EDITOR’S NOTE: Puppet Master II was on USA Up All Night on May 24, 1996.

Puppet Master 2 begins in 1990 as André Toulon’s grave is being excavated by Pinhead, who opens the coffin and pours a vial onto his creator’s skeleton while Blade, Jester, Tunneler, and Leech Woman watch. Soon, the skeleton raises his arms, and Toulon is back from the dead.

Then, we return to the hotel where Megan from the last movie was killed, and as a result, Alex is suspected of her death and is in an insane asylum. Nothing is mentioned about the reanimated dog.

Soon, the puppets attempt to steal away parapsychologist Carolyn Bramwell, whom Toulon believes is the reincarnation of his deceased wife, Elsa. There’s also a new puppet named Torch along for the ride. This one also explains why the puppets kill — they need brain tissue to stay alive. 

This one ends with Toulon double-crossing the puppets in the hope of bringing his wife back from the dead. Like I said before, no one should screw with the puppets, not even the Puppet Master.

Strangely enough, the only reason why Leech Woman was destroyed in this movie was that studio executives at Paramount hated her. Another bit of trivia — look for Mr. Punch from Dolls on Toulon’s shelf.

Puppet Master II is the only movie that David Allen, who created the puppet special effects for the first film, directed. Check out our review of The Dungeonmaster to learn way more than you may want to know about this talented artist with a dark secret.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Child’s Play 2 was on USA Up All Night on October 29, 1994 and October 31, 1997.

John Lafia was one of the co-writers of the first film and returned to direct the sequel, with creator Don Mancini also returning. Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent) is also back. Still, unlike many slasher sequel characters, his life has undergone significant changes since encountering the possessed doll with the spirit of Charles Lee Ray. His mother was institutionalized after the end of the last movie. Now he’s in foster care being raised by Phil and Joanne Simpson (Gerrit Graham and Jenny Agutter) along with Kyle (Christine Elise), a punk rock mean girl that my wife, when questioned on this film, said, “She had the wardrobe and attitude that I wanted when I was a kid. And she smoked!” Keep in mind, Becca was six or seven when she watched this at least a hundred and fifty times.

Meanwhile, the Play Pals Corporation has convinced shareholders that the Chucky incident never really happened. That means that as soon as the line fires up, there’s an incident, and Charles Lee Ray finds himself back in the body of a Good Guy doll.

Of course, this ends in the factory where the dolls are made, as Chucky starts to become human and needs Andy as a host. Kyle bonds with him and together they blow the doll’s head up real good.

I love how John Lafia made this movie from the perspective of a kid. He used very wide lenses, low angles, bright colors and a deep depth of field to show the world as a place larger for children than grown-ups.

This was a number one box office smash the day it was released. Not everyone loved it. Gene Siskel asked, “Who was this trash made for and would you want to sit next to them in a theater?”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Breakfast In Bed was on USA Up All Night on July 8 and December 10, 1994; October 21, 1995; March 29, 1996.

Marilyn Chambers was born into a middle-class family in Rhode Island; she started skipping school at sixteen to move to New York City and try out for movies. That’s how she ended up in The Owl and the Pussycat as Evelyn Lang. She’d later — infamously — be one of the 99 & 44/100% pure Ivory Snow girls before being in Sean S. Cunningham’s Together and starting to be a dancer. She then answered an ad from the Mitchell Brothers and pitched that if everyone was tested and that she got a major payday and 10% of the profits, she’d be in a sex film.

Behind the Green Door is one of the three biggest movies of porno chic, along with The Devil In Ms. Jones and Deep Throat. Despite performing sex on screen — she was the first to do an interracial scene in mainstream pornography — Chambers became known as the wholesome all-American girl next door. At some point, she had a falling out with the brothers and began a relationship with Linda Lovelace’s ex, Chuck Traynor. After a few years, they reunited to make two BDSM films, Beyond de Sade and Never a Tender Moment. 

She struggled to break into the mainstream. Nicholas Rey said that she’d “eventually be able to handle anything that the young Katie Hepburn or Bette Davis could,” but he died before he could film the movie he had in mind with her. Often, she was brought into auditions just so actors could meet the porn star in person. Or when it came to Hardcore, they thought she looked too innocent to be someone who had sex on film.

She had better luck with Rabid and Croenenberg; she also released the disco single “Benihana” and achieved some success in Las Vegas, performing in several plays. She also wrote several books, including My Story, Xaviera Meets Marilyn Chambers, Sensual Secrets, and  The Illustrated Kama Sutra.

But by 1980, she was back in adult, making the huge home video success Insatiable and had her own line of videos, Marilyn Chambers’ Private Fantasies. A fear of AIDS — and an 1985 arrest for trumped up sex worker charges — got her out of adult and back to making the kind of movies — Bedtime Stories, Breakfast In Bed, The Marilyn Diaries, Party Girls, New York Nights — that were perfect for USA Up All Night.

She made yet another porn comeback in the Veronica Hart-directed Still Insatiable, Dark Chambers and Edge Play.  Plus, Chambers ran for vice president on the Personal Choice Party ticket, a libertarian political party, in 2004 and 2008. Sadly, she died before her 57th birthday from a cerebral hemorrhage caused by an aneurysm related to heart disease.

Ernest G. Sauer (also known as Eric Drake) directed this, as he did many of her later softcore films. It was written by Don Shiffrin and Gary P. Conner. It’s a basic softcore story: Chambers is Marilyn Valentine, an actress who suddenly inherits a hotel that she decides to renovate instead of continuing to act. After all, her manager took all her money! Soon, it becomes a house of ill repute, but one perfect for honeymoons.

The same song plays over and over. Chambers is charming, and everyone eventually makes love, as you’d expect from a Cinemax After Dark movie. Or USA Up All Night, edited to remove all nudity. This, without the breasts, is like pizza with no toppings, cheese, or sauce, but you know, not everyone’s parents were wealthy enough to afford pay channels.

You can watch an edited version of this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Far Out Man was on USA Up All Night on September 3, 1993.

A hippie, the Far Out Man (Tommy Chong, who also directed and wrote this film), goes on a road trip with his son, Kyle (Paris Chong, Tommy’s son), to see America. This is a vanity project to the point that Chong also has his daughter, Raw Dawn, play herself, his wife, Shelby, play his ex, Tree, his daughter, Robbi, is a dancer, and even his former brother-in-law, Flloyd Sneed, shows up as a drummer. Cheech Marin plays himself, hidden in the back of Far Out Man’s vehicle. It wasn’t always that way — Chong replaced William Lustig as director, and I want to know that story.

Labelled “A Tommy Chong Attempt,” this has plenty of people playing themselves, like Judd Nelson and C. Thomas Howell — married at the time to Raw Dawn — who at one point yells at a cop, “Hey, don’t you know who I am? I’m C. Thomas Howell! I was the black dude in Soul Man!”

Plus, you get Martin Mull as the therapist, Dr. Liddledick, Michael Winslow as a cop, Paul Bartell as the high school principal, Weebee Cool, and a band made up of Don Dokken from Dokken, John Norum from Europe, and Paul Monroe from XYZ. Reynaldo Rey plays their manager, who gets high on over-the-counter aspirin smashed up and overdoses, then is brought back to life by the guitar of Fthe ar Out Man.

Between that scene and C. Thomas Howell and Judd Nelson are trying to remember who they are, which made me laugh. It’s in no way as good as Chong’s earlier films, but even a lesser Chong movie can still be funny.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Alligator II: The Mutation was on USA Up All Night on December 16, 1995, along with Jaws 3 and Orca. You can watch the host segments on the Internet Archive.

More remake than sequel, Alligator II starts with rich villain Vincent Brown (Steve Railsback) dumping some of the Future Chemicals into the sewers, which goes right to the baby alligator from the end of Alligator.

Detective David Hodges (Joseph Bologna) and his wife Chris (Dee Wallace, forever battling against eco horror) realize that all the parts of people are coming from an alligator and try to get a big party at Brown’s casino on the lake cancelled, but you know how it goes. When your mayor is Major Healey from I Dream of Jeannie (Bill Daily), these things happen. Actually, watching movies where small-minded governments ignore ecological terror and shout down people and ruin lives really feels on topic. Maybe a bit too much.

With Hodges and Officer Rich Harmon (Woody Brown) on one side and alligator hunter “Hawk” Hawkins (Richard Lynch!) and his team, which includes his brother Billy (Kane Hodder!), on the other, you know that there’s going to be a lot of people torn apart and wolfed down.

What I did not expect was the lengthy pro wrestling scene, which is filled with movie and wrestling crossover actors, like Professor Toru Tanaka, Alexis Smirnoff, Chavo Guerrero, Count Billy Varga, Gene LeBell and Bill Anderson. The man who would be the next Hulk Hogan, Tom Magee, is also here as a strongman who gets launched by the alligator’s tail.

Director Jon Hess made Watchers, while writer Curt Allen wrote Bloodstone. This movie is pure junk in the best of ways, just scenes and people chewing, Richard Lynch breaking down over the loss of his crew and rocket launches against a monstrous alligator. Watch it in the pool.