Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid

So, how does a production company follow up a financially successful creature feature that surprised audiences and critics alike with its absurd watchability? By doing it all over again, but with less than half the budget. It’s almost criminal.

Anaconda, the 1997 giant snake flick starring future superstar Jennifer Lopez, ranks very high in the Shitty Movie Sundays Watchability Index. It was shocking how so stupid a movie ended up being so entertaining. It was also something of a surprise that it took another seven years for there to be a sequel, as Hollywood is not known for passing up free money. Continue reading “Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid”

Waxwork

Not every horror film has to be deadly serious. Sometimes, it’s impossible to hide the absurdity of a horror story, so a filmmaker doesn’t bother to try. Such is the case with Waxwork, the 1988 film from writer/director Anthony Hickox.

The film tells the tale of a gaggle of pretty 20-somethings who find themselves in mortal danger inside a wax museum. Putting youth in danger is a formula as old as horror films, and a risky one for filmmakers to take. Young, pretty faces are a dime a dozen in Hollywood. What’s unique is finding the young talent who is pretty, can act, and is capable of lifting mediocre screenplays. So, choose the wrong cast, and one could end up with a stinker. Continue reading “Waxwork”

Squirm

Squirm is an appropriate title for the 1976 horror flick from writer/director Jeff Lieberman. This is the type of horror flick intended to make a viewer’s skin crawl. In that, Lieberman and company succeeded beyond any expectations. After all, this isn’t some mid-budget horror meant for mass theatrical release. This is a low-budget horror flick made for drive-ins and grindhouses. What I mean is, how in the world could the production afford to purchase millions of worms?

That’s right. Worms. The ugliest, slimiest, biggest, fanged (yes, FANGED), worms from the soil of these great United States. All shipped to Port Wentworth, Georgia, for use in a disgusting movie shoot. I fucking love horror flicks. Continue reading “Squirm”

The Marshes

This is a little movie. Not in length. A viewer will feel all 85 minutes of its running time. Rather, The Marshes is a movie filmed with what looks to be a miniscule budget, so writer/director Roger Scott kept everything hemmed in. The film was shot in the Australian wilderness, and sets consist of a small campground and couple of spots for some bloody stuff. There’s not so much as a shack or a hunting blind to be seen anywhere once the production hits the boonies. They left only footprints. Continue reading “The Marshes”

Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles

Here’s an old review I wrote for an abandoned month of Tom Cruise reviews. It slots into the Horrorshow quite well:

What a clumsy title. The title of this film is up there in clumsiness with Ballistic: Eks vs. Sever, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. It can’t be too much longer before Hollywood shoves out a film that has two colons in the title, right? Of course, Hollywood has nothing on the Japanese, who are absolute virtuosos at stringing together nonsense titles. The anime realm brought us The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love?, a film which showed us that J-pop is a weapon of mass destruction, and Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone. Not too long ago I saw a Japanese detective flick from the 1960s titled Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! It was every bit as good as it sounds. But, while I jest, potential viewers should not let the awkward title steer them away from Interview with the Vampire. Continue reading “Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles”

Invasion from Inner Earth, aka Hell Fire, aka They

Invasion from Inner Earth movie posterOnce upon a time, in the far distant past, AD 1974, filmmaker Bill Rebane asked a simple question. “What if I made an alien invasion movie without the aliens?” I’m joking, but at some point during production, Rebane (who has graced the Horrorshow in the past) had to have noticed that all the action in his film was taking place hundreds of miles away from the plot. What we’re left with are five 20-somethings in an isolated cabin in northern Manitoba, whiling away the time by playing with a ham radio and eating beans. It turns out that it’s important for a filmmaker to place their characters near the action in a film, so that something, anything, happens to ease the pain of the audience. Who knew?

Working from a screenplay by Barbara J. Rebane, Invasion from Inner Earth (also released as Hell Fire and They — titles that make as little sense as Invasion from Inner Earth) starts off slowly, and that’s how the whole thing goes. Continue reading “Invasion from Inner Earth, aka Hell Fire, aka They”

Empire of Ash III, aka Last of the Warriors

What a gloriously stupid movie. It has it all. Barely sensible plot, bad dialogue, bad acting, cheap filmstock, gratuitous nudity, and all the other accoutrements that make shitty cinema great. Every time the flick threatens to drag, directors Michael Mazo and Lloyd A. Simandi throw in a gunfight and some explosions, and all is well with the world once again. Empire of Ash III is no rare gem, but we shitty movie fans love it when filmmakers just throw shit at the wall to see what sticks. Continue reading “Empire of Ash III, aka Last of the Warriors”

Hard Night Falling, or, Die Hard at a Villa

Let’s hear it for the Italian shitty movie industry. Decades-long and still going strong, when one has a yen for a ripoff of one’s favorite Hollywood action flicks, look no further than Italy.

Today’s shitty Italian ripoff is Hard Night Falling, from 2019. Dolph Lundgren plays Michael Anderson, an Interpol agent who is meeting his wife and daughter (Sinne Mutsaers and Chiara Arrigoni) at a villa owned by businessman Frank (Andrea Scarduzio), during a swanky dinner party. Things are a bit rocky in the Anderson household, and it has been many years since Michael has seen his daughter. Continue reading “Hard Night Falling, or, Die Hard at a Villa”