Most folks only know EC Comics for Tales from the Crypt — OK, maybe MAD Magazine — but the truth is, there were a ton of other titles that that venerable publisher released. Just in the horror realm, they also had the Vault of Horror (yes, there was an Amicus film with that title) and Crypt of Terror. But there was also Weird Fantasy, Weird Science, Crime SuspenStories, Shock SuspenStories, Frontline Combat, Piracy, Weird Science-Fantasy and even the New Direction post-Comics Code books Impact, Valor, Extra!, Aces High, Psychoanalysis, M.D. and Incredible Science Fiction.

I’ve been surprised that none of these other EC Comics ever got a movie or series until I learned about Two-Fisted Tales.

Strangely enough, as Harvey Kurtzman was the editor of the book, these war stories didn’t always follow their title and often had a very anti-war prejudice. Kurtzman had been drafted in 1942 and knew the horrors of war first-hand. As he saw the other war comics on the news racks, he was upset by how much they glorified war. He saw no heroes in his stories, only people trapped in situations beyond their control. He would later comment in The Complete EC Library: Two-Fisted Tales Volume 1, “Nobody had done anything on the depressing aspects of war, and this, to me, was such a dumb—it was a terrible disservice to the children.”

I guess no one explained that to anyone who worked on this show.

In 1991, a TV pilot was put together by producers Joel Silver, Richard Donner and Robert Zemeckis. Other than using the logo and some of the art in the opening, that’s pretty much all that feels like the comic. Instead, this is very similar to Tales from the Crypt, with William Sadler played Mr. Rush, a violent man who connects all of the stories.

“Showdown” was written by Frank Darabont and directed by Richard Donner is the story of a gunfighter’s last stand. “King of the Road,” written by Randall Jahnson and directed by Tom Holland, is about a drag racer’s past coming to haunt him. Brad Pitt appears in the one. And “Yellow,” written by Jim Thomas, John Thomas, A. L. Katz and Gilbert Adler and directed by Robert Zemeckis is about a soldier who keeps letting down his military man father. It’s the best episode in here, with great acting by Kirk and Eric Douglas, Lance Henriksen and Dan Aykroyd.

Of the three, “Yellow” is the only one based on an EC Comics story, as it was taken from the first issue of Shock SuspenStories and was written by Al Feldstein and illustrated by Jack Davis.

Sadly, this was a letdown and after one airing, the three episodes all appeared as part of Tales from the Crypt. I was always upset when the show didn’t use the material it was based on. This is really no different, but the last tale is tense and brutal, a rare Zemeckis-directed story that isn’t overly dependent on special effects.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Bob Logan made a movie called Up Your Alley that dared to pair Murray Langsdon, the Unknown Comic, with Linda Blair. That is reason enough to allow him to direct the fourth Meatballs movie and in true form, this has nothing to do with any of the other films in the series. It was originally going to be called Happy Campers.

Ricky Wade (Corey Feldman) is the best waterskiing teacher around, but he’d rather chase girls. There’s a waterskiing competition coming up to determine which of the two summer camps in this movie will survive and just when I was thinking how trope-heavy this movie is, Jack Nance, the star of Eraserhead, shows up.

This is the movie Nance was making when his wife Kelly Jean Van Dyke committed suicide. She called him to tell him she was going to do it and he was attempting to talk her down over the phone when lightning took out the phone lines. By the time the LAPD got to their apartment, she had hung herself.

Christy Thom (Playboy Playmate of the Year 1992), Monique Noel (Playboy Playmate of the Month May 1989) and Neriah Davis, who was in both The Bikini Carwash Company movies before being selected as the March 1994 Playboy Playmate of the Month appear in this. These things are, of course, important to these types of films. Perhaps more interesting is that Sarah Douglas, the villainous Ursa from the 70s Superman movies, is in this too.

It’s hard to say that this dosn’t really live up to the Meatballs legacy, when said legacy includes a great first movie, a film about an alien and a street boxer trying to aardvark the girl from the Witch Mountain movies and another installment where God demands that a porn star help Patrick Dempsey lose his virginity.

When you think of mismatched cops, you do not think of Anthony Edwards and Lance Henriksen. That could be because you’ve never seen Delta Heat, a film that was intended to be a TV show and ended up becoming a theatrical film. Or at least a direct to video feature.

Edwards plays Mike Bishop, a cop who has lost his partner to the swamps of Louisiana. Now, he’s teaming up with Henriksen, here playing Jackson Rivers, who has also lost something to those very same swamps: his hand. Yeah, an alligator ate it.

The real reason I watched this — and let’s be perfectly honest — was because Betsy Russell was in it. Between the Saw films, Tomboy, Private School, Out of Control and Avenging Angel, I must confess that I’ve watched so many movies just because she’s in the credits. Around the time of this movie, she and her husband Vincent Van Patten — who she met at The Playboy Mansion, where she visited frequently as her grandfather was a close friend of Hugh Hefner — decided to have a family, which led to Russell pausing her career to raise kids.

As for director Michael Fischa, we’ve devoted an entire day or two to him on our site. So enjoy this tale of a mullet-wearing Edwards hooking up with a hook handed Lance, I guess.

Also known as Gli occhi dentro (The Eyes Inside) and Occhi senza volto (Eyes Without a Face), this Bruno Mattei* giallo — made a few decades late, but hey, give the man a break — tells the story of Giovanna Dei (Monica Carpanese, who is also in Mattei’s Dangerous Attraction and Legittima Vendetta). She’s the creator of a comic book called Doctor Dark, the tale of an anti-hero who is a Pagan professor by day and a babysitter killer by night, cutting out his victim’s eyes and replacing them with shards of broken glass. Now, someone is acting out the murders in real life and leaving the ocular evidence in her apartment.

Written by Lorenzo De Luca — who is writing the upcoming Anthropophagus 2 and The Fourth Horsemen which will have Franco Nero as Keoma and Fred Williamson as Cobra, as well as appearances by Mick Garris Alex Cox, Ruggero Deodato, Fabio Testi, Enzo G. Castellari, Gianni Garko, Ottaviano Dell’Acqua, R.A. Mihailoff, Massimo Vanni and more — and shot by much of the same crew that worked on the aforementioned Dangerous Attraction.

There’s a fair amount of story taken from Tenebre — like the line “If they kill someone with a power drill, do they take it out on Black and Decker?” which comes directly from Peter Neal’s question “Let me ask you something? If someone is killed with a Smith and Wesson revolver…do you go and interview the president of Smith and Wesson?” in Argento’s movie, as well as the idea of art becoming real-life murder. Doctor Dark’s trick of putting glass into the eye sockets of his victims feels a lot like Manhunter. And, of course, there’s Eyeball to be taken from as well. And while we’re on the subject, the entire plot of Sexy Cat. But the most grievous theft is in the Italian VHS release of this film, which completely takes two murder scenes from Lamberto Bava’s A Blade in the Dark. Did Mattei think no one would notice**?

That said, it may just be the fact that I love giallo and am a Bruno Mattei apologist, but I found myself liking this movie. You’d have to be a superfan of both for me to recommend it to you, but if you are, come on over and watch it with me.

*Using the name Herik Montgomery.

**Trick question. He didn’t care.

Any time anyone told me how good an action movie was, I always thought, “Yeah, but Hard Boiled…”

This is the big action movie that all big action movies want to be.

John Woo had been criticized for glamorizing gangsters in his films, so for this film, he created a supercop named Inspector Tequila, who was expertly played by perhaps the coolest actor who has ever lived, Chow Yun-Fat. Do you think Clint Eastwood could make having a baby pee all over you and extinguish the fire on his leg somehow still look awesome?

Also, for all the complaints about the amount of death and destruction in American films, this one wipes out 307 people in 92 minutes (well, if you’re watching the cut version; there’s also a 149-minute cut). There are also around 2,000 different guns firing off 100,000 rounds.

It would also be the last film Woo would make before going to Hollywood to make Hard Target. Don’t worry — he made better stuff after that.

I’ve always felt that Woo is absolutely in love with everything that is film. This movie is a violent ballet with guns and leaps and fire and explosions instead of body movements. While not as dramatic as The Killer, this still has more of a story — and again, way more action — than anything that the U.S. was doing in 1992 or any other year.

I mean, what else other than a love of film explains that the lead character’s name comes from the fact that William Holde drinks an entire bottle of tequila in The Wild Bunch?

I saw Freejack in the theater nearly thirty years ago and have to tell you, the future that it promised has not arrived.

Does it have the title of a Philip K. Dick book but not really have much to do with it?

No, it’s based on his contemporary Robert Sheckley’s* book Immortality, Inc.

Is there a lot of rain?

Oh man, blame it on the rain.

Does the male hero wear dress clothes and/or a trenchcoat?

Nope.

Do Keanu Reeves, Ben Affleck, Dolph Lundgren or Udo Keir appear in it?

Strangely, no.

Does the internet do something it can’t do yet, yet look dated AF?

This movie looked dated the moment it came out. The video game that Jagger plays in the bar would have been dated during the Atari 2600 era.

Are Stabbing Westward, KMFDM, Ministry or God Lives Underwater on the soundtrack?

This movie has a bonkers soundtrack with Little Feat, Scorpions, Jesus Jones, Jane Child, The Jesus and Mary Chain and — you knew it — Ministry performing “Thieves.”

Is it a crappy version of Blade Runner?

Not really.

Are there numerous Asian-influenced scenes?

Throughout!

Do people use future terms that make no sense?

Even the name of the movie is a future term that makes no sense.

Are there a lot of whirring sound effects?

It’s as if the Transformers are constantly transforming.

Do people stare at the camera as it moves through a neon-lit strip club?

Yes.

Are there rock stars in it?

Not just the biggest rock star of all time — arguably — in Mick Jagger, but also New York Doll David Johansen AKA Buster Poindexter, who if I think about long enough, I begin speaking like him. “Zat you, Zantee Claus?”

Is there a feral child?

Nope. That means that this movie is officially a cyberpunk ancient future movie!

Get ready for the crazy future words!

In 2009 — which is now 12 years ago and the irony is not lost on me — the super-wealthy use bonejackers that snatch people from the past and pull them to the future to use their brain dead bodies to become immortal. Those that escape from this process are no longer considered human and are instead called freejacks. And everyone else is so hooked on drugs and beaten by pollution that they’re all unattractive and basically dying.

Alex Furlong (Emilio Estevez) was a Formula 1 racer who died in an explosive crash back in 1991 but has been bonejacked by Victor Vacendak (Jagger), a killing machine for the McCandless Corporation. Oh yeah — his girlfriend Julie Redlund (Rene Russo) works there too because movie logic.

It turns out that her boss (Anthony Hopkins) is really dead and wanted to use Furlong’s body because, well, again let’s blame movie logic.

Of course, Jagger is the main reason to watch this. He got his girl at the time Jerry Hall — who is amazingly married to Rupert Murdoch today — a role, has a code of honor in spite of being the bad guy and wears a ridiculous helmet. Every time I see him, I think of how he responded to John Mulaney writing lines for him on SNL: “Good! Bad!”

I kind of wish that Jagger’s Vacendak was the hero of this movie, because everyone else in this is boring by comparison.

This movie was a mess and at one point it may have been an even bigger one. Producer Ronald Shusett (the writer of Alien, Dead and Buried, The Final Terror, King Kong Lives, Total Recall) was brought in to re-shoot around 40% of original director Geoff Murphy’s (Young Guns II, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, Fortress 2) film.

*Other Sheckley movie adaptions include Condorman, The 10th Victim, Dead Run and Escape from Hell Island.

You know, when Stephen King takes his name off your movie, you probably should think of what that means. Adapted from an original screenplay called CyberGod and King’s 1975 short story, The Lawnmower Man presents a virtual reality world that you could animate on your smartphone today.

Virtual Space Industries Doctor Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) is using psychoactive drugs and virtual reality to enhance cognitive performance. He hopes that his research will help his mentally disabled groundskeeper Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey), but the drugs get swapped and Jobe gets all sexual with Marnie (Jenny Wright, Near Dark) within virtual reality and wipes her mind out.

By the end of the movie, the power has gone to Jobe’s virtual brain and he’s crucifying people and taking off the grid, if I may use the language of Tron. None of this happens in King’s story, which is about a lawnmower guy sacrificing people to the satyr Pan. If anything, Daniel Keyes should have gotten a credit, because this is totally Flowers for Algernon.

Despite King defeating New Line in court and his name not being allowed to be used to advertise the film, they still released this movie on video as Stephen King’s Lawnmower Man, ending with them getting held in contempt of court.

Writer/director Brett Leonard also directed The Dead Pit, Virtuosity, Hideaway, Man-Thing and the music video for “Shock to the System” for Billy Idol, as well as his clip for “Heroin,” which were both on his hilariously titled Cyberpunk album. How did Billy never act in an ancient future movie?