Revenge - 1986

 More of the VHS from the porn store with a perhaps not quite as rare and not quite as amateur film here, the 1986 cleverly-titled Revenge.  John Carradine and a vague plot, lets make the movie.

This needs to be mentioned in the same breat as ISOYGT from last time not just because they were bought at the same store, but also because like I said, this is in the same amateur vein, just not AS MUCH.  This movie had some production, even if it mostly took the form of them simply hiring a known actor for one day of filming.

Revenge is also known as Blood Cult II, the sequel to the 1985 film which is something of a cult classic.  It is directed by the same person and has similarities, so it might as well actually be Blood Cult II, but it is not titled that way.  It is the sequel though, I guess.  

Revenge is basically about a cult of some sort which is killing women and leaving a little totem on their bodies.  Some people are going to this area and are killed, repeat, repeat.  John Carradine is a cult leader guy, and I kid you not, probably on set for one day.  I don't really remember much else plot-wise.  It's extremely straight-forward.

Revenge has some kills and some trashy fun, but it's not as fus as ISOYGT.  It is pretty much just a cheap horror flick with little going on between the ears, but it's fucking fun enough man, it's fine ENOUGH.  I'll give it like a 2.

"I'll Kill You... I'll Bury You... I'll Spit on Your Grave Too!" - 1995

 Wow dude.  Just wow.

I went to visit my friend in Bremerton WA recently and we stopped in at an adult video store.  If anyone lives in the area, check out Mylo's I think it is called.  This store had everything we remember from the mid 2000s adult video stores before the internet really completely overlapped physical format.

Mind you, this is not an adult toy shop or even a store with an adult section.  It's an adult video store with a "preview" room in the back that I'm sure is 100% legit, crazy $30 prices on unknown compilation DVDs, and a oily overweight guy in a skin tight blue shirt behind the register.  This is the real deal, and it is not long for this world.

They had a rack of VHS porn over the back corner.  My friend Matt made a comment that he saw a movie over there, True Lies or something.  I laughed, figuring it as a joke that this store had real movies too.  But he was right, they did.  I browsed the selection, astonished at the amount of completely unknown films there I had never even heard of.  This was one of them.

At this point, I can spot a rare movie, and I can also spot something which the world has forgotten about.  I'll Kill You... I'll Bury You... I'll Spit on Your Grave Too (YGT from now on) has no official DVD release.  The VHS is rare, selling on eBay for anywhere between $50-100.  YGT has no wikipedia, and basically nothing about it can be found online.  A hidden gem.

Or is it?  It is almost unnecessary to point out no one in this movie has any other credits, this was certainly shot direct to VHS with no budget, made by random horror fans and their friends.  That said, it's actually pretty good.  I thought this would be a porn movie, honestly, and that was not helped by the three nude scenes in the very beginning, but this is just a nudity filled horror movie, and it ain't bad at that.

The acting is atrocious, but the music and the effects are actually not bad.  Additionally, it does kind of move quickly, and it toes the line often into so-bad-its-good territory, while also just occasionally slipping over into "almost legit slasher movie" territory.  The year being 1995, you have to know that some of this was intentional, and given that, I give this movie mega props.  

Plot wise it's straight and simple.  There's a kill in the beginning, cut to some years later the killer was never caught and now there are some teens heading into the area where it happened.  Gee, ya think the guy could still be out there?  Like I said plenty of nudity and stupid teens having fun.  This feels like the kind of thing where seriously everyone did have fun, and that is something I just love.  

I kinda talked myself into loving this while I wrote the review.  My girlfriend has certainly never seen anything like this before, and she said she'd give it a 2 out of 5, so I mean that is not bad for this type of thing.  I know these movies a bit better which is why it gets...

Starman - 1984

 Closing in on reviewing all of John Carpenter's films here maybe, if that is indeed the goal. 

Between Christine and Big Trouble in Little China there was this drama road trip movie that seems to have been relatively forgotten.  I'm also watching Memoirs of an Invisible Man, which I actually do not think I have seen before!

Starman stars Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen in a alien-comes-to-Earth film.  Karen Allen is a broken person after losing the love of her life, Scott, Jeff Bridges.  An alien lands beside her house in the night and comes in, finds a picture of Scott, and replicates his appearance.  Karen Allen walks in to see the alien growing from a baby into a picture perfect replica of Scott, and from here it turns into a weird road trip movie to get the alien back to Arizona.

The tension and the feeling of this movie range all over the place.  It starts as a hostage situation where Jeff Bridges pseudo kidnaps Allen because he does have a gun and he asks her to drive him.  As they bond, he reveals he would never hurt her and it's around the time they started to get along anyways, so now she's doing it out of love and to see this thing through.  Meanwhile, they have various adventures and Bridges learns about humanity.

Like I said it's got some bizarre tension to it, and throw in the fact they're being chased by Charles Martin Smith as a SETI guy, this movie does keep you interested.  

I thought it was fine, basically.  The story is pretty straight and it's a tad too long, but overall, it's fine.  It's not one you'll need to rewatch or study or anything.  It basically is what it is, in all it's weird self.  2.5 stars.

The Terror Within 2 - 1991

 When you vaguely remember The Terror Within because of the werewolf on the cover, and cause it came out trying to capitalize on The Howling and Wolfen and all the others, well that is when you watch the sequel.

C'mon, let's admit first off the title begs reexamination. How about The Terror Without first of all- or The Terror Within You? Guys, be creative. 

I only vaguely remember the first movie, which if memory serves, is werewolves. I say this because in this movie it's really not.

There's a pandemic on, see, and people are sort of rotting/seeping blood and becoming gross blood monsters. R Lee Ermey and some other people are in an underground bunker in the desert and thus relatively safe. Some newcomers come to the situation and now it's a game of try to survive. 

90s trash, yes. If you were wondering. Maybe it's the film quality. Maybe it's the acting. I couldn't say what it is for sure, but there is a distinctive feel to 90s movies.

By the way this is only 4 years off Full Metal Jacket, and Ermey is aleady in Z grade direct to VHS bullshit? Geez he deserved better. 

1.5 stars

Dark Tower - 1988

 I'm feeling a bit more like watching horror flicks and reviewing them, plus we up here in Idaho had another cold snap n 6 inches of snow, so....

Dark Tower has Michael Moriarty of Q The Winged Serpent and The Stuff, he's playing another square who's called in when a window washer falls to his death from a big ol tower. The window he fell from was that outside of Carolyn, so now she's dragged into the investigation. 

This movie is a minimal, cheap dumb horror flick. In fact, that's a term that I would say exists to describe this exact type of thing- if the set at any point is, say, hastily put up unpainted walls, if your set has exposed wood or lighting from just exposed lightbulbs, if your set has empty cardboard boxes around... It's a flick.

Dark Tower is a flick, and in those terms, which themselves predispose for middling, Tower is a middling one. It's average, it's whatever, it's a "sure, ok". 

If you haven't gotten the picture yet I'll say this, another necessary thing to define a flick is that you'll pretty much never think of it again, it's anywhere from 1.5-3ish stars, but hey, you also weren't looking away from the TV screen the whole time with boredom. 

I'll give this a 2.5 

From a Whisper to a Scream - 1987

 I was cruising Amazon and this movie was recommended so why not.  I had been feeling like a slasher and I thought for a minute this might be one.  It's not, but it did fit the bill regardless.

Vincent Price leads us on an intro where I'm wondering where this will go, then we cut to the first story cause you guessed it!  It's an anthology film.

Segment one is a story of a dorky guy that goes on a date with a woman and when she rebuffs him he kills her.  Then he kills his sister, before a mutant baby creature shows up and kills him!  I must've missed that this was supposed to be the baby of him and the woman he killed.  I must've missed that somewhere.

Second segment, some asshole guy owes some gangsters and flees to the swamp and is saved by an old black man who practices voodoo.  The asshole comes to believe the man might be over 200 years old and tries to get him to share the immortality secret.

Segment three is a story of a carnival glass-eater who is in love with a woman.  He wants to leave the curcus and be with her, but the circus is hella evil and they don't want him to leave.  What lengths they're willing to go to...now that's the horror.

Segment four is a civil war thing where a squadron of officers finds a small secluded house where evil children live.  They kidnap the soldiers and slowly kill them off, leaving Cameron Mitchell to be tortured.

Vincent Price is in the wrap-around, and shit, what else do you need?  Some unexpected and unusual nudity, in that it is from an older woman, some good kills, some of the more unusual villains and ideas.  I'll take it!  Hell I'll even give it 3.5 stars.

Maciste in Hell - 1925

Damn yo, I guessed the year right first try!

This is on the boxset and I ask you is hell not the ultimate Nightmare World?  I say it is.

Maciste is an Italian hero from the silent film era, and in this he is brought down to hell by Satan to get tested by the creatures down there.  He is put through tests both spiritual and physical, and must endure with only his strength of body and will.  

There was a funny slide in this movie that described Maciste, it was a while ago and I didn't write it down but it was something like "Maciste with his power slightly more than average man".  I just liked that they basically downplayed him like, guys he isn't that strong.  Just a bit.

Hell in this movie is pretty badass I have to say.  A lot of the imagery was based on an Italian artist Gustave Dore, and this shit does look like the movie in a way:

This movie's got a bit of tinting to it as well, it was black and white but early on it's more like yellow and black, then hell is definitely red and black.  With cool costumes and satanic things all around, with a frame rate that makes things move quick and choppy, hell indeed looks brutal as fuck.  Surprising also is that hell has scantily clad women!

I have not seen a ton of black and white silent films, but if someone made a list of films stylistically akin and fast paced like this, I would check some of them out!  This is damn entertaining!  I'll give it 4 stars!

When a Stranger Calls Back - 1993

 Goddamn it I was off by one year in my guess!  I guessed 1992.

I watched and was impressed a while back when I watched When a Stranger Calls.  This film, though I had never seen it, shocked me with just how much a true horror movie it was, and it's grim and more realistic view of a serial killer.  So then, why not watch the made-for-TV sequel movie that came out 14 years later?

Well, it's a bit of a decline, in case the words "made for TV" didn't clue you in.  When a Stranger Calls Back takes the same idea, basically does it again, but instead of upping the stakes, it sort of turns them down.  Then as if to over-compensate throws you one of the most insanely incongurent end sequences of all time.

WASCB has some act issues for sure, such as the long, long middle section where essentially nothing happens, except that the plot pieces that have happened happen again.  Basically, a woman is watching a kid in a house while the parents are away, and someone comes knocking at the door saying his car is stalled down the street.  He asks the babysitter to call a tow truck.  Picking up the phone, she realizes the cord has been cut, and this guy continues to terrorize her.

WASCB isn't bad by any means, and the scenes of the door interaction and then figuring out that maybe the killer somehow got inside are truly scary.  It's just a little bit slow...  and like I said, it's not a bad ending, especially if it was in a different movie, it just does not belong in THIS movie.  

I'll still give this 3 stars though.

Toxic Zombies - 1980

Also known as Bloodeaters, Bloodeaters: Butchers of the Damned, The Dromax Derangement, and Forest of Fear.

I've been craving zombie movies lately, and this came up as a suggestion when I finished Zombie 3 on Tubi.  Guys, get on Tubi, it has the most cult films I have ever seen on one platform.

Toxic Zombies was the vision of one man, a man with a bizarre story to tell:  Senior Vice President at a corporation Charles McCrann.  This guy was a corporate America big wig who worked in the fucking Twin Towers and died there on September 11th, but that was 21 years after he wrote, directed, produced and starred in this fucking weird ass zombie movie?

The movie starts promisingly.  A girl bares those big ol titties and rubs em down with water while people wander through some marijuana fields.  Awesome.  The idea is that out in the mountains somewhere theres this illegal weed farm, and these inbred rednecks dump some sort of experimental toxin all over their weed crops, and it ends up turning them into zombies.  Naturally.  

This movie is a blast.  It was labeled as a Video Nasty, again, and so I'm working my way through the list of those that exist.  It also had a weird history, obviously, and when things are this strange, they usually as a total wtf situation.  This one joins those ranks.  

It's not bad either!  I mean to an average movie watcher they'll hate it but to us, to me, it's good!  It's a good culty smokey drive in horror movie with dumb zombies and some good kills and it comes from the heart!  I wonder if Charles McCrann was happy with it?

I'll give it 4 stars.  Nasty Scale: 2/10

Mistress of Atlantis - 1932

Part two of oldy-timey excursions on this set is this set, after The Lost City, this too is about Atlantis. 

In this bizarre remake, a group of explorers is wandering through the Sahara desert, as people do, and they find a mysterious entrance to Atlantis. Turns out Atlantis is run by a evil acting queen, and now they have to conflict with her in their quest to escape and survive. 

This movie does have a strange look to it, probably from the age, where people move in unnatural ways, choppy and odd, which really helped it. Especially with the Atlantians, it gave them an otherworldly and demonic presence.  

Otherwise, this is a often done plot, though I suppose this was one of the first in actuality. I wonder what the big deal with Atlantis was in the early 1900s? 

This is a bit slow and it's a product of its time. I can't slam it. I again wonder the usual stuff, like how well known this is, what it's individual legacy is. Will anyone ever rewatch it, relish in it?

I did find a review on IMDb where someone raved about it though, and frankly, that kinda stuff makes my heart swoon. Its not for me really, but I'm glad there's someone out there where it IS for them. 

I'll give it 2 stars. 

UFO: Target Earth - 1974

 Also known as Target Earth. 

This boxset is going to have some peaks and valleys, I can tell already.  I'm about to start on a string of bad 30s-ish sci fi related movies on the set. 

UFO is a clearly experimental 70s alien movie, very much leaning into the weirdness, you dig man?  There's a lot of really strange moments of bizarre sounds or screen effects or the actors clearly being given the direction to "look weird and disturbed".  The entire end is a 2001-ish colorscape of "trippy", "Pass the bong" teehee oddity, but you know what?  I loved all of that.

Unapologetically 70s, this movie just is what it is and it has no other era it could have been made in. 

Plotwise, I mean it's like, waaaay out there.  This guy is receiving strange signals from space and wants to find out what it's all about.  He gets this psychic woman and they trace the sources to a lake.  It turns out there's aliens in the lake, and they can only communicate through him.  That's about it, and it's also blessedly short at just around 75 minutes.

I would say that a lot of people might now love this as much as I did, but it is so wonky and out there it immediately gets in as a cult film.  I'll give it 4 stars.