SPELLCASTER (1988)

   Filmed in '88 but not released until '92 this might be the best movie 80s new-wave rock star Adam Ant was ever in that I've seen. That's not really saying much though since I haven't really seen him in anything else besides all his music videos. This is a Charles Band Empire Pictures produced deal and those are never really all that great. This one gives us Ant, offscreen for most of the film, as The Devil(Diablo) himself making deals for souls and killing off much of the cast. There are some cool FX including a chair that eats people, a fat guy who turns into a pig-man and some zombies who show up for a second but most of this is pretty lackluster nonsensical stuff. 

AMSTERDAMNED (1988)

  For a Dutch slasher movie from the 80s this one is surprisingly well shot. It gets a bit bogged down in the police procedural stuff midway through but pulls it out with a boat chase and enough of a mystery to make things not boring. It's also pretty unique to have the killer in scuba gear and do most of his killing from the water. It gives the kills a very JAWS-like feel. 

The English dub has some pretty heavy Dutch accents. 

PIRANHA (1972)

  Not to be confused with the 1978 Joe Dante animals run amuck classic, this one is more of a jungle adventure flick starring the great William Smith as a nefarious hunter taking some people on a hunt for diamonds. Perhaps if this had been called anything other than PIRANHA it would not have been as disappointing. Actual piranhas only show up during the opening credits and one fleeting scene but that's hardly worth naming your whole movie after. For William Smith completists only. 

 This film was marketed as a MOST DANGEROUS GAME take-off  but that's also some false advertising. AKA PIRANHA! PIRANHA!  

                                                    

                                                     Channel 9 late night movie!:

ULTRA FORCE 2 (1989)

  I believe the first ULTRA FORCE is Michelle Yeoh's ROYAL WARRIORS from 1986(a sequel to Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock's YES, MADAM!)  under a different alias. I've never seen that one but I don't think there's any direct connection other than both movies being about Hong Kong police. Other alternate titles for this are MEGAFORCE 2 (making this a sequel to 1989's KILLER ANGELS which is also sometimes called ULTRA FORCE(confused yet?)) and RAW FORCE 3 (not sure what that makes it a sequel to but let's just say it's this classic). To obscure things even more YES, MADAM! is also known as ULTRA FORCE 2 in some places.  

 None of that really matters though since this stands on it's own as an ass-kicking action-packed epic. Moon Lee(aka Mona Lee) is our main gal here and really stands out. If you can deal with all the repetitive gun-fu on display and not very complex storyline give it a look for some great 80s Hong Kong action.

 Unfortunately, as is the case with a lot of these HK actioners, a few of the actors involved with stunt work(including Lee) were pretty badly hurt in the big fiery finale. This might be the only movie from there that I've seen where they actually stop the action to give a disclaimer about how bad the accident was though. I assume that means things went pretty awry.  AKA DEVIL HUNTERS

STARSHIP INVASIONS (1977)

   I saw this film at a recent gathering of friends to view films on 16mm and was told that this was a STAR WARS ripoff. I think that might have been pretty tough to pull off since it was released only 5 months after Lucas' all-time blockbuster. What it actually is though is one of the weirdest roles for horror icon Christopher Lee. Mr. Lee plays an alien who dresses up in something that resembles a superhero outfit, doesn't have to speak any lines of dialogue since he communicates telepathically and runs around killing some competing enemy aliens that look like albino Braniacs or something. There's also a goofy spiky helmeted robot and Robert Vaughn as a turtleneck-wearing earthling who gets abducted and taken for a flying saucer trip.  It's all pretty awful and should probably only be viewed in it's Riff Trax version if you really feel the need to see this.

                                                                          Thai-fi!:

French poster!:

THE PROTECTOR (2005)

  So elephants are really big in Thailand. This Thai fight flick(Muay Thai in this case) is all about revenge for this dude's(Tony Jaa's) elephants being stolen by some evil gangsters(including that big guy from MUAY THAI GIANT). It's all very basic but the combat/action scenes are all very spectacularly done so if that's your bag, or you just really like seeing elephants on film, give it a watch.

The American, badly-dubbed, release is missing about 30 minutes and has a hip-hop soundtrack. I went with the original cut even though it's almost 2 hours long. 

 Star Tony Jaa's first big film here in America was ONG BAK so maybe I shoulda started with that one. I imagine it's pretty similar though.

SHADOWZONE (1990)

 This is some stupid bullshit about a shape-shifting interdimensional monster that pops out of people's dreams in a lab. You get a SCANNERS-like head explosion and some gory autopsy subjects but most of this is pretty sleep-inducing. It's also really dark(at least the VHS I watched was) so that doesn't help much. Louise Fletcher is a long way from her Academy Award winning role in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST and spends a bunch of time applying Chapstick for no reason. This is a Full Moon Studios production so I wasn't expecting much. At least there were no puppets in it and on the positive side you get a totally naked lady with perfect boobs throughout the entire film(yeah she's asleep for most of that but it still counts).

HALF HUMAN (1958)

  So this movie started off originally as the 1955 Japanese film JIN YUKI MAN. It was director Inoshiro Honda's follow-up to GODZILLA and is basically a variation on KING KONG. The monster here is a large bigfoot/ape/abominable snowman creature who along with his son comes into contact with a couple of skiers resulting in some deadly encounters. Just like with that film when it was brought to America it was re-edited to include a bunch of scenes with American actors(most notably John Carradine). The bits off original movie that are left, about a third of the original film, are voiced-over by Mr. Carradine which gives everything a weird silent movie vibe that really drags things down. Luckily all the monster mayhem is on view and at just a little over an hour(the Japanese film is 94 minutes long) it moves briskly enough. 

 The original version apparently is not something the Japanese are very fond of due to how it depicts the natives and it hasn't been released on any home video format there.

50s Twin Terrors Thrill Show!

CURSE OF THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN (1972)

  So these hippies are hanging out at a ranch and some deaths ensue. No this is not another Manson Family-inspired 70s horror flick. This one is a headless horseman-inspired 70s horror flick. Well sort of anyway. The headless dude here just seems to like flicking his decapitated noggin towards folks and splattering them in blood. This usually results in them freaking out and ending up dead by some weird accident. It was really hard to keep focused on this one since it's filled with endless rambling dialogue that goes nowhere in between anything remotely interesting happening. 

 Director Leonard Kirtman made CARNIVAL OF BLOOD 2 years before this, which I recall at least having some cool H.G. Lewis-esque gore bits. Aside from these 2 outings he stuck to directing porn exclusively which may have been a wise choice. 

Ultra Violet, who was part of Andy Warhol's group of weirdos, shows up with a neat Superman lunch box.

                               This shitty artwork seems way more appropriate for this film:

Teamed up with Kirtman's other horror attempt:

NIGHTMARE BEACH (1989)

 This is a pretty entertaining slasher flick from late in the slasher game. There's actually not much slashing going on since the killer mostly uses an elaborately souped-up motorcycle to electrocute his victims but there's lots of burning/melty head gore to go around. Also doesn't skimp on the boobs since it takes place at Spring Break in Miami Beach(hence the alias WELCOME TO SPRING BREAK). My favorite aspect of this is the biker gang named THE DEMONS(complete with jackets emblazoned with their name in the same font as the classic Italian gorefest) who kinda go from being complete scumbags to accidentally becoming almost heroic by the films conclusion. John Saxon also puts in a great performance as a real shitty cop. To top things off we get a fairly metal soundtrack and a stupid surprise ending. 

 Strangely enough Italian director Umberto Lenzi was supposed to be the director of this(it is technically an Italian-produced film even though it seems very American) but he apparently had some problems with the producer. He still has a writer credit though.