After the end of the first film, you’d think the Ghostbusters would be heroes for life. However, they’ve been sued out of existence and are barely able to get back together in time to stop a whole new evil, Vigo the Carpathian, who is trapped inside a painting that Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) is restoring along with her boss, Janosz Poha (Peter MacNicol, a bright spot here).

Yes, Dana went from playing the cello at a high level to being an art expert of the same caliber. Obviously, we’re dealing with a Buckaroo Banzai level individual here.

This film never lived up to the original for audience, critics or the people who made it. It took five years of rough gestation to even get to the screen, which needed suits, agents and even a lunch for the stars to decide whether or not they wanted to work together.

Vigo is pretty great though. While his voice comes from Max Von Sydow, he was played by Wilhelm von Homburg, a German boxer, wrestler and weight lifter who also shows up in The Last of the Secret Agents?, Die Hard, The Wrecking Crew and In the Mouth of Madness. This Deadspin account of his life is pretty astounding, telling the story of a man who lived for excess and may have even fathered his own half-sister.

Remember how I said in a past review that Ghostbusters has no hero’s journey for its characters? Well, they’ve done the third — and hardest — act off-screen, as now Ray (Dan Aykroyd) owns an occult bookstore and works a side job with Winston (Ernie Hudson) doing kid birthday parties, Egon (Harold Ramis) works in a lab and Venkman (Bill Murray) hosts a ridiculous psychic TV show.

Luckily, everything works out despite a river of slime. Rick Moranis returns as Louis Tully and Annie Potts comes back as Janine Melnitz, ready to fall for Egon.

Sure, this is nowhere as good as the first, but that Bobby Brown song sure is catchy. Actually, they could make several of these films and I’d watch them all. I even made it through the toss away the past reimagining.

I first encountered Sante Sangre at Prime Time Video in Ellwood City, the video store of my childhood. For some reason, it was stocked in the horror section. I have no idea where I’d put the film myself, but it felt like horror was often the catchall for the films that were not understood. And, of course, as I grew up in a very small town between Pittsburgh and Youngstown, no one was going to rent anything out of a foreign section. As such, amongst the gorehounds of home, Sante Sangre was a film that was too odd, too strange and ultimately not violent enough to appease our needs. I’d never rented it and now, an old man who worships at the foot of The Holy Mountain, I find myself wishing that I could send a message back to my younger self and tell him to seek this film out.

Interestingly enough, this film was written by Roberto Leoni, who had worked in the library of a psychiatric hospital which inspired this film. Leoni also wrote My Dear Killer, Casablance Express and one of the oddest movies I’ve ever seen, Sergio Martino’s American Rickshaw.

He brought the script to Claudio Argento, who felt that Alejandro Jodorowsky was the only director who could make this movie. However, after Dune ended due to money issues and Tusk was considered a failure, Jodorowsky had disappeared. The director would only meet Leoni, telling him that the angel of stories had passed over Paris and taken this story to Italy, but it was meant for him to tell.

After all, Jodorowsky had had a chance meeting in the alley outside a bar with Gregorio Cardenas Hernandez, the famed Estrangulador de Tacuba who had emerged after nearly thirty years in prison able to play the piano, write poetry, practice law and with a wife and four children. He was pardoned of his crimes and led a normal, if famous, life until his death in 1999.

Fenix, played at different times by Jodorowsky’s sons Axel and Adan, has grown up in the circus, the child of Orgo the knife-thrower and Concha the trapeze artist. His mother is also the leader of a cult that worships a dead child who was raped and had her arms cut off by two brothers. As the Catholic church and the government destroy their place of worship, Orgo is making love to the tattooed woman who he performs alongside. Concha catches him, but is hynotized and raped as well.

As if that isn’t bad enough, the beloved elephant dies despite Fenix’s prayers. He watches as scavengers tear it apart in the city dump and all his father can do is carve up his chest with a tattoo to try to stop his tears and make him a man.

That night, Concha finally rises up against Orgo, burning his privates with acid. He retaliates by cutting off her arms before slicing his own throat, unable to live without his sexual member. The tattooed woman takes the mute Alma — who Fenix already loves — and runs off into the bloody night.

We move back to the present, where the film began with Fenix in a mental institution. A chance outing reveals to him that the tattooed woman is still alive and trying to introduce Alma to a life of selling her body. That night, a strange woman kills the older inked female, but we can’t see who it is.

We soon learn that Concha is forcing Fenix to be her arms — not just in their knife throwing act, which forces him to become a strange substitute for his father — but in a series of murders. Alma tries to get Fenix to leave this all behind, but his mother demands that he kills the only woman he has ever loved. He responds by stabbing her, yet she does not die.

That’s when we learn the truth. Concha has been dead since the night Orgo took her arms all those years ago and an armless mannequin has been the one that our hero — such as it is — has been listening to. Along with the help of more imaginary friends, Fenix destroys the past and surrenders to the police, amazed that he has regained control of his arms once again.

As the elephant dies in this film, inspiration was born. In Eddie Murphy’s song “Whazupwitu,” everything begins with the words of the clown: “The elephant is dying.” This is not the last time Murphy would mention the director’s work, as he often brought him up while he did press for Dolemite Is My Name.

I am also amused that beyond Argento’s brother producing this — and by osmosis some of the murder scenes feeling as if they are inspired by Dario — Rene Cardona Jr. (yes, the director of Tintorera) was also a producer.

Even after several watches of this film, I am still astounded by its rich palette of colors, the way it synthesizes references from Universal’s Invisible Man to the lucha movies of Mexico’s past and how the hero is the villain while also being pure of heart, despite the many murders he has committed.

Perhaps in my teenage years, I was not yet ready for the psychomagic cocktail that a teacher like Jodorowsky was shaking up with this film. Yet today, I can definitely tell you that it has my highest recommendation. Please watch it. I’d love to discuss it with you.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Eight of Francis Veber’s movies have been remade as American films. Le Grand Blond Avec une Chaussure Noire was The Man with One Red Shoe. L’emmerdeur was Buddy Buddy. La Cage aux Folles was, of course, The Birdcage. Le Jouet was The Toy. Les Comperes was Fathers’ Day. La Chevre was remade as Pure Luck. Le Diner de Cons was Dinner for Schmucks. And finally, this film is a remake of his own Les Fugitifs.

On the day Daniel James Lucas (Nick Nolte) is released from prison, he’s taken hostage by Ned Perry (Martin Short), who has no idea how to be a criminal but must raise money to save the life of Meg, his daughter.

Alan Ruck from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and James Earl Jones play the cops who are on their trail. While they’re chasing down Lucas, Ned and Meg, its ironic that Jones was mute unto he made it to high school.

Short was in two movies based on Veber’s films, as he’s also in Pure Luck. Both times, he took over parts originally played by Pierre Richard.

Marc Rocco was the adopted son of Alex Rocco, who we all remember as Moe Greene from The Godfather. He directed this film, as well as Where the Day Takes You. This Wilmington, North Carolina shot movie seems like the favorite of every woman I’ve ever dated and now, as we sit in quarantine, I must again watch it for my wife.

Oh man, this movie. Bobby Keller (Corey Feldman) runs right into Lainie Diamond (Meredith Salenger) at the same time that Coleman Ettinger (Jason Robards) and his wife Gena (Piper Laurie ) are trying to meditate into being soulmates forever and ever. This leads to that most dependable of all teenage tropes, the body switch film.

As Coleman lives Bobby’s life, he is haunted by him in his dreams and must deal with his best friend Dinger (Corey Haim) the rest of his waking hours, as well as Lainie’s boyfriend (William McNamara, Opera) and her mother (Susan Blakely, Over the Top).

So many favorites of mine are in this to try and make me feel better about watching it, like Harry Dean Stanton, Victoria Jackson and, yes, Alex Rocco. Lala Zappa is here as well, as she had agreed to be in the movie only if her boyfriend Haim was in the film too.

Michael Damian’s cover of “Rock On” was a big deal from this movie, with the Coreys and Salinger all appearing in the video.

If you ever wanted to have the lead singer of Starship, Mickey Thomas, sing a song with Mel Torme, this movie is the answer you’ve been looking for.

When this movie was made, both Coreys were getting into drugs and Feldman was all into the world of Michael Jackson, which is why there’s an extender dance sequence. That said — this is pretty much Corey Haim’s last big movie.

The dialogue in this movie upsets me to no end, much less the antics of both Coreys. But there are times when you must love your wife — especially when you are quarantined at home — and you give in and watch a movie with her.

You can watch this on Tubi.

I’ve never understood No Holds Barred. It had the entire WWE machine behind it —  watching an hour of their program in 1989 was akin to watching an hour commercial for this movie — and this was the movie they put so much effort behind? A movie that makes wrestling and its top star both look like morons? I get that the rest of the world sees pro wrestling like this, but when I realized that this was how the company itself saw it, it was pretty sad.

But yeah, I still went to the drive-in and watched it. They sold me.

Imagine if Vince McMahon decided to make an entire movie about Ted Turner.

Well, stop dreaming and start watching, because Brell (Kurt Fuller) is Ted, owning an entire network that is being toppled by pro wrestler Rip Thomas (who is Hulk Hogan other than the fact that he wears blue instead of the yellow and red, brother). That’s right — all his network needs to start failing is to go up against Rip, until they start making their own wrestling program called Nitro…I mean Battle of the Tough Guys. 

On this show, Zeus (Tiny Lister, Friday), an ex-con and former student of the same man who taught Rip takes over the world of wrestling from the No Count Bar. Brell is the kind of guy who replies to people making fun of his penis size by sending killers after Rip and rapists after Rip’s PR person Sam (Joan Severance).

There’s also a scene beats up a henchman so badly that the guy craps his pants. I mean, wouldn’t you after a gigantic human being basically flies out of a limo?

Beyond getting to see Gene Okerlund, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, Howard Finkel and Joey Marella on the big screen, this movie also features Jeep Swensen (he’d go on to play Bane in Batman and Robin), Bill Eadie (Axe from Demolition and the Mask Superstar) and one of my favorite wrestlers of all time, Stan “The Lariat” Hansen. In fact, when the movie came out, there was a big rumor that Hansen — who achieved most of his fame in Japan — was about to leave Giant Baba’s All Japan Pro Wrestling to come to challenge Hogan. It never happened. They did fight a year later in a match between AJPW and WWE in Japan just days after Hogan lost the belt to the Ultimate Warrior.

There’s another Japanese influence to the movie, as Hogan doesn’t use his American legdrop finisher here as Rip, but instead the clothesline-like Axe Bomber that he used to win so many matches in New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Zeus, however, did come to WWE and claimed that he deserved to be the star of the film. After a Summerslam 1989 match between Hogan and Brutus Beefcake against Zeus and Randy Savage, the feud culminated in a PPV called No Holds Barred: The Match/The Movie, an event that played the movie and then a blowoff tag team match.

No Holds Barred was produced by star Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon, only to be distributed by New Line Cinema after completion. When the first draft of the script was turned in, Hogan and McMahon disliked it so much, they checked into a Florida hotel and stayed up for 72 hours straight — cocaine — rewriting the script together.

Thomas J. Wright, who directed this, was also the artist who painted the artwork featured on Night Gallery. He was also the second unit director for Howard the Duck and Staying Alive.

You can watch this on Amazon Prime and Tubi.

Canada made the move in the late 1980’s from slashers to sex comedies, so it seemed. This next Police Academy ripoff concerns firefighters and was filmed days after a very similar 80’s sex on the job comedy, Recruits.

Writer, producer and star Mike Strapko — along with his brother and an actor named Goran Kalezic — were production assistants on that Wassanga Beach shot, Charlie Wiener-directed film.

Wiener made a TV movie called Blue Murder and Dragon Hunt in addition to this movie (he also wrote Screwball Hotel), so let me assure you — his scumbag skills are in full effect here.

We meet our heroes — such as they are — Sam (Kalezic), Keith (Eric Crabb) and Baduski (Strapko) as they leave the beach to fight a fire, which really ends up being a surprise party for the firefighting parrot Fireballs, who loves beer and breasts.

I really think I might never have to write again after that sentence.

The movie then becomes Gung Ho, as Japanese business owner Mr. Matsuro wants to bring his company to town, but thinks that the fire department can’t handle things. He wants to bring in his own team of Japanese fire fighting experts.

Can you believe I just wrote that?

Strapko was supposedly an actual firefighter, so one would assume he’d want to make the profession look more heroic than this. Actually, scratch that. He just wanted to see as many breasts as possible, much like the character he’s playing, which is really more John Belushi cosplay than anything.

This movie is my kind of film. It’s neither sexy nor funny, so the more that it attempts either, it actually becomes more of the latter. For example, the idea of a bird that is dubbed to sound like it’s swearing is mildly fine the first time, becomes grating and then annoying before becoming incoherently amazing. This is the kind of movie that demands to be watched with an entire table full of mind-altering substances and a group of people who refuse to judge it and instead demand that it get worse so that it gets better.

The movie comes and goes from You Tube — as either a non-sign or age-restricted sign-in — and the lastest upload can be enjoyed HERE. In lieu of a trailer, you can watch We Bare All’s review-homage to USA’s “Up All Night” airing of Fireballs, which features plenty of clips from the film.

If you laughed at the fact that Pete Bonerz directed this movie, then this is the movie for you.

This time, Harris and Proctor must work with the good guys to apprehend the Mastermind, whose gang is running wild all over town. Bonus points to him for getting Gerrit Graham (Terrorvision, Phantom of the Paradise) to join up!

Commandant Lassard (George Gaynes) assembles his finest men and women for the case, including Hightower (Bubba Smith), Tackleberry (David Graf), Jones (Michael Winslow), Hooks (Marion Ramsey), Callahan (Leslie Easterbrook), Fackler (Bruce Mahler), and Mahoney replacement and his nephew, Nick (Matt McCoy).

Billie Byrd is in this, but she’s playing a totally different role and not Mrs. Feldman, so if you demand continuity in your 80’s comedies, you’re out of luck.

That is, however, Grandmaster Melle Mel in this. And Allison Mack, the one-time Smallville actress who charged with sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy and forced labor conspiracy as part of her role in the NXIVM sex cult. Who would have guessed?

The following year Paul Maslansky would produce Ski Patrol, which he had hoped would replace Police Academy and have several sequels. It failed, as did this movie. There wouldn’t be another Police Academy film for five more years.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This movie, originally reviewed on April 11, 2019, is one of my favorite dumb films ever. I mean, Jim Varney and Traci Lords in one movie? 

Auggie Hamilton is all about making that fast buck. He’s just been kicked out of college for a gambling and drinking party after being there for way longer than four years, as well as trying to sleep with the dean’s daughter. What’s he going to do now?

So when he learns that his friend Samantha (Tracy Griffith, Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland) is about to sell her father’s garage to make way for Wrangler Bob Bundy (Jim Varney, yes, the Ernest P. Worrell playing, Slinky Dog voicing Jim Varney. Trivia note: Blake Clark, who is also in this movie, was friends with Varney and took over the voice of Slinky after Varney’s death) and his constantly growing burger empire.

How do you defeat a megacorporation? Well, you go get some drugs that make people horny and put them in your burgers, that’s how. And if you’re wondering how they get that drug, one of the way they get women in bed is to sneak them into a lab where men suffer from non-stop erections. The girls see all these bald-headed yogurt slingers and the next thing you know, they’re in bed with the guys. Because you know — that’s totally how romance works. Movies like this are why I didn’t get laid until I was 24.

How does the new fast food place get successful? Well, beyond the date rape drugs in the special sauce, they also cater a fancy preppie sorority bash been thrown by Mary Beth Bensen, who is played by the same person who played the grown-up Angela in Sleepaway Camp II and Sleepaway Camp III. That’s Pamela Springsteen and yes, she’s the Boss’s sister.

Stick around — Traci Lords also shows up as an industrial spy, sent by Wrangler Bob to ruin our heroes. And oh yeah — the judge of their big case is played Kevin McCarthy from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Michael J. Pollard shows up, too.

This isn’t a movie you’d be proud to talk about with anyone, but who cares? Varney is great, Traci Lords is Traci Lords and burgers cause people to get laid. You could do much worse.

Are you ready for the movie that won USA Networks’ B-Movie Awards for Best Picture and has the honor of being their highest-rated late-night film when it first aired on cable television?

How about a Police Academy ripoff with Ginger Lynn and Linnea Quigley? Are you prepared for that?

What if I told you that RIck Sloane, the maker of Hobgoblins, was the creator?

Yeah, you’d watch that.

Holly Wells (Ginger Lynn, the one-time queen of VHS adult films) goes legit, teaming with scream queen Linnea Quigley, who plays Didi, to enter a vice school where cops learn how to bust adult movies and prostitution.

Tamara Clatterbuck, who is also in Hobgoblins and was a dominatrix in UHF, is Tinsel while Jean Carol is the evil Queen Bee. Karen Russell also shows up and you remember her from films like Hellbent, Phoenix the Warrior, Dr. Alien and Shock ‘Em Dead.

Jayne Hamil also makes the first of her five appearances as vice academy teacher Miss Thelma Louise Devonshire. And hey! The actress using the name Christian Barr who plays Cherry Pop is actually Allison Barron, who we all know as Helen from Night of the Demons.

Ginger Lynn isn’t the only adult star in this. The late Viper, a former ballet dancer who eventually left the adult industry and became a phlebotomy technician is here too.

This is a movie so cheap that the girls all wore their own outfits and Ginger drives her own car in the opening. Are clothes and cars why you’re watching this? I dare say no.

You can watch this on Tubi or grab the blu ray set of the first three films from Vinegar Syndrome. It features interviews with Lynn and Quigley, as well as commentary Rick Sloane.

Licence to Kill is a film of firsts and lasts. It was the first film in the Bond series to not use the title of an Ian Fleming story. And the first time that a Bond girl — Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell) — would ever drink one of 007’s signature vodka-martini cocktails.

It’s the final Bond film to be directed by John Glen, the last to feature actors Robert Brown as M and Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny, and the final Bond film for screenwriter Richard Maibaum, composer John Barry, title designer Maurice Binder, producer Albert R. Broccoli and lead actor Timothy Dalton.

As Felix Leiter has his leg torn apart by a shark and his young wife is killed on the day of their marriage, Bond has a flashback to the events of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Now, he will have his revenge — which echoes both Yojimbo and the spaghetti remake of that film, A Fistful of Dollars — in the most violent and brutal Bond film until Daniel Craig took the role.

Robert Davi is great as this film’s heavy, Franz Sanchez, Latin America’s most powerful drug lord who has been wanted by the DEA for years. After Bond and Leiter bust him, he pays his way out — Everett McGill (Reverend Lowe from Silver Bullet and Daddy from The People Under the Stairs) is the corrupt DEA man — and attacks the CIA agent and kills his wife (Priscilla Barnes).

Making this film even better is the fact that Sanchez’s henchmen — and women — are all played by great talents. Anthony Zerbe (The Omega Man and, yes KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park), Talisa Soto (Mortal Kombat) and an amazingly young Benicio del Toro excel in this film. Even Wayne Newton shows up in this!

Now, it was time for the Bond franchise to reinvent itself all over again. Luckily, there was someone waiting in the wings who was ready to be 007 for literally decades.