EDITOR’S NOTE: Army of Darkness was on USA Up All Night on October 24, 1997.

Army of Darkness was probably the last movie that I couldn’t wait to see. It felt like it was delayed forever as Universal wanted a PG-13 and got an NC-17; they finally got an R. That’s after they demanded a new ending where Ash ended up in a better place — Raimi said, “Actually, I kind of like the fact that there are two endings, that in one alternate universe Bruce is screwed, and in another universe he’s some cheesy hero.” — and the director needed $3 million to finish the movie. Universal was not willing to give him the money and delayed its release due to a dispute with producer Dino De Laurentiis over the rights to Hannibal Lecter. This moved the release from summer to near Valentine’s Day. As you might imagine, this did better on cable and video than in theaters, even though I found the one place showing it in Butler, PA.

At the end of Evil Dead II, Ash went back in time. And that’s where he starts, captured by Lord Arthur’s (Marcus Gilbert) soldiers and due to be sacrificed in a pit of Deadites. After surviving, he frees Duke Henry the Red (Richard Grove), meets the Wise Man (Ian Abercrombie), falls for Sheila (Embeth Davidtz), and retrieves his shotgun and chainsaw. All he has to do is find the Necronomicon and say, “Klaatu barada nikto.”

However, as always, Ash is a moron.

He screws up and unleashes the Army of Darkness, led by Bill Moseley and an evil version of Ash, which he must battle with his limited understanding of warfare.

After winning the battle, Ash is to read a passage from the Necronomicon and swallow six drops of potion so that he can sleep and wake up in his own time. He drinks seven and wakes up at the end of the world. Or he would have, if Universal didn’t make the new ending where Ash protects S-Mart — Ted Raimi works there — from a Deadite, saying “Hail to the king, baby” before kissing a co-worker (Angela Featherstone).

Between the miniature Ash, the look of the Deadites and the stop-motion, this had taken Evil Dead from its horrific origins into mainstream comedy, even if no one wanted to see it in theaters.

This has some great alternate titles. In Argentina, it was Noche alucinante 2: el ejército de las tinieblas (Amazing Night 2: Army of Darkness). Brazil? Crazy Night 3. In Mexico, it was The Devil’s Awakening 3 and Shadow Warrior. Best of all of these is Kyaputen sûpâmâketto, the Japanese name, which translates as Captain Supermarket.

According to Sam Raimi in The Evil Dead Companion by Bill Warren, Charles Napier was initially slated to play Ash’s boss in S-Mart, but his role was ultimately cut. Likewise, Bridget Fonda was scheduled to have more screen time, as her scenes were added in the reshoots.

Also: Genius always steals. Bruno Mattei’s The Tomb outright lifted scenes of skeletons rising from their graves from this movie, as well as footage from the first two Indiana Jones movies and the 1999 edition of The Mummy. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Frogtown II was on USA Up All Night on October 18, 1996 and August 30, 1997.

Directed and written by Donald G. Jackson, this is the sequel — one of many that he made — to Hell Comes to Frogtown. This doesn’t have the low budget of the first one. It’s even lower. It also replaces Roddy Piper with Robert Z’Dar.

Captain Delano (Charles Napier) sends Sam Hell Frog Town to rescue Texas Rocket Ranger John Jones (Lou Ferrigno), who can transform into a frog person, just like he’s back on CBS, due to operations from Professor Tanzer (Brion James) and Nurse Cloris (Linda Singer), who are being forced to do this by Czar Frogmeister.

Dr. Spangle (Denice Duff) is back as well, but I miss Sandahl Bergman. Working with Brandy Stone (Don Stroud), she and Sam Hell have to rescue Jones before the Texas Rocket Rangers are destroyed. USA Up All Night fans will be happy to see Ehonda Sheer in this as Fuzzy, the communicator for the good guys.

Somehow, this feels way longer than it is, and I can’t even think of how much slower it was when it had late-night commercials. But hey — mutant frogs against the chin of Z’Dar. You can do worse.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Danger Zone 4: Mad Girls, Bad Girls was on USA Up All Night on January 9 and August 20, 1993; May 28, November 25 and December 11, 1994.

My wife always picks the best time to come down and see what I’m watching. She walked in during this, saw all the nudity and said, “What’s this called?” I paused it, she saw the title and stared me down and said, “Mad girls. Bad girls.” It was as if I got caught as a child doing something wrong.

Just look at this sell copy: “Jason Williams (Flesh Gordon) again plays Wade Olson the Harley riding renegade cop. This time, Olson finds himself deep in the Danger Zone when seven angry women kidnap him and take him into the desert away from the law. Sex is their weapon, and revenge is their motive. Mad Girls Bad Girls join them for a wild ride into the Danger Zone.”

Seven women take Wade out to the desert to kill him for jailing their biker men. But who gets to be the one who murders him? Whoever turns him on the most. Most of the movie has Lisa (Amerika, who was also a sex worker in The Kung Fu Mummy), Samantha (Kelly Brown, Brad from Hey Dude), Natalie (Linda Comers), Barbie (Jean Stewart, Nurse Pony in Class of Nuke ‘Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown) and Jessie (Beverly Trachtenberg, Fortress of Amerikkka) attacking the old man, making fun of his lack of erection and then, weirdly, all trying to have sex with him. The fact that Williams was involved creatively and monetarily may be the reason why.

This was directed by Gregory Vernon Jeffery, who also made Death Riders, and written by Williams with Gregory Poirier, who directed Tomcats and wrote Danger Zone III: Steel Horse War. He also wrote the story for National Treasure: Book of Secrets, which frankly ruined me for the rest of the day. How did he go from this to that?

The other movies in this are 1987’s The Danger Zone, 1989’s Danger Zone II: Reaper’s Revenge, 1990’s Danger Zone III: Steel Horse War and 1994’s Death Riders, all of which have Williams as Olsen and Robert Random as Reaper, other than the last movie, which has Robert Brand (and Leatherface R.A. Mihailoff). Who needed five of these movies when this one is so padded, where we see each biker’s man getting killed in flashbacks from the other movies? And Death Riders is just a compilation and is also called Valley of the Cycle Sluts. 

23 people watched this on Letterboxd before me. Let this knowledge guide your watching.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Body Waves was on USA Up All Night on January 18 and September 26, 1997.

Body Waves has the same poster — close, I guess — to Beach Balls. They are not the same movie.

Director P.J. Pesce had Scorsese and De Palma for teachers and this was his first film. He’d go on to make From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter, Sniper 2, Smokin’ Aces 2, Lost Boys: The Tribe and a lot of TV. This was co-written with Bo Zenga, who wrote Soul Plane and directed and wrote Stan Helsing.

Rick Matthews (Bill Calvert) is inheriting. his father’s (Dick Miller) hemorrhoid cream company, as long as he makes some money. He and his friends, Dooner (Jim Wise), Squirrely (Michael McDonald), Joe (John Crane) and Larry (Marc Grapey) end up inventing a cream that makes people want to have sex. I mean, maybe women want to have sex. Dudes never have issues with that.

Rick also has a girlfriend, Stacy (Leah Lail), who is dealing with Himmel (Larry Linville), a right-wing commentator out to take down her radio station and use it to spread his message.

IMDB BS: “Sherrie Rose said producer Roger Corman tried to pressure her into having her shirt get accidentally ripped off and exposing her breasts during the pool table scene. She argued against it, saying it made no sense, and he finally backed down.”

Actually, I totally believe that. At least he didn’t ask her to be sexually attacked by a worm. Corman would use her in other projects, including as Professor Ursula Undershaft/Aftershock in the Black Scorpion movies and TV show.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me was on USA Up All Night on May 111, 1996 and January 31, 1997.

Directed and written by Joel Hershman, this begins with Eli (Max Parrish) taking a shotgun wedding literally when he accidentally shoots his wealthy fiancée, Twinkle (Sean Young) and runs to a trailer park, where he hides out. At the same time, Mr. Jones (Timothy Leary) gives him a new ID.

Everybody wants him for something: Lucille (Diane Ladd) and her mother (Mary Bernadette Ladner, Ladd’s real life mom) want his body; Sabra (Andrea Naschak, who is adult star April Rayne) collects men like Barbie dolls and has a virginal sister named Diana (Adrienne Shelly) and Olga (Ania Suli) is an actress with a son named Lazlo (Bella Lehcozky) who seemingly just need to make him crazy. Eli becomes Ben and ends up in bed with Sabra, but of course, he just wants her sister.

Sean Young worked in props on this, bringing a lot of items to the set. That alone is interesting, as is how much this wants to be a John Waters film. It also has a substantial music budget, featuring songs by The Cramps, King Missile, the Violent Femmes, and the Pixies throughout.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice was on USA Up All Night on April 5, 1996.

Directed by David Price, the son of studio boss Frank Price, and written by A. L. Katz and Gilbert Adler (who also worked on Bordello of Blood), Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice is anything but, as it’s the first of what would be nine sequels. Two of them were reboots.

Hemingford, Nebraska isn’t Gatlin, but it’s close enough. Two days after the events of Children of the Corn, the people of this town adopt the orphans of Gatlin and one of them, Micah (Ryan Bollman), starts talking to He Who Walks Behind the Rows and yes, the sequel is ready.

John Garrett (Terence Knox) is in town reporting on the children, and his son Danny (Terence Knox) has come along for the ride. John’s career is bad, but not as bad as his life, as he’s going through a divorce and Danny hates him for it, so he fits right into all these creepy children.

After some lighting wipes out some reporters John knew from back when life was better, he gets down to business and starts sleeping with bed-and-breakfast owner Angela Casual (Rosaline Allen), and no, I won’t go for the easy joke and say that she lives up to her name. Danny might, because he’s mad that his dad is getting it on so quickly, but he also meets the creeptastic Lacey Hellerstat (Christie Clark), who drops some knowledge on him about her hometown.

While all that drama is happening, Micah and his child gang get to work dropping houses on people and using voodoo dolls to kill people while they’re in church. They even throw an old woman and her mechanized wheelchair through a window. I am a strange person; I realize this, but I laughed like a lunatic during this.

Somewhere in all of this, there’s a Native American professor named Dr. Frank Red Bear (Ned Romero), who throws some exposition on this sequel fire and claims that this has happened before. However, there’s good news: a prophecy suggests that there’s a good spirit, not a bad one. Or maybe it’s people selling bad corn which has a green gas that comes out of it.

Dr. Frank Red Bear gets some great dialogue.

Dr. Frank Red Bear: Koyaanisqatsi. It means life is out of balance. My ancestors would have told you that man should be at one with the earth, the skies, and water. But the white man has never understood this. He only knows how to take. And after a while, there’s nothing left to take. So, everything’s out of balance. And we all fall down.

John Garrett: Wait a minute… so that’s what happened here in Gatlin?

Dr. Frank Red Bear: No… what happened in Gatlin was that those kids went ape-shit and killed everyone.

As if they’re been challenged to go as hard as they can, the children lock every adult in a building and set it on fire, killing almost every character in the movie before kidnapping Angela and Lacey, taking them into the cornfields and trying to get Danny to sacrifice them.

Now, as you sit there, you may ask yourself, “Do I want to watch a child get pulled into a harvester, but not before he has a demon face?”

Of course you do. This movie delivers.

He Who Walks Behind the Rows is now a benevolent spirit by the end, as Dr. Frank heals from being dead after being shot with an arrow, and his ghost paints some rocks.

The director claims that a local Christian group protested the movie and left a dead rodent as a warning, so they created their own church for the movie.

You can blame former New World exec Larry Kuppin for this. After there hadn’t been a sequel for years, he picked up the filming rights and formed Trans Atlantic Entertainment. This studio existed solely to produce sequels to several New World Pictures films, including this movie, Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest, Hellraiser III, and Avenging Angel. They also announced sequels to Wanted Dead or Alive and Crimes of Passion, which didn’t get made.

Trans Atlantic also produced Female Perversions, Death Ring, The Vineyard, Rage and Honor II, Plughead Rewired: Circuitry Man II, Tollbooth, Cirio Santiago’s Vulcan, ’68, I Shot a Man In Vegas and The Tale of Tillie’s Dragon.

In fact, the same crew shot this and Hellraiser III back-to-back to save money.