ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Upton is an American (non-werewolf) writer/editor in London. She currently works as a ghostwriter of personal memoirs for Story Terrace London and writes for several blogs on topics as diverse as film history, punk rock, women’s issues, and international politics. For links to her work, please visit https://www.jennuptonwriter.com or send her a Tweet @Jennxldn

In 1965 Daiei Studios decided to capitalize on Toho’s successful Godzilla film series with their own fire-breathing radioactive star, Gamera the flying turtle. At that time, Gamera was “the friend to children” and his films from that era are largely considered to be inferior to the Toho series of Kaiju Eiga (giant monster films), although they are entertaining and fun.

In 1995, after a 15-year retirement, Daiei brought back the shelled one and gave him a new lease on life. The man given the responsibility of transforming Gamera from a low-budget children’s monster into a serious modern-day contender fell to director Shusuke Kaneko whose earlier work consists of several successful horror films and comedies. He did a great job.

This time out, the origins of Gamera are Atlantis. The ancient people created him in response to the appearance of flocks of man-eating prehistoric birds called Gyaos – a favorite foe from the 1960’s films. Gamera’s intentions to save modern-day Japan from the birds is misinterpreted by the Self Defense Force and they attempt to

kill him. Director Kaneko largely removes the element of young children and instead, opts to endow Gamera with a magical jewel that enables him to bond with a teenage girl on the brink of womanhood named Asagi (played by Steven Segal’s daughter Ayako Fujitani.) Through Asagi, Gamera harnesses the added strength required to defeat the Gyaos in a grand battle that takes place all in broad daylight. Quite an ambitious undertaking for special effects director Shinji Higuchi whose shots blend seamlessly with Kankeo’s.

Aside from the bigger budget re-tooling, the film also succeeds

on a level far above that of the original series in the drama department. Kaneko treats the characters and plot with respect. More than any other director in the Kaiju Eiga genre, Shusuke Kaneko succeeds at melding humor and horror.

For those not into movies with guys in suits, Gamera: Guardian of the Universe also succeeds on the same level as the “Rocky” films. Gamera gets beat up pretty bad early on but comes back with fire-balls a-blazin’ to kick some serious Gyaos tail feather. Screw all the fancy CGI effects. This is one entertaining monster flick with as much ambition as you’re ever going to see in a movie of this kind. The sequels are even better, with the third in the trilogy Gamera vs. Iris (1999) considered by many to be the best Kaiju film ever made. The Japanese language versions with English subtitles are definitely the way to go for all three of these films. The 2020 release of the entire collection is amazing.

Becca rented this movie over and over in her childhood and ended up in Las Vegas, which I attribute to how much she enjoyed this movie.

Somehow since the last time we saw the leprechaun, a magical medallion turned him into a statue that ended up in a Las Vegas pawn shop. Now, he’s killing people throughout the strip and hunting down his wish-granting coin.

What makes this one of the better movies in this series? Brian Trenchard-Smith, that’s who. The guy makes every movie work, no matter how bad the circumstances.

Warwick Davis returns as Lubdan the Leprechaun, going up against Scott McCoy (John Gatins, who would go on to write Fight and Kong of Skull Island), his girl Tammy (Lee Armstrong, who only made two other movies, Magic Island and Classic Stories for Children), Fazio the magician (John DeMita) and Loretta (Caroline Williams, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2).

Shot in 14 days, this is a film filled with humor, cameos (look for Davis out of makeup playing a slot machine and Night of the Demons 2 stars Merle Kennedy, Zoe Trilling and Rod McCary) and gore. This became the biggest rental film of 1995 and it fits all the aesthetics of that era. I would definitely say that this is my favorite entry in the series before it goes to the hood and outer space.

Otherwise known as Anatomia Extinction, this film starts what Tokyo Gore Police would push forward thirteen years later.

A salaryman sees a murder in the subways and is soon pursued by the killer, who wants him to join a group called The Engineers, who have taken it upon themselves to reduce Japan’s overpopulation. Despite not wanting any part of joining, the man begins to mutate, much like Tetsuo: The Iron Man, running throughout Japan and fighting his urge to kill.

Yoshihiro Nishimura wrote the script, directed this and also created all of the special effects. He would go on to make Meatball Machine Kodoku, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl and, of course, Tokyo Gore Police.

This feels like a cyberpunk giallo made on no budget — which is true, as it was all funded by Nishimura — and has an interesting build to the body horror insanity that it leads up to.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Written by Jon Ezrine and the writer and director of the first two films, Kevin S. Tenney, this entry in the Witchboard films was directed by Peter Svatek (Bleeders). It’s all about Brian (David Nerman), a man who finds out his landlord (Cedric Smith, the voice of Professor X on the 90’s X-Men the Animated Series) is really a demon named Kral. How does a demon learn the ways of Canadian real estate, one wonders? The film never really gets into that, but these are the facts that I really want to learn.

Kral takes over Brian’s body — as demonic landlords are wont to do, basically subletting his soul, so yeah maybe demons are good at real estate — and decides that he’s going to knock up our protagonist’s wife Julie (Elizabeth Lambert).

There are some good KNB effects on display — a man gets attacked by his own butterfly collection — and it’s pretty much the Red Shoe Diaries if that Showtime show also had gore and demons, which sounds like a great idea for a movie if you ask me. This one is kind of like Wall Street with, you know, demons.

Speaking of sex, this movie remembers that it is angry that the second one didn’t get Ami Dolenz as nude as Tawny Kitaen and goes all in on the softcore aardvarking. It’s couples gore, I guess.

While this is the last Witchboard film, A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors and The Blob director Chuck Russell is planning on a remake, as of 2017. I’m all for that.

The editor of Loose Limbs has killed himself, so Edward Tor Swenson gets the job. However, the more that he works on the film, the closer he gets to insanity, as a mental patient tells him that he needs to “correct the world.” At once a slasher movie and a protest against Swedish censorship, Evil Ed made its way to video store shelves in the U.S. and made quite an impact. Pretty great for a movie that only played four theaters in its home country.

Screenwriter Christer Ohlsson was an editor whose job was cutting the violence from American slasher films for the European market. I would assume that he wasn’t working on them for Italy.

The title is obviously a play on Evil Dead, which is funny, because the villain of the third film, Bill Mosely, is the voice in the killer in the Loose Limbs films. They should have made those movies, because there was a scene where a woman is attacked by a beaver and then shot in the head with a bazooka.

You can watch this on Amazon Prime and Tubi or get the blu ray from Arrow Video.

Let’s be straight: I could type out the entire script of this movie by memory. That’s how important this movie was to a 23 year old me. I even worked in an ad agency inside a mall and often felt like the characters in this, walking the shops and stores of Station Square with no shopping agenda.

I was probably one of the few people back then who loved it, because it bombed and writer and director Kevin Smith apologized for the movie at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Today, as Smith says on the intro to the twenty-fifth anniversary Arrow blu ray, this movie has aged into being seen as a success.

The adventures of T.S. Quint (Jeremy London) and Brodie Bruce (Jason Lee) as they navigate the Eden Prairie Center Mall — actually in Minnesota*, but supposedly New Jersey — as their attempt to get over the loss of their respective girlfriends, Brandi Svenning (Claire Forlani) and Rene Mosier (Shannen Doherty). Along the way, they interact with Jay and Silent Bob, meet Stan Lee and even go to the dirt mall.

That’s an oversimplification of a movie that once — and yes, still — meant so much to me. What comic book geek doesn’t see themselves as Brodie, a man who can somehow win over Doherty despite only caring about Superman being able to shoot semen like a shotgun and playing as Hartford on his Genesis? Even all these years later, I see him as one of the coolest characters in the movies of my youth and have followed Jason Lee through so many characters as a result.

While Jay and Silent Bob Reboot felt like a massive misfire, I’m happy to see that this movie has lost none of its fun and good feelings. Sometimes, as Smith says, things just age well.

The Arrow re-release of this movie comes with so much, starting with a brand new restoration by Arrow Films of both the Theatrical and Extended cuts of the film, as well as a TV cut of the film featuring overdubbing to cover up the sheer amount of profanity.  There’s also audio commentary with director Kevin Smith, producer Scott Mosier, archivist Vincent Pereira and actors Jason Lee, Ben Affleck and Jason Mewes, as well a new interview and introduction by Smith, a making-of film deleted scenes and more. You can get it from Arrow and totally should — they sent us a copy but I would have bought it myself.

*Fargo was being filmed in the same town at the same time.

After making Dark Universe and Biohazard: The Alien Force, Steve Latshaw (Return of the Killer Shrews) directed this film, which shows off what he learned from working with Fred Olen Ray.

The Kelly family live under a curse, as one of their ancestors killed the warlock named Walter Machen and now, the demon Jack-O has been freed from Hell to get the revenge that Walter has wanted for so many centuries.

Beyond the appearance of the monster, this movie has two cameos going for it. Yes, two cameos that have little or nothing to do with the rest of the film, as  John Carradine and Cameron Mitchell appear from beyond the grave as Machen and an expert on the occult.

Latshaw was also smart enough to get Linnea Quigley and Brinke Stevens into this one, if only for the moment that my wife walked in, saw a naked Linnea and shot me the kind of look that should have been accompanied with a lawyer.

These kids should know better than to release demons from their final resting places, but come on, without their monkeyshines, we wouldn’t have a film.