Don’t get excited — this isn’t the official G.I. Joe movie that got moved to next year. No, instead it’s a short film created by Rene Perez (Death Kiss), which has seventh degree black belt martial artist Juan Manuel Olmedo as the title character and Miss Nevada 2020 Victoria Olona as Snake Eyes’ wife (who is decidely not Scarlett).
Perez and producer Joseph Camilleri previously collaborated on the film The Insurrection, with the director’s next movie being Righteous Blood, which will star Michael Pare and Emily Whitcomb.
While this is a fan film, it’s packed with some pretty good action. That said, if you’re a Joe fan — I mean, I only have 8 or 9,000 of the modern era figures and a room devoted specifically to their display — you’ll be disappointed that this has nothing to do with any of the continuity of the line. It’s a stand-alone story of Snake Eyes last mission.
That said, it will hopefully tide you over until the October 22, 2021 re-release date of the official film.
I love the guys at Wild Eye. After reading our Letterboxd list of Amityville movies*, I got an email from them that said, “Have you seen Amityville Island yet?”
Look, when a movie has the tagline “For God’s sake, get out of the water!” you know I’m probably going to have to watch it. Throw in the fact that it was directed by Mark Polonia (along with Paul Alan Steele) and I knew I was going to be spinning this, probably while my wife was asleep so that she didn’t cast a gaze at me that said, “You really will watch anything if Amityville is in the title.”
Several girls are brought to a small island where they are subjected to genetic experiments that involve both humans and animals. Right away, we have a women in prison, a science gone wild story and a government conspiracy flick all at the same time, but to complete this buffet, we learn that one of the girls killed people inside the house on 112 Ocean Avenue.
Perhaps the finest movie to ever be made for $30,000 in Wellsboro, PA, Amityville Shark succeeds just because it exists. It’s packed with a CGI shark, CGI blood, stock footage, a possessed woman blasting a dude through his PC and lines like, “She’s from Amityville, what are you gonna do?” and “High quality dirtbags are getting harder and harder to find.”
Oh yeah — there’s also a zombie that shows up before the end of this movie.
Of course there is.
You know, if we put low budget filmmakers in charge of solving COVID-19, I bet their ingenuity and ability to work with no money would solve it in no time. Or maybe we’d have female prisoners fighting in basements while random dudes in officers yell into their landlines. Either way, this time, we can all win.
I hope Mark Polonia reads this and hears my request: Please make a movie where the apes from Empire of the Apes ride sharks.
Jack Travis (William Holstead) is a horror writer working on his new play in an ancient castle that is starting to possess his teenage daughter Bee (Grace Courtney). You know how those old manors go — all the supernatural beings within the walls looking to ruin lives.
Written, produced and directed by Toby and Fionn Watts, this tells the tale of a young man who was walled inside said castle that has been able to kill from beyond. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, if you have writer’s block, do not go to a haunted castle, hotel or house in the hopes that it will lead to you writing the great American novel.
This movie switches main characters at some point, so don’t get used to the hero, the heroine or even the antagonist. That said, it sure looks pretty and has plenty of gothic atmosphere. So once you move from father and son to Jenny (Helen Mackay) and Callum (James Rottger), just try to stay with it.
This is available on all streaming networks from Devilworks.
Talk about being knocked for a loop. Who knew that the movie that I think had the biggest impact on me in 2020 would be a film that for all intents and purposes looks like a training film from the 1980’s?
Survival Skills begins as an unearthed police educational film narrated by Stacy Keach and turns into something much different, a film that plays with the very media that it has been created within, turning the characterless characters of these videos — I’m a huge fan of stuff like Grill Skills and McC: Inside and Outside Custodial Duties — and discover what their real lives were like, if they ever had them. Who are the side characters in their lives and what is life like for them? And what happens in the cheery reality of these unliving beings when real life rudely intrudes?
Jim Williams (Vayu O’Donnell) is someone you may know, a cop who is just starting on the job, who must confront the harsh realities that the police academy never prepared him for.
In the wake of calls to defund the police and a look at the way the men and women wearing the badge must protect and serve a public that has come to hate and fear them, this movie takes a stark look at the training and videos that prepared them, including Dave Grossman and his killology philosophy, which teaches “officers to be less hesitant to use lethal force, urge them to be willing to do it more quickly and teach them how to adopt the mentality of a warrior,” according to the Washington Post.
But what happens when a cop like Jim just wants to help a victim of abuse that can’t seem to break from the cycle? Surely society has ways to help people in that situation. You’d think so. But this film shows that the truth is quite darker.
Jim also grows darker in this story, going from the by the book example from every one of those fake educational videos into a haunted soul who has turned to his original shell of a personality to hide from the anguish that being a real person involves. Every positive step he’s tried to make is a failure; people won’t or can’t help the abused woman who he just wants to save.
Even the film stock itself has meaning here. Unlike so many movies that believe being 80’s influenced means just having vague allusions to John Carpenter-esque synth background music and bad takes on fashion, this film uses the tracking and hum and hiss of videotape to pile on the slowing growing current of hopelessness. Keach shines brightly as the narrator, going from telling the story to commanding parts of it, even able to snap his fingers and take us from his reality to the reality of Jim, changing the look from drabness to high def and back again. And unlike so many of the faux 80’s films that litter the landscape, this one gets one thing right: the specter of Reagan hung heavy over everything.
There’s also a moment of Satanic Panic in here that I don’t want to ruin, but only want to say that it does the best job I’ve seen a film do in translating the strangeness of that era, a time when police would come to your school or church to warn you of the dangers of demons hiding throughout popular culture.
Quinn Armstrong, who wrote and directed this, has made a movie that does exactly what great films should: I’m still thinking about this movie hours after watching it, wondering how the characters have moved on, as if they were real people. It’s an astounding film that tells a story perfect for our time and has my highest recommendation.
Survival Skills will be available on demand on December 4, but is playing in virtual theaters now. You can learn more at the official site.
Back in 1957, evil aliens from the mind of Ed Wood initiated a plan to conquer the Earth with a fighting force created from the reanimated dead.
In 1970, Toho Studios brought us Yog – Monster from Space (aka Space Amoeba), a tale about Jupiter-based amoeba-like extraterrestrials who transform an octopus (well, its little cousin, a cuttlefish) into a giant kaiju to conquer the Earth.
In 1977, Ed Hunt — in conjunction with Hal Roach Studios — gave us bonkers underwater aliens sporting some nifty Gumby-space pajamas with Starship Invasions.
And in 2020, Mark Polonia — with a special effects assist from Brett Piper — brings us aliens who devise a plan to conquer the Earth with . . . sentient, telepathic sharks.
Yes, you heard me right. Jaws In Space. (All due respect to The Asylum and Syfy unleashing their “sharks in space” romp with 2015’s Sharknado 3: Oh, Hell No!, of course.) But please, don’t sue Polonia Studios, Mr. Spielberg. Mark is just trying to make a living doing what he loves: providing us with ’50s-cum-’60s retro-monster and sci-fi romps.*
Images from the one-sheets may not appear in the actual film.
As with any Polonia production — or Brett Piper, for that matter — the familiar cast of friends is here, with Titus and Natalie Himmelberger, Jennie Russo, Jeff Kirkendall, and Steve Diasparra starring in a $30,000 tale about hostile aliens crash landing in the ocean, using their telepathic abilities to control sharks and protect an ancient alien bounty down below.
Leading the charge against the aquatic-bound invasion is Kay Radtke (Jennie Russo), who just so happens to return to town to take over her late father’s alien abduction support group. Helping Kay are Sloan (Jeff Kirkendall from The Ghost of Camp Blood) and director Mark Polonia as two fisherman-turned-treasure hunters (the aka “Quint and “Hooper”), and Alan Cason (Titus Himmelberger, Outpost Earth) as the “Sheriff Brody” of the proceedings.
It’s all bought to you from the twisted pen of John Oak Dalton, who also brought you Mark Polonia’s Jurassic Prey, Amityville Death House, and Amityville Island** — and if you’ve seen Amityville Island, then you’ll recognize the CGI sharks from that film, here. (Waste not, want not!) My only complaint: Why didn’t you guys pull a “Yog” and bring in Pee Wee from Queen Crab to help the sharks take over the Earth?
But it’s not too late! Since the defeated aliens left us with intelligent sharks — that now warn “they hate us” and “they rule the oceans” — we wait for the Polonia-Piper rip of Planet of the Apes, only with sharks. And, considering they made two Apes rip offs — Empire of the Apes and Revolt of the Empire of the Apes . . . we wait with chum-bated breath . . . and hope Pee Wee shows up to turn us humans into a surf n’ turf platter-to-go.
You can find Mark Polonia’s 56th directing effort on all of the usual streaming platforms via Wild Eye Releasing. You can keep up to date with the latest from Wild Eye on You Tube and Facebook. And don’t forget to find Wild Eye’s library of films as free-with-ads streams on Tubi TV.
* You need more retro-romps? Then be sure to check out our “Drive-In Friday” homage to Brett Piper.
** Check out our full list of ALL of the Amityville films — including official sequels and sidequels, remakes and ripoffs — with our “Exploring: Amityville” featurette. If a film has a word after “Amityville” in the title, we’ve seen it.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Moviesand publishes on Medium.
While piloting his family to his father’s funeral in rural Appalachia, Marquis (Omari Hardwick, Sorry to Bother You) flies through an electrical storm and crashes, waking up alone and injured, a captive in the attic of Ms. Eloise (Loretta Devine, who was one of the original actresses in the stage presentation of Dreamgirls). She claims that for him to be whole again, she must use the Boogity, a Hoodoo figure created from human blood and skin.
Trapped in an attic with no idea where his family is, Marquis must escape his past and his future at the very same time.
Spell was written by Kurt Wimmer, who wrote and directed one of my favorite odd 2000’s action films, Equilibirum, as well as its kind of, sort of follow-up Ultraviolet. He also wrote Salt, Sphere and the remakes of The Thomas Crown Affair, Total Recall and Point Break. He also directed a new Children of the Corn, which came out on October 23 of this year.
It was directed by Mark Tonderai, who made House at the End of the Street and has worked on plenty of streaming shows like Castle Rock, Locke and Key and Gotham.
This film looks nice, with well-thought-out dream sequences and colorful hues. I just wish it had something new to say. It feels like a backwoods — yet black-acted — version of the post-Deliverance films that brought the supernatural to the table like Ritualswhile the allusions to Misery simply can’t be glossed over.
That said, between this and Antebellum, you can really tell that modern black horror suffers without someone like Jordan Peele at the helm. It’s an alright film, but like I stated above, I wish it had something more to say.
However, Devine is great in her role and really brings it. She’s the best thing in this.
Spell is playing in some theaters — check COVID-10 restrictions — as well as being available on Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, DirecTV, VUDU, Xfinity, FandangoNOW and more.
Whether you love or hate holiday movies, Cup of Cheer is for you. It’s the story of big city writer Mary, who heads back home to Snowy Heights to write an article about the town’s world famous Christmas cheer. If this is how every Hallmark movie begins, well, this certainly doesn’t end that way.
Directed by Jake Horowitz from a script by Andy Lewis, Mary runs into Chris, the owner of a hot cocoa shop called the Cup of Cheer. Well, not for long, as Chris’s ex-boyfriend plans on shutting down the shop on Christmas Eve. But Mary has a plan to rescue the store and the holiday and the town, as often happens in these movies.
Like I said, some people love these kinds of movies, so they’ll laugh at all of the jokes. And if they hate this genre, they’ll probably find just as much to laugh about. Also, I have no idea what goes into a cup of cheer, despite spending some time searching for recipes. I would guess that after seeing this that it involves hot cocoa. If you have any idea, let me know.
Beauty blogger Alexa Landry (Korrina Rico) has a fear of plastic surgery, but now that she’s facing the evil Dr. Cunningham (James Allen Brewer) and his strange family of plastic surgical believers who want to beautify the world — or kill everyone, take your pick — she better get used to dealing with her tomophobia fast.
If you have such a fear yourself (tomophobia is the worry of invasive procedures) or are turned off to gore and body horror, this is in no way the movie for you. It’s full of intense surgical moments that aren’t for the squeamish. And then again, if you’re the kind of filmgoer who is hunting down the truly gory, then good news. This has exactly the blood, innards and facial shredding that you’ve been looking for.
If you were a fan of the Saw films, Costas Mandylor — who played Mark Hoffman in that series — is in this as well.
This was directed by someone named Az, who has another film called C.I.Ape in post-production, and was written by Chris Kato.
Incision is available now on Amazon Prime, iTunes, Google Play and VUD.
The Russian Almasty, the Chinese Yeren, the Himalaya’s The Yeti — these are the many creatures that we refer to as Bigfoot. If you’re followed our site for any length of time, you know that we love Bigfoot and movies about it. Just check our Letterboxd list, for example!
Darcy Weir — who specializes in journeys into the unknown — has created this look at this creature, bringing along experts like Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, Derek Randles, Shane Corson, David Ellis and Lee Lustig.
Following the success of his explosively popular Bigfoot documentary, The Unwonted Sasquatch, Weir has returned with a follow-up that aims to expand on the history of this creature and its possible Relic Hominid cousins internationally. Don’t know what a Relic Hominid is? You better watch this and catch up!
If you’ve got 73 minutes and a burning desire to know more about whether or not these creatures exist, then this would be a pretty good use of your time. It’s the closest thing as you can get to hunting down one of these elusive cryptids without getting down in the dirt and making mating calls yourself.
Sasquatch Among the Wildmen is available on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, YouTube, Xbox, Vudu, Fandango Now, Direct TV, Dish Network, Comcast/Xfinity, Spectrum, Cox, Verizon Fios and through local cable providers from Uncork’d Entertainment.
Set in an imaginary country which is said to be the birthplace of love and an endless source of fun, Greatland is all about the rebel teen Ulysses, who is attempting to save his childhood sweetheart as an election and a deadly virus wreak chaos and violence.
So you know, it’s ripped from the headlines, I guess.
There’s a pretty decent cast on hand with favorite of our site Eric Roberts, Nick Moran (Scabior from the Harry Potter films), former boxing champion of the world Shannon Briggs and horror star Bill Oberst Jr (The Devil’s Rejects).
It’s directed by Dana Ziyasheva, a former journalist and a UNESCO diplomat with 20 years of development work around the world. Her film Defenders of Lifeabout child-brides set in the indigenous Ngäbe tribe of Costa Rica helped bring about a national ban on under-age marriages.
This is a neon world of what happens after the virus, a world where people only care for themselves and their fun forced to come back to our reality. It goes past non-binary love the whole way to interspecies romance, too.
This isn’t for everyone, but is an interesting take on post-apocalyptic film.
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