EDITOR’S NOTE: Did you know that Visual Vengeance has a ton of movies on Tubi? It’s true. Check out this Letterboxd list and look for reviews as new movies get added. You can find this movie on Tubi. You can read an interview with the director here and get this on blu ray from MVD.

Just the name L.A. AIDS Jabber is going to offend you or make you want to see this or perhaps even both. Originally released as Jabber in the 90s in the most limited of releases — in the thousands and all self-distributed by creator Drew Godderis — this is the story of Jeff (Jason Majik) and what happens when he finds out that the illness that he’s been feeling could very well be a death sentence.

1994 is a very different place than 2022, but then again, is it so different? We’re still dealing with a pandemic that has been politicized, except that when AIDS was unleashed, it was originally thought to be some form of cancer that only impacted homosexual men (shades of the media as monkeypox became this year’s illness) and any stories of straight men or women didn’t appear on the news.

So when Jeff finds out from his doctor that he has HIV, the disease that causes AIDS, he’s certain that this is the end of his world. Then why shouldn’t it be the end of the world for everyone he can take down along the way?

Jeff gets the bright idea to start filing his blood into syringes and tracking down everyone who wronged him, then injecting them with his infernal hemoglobin. And thus we have a shot on video movie — by necessity, as you can learn in my exclusive interview with Drew — that is filled with shock upon shock.

The thing that’s most astounding about this movie is that despite being SOV it doesn’t seem like a low end production. Yeah, it’s sleazy — would you expect a movie with this title to be any other way? — but it also explores the life of the cops on the case as well as what drove Jeff to go for broke. And man, the soundtrack! It sounds amazing!

Back in 2000, Snopes explored the urban legend that drug addicts were placing their used, HIV-infused needles into pay phone coin slots in order to infect others, as well as another story about AIDS terrorists leaving HIV needles in movie theater seats. Yeah whatever, crazy people of the world. L.A. AIDS Jabber got there first. And of course, it did it better.

Milena (Anna Maria Petrova) has been shot to death after a night in a hotel with her politician lover. Her husband Peter Doncev (Fabio Testi), who is sleeping with someone else — spoiler its his ex and the director of the show that he was in, Julia Yancheva (Florinda Bolkan) — which leads the police into an investigation. Meanwhile, his sister-in-law Tonia (Serena Grandi, The Adventures of Hercules, Graffiante desiderio) comes to help him with his paraplegic daughter Ania (Anya Pencheva). Inspector Ivan Zanova (Paul Martignetti) takes the case, which somehow ends up — more spoilers — with Ania being the killer, as well as offing her dad, and then thinking that a puppet is now her dad. She’s confined to a mental hospital and we walk away.

This was directed by Flavio Mogherini, who also made a much better giallo, The Pyjama Girl Case, and was the art director of Danger: Diabolik. It was shot by Luigi Kuveiller (Deep Red, The New York Ripper), so with those names, I expected so much. But ah, the 90s, when gialli became erotic thrillers and movies were getting made in Bulgaria instead of the Eternal City of Rome. Written by Daniele Stroppa (Delirium, Blue Angel Cafe), this has the elements of what a giallo should be but just goes through the motions. That said, Grandi is gorgeous and could have been a giallo queen two decades before.

Martin Yakobowsky (Mark Benninghoffen) is a Chicago lawyer assigned to resolve a case close to where he grew up in Iowa, a place that he though he had left behind after his testimony in a triple murder case led to a man going to the electric chair.

As for the case, it’s between Polish farm workers — the same people Martin grew up with — and a state congressman. But while he’s back home, Martin becomes obsessed with the case he testified in, the murder of a call girl and her friends. He can’t remember what he saw years ago and he’s started to hear strange noises out of the storage room next to his hotel room. Was the girl he died his girlfriend? Did she die in that noisy room?

The 1940s atmosphere and being set in the U.S. — and filmed in Iowa and Illinois — don’t let on that this is an Italian giallo. Not only was it directed by Fabrizio Laurenti (who made Witchery and The Crawlers using the name Martin Newlin; Joe D’Amato may also have directed some of those movies), but it has a story by Fabio Clemente and Luigi Sardiello that was scripted by Pupi Avati.

Yes, that’s right. Pupi Avati.

This feels a lot like The House with the Laughing Windows at least as much as it explores the memories that we have in our youth and how they aren’t always true as we get older. This also has one of the most sensual razor kills ever, if that can be possible.

I have no idea why more people aren’t talking about this, a film written by an Italian legend and filmed in America. I also can’t believe it took me so long to discover it.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Director, writer — with Vincenzo Cerami — producer and star Roberto Benigni is Loris, who works with mannequins at a department store. He’s barely surviving, owing money to people everywhere and unable to pay rent. At a party, he’s told that there’s a woman who will sleep with anyone. He approaches the wrong woman which gets him named the number one suspect in a series of murders.

Commissioner Frustalupi (Laurent Spielvogel) doesn’t have enough evidence, so he uses undercover officer Jessica (Nicoletta Braschi), who poses as his roommate with the help of police doctor Paride (Michel Blanc). She’s told to be as sexy as possible to inflame his desire and make him try to murder her, including dressing as Little Red Riding Hood. Jessica easily deducts what everyone else should have. Loris is a moron and someone else, someone close to him, is the killer.

For a movie that is inspired by the giallo, this may be the most successful of all of them, as it’s one of the most successful Italian movies ever made.

Usually, I find myself put off by Benigni, but this movie is pretty fun, including him accidentally chasing a woman with a chainsaw.

You can watch this on Tubi.

The Bedrock Community Players presents A Christmas Carol, starring Fred Flintsone as Scrooge, Barney Rubble as Bob Cragit, Betty as Mrs. Cragit, Pebbles as Martha and Bamm-Bamm as Tiny Tim. Mr. Slate is Jacob Marbley and Dino even gets a part as the Cragit’s pet.

Fred becomes Scrooge through method acting making everyone hate him, as he does stuff like forgetting to drop off Pebbles at day care and also pick her up. He makes his wife do everything. This gets harder for her as everyone in the play gets the Bedrock Bug, which is kind of like COVID-19 or so it seems.

Strangely, this cartoon for kids in no way pulls punches, discussing how Tiny Tim won’t make it to next year and featuring Fred lying on his own grave screaming for his life. I have no idea how people explained all of this to their children.

Unlike 1993’s A Flintstone Christmas, this takes place in the classic Flintstones timeline with Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm still children. First showing up in syndication on November 21, 1994, It was directed by Joanna Romersa and written by Glenn Leopold. It was the final full-length Flintstones project for Jean Vanderpyl (Wilma), Don Messick (Bamm Bamm) and Henry Cohen (Fred). The same year, the theatrical film debuted.

I don’t know what turkeysaurus tastes like but I want some.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed by Kensho Yamashita and written by Hiroshi Kashiwabara, this is the sixth and next to last movie of the Heisei era that begins with The Return of Godzilla in 1984 and ends with Godzilla vs. Destoroyah in 1995.

SpaceGodzilla was first conceived in 1978 and is similar to new kaiju villain Biollant. Creature designer Shinji Nishikawa saw SpaceGodzilla as a Western dragon-like creature with large fin-like wings on its back. Godzilla’s son would be redesigned to be cuter and not like the dinosaur in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II.

Speaking of Biollante, Godzilla’s cells were brought into space by that creature and when they’re exposed to intense radiation from a black hole, SpaceGodzilla is born. The United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center comes to Birth Island and use a mind control device on Godzilla while The Cosmos, Mothra’s twin priestesses, appear to psychic Miki Saegusa and warn her that SpaceGodzilla is coming.

Even M.O.G.U.E.R.A. (Mobile Operations G-Force Universal Expert Robot: Aero-type), the new version of Mechagodzilla, fails to stop the creature from coming to our planet. Godzilla can’t even keep the monster from stealing his son and starts to use volcanoes to grow in power.

How wild is it that former All Japan Womens wrestler Masanobu Okamoto AKA Little Frankie was Little Godzilla?

If this movie had come out when I was a little kid, I would be drawing SpaceGodzilla in every class instead of learning about things I would never need to know from grade school. As it is, I’ve been drawing him in my notebook at work for the last day or two.

Kevin J. Lindenmuth is still making movies as recently as 2015 with The Life of Death. Yet he started his career here, directing and writing a movie that seems to come fully aware and alive from a world already built. It begins with Ivan (Bill White) being told by a woman that he’s about to meet the woman of his dreams.

Ivan, along with his partner Harry (Ed Hubbard), are Demon Immigration Officers that keep the humans safe from the constant threat of demons. They stop a cult from their blood ritual that will open the gates to the other side, only for party people Linda (Anna Dipace), Jennifer (Suzanne Scott), Kirsten (Wendy Bednarz) and Kirsten’s boyfriend Eric (Mick McCleery) to show up and one of them to accidentally bleed and bring all heck to our mudball.

Kristen also might be that dream girl.

This is the kind of movie that seems like it’s going to be one genre film and then successfully flips the script on you at every turn. There’s an astounding scene with a wall full of heads that verbally accost our heroes. And this somehow brings together a demonic story with hardboiled detectives and Men In Black on a budget where none of this should work and it all does.

Like everything Visual Vengeance does, this movie is PACKED with extras. There’s a new director-supervised SD master from 1-inch tape, three commentary tracks (director Kevin Lindenmuth; actor Mick McCleery and Lindenmuth; Tony Strauss of Weng’s Chop Magazine), interviews with Lindenmuth, Laura McLauchlin, Mick McCleery, Suzanne Turner, Sally Narkis, Ralis Kahn, Scott Sliger, Sung Pak and Joe Mauceri, as well as behind the scenes images, Lindenmuth’s early Super 8 films, a trailer, liner notes by Tony Strauss of Weng’s Chop Magazine, a poster and a sticker set.

The art on everything Virtual Vengeance does is incredible. This has a new cover by Stemo, the original release cover and the slipcover has artwork by The Dude Designs.

These are movies released and put together by people that truly love these kind of movies. The Strauss commentary is great and backed up by his essay in the liner notes. He effortlessly moves through how this got made, Lindenmuth having a childhood love of horror encouraged by a grandmother who loved slasher movies and how he worked to constantly keep viewers guessing despite working a demanding editing job while making this.

This is beyond recommended.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Abducted II: The Reunion was on USA Up All Night on July 29, 1995; February 16 and December 14, 1996 and September 5, 1997  — always teamed up with the original.

Directed and writer Boon Collins is back in the world of Abducted and if you thought that movie was strange — even if it was based on the real-life story of Olympic biathlon athlete Kari Swenson — this time he’s getting even weirder.

Yes, nine years later, Boon would bring back Lawrence King-Phillips as the evil Vern, Dan Haggerty as his father Joe and co-writer Lindsay Bourne to tell us what happened after Joe shot his son, knocked him off a bridge and smashed him into some rocks.

And you thought he was dead.

Actually, you probably never saw it.

Maria (Raquel Bianca), Sharon (Debbie Rochon) and Ingrid (Donna Jason, Undefeatable, Honor and Glory) decide to have a reunion in the woods of Harmony Lake National Park, learning nothing from Mother’s Day, and get drunk in a tent, act rude to the locals and make plenty of noise, which as you know is exactly how to die in a slasher. Sharon and Ingrid soon escape — the latter goes full feral and says that she can think like Vern now — and make a plan to save Maria.

Since the last movie, Joe (Haggerty) has pretty much sold out and given up. He’s being paid by rich hunter Brad Allen (Jan-Michael Vincent) to guide him on a stone sheep hunt. The same sheep that his son has been protecting. Meanwhile, his son — How is he still alive? Does Joe know? — is watching his new captive give herself a sponge bath.

I mean, Vern died by crashing on rocks and he doesn’t seem to have any supernatural powers like a Vorhees or Myers. Could the power of sheer horniness be keeping him alive? He’s also wearing fur and deer antlers, as if he’s cosplaying Tom Drury from Don’t Go In the Woods…Alone! 

This is a film filled with magic, like how Ingrid escapes from Vern by cartwheeling through the woods or when Brad’s helicopter appears and Sharon yells, “It’s a plan!” before she takes off her shirt and uses it to get his attention like a flag. Or maybe it’s Debbie Rochon’s breasts that get all the notice. There’s also a moment where Vern asks Maria about her first time and the film flashes back to an actual sex scene, which is the kind of filmmaking I depend on from Canadian direct-to-video movies and director Boon Collins.

Also: two of the girls may be in a couple, which is pretty progressive for 1985.

The end of this movie teases a third movie and man, I want that to happen even if nobody but me would care.