I’ve been getting videotapes from Japan since the 1980’s. Before the internet, it wasn’t always so easy. You had to have a connection or you’d spend tons of money. And you’d never be sure what you’d get.

One of my friends used to rent tapes from the Japanese grocery store and you had to try and learn the kanji to know what tapes were what. Often, they’d just be six-hour compilations of whatever wrestling-related things were on TV, including game shows, made before the days of Tokyo’s 24 hour a day Samurai TV.

Between that and the old Death Valley Driver message board, we discovered a group called Doglegs, which features physically challenged performers wrestling. In Japan, there are school fan clubs that go so far to run their own shows in the same arenas as professional groups, which would be like your American Legion team playing Yankee Stadium. Doglegs ran several of their own shows and became somewhat legendary for a time amongst the nascent internet hardcore wrestling fans.

Much like the Kids of Widney High, there are two groups of people interested in their story: those that want to gawk and those that realize that these are people overcoming what some see as limitations and battling to create meaning and art. I’m a member of the latter group and was shocked to find that this documentary was now playing for free.

This film presents the stories of several of the fighters of Doglegs, like Shintaro. He’s a Tokyo janitor who has fought for twenty years but finally wants to retire. To do so, he has to finally defeat the group’s able-bodied organizer, who has been his nemesis the entire time. Known as the Antithesis, Kitakima works as a heel and proclaims that he has defeated the disabled for twenty years. He pushes Shintaro hard in all aspects of his life, which some in the West would see as cruel.

L’Amant, who suffers from cerebral palsy and near-total paralysis, is another fighter. Other than wrestling, he only cares about cross-dressing and drinking sake. Now, he wants to die in the ring battling either his able-bodied wife or son.

Kitajima said, “Let’s show people this pro wrestling of ours. We’ll shock the unthinking able-bodied out of their complacency and give them some real food for thought. Then, maybe we can shake up their rigid thinking about disabled people and the volunteer community.” He has also said that “fighting the disabled without kid gloves is a sign of respect.”

I’ve heard some criticism of this film because it doesn’t present a point of view. To me, the fact that the director Heath Cozens was able to get this level of access and present such a strange subculture of a subculture and make it accessible to all is the true win. It’s simple to look at these men and women with pity. It’s harder to realize that they are discovering the meaning of what life can be through violent art.

You can watch this on Tubi and learn more at the official site.

In this Sam Mendes-directed Bond film, our hero finally goes up against Blofeld for the first time since 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever, with the global criminal organization Spectre returning and Christoph Waltz taking over the villainous role.

The film’s usage of the Spectre organization and its characters was the end of long-standing litigation between Eon Productions and producer Kevin McClory, who sued James Bond creator Ian Fleming in 1961 due to the author taking parts of his work for the book and film Thunderball.

McClory died in 2006, and in November 2013 MGM and the McClory estate formally settled the issues, giving the filmmakers full copyright film rights to the concept of Spectre and all of the characters associated with the evil organization.

With the 00 group disbanded and M murdered from the last film, Bond is nearly a man without a country as he investigates the octopus-like Spectre. What a rough job Bond has, having to seduce Monica Belluci (who was the oldest Bond girl to date, doing the movie at the age of fifty. That said, Belucci is ageless).

He learns why all this horror has been happening. After being orphaned, the younger Bond was adopted by Hannes Oberhauser. His son Franz believed that Bond had supplanted him as his father’s son, so he killed the man, took the name Ernesto Stavro Blofeld and created Spectre with the sole goal of ruining Bond’s existence.

This film also gave pro wrestler Dave Bautista the chance to shine as bodyguard Mr. Hix. He’s the fourth Bond villain to come from the sport, along with Harold Sakata, Peter Maivia and Pat Roach.

While this film didn’t win over fans, it certainly sets up Craig for one more run as Bond.

Beyond the fact that this movie only made back $26 million on a $52 million dollar budget, Aloha was hit with the issue of whitewashing, as Emma Stone’s character is supposed to be one-quarter Chinese and one-quarter Hawaiian, yet is — you know — played by Emma Stone.

Oh Cameron Crowe. You started with Fast Times at Ridgemont High and then, well…

I know, I know. There are plenty of people who adore Jerry Maguire. Some people enjoy Almost Famous. But even less are down with Vanilla Sky. And then, still less like Elizabethtown. Dwindling returns.

This is a big ensemble movie about Hawaii and the air force and it’s kind of, sort of the future and all manner of Hollywood celebrities are in it and it commits a bigger sin than this giant run-on sentence. That sin is that it’s incredibly boring.

Military contractor Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper) is the nexus that this revolves around and most of the movie is about how he’s the wrong guy for every woman, from his ex-girlfriend Tracy (Rachel McAdams) and the space-loving Captain Allison Ng (Stone). Bill Murray shows up as a billionaire who is trying to get into space. Everyone loves space in this movie, which I would too, because it presents Hawaii as perhaps the most ennui-inducing land that has ever been.

John Krasinski, Danny McBride and Alec Baldwin all got roped into this as well. Becca made it approximately twenty minutes into the ride while I stayed buckled in and made it to the close of the film, which is meant to draw deep emotion and motivated me to eject the DVD and try to not snap it in half before I brought it back to the Redbox machine, where this virus of monotony will infect another unknowing subject.

That said — I’ve seen stacks of this movie at Dollar Tree, so if you need some insulation or would like to ruin someone’s life, it makes for a fine and inexpensive gift.

Fifteen years ago, Francesca disappeared, leaving her father, the well-known storyteller, poet and dramatist Vittorio Visconti behind. Ever since, the community has been haunted by a killer who wants to clean the city of the impure and the damned. The police are baffled and now, it seems like Francesca has finally returned.

The Onetti Brothers have made a career of emulating the field of giallo. With films like Deep Sleep, What the Waters Left Behind and Abrakadabra, they’ve copied the look and feel of early 70’s Italian detective horror, yet transplanted to Argentina in 2015. Hell — they even got the gloves and bottles of J&B right. Luciano Onetti co-wrote the script, directed the film, handled the cinematography and even wrote the sctore, while Nicolas wrote the script and produced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_J7wFrQTOE

Any movie that starts with a small girl killing a bird with a long needle and then jamming it into her infant brother’s eye is one that’s going to cause you to sit up and take notice (or, if you’re a normal person, turn off such lunacy).

This movie feels like a relic unearthed from 1972, a giallo that may not be at the level of Argento or Martino, but still can stand on its own.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Look, if you can’t have a house in Amityville, have a theater. And if you can’t shoot in Amityville, shoot your movie in Canada and the UK. After evil monkeys, lamps, lumber and furniture, what else can become part of the dark side and get possessed, you know?

Spencer Banks, who plays Reverend Simon Randall, played a character named Simon Randall on the British 1970 children’s series Timeslip. His co-star on that show, Cheryl Burfield, is his wife in this movie and Lesley Scoble, who plays Karen, was Alpha 17 on that very same programme. Yes, I did spell it the British way.

Following the death of her parents, Fawn Harriman inherits a theatre in Amityville. She takes three victims — I mean friends — to spend the weekend there to check the place out. A homeless girl shows up, as does one of her high school teachers, who wants to warn her of the evil inside the playhouse. You know, every playhouse I’ve ever been in has been said to be haunted.

Director John R. Walker will show up in the upcoming Amityville: Evil Never Dies, which is pretty meta. Even more meta, he’ll be playing the Peter Sommers character he’s also played in Ghoul, Meathook Massacre 4 and another movie he’s directed that has a great title, Ouijageist.

This isn’t the worst Amityville movie I’ve seen. It’s pretty competently made, which is a major step above and beyond a lot of these films. I don’t know if that’s a good review or I have desert island syndrome, where everything looks better than some of these movies.

Mark Polonia also made Empire of the Apes, so it stands to wonder why he waited so long to make a cash-in on the Amityville series. I mean, this is the man who also made Sharkenstein, Bigfoot vs. Zombies and multiple Camp Blood movies. Just so you know what you’re getting into — these are shot on video films intended for DVD distribution to maniacs like me in Walmart (or today, on Amazon Prime).

For the eleventh overall Amityville movie, a young woman and her friends — on their way back from helping with hurricane relief efforts in Florida, keeping it topical — stop in the town of Amityville to check in on a sick grandmother.

That’s when they run into an ancient witch and her spells, which turn one of them into a spider. This is more about a curse on the townsfolk than 112 Ocean Avenue. But hey — Eric Roberts turns up as The Dark Lord. What does Roberts do, show up in rural Pennsylvania and put out a beacon to tell directors that he’s available for work?

You can watch this on Amazon Prime.

Sinister 2 is a rare breed — a sequel that I enjoy more than the film that proceeded it. Ciaran Foy directed it from a script that was co-written by the original film’s writer and director, Scott Derrickson. James Ransome is the only character that returns as Deputy So & So.

The movie starts with one of those Super 8 films from the original, as a family is hung like scarecrows before being burned alive. It’s a nightmare in the mind of nine-year-old Dylan, who is on the run from his abusive father, along with his mom (Shannyn Sossamon, A Knight’s Tale) and twin brother Zach.

Each night, Dylan is visited by a gang of ghostly children led by Milo. They make him watch all manner of horrifying movies where alligators devour families and rats eat their way through parents’ stomachs.

The deputy is now a private detective on the trail of the murders from the first film, including the Oswalt family. He figures out that an abandoned farmhouse is the first of the homes infected, so he heads out to burn it to the ground, before learning that Dylan and his family are living inside it.

The deputy falls for Dylan’s mom and also is given a ham radio that once belonged to occult investigator Professor Jonas, who has disappeared. The radio came from a Norweigan family that was killed in 1973. There’s a recording of the family where a young girl yells about Bughuul.

That boogieman is now targeting Zach, not Dylan, using his jealousy and the abusive nature of his father to destroy the family. When his birth father kidnaps them all, he takes advantage and crucifies them in a cornfield, setting his father ablaze. Only after the deputy destroys the haunted camera does the carnage stop, with Bughuul arriving to destroy the young boy.

If only the film ended there. The jump scare at the end where Bughuul appears in the deputy’s motel room feels out of character and a cheap way to milk a sequel out of this idea, but hey — what do you expect?

That said, this movie has even more haunted Super 8 films — well, these ones are shot on 16mm stock — and some pretty decent attempts at frightening its audience. It’s also pretty much a cover version of Children of the Corn. I prefer how the original film was more enigmatic about Bughuul and his motivations, but this movie really amps up the intensity. I saw it at a drive-in, which is quite possibly the best way to see an escapist horror film, right?

Hey! Remember when I watched Isn’t It Romantic?

This is the same director making the same movie, except instead of learning lessons from a romantic comedy, people are learning lessons from a slasher film.

After another failed audition, Max Cartwright’s mother Amanda (Malin Akerman) worries that she’ll only be known for appearing in the 1986 slasher favorite Camp Bloodbath. Sadly, she dies soon after in a car accident.

A few years later, at a double feature of the film and its sequel, a fire breaks out and Max (now Taissa Farmiga, the sister of Vera) and her friends escape by slicing the screen with a machete. They then enter the world of Camp Bloodbath, where they must escape Billy Murphy, the twisted serial killer who carries a not unlike Jason Vorhees machete.

There’s a great cast — Alia Shawkat from Arrested Development is in it, as well as Thomas Middleditch from Silicon Valley and Adam DeVine from Workaholics.

Writers M.A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller based the characters in this film on some of their favorite slasher films. Nancy (also played by Akerland) is inspired by Ginny from Friday the 13th Part 2 and her name comes from A Nightmare On Elm Street‘s Nancy Thompson. And Tina was based on P.J. Soles’ character Lynda van der Klok in Halloween and Jodi Draigie’s Morgan from The House on Sorority Row.

Perhaps even more interesting, Miller wrote this movie to deal with the death of his father Jason Miller, who starred as Father Karras in The Exorcist. And even cooler than that is that Joshua John Miller played Homer in Near Dark, Tim in River’s Edge and also showed up in Teen Witch.