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Showing posts from February, 2017

Neon Maniacs (1986) - Joseph Mangine

This project really takes me into some weird places. I knew going into it I would find some weird stuff. It started with Slime City and Street Trash. Now I am finding stuff like this. Movies that were too low-budget to even stay on the campy cult classic radar. This movie is the epitome of campy cultishness. Just look at the over-the-top effects. They are so much, it appears to resemble a really dark episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.  An unfortunate guy happens to find some pictures or trading cards with horrible looking mutants on them. All in various poses with murderous weapons. It's weird. These mutants all live under the Golden Gate Bridge and they happen to be causing havoc for the coastal city. Now the cops have to get involved. It goes down the crime movie path and even has a love story intertwined.  This movie has a lot of negatives. But it gets some passes from me. Firstly, the movie is based in California. That already gains points with me. It's

Recovery (2016) - Darrell Wheat

I had seen Recovery on the Internet Movie Database and got kind of excited about watching it. It actually looked pretty interesting. The trailer was suspenseful and promising. It's hard for me to get excited for modern releases. They take tropes from other movies and beat them into the ground repeatedly. Unfortunately a large quantity of them happen to be crap.  Apparently this is based on factual events. It follows a high-school girl that goes out clubbing with two stranger friends and her brother. She does drugs, drinks and eventually loses her phone and a friend. However, the a recovery app is installed and it shows the location of her missing phone. All she has to do is go to that location and get her phone right?  This movie drags out badly. The plot becomes obvious within minuets and doesn't really mean much. The suspenseful nature is still there but the characters and plot are just so cheap and weak. The performances are mediocre at best. Kirby Blanton is

Retribution (1987) - Guy Magar

George decides to commit suicide on Halloween at the exact same time as a gangster named Vito. Just so happens that due to supernatural events Georges body survives and houses both himself and Vito. Slowly, Vito starts to make his way back out with murderous results. George keeps envisioning himself murdering all of these people. Much to the annoyance of his psychiatrist.  The acting is nothing to write home about. Dennis Lipscomb does a really respectable job. The other actors are passable. It's just a shame that the editing and direction is so subpar. It doesn't stop this from being a really interesting feature though. The plot is strange but I kinda like it. This is a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story that has been enhanced for the modern age. Well, maybe enhanced is too generous of a word. This movie is absurd, campy, gory and wonderful. It's not amazing but that doesn't really matter. It's fun. It's a shame that it took Guy Magar so long to fi

The Wraith (1986) - Mike Marvin

The Wraith could only exist in the nineteen eighties. This is that special kind of idea that pops up when you're at least four to five rails of coke into the evening. Seriously. This is insanity. It mixes sci-fi, horror and action in no way that any other movie could do. It has car chases and aliens. It's equally as good as it is terrible. And it features some really great actors. It's a huge cult classic from the era when PG-13 movies actually had some balls. This movie is really bizarre and I couldn't wait to see it.  A stranger with an incredible car is challenging the members of a local gang to race for something much more valuable than pinks. This pisses off the local authorities and the hot-headed leader of the gang. What they don't know is that this isn't just any stranger. This is an alien with a intergalactic Turbo Interceptor and he is out for vengeance.  Firstly, I love the soundtrack. It has a great lineup of awesome songs from the ti

Mr. Vampire (1985) - Ricky Lau

Jiangshi is a genre of horror from Hong Kong made popular in the mid-eighties. It focuses on Vampires and Zombies based in Chinese culture. This movie was an intrical part in that popularity. Mr. Vampire, or 暫時停止呼吸,   is a horror comedy that's directed by Ricky Lau and produced by Sammo Hung. It has a big emphasis on slapstick humor and creative stunt elements. A village plans to rebury an elder. However, after the body is exhumed it's discovered that the corpse is a reanimated, blood-thirsty, hopping vampire. Three guys that work at the local mortuary are tasked to save the world and stop the small vampire outbreak. Oh, there is a succubus in there too. She is running around doing her thing. The horror portion is actually pretty fantastic. I really like the lore here too. They have Hopping Vampires that can be constrained with wards that you past to their foreheads. The vampires can also smell you when you breath. Needless to say, its a far cry from the past incarnatio