But we have M. Emmett Walsh (who runs the local gambling syndicate backing the races) and Geoffrey Lewis (our principal) as the “responsible” adults, Loryn Locklin looks great in saddle shoes, there’s no cheese in thespin’ department, the driving and stunts (an old Chevy jumps through the school’s football field goalposts in a highlight) are top notch, and the ’50s and ’60s tunes (Elvis, Del Shannon, the Platters, Danny and the Juniors; but Tangerine Dream scores) give this homage to Sommers’s old hometown days of growing up in St. Cloud, Minnesota (where this was shot), a nice retro-juvenile delinquency flick of the ’50s feel — which is the whole point of the movie. And a fun movie to watch.

Sure, even at a production budget at $800,000, this car flick still bombed in the U.S., but cleaned up in the overseas markets — especially in Australia — where it made $7 million, courtesy of Matt Lattanzi then being the first husband of singer-actress Olivia Newton John. Meanwhile, in the U.S., it was HBO and Cinemax to the rescue, turning it into a cult classic.

Oh, and by the way, don’t confuse Catch Me If You Can with the other Aussie car flick we’ve reviewed, Freedom, which stars Matt Lattazni lookalike Jon Blake. That’s a whole other, carsploitation movie (and carries the soundalike “grab it while you can” tagline on its one-sheets).

Need more car flicks? Check out two-part Fast and Furious tribute weeks!

We had this writing and directing debut by Stephen Sommers on our review backburners for quite a while (sorry, Steve) and never managed to fit it into our two “Fast and Furious” weeks of reviews (HERE and HERE) of, well, Carsploitation films. We’re also guilty of passing over Catch Me If You Can (again, sorry, Steve) as part of our “Exploring” tribute to the film soundtracks of Tangerine Dream. So, we do get them, eventually.

You can stream this really great car flick on Vudu without commercials. But we found a copy on You Tube — here’s the trailer. As you can read from the You Tube upload comments, everyone loves this movie. Why it didn’t click with theater audiences and turn Matt into the next Tom Cruise is anyone’s guess. So goes the power of HBO and Cinemax endlessly replaying movies back in the ’80s.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Horrorama (1989)

Posted on by

Scarlet Fry — Walter Ruether — was 19 when he wrote, directed and starred in this anthology movie. It has Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby’s Got Back” in the middle of a movie that feels nu metal before that was a thing, which kind of wildly non matchy-matchy.

Somehow, they got six stories into twenty-six minutes, none of them all that good. But hey, Scarlet Fry tried. I mean, as much as a tale where a lumberjack eats a human being and the title is “Manwich.”

Look, I’m all for shot on video junk but even I have my limits. You may feel differently and I’d love to hear what people love about this film, because it even got a twenty-fifth anniversary release on DVD.

This feels like the kind of movie that sat on the shelves of a video store just waiting to surprise attack people that rented it and somehow thought that it was a real movie. I mean, it is a real movie in the thought that it was sold and has credits and appears to be a movie. But you know what I’m saying.

 

After Midnight (1989)

Posted on by

In a class called The Psychology of Fear, Allison and Cheryl (Pamela Segall, the voice of Bobby Hill!) learn all about being scared by Professor Edward Derek, who teaches class with a loaded revolver that causes a jock to wet himself. The college shuts him down after that, but he still offers private lessons in his home where he tells his students three stories all about being frightened.

So begins After Midnight, an anthology movie directed by Ken and Jim Wheat, who also wrote The Silent Scream, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and Pitch Black and directed Ewoks: The Battle for Endor.

In “The Old Dark House,” Kevin (Marc McClure) and Joan (Nadine van der Velde, Critters) are separated inside a haunted house but there’s a surprise for, well, both of them. “A Night on the Town” has four women battling a deranged gas station attendant with a pack of trained dogs ready to kill for their master. “All Night Operator” has Alex (Marg Helgenberger) taking calls for a woman who is being stalked before the caller* turns his attention on her.

After these tales, we’re back in the home of the professor, who is attacked by the disgraced athlete before he turns the tables on the man and murders him with an axe. His entire house becomes a literal hell on earth, dragging everyone into the flames before Allison wakes up in his class all over again.

After Midnight didn’t have many fans when it came out, but like I enjoy horror anthologies. Obviously, I’m doing an entire week of them. There are some big shocks in this and it goes to some interesting places, even if the wrapup is kind of an easy ending.

*He’s played by Alan Rosenberg, her real-life husband.

Philippine War Week: War Bus Commando (1989)

Posted on by

Editor’s Note: We first reviewed this movie on September 15, 2018. We’ve brought it back for our “Philippines War Week” tribute of reviews. And we always want to talk about a Mark Gregory movie as much as possible. Over and over, again and again, because, again, it’s Mark Gregory! Why else would we do a full week of his movies.

When I was a very young child, my grandfather would come home from working night shift at the J&L Steel Mill and sit in front of the TV drinking Pabst and watching war movies. The entire house would be bathed in blue light and the sounds of machine gun fire. Forty some years later and here I am, doing the same thing. I’m not slaving away in the furnace, but I am writing a project for my real job while watching war movies. I’d like to think the films my grandpa watched were better than the junk I end up watching.

Yes, this is a movie where John Vernon and Mark Gregory somehow end up in the same frame. This blew my mind and made me wonder if I was on my death bed and my brain was attempting to calm me as my soul transitions to the next plane with the kind of Jacob’s Ladder scenario that I have heard so much about.

This time, Mark is playing Johnny Hondo, a special forces commando who never dresses in any form of camouflage whatsoever. I mean, the dude dresses all in black for daytime missions and all in white for night missions. He kills lots of people all over the world when he isn’t chillaxing on his Montana ranch. That’s where General Ross (Vernon) finds him and arranges for Johnny to meet his estranged and dying father.

It turns out that Johnny’s dad once drove a school bus filled with the Shah of Iran’s gold from that country to Afghanistan. With my poor US school system education, I never realized that that’s only a distance of around 800 miles. To get his father’s honor back, he has to complete the mission. And if you’ve seen any 1980’s post-Rambo films, you know that the system is corrupt and against our hero Johnny Hondo.

Luckily, Johnny has backup. There’s a plucky young Dondi-like child and his sister. The moment we meet her, we know that she has only been placed in this movie to die. And then there’s the mechanic who gets the war bus moving again. He’s played by Bobby Rhodes from Demons and Endgame, so he instantly becomes my favorite person in this movie. Literally, every line of his dialogue is profanity, much like talking to me in person.

This movie also has some of the most chipper 1980’s synth on its soundtrack, to the point that you forget that we’ve basically been waging war in Afghanistan since this one was made back in 1989.

This one’s directed by Pierluigi Ciriaci, who brought us pretty much all of the Mark Gregory war movies that we’ve covered this week. And much like every Italian movie made in the 1980’s, it was written by Dardano Sacchetti.

Much like the films that entertained my grandfather, this is filled with explosions, gunfire and plenty of people being riddled with bullets. Unlike the movies that he enjoyed, it also has a hero that has decided to wear a white turtleneck with a beige coat and drive a schoolbus into a warzone.

Want to experience all the action and bus driving for yourself? Then I recommend you head to Amazon Prime, a place where there is nothing but Mark Gregory films as far as the eye can see!

Junesploitation 2021: Midnight (1989)

Posted on by

June 26: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is 80s horror.

Midnight (Lynn Redgrave) is a horror hostess who wears low-cut outfits, makes bad puns before the movies she shows and looks like an undead mistress of, well, the night. Pretty much exactly like Elvira, which seems weird, because they could have just hired Elvira to be in this movie.

She’s fighting station owner Mr. B (Tony Curtis) for the rights to her name, who keeps throwing things in her way to screw up her life, like trying to lure away her boytoy Mickey Modine (Steve Parrish, Scanners III) by introducing him to Missy Angel (Karen Witter, Playboy Playmate of the Month March 1982, as well as Mortuary Academy and Popcorn).

Then, everyone around our protagonist — like her agent(Frank Gorshin) — starts getting murdered and all fingers point to Midnight.

This was written and directed by Norman Thaddeus Vane, who wrote and directed Frightmare. Before that, he was a contributing writer for Penthouse, working on the letter to Forum.

I really need to make a Letterboxd list of Wolfman Jack movies one of these days. He’s in this for a bit and is a welcome addition to the proceedings.

According to Stephen Thrower’s Nightmare U.S.A., this movie was a complete nightmare behind the scenes. Karen Black was originally going to play Midnight — I am so into that casting choice — with George Segal playing opposite her. Yet when she quit the film and Redgrave came on, Segal refused to be in the movie due to “agent conflicts.” As for Ms. Redgrave. she locked herself in her trailer and wouldn’t do any ADR after the film wrapped. Then Sont cut ten minutes and barely released it in theaters.

You know what? She’s awesome in this movie, acting like she’s playing for people in space, not just the back row of the theater. It’s a role that literally defines over the top. That said, she’s still no Cassandra Peterson.

Nashville Beat (1989)

Posted on by

What a great, three-day rally of films from Bernard L. Kowalski (thanks for allowing me to free range, Sam) as we wrap it up with a TV movie that pays tribute to a great TV series from the ’70s. To say I am stoked to review this BK entry is an understatement: the development of this tribute week to ol’ Uncle Bernie centers on this flick. And we get Kent McCord, who never got the due he deserves, some props.

Let’s roll it!

By the late ’80s, the cable networks began eschewing their UHF-styled, bread-and-butter reruns format by going for the throat of the “Big Three” over-the-air networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC — with their own, original programming. The national “superstations” TNT and USA each began producing their own TV movies (many of which we’ve reviewed at B&S), so why not the all-new basic cable and satellite network The Nashvillle Network?

You don’t remember that logo? It’s okay, most TV viewers — not county-centric — don’t remember it either.

Put some good ol’ down home twang in your life.

Going on the air in March 1983, the network operated from studios on located on the grounds of the now-defunct theme park Opryland USA in Nashville. But, as with the major movie studios creating competing ripoff films for the marketplace (e.g., Armageddon vs. Deep Impact, White House Down vs. Olympus Has Fallen) The Nashville Network was beat on the air — by two days — by Country Music Television.

After the dust settled: The Nashville Network lost the ratings war.

TNN began its life as a country music alternative to Warner-Amex’s MTV’s rock and VH-1’s contemporary music formats by airing music videos; the programming soon expanded into concerts, game and talk shows, and country-eccentric movies (such as Smokey and the Bandit). By September 2000, the channel dumped their “southern” identity by ditching the “Nashville” moniker for “National” to become The National Network. Then, to the holier-than-thou, law-suitin’ and hissy fittin’ dismay of Spike Lee (“They’re stealing my brand!”), National transformed into the male-centric Spike TV in 2003. Today, you know the channel as the upper-tier cable dumping ground for all things Paramount-produced: The Paramount Network.

So, with that backstory out of the way . . . let’s polish off our three-day tribute to the films of Bernard L. Kowalksi (that began all the way back in 1956 with Hot Car Girl) and dig in to some slip-smackin’ BBQ with Bernard’s last film — and TNN’s first made-for-television movie — Nashville Beat.

Courtesy of the Hannah Shearer.com archives, the writer of the film.

Now, if you’ve been following along the Kowalski beat this week, you’ll know that his last theatrical film was the drive-in horror classic, Sssssss (1973). And, since we love our Six Degrees of Separation of actors and directors in the B&S cubicle farm: that turn-man-into-snakes-mad-scientist romp starred Dirk Benedict, later of Battlestar Galactica . . . and Kent McCord ended up on that failed Star Wars TV series ripoff’s second season, aka Galactica: 1980, as the all-grown up Boxey, aka Troy (we reviewed the overseas theatrical version of the series, Conquest of the Earth; look for it).

Anyway, after Sssssss (Who decided the title only needed six lowercase “S”; why not eight?), Kowalski returned to television — where he got his start — with multiple episodes of Perry Mason and The Untouchables, as well as Banacek starring George Peppard (more “Six Degrees”: he was in the fellow Star Wars dropping, Battle Beyond the Stars), and Columbo. In between, Kowalski developed the MGM Studios/CBS-TV series pilot for the Starsky and Hutch-precursor, The Supercops (1974), which aired on March 21, 1975, and continued the adventures of (real life cops) Dave Greenberg and Bobby Hantz. That series was quickly derailed by the (more powerful, due to Charlie’s Angels) TV production powerhouse of (Aaron) Spelling-Goldberg Productions’ TV movie-to-series pilot for Starsky and Hutch, which aired on the competing ABC-TV network on April 30, 1975. And, since we love our Six Degrees of Separation of actors and directors in the B&S cubicle farm redux: David “Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson” Soul starred with Kent McCord in the CSI TV series-franchise precursor (and, in my opinion, superior), the all-too-short-lived TV Movie-to-series, UNSUB (1989).

While we didn’t get around to reviewing all them (or finding copies of most of them), other post-Sssssss and The Supercops TV movies Bernard Kowalski directed are Flight to Holocaust (1977), The Nativity (1978), TV’s response to Rocky with Marciano (1979), Nick and the Dobermans (1980), Turnover Smith (1980), Nightside (1980; with Doug McClure, from Kowalski’s Terror in the Sky), and Johnny Blue (1983).

Image courtesy of the Kent McCord Archives (with more pictures and article on the show.)

So, if you know if your ’70s TV: You’ll know Nashville Beat is the 14-years-in-the-making reunion of actors Martin Milner and Kent McCord after their successful, seven-season run on Adam-12 that aired on NBC-TV from 1968 to 1975. The final episode of that series ended in a cliffhanger, somewhat: we never knew what happened with officers Pete Malloy (Milner) and Jim Reed (McCord), as the series closed with Reed’s rookie copy readying to take the detectives exam and leave his seasoned, veteran partner and the streets. . . . Instead of NBC-TV giving us a late ’80s TV movie version of Adam-12, we got the closest thing to an Adam-12 TV movie: Nashville Beat, which was developed, produced, and co-written by McCord with the intention of becoming TNN’s first original drama series.

Milner and McCord — while pretty much the same cops, only older-but-wiser and in plain clothes — are Captain Brian O’Neal and Lieutenant Mike Delaney, both who started out like their Adam-12 counterparts: on the streets of Los Angeles. Even after his old partner left for a job as a detective in Nashville, Delaney and O’Neal remained close friends. Upon become a widower, Delaney heads to Nashville to help his old partner on a case with ties back to Los Angeles. And the case works out well, and Delaney’s heart is ready to love again with the sexy, big-haired owner (it was the ’80s, natch) of the honkytonk where O’Neal and his copy buddies hangout. So the movie ends with Delaney deciding that he just might move the kids out to Nashville to start over . . . which would set off the new series that never happened.

Meanwhile, TNN’s faux Adam-12 reunion got the folks at MCA Television (a division of Universal that supplied NBC-TV programming) to reboot Adam-12 in September 1990 to fill the UHF-TV blocks of the new, weekend syndicated programming crazy (ignited by Star Trek: The Next Generation and Xena: Warrior Princess). The syndicated revival, The New Adam-12 (1990) was cast-headed by John Wayne’s son, Ethan (who made his debut in his dad’s Big Jake). The series, which ran for 52 consecutive episodes, was cancelled after one year. No one (including moi) cared: Milner and McCord were never invited back to appear. But, we did see Milner and McCord share the screen again in a 1997 episode of Diagnosis Murder with Dick Van Dyke, playing, yet again Los Angeles police officers.

And that’s a wrap on our three-day tribute to the career of Bernard Kowalski. Discover his films with our reviews and enjoy!

You can watch a VHS rip of the home video version of Nashville Beat on You Tube. And look for our reviews of Hot Car Girl and Sssssss — this week — as we continue our tribute to Bernard L. Kowalski.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.