Warner Bros. did Wes Craven dirty. Deadly Friend, from 1986, was Craven’s first feature since A Nightmare on Elm Street, which made a bucketful of money for New Line Cinema. Warners didn’t have the confidence in Craven that his previous success had earned. After a first cut of this film was poorly received by a test audience, producers and studio execs ordered reshoots. Nothing new there, but as originally shot, Deadly Friend was not a horror movie. It was a sci-fi thriller. Craven was forced to change the story, add in blood and gore scenes, and turn his film into something against his and screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin’s intent. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Deadly Friend”
Tag: Sci-Fi Flick
October Horrorshow: Timesweep
Someone out there, somewhere, owns the rights to Timesweep, the 1987 magnum opus from writer/director Dan Diefenderfer (screenplay credits were shared with Larry Nordsieck and John Thonen). As of this writing, Timesweep is nowhere to be found on streaming services, outside of the nooks and crannies where someone has uploaded an old VHS transfer. For shame. This movie is right up Tubi’s alley, and I’m sure whoever owns the rights could use the extra fifty bucks. Anyway…
Timesweep tells the tale of a bunch of mild-mannered 30-something Midwesterners who find themselves trapped in an abandoned building that is hopping through time. Monsters, aliens, zombies, a crazed hermit, killer bugs, and more abound, providing the audience with a surprising amount of gore for so moribund a budget.
The building in question is an old film studio that is slated for demolition. An architecture professor, Vincent Hill (Kevin Brief), a film professor, H.G. Lewis (Frank Vrooman), and students have gathered to explore the old edifice before it’s gone forever. Joining them is a local news anchor covering the story, Angela Markell (Denise Gray), and cameraman Mike Romero (Michael Cornelison). Mike is the rebel of the movie. One can tell because he shows up two minutes late, and he’s rocking a beige jacket. Yeah, there were some wild folks in Kansas City, Missouri in the 1980s. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Timesweep”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Cyberjack, aka Virtual Assassin
If there is any formula that has been beaten to death in action flicks, it is the “Die Hard in a…” film. Die Hard on a ship and its sequel, Die Hard on a train; Die Hard on a plane; Die Hard at the White House; Die Hard at a boarding school; Die Hard on a freakin’ bus. It’s such a reliable formula that sometimes an action flick can fall into all the Die Hard tropes as if by accident — like the filmmakers had something else in mind, but the lure of Die Hard was just too powerful to resist.
From 1995 comes Cyberjack, directed by Robert Lee from a script by Eric Poppen.
It’s the near future! A team of computer scientists, led by Dr. Phillip Royce and his daughter, Dr. Alex Royce (Duncan Fraser and Suki Kaiser), have created a new computer virus that acts as an anti-virus, and it lives in biological matter, and it may or may not have some kind of intelligence…it’s not all that clear. The details behind the virus are unimportant. In this movie’s world, the virus is a dangerous commodity that will have worldwide impact should it fall into the wrong hands. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Cyberjack, aka Virtual Assassin”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Phoenix the Warrior, aka She-Wolves of the Wasteland
This movie has to be trash, right? One doesn’t go into a 1980’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi b-movie with a scantily-clad female cast and expect Shakespeare. In the days before the World Wide Web, a movie like this was about one thing and one thing only, and that was gratuitous nudity. It’s true. Movie watchers were shallow enough that for about three decades leading up to the widespread use of the internet, showcasing nudity was a core purpose of thousands upon thousands of substandard movies. Good for them!
Phoenix the Warrior is a little skimpy with the goods, though. Although the look and feel of this movie is lifted from Mad Max, in many ways this has more in common with a women in prison flick. Director and writer Robert Hayes (Dan Rotblatt shares writing credit) even managed to squeeze in a pseudo shower scene, but that’s about it. Hayes did the absolute worst thing he could do as the director of an exploitation flick: he relied on his skill as a filmmaker to see him through. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Phoenix the Warrior, aka She-Wolves of the Wasteland”
Shitty Movie Sundays: The Psychotronic Man
The Psychotronic Man, from 1979, isn’t a standout 20th century b-movie, but it is a bizarre little piece of regional cinema. If the internet is to be believed, it also lent its title to Michael J. Weldon’s Psychotronic Video magazine, which, from 1980 to 2006, covered pretty much the same kind of material that is this site’s bread and butter. Psychotronic Video is long gone, but public appreciation of the kinds of films we mutants like is as strong as it has ever been, if the proliferation of streaming services offering up the stuff is any indication.
Directed by Jack M. Sell, from a screenplay by Sell, Phil Lanier, and Peter Spelson, The Psychotronic Man follows Spelson (who also produced) as Rocky Fosco, a Chicago barber who begins to manifest destructive psychic powers.
It all begins when Rocky is feeling crabby after a day of cutting hair, and decides he needs to take a drive to blow off some steam. Off to rural Illinois we go, as Rocky, and Sell, take viewers on a runtime padding sequence of drinking, driving, and helicopter shots. Rocky’s method of blowing off steam is to keep driving and pouring whiskey down his throat until he gets sleepy and has to pull over to the side of the road and pass out. Man, the ’70s were wild. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The Psychotronic Man”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Alienator
Prolific filmmaker Fred Olen Ray is a Shitty Movie Sundays All-Star. He’s on the list for his lifetime achievement in the art of b-movies. Sometimes pumping out half a dozen shitty movies in a year, Ray’s career is one worthy of study for the mutant connoisseur. But, had his career consisted of just this one movie, he would still have a place in this amateur reviewer’s heart.
Alienator, from 1990 (screenplay by Paul Garson), sounds just like what it is: an alien who is a terminator. The titular character is about all the relation this flick has to James Cameron’s classic, though. There is no time travel, there is no apocalyptic artificial intelligence, and there is no unborn savior of the future. What there is, is a large, unstoppable space bounty hunter, played by bodybuilder Teagan Clive, in a hair metal-perfect costume. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Alienator”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Terminator II, aka Shocking Dark
There isn’t a successful Italian film director from the 20th century that doesn’t have at least one Hollywood ripoff in their filmography. It was practically de rigueur over there. But, no filmmaker did it with quite the shamelessness of Bruno Mattei, and none of his movies approached the level of outright thievery seen in Terminator II.
Trademark law is obviously looser in Italy. Over there, production companies can market and release a movie as a sequel to an unrelated production. This movie is not a sequel to The Terminator, James Cameron’s blockbuster from 1984. But it was marketed as such, down to a poster that evokes Arnold Scwarzenegger’s menacing, uncanny cyborg face. Everyone involved, including producer Franco Gaudenzi, knew how disingenuous it all was, because this flick wasn’t released in the United States until 2018, and then under the title Shocking Dark. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Terminator II, aka Shocking Dark”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Zone Drifter
As with many films featured in Shitty Movie Sundays, Zone Drifter started with an outsider dreaming of becoming a filmmaker. For most, there is no future at Cannes or under the starry lights of Hollywood. There are no sympathetic juries at Sundance, and no standing ovation at Tribeca. But, it has never been cheaper to film a movie, with most of us carrying around HD cameras in our pockets. And, an internet with a voracious appetite for content means that making one’s film available has never had fewer hurdles. A low-budget, anonymous film has more of a chance of being a signal lost in the noise, yet that’s still better than the days when a handful of VHS tapes were the best a filmmaker could hope for. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Zone Drifter”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Top Line
Italian movie star Franco Nero has appeared in almost 200 films. I haven’t seen them all, but I’ve seen enough that I’m confident half could be included in the Shitty Movie Sundays Watchability Index. That’s not a knock on Nero. He wants to work a lot, and he has the opportunity to do so. Good for him. But, such profligacy does have costs. Sometimes, he takes a role in a total dog like Top Line.
Released in 1988, Top Line is an Italian production directed by Nello Rossati, from a screenplay by Rossati and Roberto Gianviti. The movie follows Nero as Ted Angelo, an alcoholic novelist who has just been dropped by his publisher while he’s in Colombia researching ancient civilizations and the age of European explorers. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Top Line”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Mutant Hunt
Writer/director Tim Kincaid’s Mutant Hunt, from way back in 1987, was never meant to look as good as it does now. Sure, it was shot on 35mm film, but it was a direct-to-video release. For most of its history, Mutant Hunt was seen by viewers in 480p, formatted for CRT televisions, and that is the version available on streaming platforms. But, the folks over at Vinegar Syndrome came to the rescue yet again, having released a high def Blu-ray in 2022. That means that for the first time, except for some lucky folks who saw a limited theatrical run in Europe, viewers get to see the silliness that is Mutant Hunt in all its glory. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Mutant Hunt”