In the video game Elf Bowling, the elves of Santa’s Workshop are on strike so Santa abuses them by using them as bowling pins as they yell, “Is that all the balls you got, Santa?” The perfect game to adapt into a kid movie! I mean, just look at this fact about the game: It became an internet sensation in 1999 when people originally thought it was a computer virus.

This movie even gets the sequel in, where Dingle Kringle — Santa’s brother — hooks up with Mrs. Claus as they all go to a tropical island and meet the Moai statues of Easter Island. There were eight of these games, including Elf Bowling – Bocce Style and Elf Bowling 6: Air Biscuits, in which the elves could fly by way of flatulence.

So…this movie. Take it away, Wikipedia.

“The film was panned by critics for its writing, animation, directing, humor, plot, musical numbers, voice acting, characterizations and for having little to nothing to do with the premise of the game.”

Santa Claus (Joe Alaskey, who voiced many of the Looney Tunes and Droopy the Dog) started in life as a pirate captain. He redeemed himself somewhat by taking took toys from the rich and giving them to orphanages. He battles his half-brother Dingle Kringle (Tom Kenny, yes, Sponge Bob) and like Holmes and Moriarty, they’ve both taken off the board. But you know, instead of the Reichenbach Falls, they get frozen into blocks of ice. Lex the elf sees them and thinking like the Eskimos did to Sub-Mariner, the elves start to worship Santa as some kind of god who will fulfill a prophecy of leadership, at which points he starts bowling with them once he’s thawed out.

Unlike the game, the elves in this love being smashed by a bowling ball. Dingle takes them to Fiji and Santa has to rescue everyone. The Moai also show up, despite Fiji being 4,600 miles from Easter Island. This is topped by dialogue that is quite intelligent, such as “I have a teensy question for you…who pooped in the peanut barrel?”

At least Tom Kenny got his wife Jill Talley (Karen the Computer Wife on Sponge Bob) a job as Mrs. Claus. He would later say that hen he got a call to do the project, he’d never heard of the recording location, which led to him driving around LA and ending up in a bad neighborhood where the recording took place inside a rundown apartment building.

A U.S./Fiji/South Korea co-production directed by Dave Kim with Rex Piano as co-director, this had animated outsourced to South Korea with the editing happening inside a Simi Valley house owned by Kim’s mother. Kim was so hands on that he did the motion capture for the dance scenes.

The credits tell you that Elf Bowling 2: The Great Halloween Pumpkin Heist is coming. Somehow, the world was not ready for that and it was cancelled.

I warn you: this is the kind of CGI that makes strike and spare animation at a bowling alley look like Katsuhiro Otomo by comparison. There are theories the world ended in the 2000s and we’re just the residual memories of dead souls, floating through a lifeless galaxy. This movie is a real argument for the truth of that presumption.

You can watch this on YouTube.

This is based on the Japanese urban legend known as Kuchisake-onna. She was a woman who missed her samurai husband while he was away at war and began to sleep with other men. When he returned and learned of how she was stepping beyond the bounds of their marriage, he sliced her face. She came back from the dead as an onryo who covered her face and appeared to people, asking if she was beautiful. If they answered no, they died. If they said yes, she removed her mask and asked again. Now, if they say no, they will die. If they say yes? They will be given a face like hers.

This legend dates back to Japan’s Edo period but came back in the late 1970s, when rumors of her reappearance led to children needing to be walked home by parents from school.

In this movie, rumors of Kuchisake-onna have spread through a small town. School teacher Noboru Matsuzaki (Haruhiko Kato) hears a voice asking “Am I pretty?” while students begin to disappear. One of the students, Mika (Rie Kuwana) doesn’t want to go home to her abusive mother (Chiharu Kawai). The teacher she tells this to, Kyoko Yamashita (Eriko Sato) has lost her daughter to her ex-husband. She hesitates in dealing with Mika and the girls runs away, meeting Kuchisake-onna.

Noboru and Kyoko start to look for the missing children and learn that Kuchisake-onna can possess other women. That’s when Noboru reveals that a woman in a photograph who may be the evil demon is actually his mother Taeko Matsuzaki. She used to abuse him until one day she disappeared. Later, she came to him and asked him to kill her. He slit his mother’s mouth and stabbed her, then dressed her body up in a coat and mask, and hid it in the closet. He thought that would stop the demon but it has only led to decades of possession and torment for women and children.

Directed by Kōji Shiraishi, who wrote the movie with Naoyuki Yokota, this followed his movie Noroi: The Curse.

Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman is one of the films on Arrow’s new J-Horror Rising set. It has extras including commentary by Japanese folklore expert Zack Davisson, a new interview with director Koji Shiraishi, a video essay by Japanese horror specialist Lindsay Nelson and an image gallery.

You can buy it from MVD.

Warner Brothers hired David Kajganich to write they wanted to be a straight-forward remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but Kajganich changed the script to reflect contemporary times. I believe that each generation gets the body snatchers that it deserves, from the Cold War McCarthy menace of the 1950s, the end of the world gloom of the 1970s Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the gory yet doomed 1990s Body Snatchers.

The explanation for the aliens in this version is very scientific. A space Shuttle crash lets loose a fungus that is scattered across the country. It infects people and when they go to sleep, it reprograms them. CDC director Tucker Kaufman (Jeremy Northam) is the first to be changed and his ex-wife Carol Bennell (Nicole Kidman) notices that he has become someone else. One of her patients, Wendy Lenk (Veronica Cartwright), says the very same thing.

This film is way ahead of the conspiracy theories of today, as Kaufman uses a flu vaccine to further spread the alien contagion throughout the world. I’m shocked more Twitter — sorry, X, I forgot — users haven’t been screaming about how this movie was the government telling us what they were going to do.

Carol and Dr. Ben Driscoll (Daniel Craig) attend a dinner party where they witness the transformation of a human into an alien. By now, they’ve been doing research with Dr. Stephen Galeano (Jeffrey Wright) that shows that anyone who has had acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) is immune from the aliens. Thanks to movie logic, this includes Carol’s son Oliver (Jackson Bond).

Carol is eventually infected but this also brings in a bit of Elm Street as you must stay awake or you will be an alien. Luckily, she remains alert and her son is the key to fixing things, even if the society that the human race returns to is violent and emotional, unlike the perfectly ordered world that the aliens promise.

Originally directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel as a nearly effects free invasion movie, the studio was unhappy and asked for The Wachowskis to rewrite and reshoot some of the movie. After a year of the movie not progressing any further, James McTeigue was hired to shoot action scenes. During these, Kidman was injured and broke her ribs. That said, she made $17 million off this.

Remember when I said that each generation gets the bodysnatchers it deserves? This one is very 2007. I can’t remember much of that time and it seemed that everything was being remade as a faster and less soulless version of what came before. It’s a great looking film, it has pleasant leads and it tries to be about the forces that rule the world. Yet it comes after three versions of Jack Finney’s story The Body Snatchers that each had a point of view about the world and how it needed to change. This one ends with no horrifying conclusion, just the pod people waking up as if they were in a dream. Compare that to the horrific closes of the 1970s and 1990s takes.

The Arrow Video release of The Invasion has so many extras, including audio commentary by film critics Andrea Subisati and Alexandra West, co-hosts of The Faculty of Horror podcast; visual essays by film scholars Alexandra Heller Nicholas and Josh Nelson; archival features from the 2007 release; a trailer; an image gallery; an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by film critics William Bibbiani and Sally Christie; a reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Tommy Pocket and a double-sided fold out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tommy Pocket.

You can order this movie on UHD or blu ray from MVD.

Inspired by Season’s Greetings, an animated short created by Trick ‘r Treat writer and director Michael Dougherty, this film tells the story of the night of Halloween in Warren Valley, Ohio. It’s nonlinear the way it all plays out (think Pulp Fiction) and several of the stories cross over. They all have one thing in common — Sam, a little trick or treater dressed in pajamas and a burlap sack for a mask. If anyone goes against the rules of the holiday, he’s there to ensure they pay for it.

I love the look of Sam. For the first part of the movie, I was sure he was just a little trick or treater who was left behind by his friends and was witnessing everything going on. Once you realize what he’s doing, you start rooting for the little guy.

From a couple who take down their decorations too soon to an obese boy who can’t stop smashing pumpkins, everyone gets their reward. There’s also the school principal and potential serial killer Steven Wilkins, the elderly recluse Mr. Kreeg (the always great Brian Cox), a gang of kids trying to frighten Rhonda with the Halloween School Bus Massacre urban legend and a group of four girls out to party (including Anna Paquin as a shy virgin). Each of their tales will all be intertwined, complete with murder, gore, werewolves, zombies and finally, Sam’s secret face.

This feels like the great lost 1980’s horror movie and I loved every single minute of it. They’ve been teasing a sequel for a few years and now I can’t wait for everyone to get their act together. Writer/director Michael Dougherty was also behind the film Krampus.

The Arrow Video limited edition Trick ‘r Treat release has a brand new 4K restoration by Arrow Films, approved by writer-director Michael Dougherty.

Extras include brand new audio commentary with writer-director Michael Dougherty moderated by James A. Janisse & Chelsea Rebecca from Dead Meat Podcast; an archival audio commentary by Michael Dougherty, conceptual artist Breehn Burns, storyboard artist Simeon Wilkins and composer Douglas Pipes; interviews with actor Quinn Lord, production designer Mark Freeborn, director of photography Glen MacPherson, costume designer Trish Keating and creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos; Mark Freeborn Remembers Bill Terezakis, a new tribute to the late make-up effects designer; archival features and interviews; Season’s Greetings, a short film from 1996 directed by Michael Dougherty with optional director commentary; school bus VFX comparison; deleted and alternate scenes with optional commentary by director Michael Dougherty; FEARnet promos; a Sam O’ Lantern; a storyboard and conceptual artwork gallery; behind the scenes gallery; a comic book set in the Trick ‘r Treat universe and a trailer.

It’s all inside a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sara Deck and has a double-sided foldout poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sara Deck, six postcard-sized artcards and an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Becky Darke and Heather Wixson.

You can get this from MVD.

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 have to give Bruno Mattei credit for sheer force of will. At a time when most filmmakers retire — he was 76 when making it and died the very same year — he was hitting. the Philippines and making a zombie movie on digital video when the rest of his Italian exploitation filmmaking contemporaries were dead, retired or no longer relevant.

Dr. Sharon Dimao (Yvette Yzon, who was also put through the Mattei ringer in the first film in Mattei’s zombie saga, Island of the Living Dead, as well as The Jail: The Women’s Hell; she’ll return to play this role again in Dustin Ferguson’s Hell of the Screaming Undead) has already survived one zombie attack and spent years recuperating in Buddhist temple, hiding from the bosses that fired her from the Tyler Corporation.

Oh, you didn’t realize that Mattei was going to turn a zombie movie into Aliens? Let me remind you that this is the very same man who turned an Aliens movie into Terminator 2 with Shocking Dark.

Somehow, a member of the company named Paul Barker convinces her to head back to the island, along with a team of mercenaries who get to use Goldberg’s entrance music when they fight the walking undead. Somehow, there are also zombie little people, which thrilled me to no end, along with a plot stolen from Resident Evil and actual footage lifted from Crimson Tide. As if that wasn’t enough, the poster is an exact Xerox of Fulci’s City of the Living Dead.

Sadly, this was Bruno’s last movie. Everyone has to die some time, but if anyone could have lived forever, making scumtastic movies that cashed in on the latest trend, I wish that it could have been Vincent Dawn.

Many people have been credited with saying “Talent borrows, genius steals.”

They were talking about Bruno.

In the third film in the trilogy, Peter Mountain (Fred Vogel, who directed, wrote and shot this) and his girlfriend Crusty (Cristie Whiles) keep on killing on video, but now the footage is more high definition and you can see more of it.

Made in Pittsburgh, Penance has fireworks in it, so you know that it’s definitely made by yinzers. It also has numerous gut wrenching murders that are not made to look pretty but to look as real as possible. You may not be into that. You also may and well, I guess this is the extreme movie that you’re looking for.

It has everything from racing ATVs and seeing bands to killing an entire family, feeding a deer to a lion, beating people with hammers and cutting babies out of pregnant women. It also has its two leads basically having nervous breakdowns as they commit these horrific acts.

There’s an audience for this. It’s not me.

The Unearthed blu ray of this film has new audio commentary with Jerami Cruise, Shelby Vogel, Fred Vogel, and Ultra Violent Magazine‘s Art Ettinger, several new interview with Fred Vogels and others, older audio commentary by Toetag and Vogel, Disemboweled: Behind the Bile Documentary, extended and deleted scenes, music videos, trailers and more. You can get it from MVD.

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.

When the rest of the world makes zombie movies that are either boring or sub-Troma winks at the camera filled with humor that breaks the tension, Bruno Mattei remains single-mindedly devoted to making the kind of undead movies that made me love the genre.

In short, in the sad world we find ourselves in where zombies have become boring, Bruno Mattei alone reminds us that these kinds of movies can remain incredibly fun.

After a team of adventurers loses their gold, they go through a fog bank and end up on an island of the living dead. There, nearly everyone dies as they’re pursued by shambling, blood puking monsters that never stop. Oh yeah, there’s also another higher caste of zombies that act like a cross between the Blind Dead and vampires, hypnotizing unwilling victims into becoming their thralls, even if they have to charm them with flutes!

I’ve come away from Mattei’s late period — he made this movie a year before his death — digital video films with great fondness, particularly for Yvette Yzon, who has taken over for Laura Gemser in his movies, starring in this, Zombies: The Beginning, The Jail: Women’s Hell, A Shudder on the Skin and two Segreti di Donna films for Mattei.

Here, she’s Sharon, not only the final girl but the Lara Croft of this story. The rest of her crew is pretty worthless, except for Snoopy, who gets his name by always wearing a Snoopy t-shirt. This is an astonishing choice for a zombie film and one that I applaud. He’s played by Jim Gaines, who has been in plenty of Mattei films like Robowar, Zombie 4, Strike Commando and even shows up in The One-Armed Executioner.

Want an even better name? The leader of the ship is Captain Kirk (Gaetano Russo, The Killer Reserved Nine Seats and Trhauma, which he wrote)!

Screenwriter Antonio Tentori has been there for the dark night of the soul that aging Italian horror filmmakers must endure, being the scribe for everything from Argento’s Dracula 3D to Fulci’s Cat in the Brain and D’Amato’s Frankenstein 2000.

Only Sharon survives, but it appears that she becomes a zombie. No worry — she comes back perfectly healthy in the sequel, Zombies: The Beginning. Yes, only Mattei would name the second movie — or third, if this is in the same universe as Hell of the Living Dead — with a title like Zombies: The Beginning.

What are we to think of a movie that has not only the Necronomicon but also the De Vermis Mysteriis and the Cask of Amontillado? A film willing to rip off The Fog, Night of the Living Dead, Ghost Ship, Fulci’s eyeball scene in Zombi, the Blind Dead movies and even Mattei’s own Hell of the Living Dead? A movie that outright steals footage from The 13th Warrior, Interview with the Vampire, Deep Rising and House of the Dead?

We are to celebrate it. Thank you, Bruno Mattei, for always making it cheap, gross and upsetting, but never ever boring. The spirit and flame of 1980s Italian horror was kept alive by you longer than anyone.