Author: capcom

Shitty Movie Sundays: Battle for the Lost Planet

What a gloriously stupid movie. From an objective standpoint, this is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. But, it’s one of those films that is so inept, and so self-aware, that the entire package is endearing. I spent 91 minutes of a precious Friday night with this dog, and I regret none of it.

From writer/director Brett Piper, who would carve out a fine career in b-cinema, Battle for the Lost Planet tells the tale of Harry Trent (Matt Mitler), a thief in the future who is discovered while engaging in some light corporate espionage. He makes his escape to space in a shuttle he found laying around, just in time to witness an invasion by a race of pig-faced aliens. These invaders don’t waste any time. In a low-budget special effects extravaganza they lay Earth to waste, devastating all of human civilization. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Battle for the Lost Planet”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Retrograde

Dolph Lundgren has been in some low down dirty dogs in his time in the film business. We’re talking the kind of action movies so underfunded that most of the ‘action’ consists of exposition in barely-dressed sets, or whose plot involves a whole lot of walking in the desert. Often, Dolph is the only member of the cast with an extensive list of credits behind his name, telling a viewer just about all they need to know about a flick’s objective quality. But, fine objective quality is not what we’re after here at Shitty Movie Sundays. Dolph Lundgren is a prolific b-movie actor, and even the worst movie in which he’s ever appeared has something for the devoted connoisseur of substandard cinema. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Retrograde”

Shitty Movie Sundays: The Silencer (1992)

Here at Missile Test, we like a shitty movie that has ambitions. We appreciate when an auteur has a vision that far outstrips either resources or filmmaking ability. The result can be a film that flies off the rails, one that is a total head scratcher, or one that sits somewhere in between, sloshing back and forth between watchable absurdity, and unwatchable stupidity. Such is the case with The Silencer, the 1992 film from writer Scott Kraft, and writer/director Amy Goldstein.

Lynette Walden plays Angelica, a badass early ’90s chick who would have found a ready home in Twin Peaks. She dresses all in black, smokes cigarettes non-stop, rides motorcycles, and, oh yeah, is a contract assassin. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The Silencer (1992)”

It Came from the Camcorder: Redneck Zombies

According to Lloyd Kaufman, so some of it is probably true, Pericles Lewnes and George Scott wandered into the offices of Troma one day in the late 1980s with a finished movie they wanted Troma to distribute. Kaufman and his business partner Michael Herz agreed, on the condition that Lewnes take on unpaid work at Troma to work off the money Kaufman was sure this movie would lose for the company. And, thus, Redneck Zombies was unleashed upon the world.

Directed by Lewnes from a screenplay that has to be a pseudonym for either he or Scott, Fester Smellman, Redneck Zombies is one of the more ambitious efforts, gore-wise, that has been featured in It Came from the Camcorder. In tone, it fits right into the Troma stable, as Lewnes was very much a fan of their work. As the title implies, this movie is about zombies, who happen to be rednecks. Continue reading “It Came from the Camcorder: Redneck Zombies”

October Horrorshow: Alligator

If one is going to do a Jaws ripoff, this is how it should be done — with tongue planted firmly in cheek, and none of the dour mood that pervades a film like Orca.

Directed by Lewis Teague from a screenplay by the immortal John Sayles, Alligator tells the tale of a mutated alligator that lives in the sewers of Chicago and likes to munch on any hapless person who wanders by.

Following a popular urban legend of the day, a young girl receives a baby alligator as a souvenir from a trip to an alligator farm in Florida and, after the family returns home to Chicago, it is unceremoniously flushed down the toilet, landing unharmed, and probably quite annoyed, in the city sewers. Fast-forward to many years later, and the baby gator is now all grown up, and then some. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Alligator”

It Came from the Camcorder: Ozone

By 1993, when Ozone was released, J.R. Bookwalter had already established himself as Akron, Ohio’s finest filmmaker. That’s not a knock on Jim Jarmusch, just an acknowledgment that Bookwalter actually shot his movies in Akron.

The filmmaker behind such trash horror classics as The Dead Next Door and Robot Ninja, Bookwalter began his movie career shooting on film, before making the switch to video for Kingdom of the Vampire in 1991. After a string of shorter movies, Ozone returned Bookwalter to full feature length production. Continue reading “It Came from the Camcorder: Ozone”

October Horrorshow: Slaughterhouse

All ideas in film grow weary after a while. Lack of new twists, market saturation, declining quality, and a general malaise from viewership are the death knells for once-innovative methods of storytelling. By the late 1980s, it was the slasher subgenre of horror that had grown old and dusty, after only a decade or so of prominence. The result was a film like Slaughterhouse, the 1987 flick from writer/director Rick Roessler.

Don Barnett and Joe B. Barton play deranged father and son Lester and Buddy Bacon, owners of a shuttered hog slaughterhouse in rural California. Market fluctuations and a failure to modernize facilities did in their business, but Lester blames shenanigans from prominent locals for his dire straits. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Slaughterhouse”

It Came from the Camcorder: Demon Queen

Before Vampire Cop, before Chainsaw Cheerleaders, and before Bigfoot Exorcist (incredible titles, all), shitty movie auteur Donald Farmer gave us Demon Queen, an SOV quickie that boiled down a simple horror story into its basest elements.

From 1987, Demon Queen tells the tale of Lucinda (Mary Fanaro), a demon, or vampire, or something, who stalks the streets of Fort Lauderdale picking up unsuspecting males and ripping their hearts out while they are in postcoital afterglow.

Her latest victim, whom she strings along for most of this movie’s short 54-minute running time, is Jesse (Dennis Stewart). Jesse is a street-level drug dealer who, in a fit of plot on the part of Farmer, owes money to local gangster Izzi (Rick Foster). Continue reading “It Came from the Camcorder: Demon Queen”