Aliens land in the mythical town of "Speelburgh, U.S.A" searching for the source of rock & roll. What they find is a gang of teenagers, led by Dee Dee (the inimitable Pia Zadora) and Frankie, along with Frankie's posse/rock band, the Pack. The leader of the aliens takes a shine to Dee Dee and all sorts of trouble breaks out.
A User Review:
Pia Zadora is my new favourite 80's leading lady. This film is atrocious. The acting is bad, every joke falls flat, and the aliens are annoying beyond belief! I like the songs a lot. Bizzarely many of them are badly re-recorded versions of Pia's own songs. This is most obvious in 'A Little Bit Of Heaven' which she sings here with the alien commander Absid. Fans of trashy 80's movies will love it! It's even worse than Xanadu and Grease 2! Pia's outfits rock too! I'd give the plot 1/10, the acting 1/10, the feel-good factor is at least a 7/10, and the soundtrack is a 10/10 or 1/10 depending on your taste in music. Watch out for Pia's all singing, all dancing performance in the ladies room! Hilarity awaits you.... Buy, buy, buy!
Trivia:
Craig Sheffer presumed he was hired because he had long hair. As soon as Sheffer arrived at location, he was sent to get a haircut. He returned with a hairstyle that was deemed "too ordinary," so he was sent back for a second haircut.
Ace Hunter is the leader of Megaforce, an elite group of American soldiers who travel the world to fight Evil. In this case, Evil is represented by a third rate dictator who they must blow to bits.
A User Review:
One of the first jobs I ever had was with a catering company. Imagine how thrilled we were to be hired on for the on-location filming of "Megaforce"! Everyone involved seemed confident that it was going to be a smash summer hit. Watching this being filmed at Nevada's Dry Lake, it did seem like something monumentous was in the making, but nobody could have imagined just how negative a reaction "Megaforce" was going to receive. I almost didn't want to see it, but curiosity got the better of me and I did. Truthfully, I don't think it's nearly as horrible as many make it out to be...but certainly not good either. There's enough vehicle stunts and weapons futurismo to keep 12 year olds very entertained...and I think that may be exactly what Hal Needham intended for this project. ...and I hope everyone on the set of this enjoyed the food...
Trivia:
Producers approached military officials for cooperation in the design of the vehicles used in the battle scenes; the officials refused. When the film was released, those same officials were so impressed with the vehicles, they asked the producers for the plans. The producers cooperated.
Johnathan Cabot is a champion gymnast. In the tiny, yet savage, country of Parmistan, there is a perfect spot for a "star wars" site. For the US to get this site, they must compete in the brutal "Game". The government calls on Cabot, the son of a former operative, to win the game. Cabot must combine his gymnastics skills of the west with fighting secrets of the east and form GYMKATA!
A User Review:
I met Kurt Thomas at a gymnastics even in 1992. First thing I said to him was "Gymkata?" It is probably not difficult to imagine the look that came over the poor man's face at that point.
But I love Gymkata. We used to watch it for its tremendous entertainment value as an all-time great "bad" movie. My own personal favorite parts are the pommel horse in the medieval lunatic asylum, the guy saying "there is some anti-American sentiment going around here" immediately before being shot with an arrow, and of course the "Yak-MALLA!" war cry of "Parmistan." Oh, yeah, the four or five repetitions of "Karabal, on the Caspian Sea" before the place is shown with just that as the caption on the screen.
Trivia:
The film's poster features ninjas on it along with Kurt Thomas. There are no ninjas featured or referenced in this film. The poster was possibly designed to attract the action/martial arts crowd as this was a very popular genre during this time period. Tadashi Yamashita who appears in this film as one of Kurt Thomas' instructors actually starred as The Black Star Ninja, the villain in American Ninja (1985), which was released after the release of this film in June 1985.
In the future the world has become a waste land after the apocalypse. The populated territory is now under the rule of the martial arts clan of the Southern Cross, led by Lord Shin. When the Master of the North Star is murdered the baton is passed and the new master has very personal issues with Shin. When he passes through a small terrorised village he comes to their aid and sets up a confrontation with Shin.
A User Review:
Even though I had read bad reviews about this film, I still had reasonable hopes for it, using the logic that I was prepared for a dumb martial arts movie. However some bothered me about the film was that it didn't seem to live up to the potential that the story had. The film should have been a more majestic story about mysterious clans doing battle in the future, but instead it felt very small and restricted. The story doesn't seem to go anywhere and lots of avenues are left unexplored.
The sets etc don't help as they were clearly pretty cheap and only the opening shot of Malcolm McDowell sitting in his oriental house really had style or imagination – the images of apocalypse were too cheap to be impressive. The fight scenes are pretty average I'm sad to say. While Honk Kong cinema was on the edge of things, this film was back in the 1970's with its standard fights. In the anime the fights are much more impressive and the film should have tried to capture much more of a sense of wonder. The effects are a little too gory for my taste and don't fit with the story, because the film lacks a sense of mysticism it feels ordinary – hence the problem when it tries to do something that is different or weird.
The cast has some well known faces in small roles but the lead actors aren't up to the task of delivering good dialogue, they have awesome bodies and can move quite well but they can't act! This takes away from the film a great deal and stopped me getting into the characters. Daniels and Mandylor are two of the guiltiest ones but it is spread through the cast of villagers, including Melvin Van Peebles. McDowell looks like he might add class but is a temporary narrator and faces like Penn and Howard are only of interest rather than stealing the show.
Overall this is a pretty poor film. It lacks the majestic, epic sweep that it should have had and feels small and cheap. The effects are OK but the fights really lack flair or imagination – witness people queuing up to come one at a time and you'll understand what I mean. The poor acting, bad dialogue and basic average delivery of every part of the film really makes this feel bad – I was in the mood for an undemanding martial arts movie to waste 90 minutes and even I was disappointed by this!
Trivia:
The Japanese dubbed version of the film used the original voice actors from the 1980s anime series.
A Zombie curse is placed upon a woman, which causes her to have living snakes inside her. Brujo, who is looking after her, attempts to take her to Los Angeles on the train. After several confrontations on the train, Brujo's collection of snakes manage to separate themselves from their owner and go on the hunt. Whilst all this is happening, normal, everyday passengers are relaxing, what is unknown to them is that something deadly is heading their way, and that there is no way out.
A User Review:
Let's get one thing straight, this gets an 7 out of 10 not on a normal scale, but out of the bad movie scale. this is the kind of movie you rent on purpose, where you intentionally walk in knowing that it is a horrendous knockoff and shun'd by everyone else.
I went in with one promise from the movie, that there will be snakes on a train, and it Delivers!
The gore itself is really good, and the characters have awesome roles. Come on, it has everything from stoned train pilots to teenage girls trafficking drugs, even a Electrical Engineer getting his pimp on! You get to see some topless nudity, explosions, snakes, gore, and a Mexican main lead running around curing his girlfriend by hitting his crack pipe and blowing the smoke in her face!! As I mentioned and many others have, the movie pacing is a bit off, but respectable nonetheless.
Movies like this keep our group tradition of banding together and all chipping in a buck or two to watch masterpieces such as this. There can be no better time spent then coming together to enjoy a good bad movie.
It could learn a thing or two from the likes of other such fine flicks as Alien Lock-down or Boa vs Python, but those are some big shoes to fill.
A solid 7 out of 10.
Trivia:
The Phrase: "No snakes were hurt during the production of this screenplay. Only a small child was, but it's cool." appears in the credits
Innocent people are being brutally murdered on the streets of New York by a uniformed police officer. As the death toll rises and City Hall attempts a cover-up, Frank McCrae heads the investigation. A young cop, Jack Forrest, finds himself under arrest as the chief suspect, having been the victim of a set-up by the real killer and a mysterious woman phone-caller. Forrest, his girlfriend Theresa, and McCrae set out to solve the puzzle before the Maniac Cop can strike again.
A User Review:
This film has such incredible potential, but just throws every opportunity away to be great. The opening credits are way too slow, the film doesn't really try very hard to keep your attention, and the moments that could have been suspenseful seem to fall right into place as one might expect (especially a scene where a man is caught cheating on his wife).
The story revolves around a cop who goes around killing innocent civilians, and Bruce Campbell becomes the prime suspect in the murders.
With Bruce Campbell as a main character (though not the character with most screen time), one would expect a good time. He has consistently delivered to his fans, in "Evil Dead", "Brisco County" and "Jack of All Trades", to name a few. But in this he does not have the humor or charm he usually does, and I have to blame the director for this, because it is so completely out of the norm for Campbell that I can only suspect he was asked not to be himself.
Likewise, Sam Raimi appears briefly. By appearing, along with Campbell, this film likely got more attention from fan than it would have otherwise. And that's too bad, because this is a blotch on the record of Raimi.
Many of the killings could have been incredibly gory, but were done in such a way as to be clean and many times were not shown at all. A remake of this would be sure to really get the blood and gore in key moments.
All in all, a great idea for a film (with all the "corrupt cop" movies, why not a monster cop?) but horrible execution that seems to drag and not let the best aspects (death scenes and Campbell) shine.
Trivia:
Jill Gatsby is writer Larry Cohen's daughter and is killed in every one of his movies that she's in.
Dracula is alive. In fact, he plans to rule the world and that is why he seeks the help of other legendary monsters. However, a bunch of kids regarded by their peers as losers uncover the devious plan and prepare for a counter strike.
A User Review:
Kiddie-time torture. A monster-obsessed group of yapping juveniles ends up tangling with Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolf Man, the Gill Man, and Frankenstein's Monster, who have all come to modern-day suburbia in search of a powerful amulet. Affectionate, perhaps, but unexceptional. Has gained an appreciative audience via cable TV, but not many crowds turned out for this in the theaters (nostalgia being out-of-favor in 1987). The movie's weakest link--the rather tacky-looking monsters--is the linchpin of the whole production and, unless you're in need of a "Goonies" retread, the kids are not much of a draw. The anachronisms in Shane Black and Fred Dekker's script may hook curious baby-boomers...for about a minute. Dekker also directed, shabbily.
Trivia:
Liam Neeson was considered for the role of Dracula.
It is post-World War III. War is outlawed. In its place, are matches between large Robots called Robot Jox. These matches take place between two large superpowers over disputed territories. The main character Achilles is a pilot in one of the large Robots. The plot revolves around him and a match for the state of Alaska.
A User Review:
Stuart Gordon who we usually associate with extremely gory horror films such as Re-Animator, From Beyond, Dagon and Castle Freak, took a small detour here and did a little sci-fi flick. I stress the word "little" since this is a very low budget flick, and there in lies its main weakness.
The story takes place in the future. A world in which the great superpowers (that according to this movie are the United States and Russia) duke out their differences not by going on a full blown world war...but by fighting gladiator style battles with gigantic robots. Our hero Achilles must go up against the evil Russian robot fighter called Alexander. Lots of cheap stop motion animation ensues.
Well, the idea is awesome I guess. The great nations settleling territorial disputes with giant robots? Interesting premise and one that could have been handled properly if the proper budget had been available. Unfortunately what could have been a fun movie ends up being an embarrassment for an otherwise great director.
I as a kid loved this movie, and I guess if you want any enjoyment out of this movie, you'll have to revert back to little kid mode to have some fun with it. I showed this film to some of my friends and as the movie progressed my friends where like "what the hell is this piece of crap franco?" And I'm like well this movie is a sci-fi by one of my favorite directors Stuart Gordon?" But as the movie progressed into corny territory I almost felt like pressing stop and not having them go through that torture. I could go through it, cause I loved this film as a kid, and there's still a little nostalgia attached to watching it. But everyone else was just not going to get it.
And I myself realized that the movie isn't really that good. First off. The movie is about giant robots kicking the hell out of each other. And in order to achieve this in a credible fashion you'd have to use some damn good special effects to make it work, expensive effects that would help us the audience suspend disbelief. But unfortunately this being a small scale movie, from a small scale company (Empire Pictures, which went bankrupt after making this film!)the effects only help us giggle and laugh at them. Heck even the sets and some of the wardrobe looks unfinished or half assed.
OK granted, once you accept that you are watching a mixture of moderate stop animation and miniatures well you can sort of give in to the film and even enjoy the big robots kicking the hell out of each other. There are certain scenes when the robots are fighting that are kinda cool, and made me go "thats why I liked thid movie!" But every know and them, some crappy effect will take you right out of that protective little cocoon you were trying to hide in. And boom, your right back into realizing this film just doesn't live up to its premise.
And heres another thing that sort of bothered me a bit about the movie. This movie is basically a movie for kids. You know, giant robots duking it out? Stop motion animation? Hello? But this movies dialogue had a lot of sexual innuendos and the violence gets a little bloody. So I kept asking myself is this a kids movie or not? After a while I just came to the conclusion that basically this was a kids movie with adult sensibilities, which really isn't a good mix.
So for those of you who don't feel that certain naive childlike charm of watching two robots fighting each other and if you don't have a nostalgic connection to this movie (like I do) well Id suggest you steer clear away from this one. Gordons a great director, but this movie he made, just didn't do it for me. Well, at least not now that I'm a full grown adult.
The old teen rebel saga is updated for the rap crowd, unfortunately rapper Vanilla Ice is the teen. Ice shows up on a neon-yellow motorcycle which gets everyone's attention, including the female honor student who has never had a rebellious bone in her body.
A User Review:
Every once in a while a film comes along that changes the way we look at cinema. A film that redefines the art of movie-making and lives with the viewer long after he/she has experienced it. You may hear the critics mutter the words Star Wars, Citizen Kane or Gone With the Wind but, obviously, they don't know Ice, they don't know him at all.
If ever there was a movie that proved the Oscars are a farce, it's Cool as Ice. It clearly got snubbed and I guess we'll never know why. The only reason I can fathom is the academy's fear of the Ice man's Day-glo clashing with the red carpet. Clearly the better solution would have been a Day-glo carpet.
Maybe I'm a little biased because I see so much of myself in Ice's character and the personal journey he embarks on in the film. I, too, am a complex, misunderstood white male, searching for identity and a good lawn on which to do the running man. I also have a way with words and a way with the ladies and, gosh darn it, I just love to impress country folk with my fly threads and dope moves on the dance floor, yep yep.
The script is a work of art and is destined to become a textbook example for its conflict, character development and subtext. I can't decide who the bigger genius is: The writer or Vanilla Ice, himself, because let's face it it's not just the lines but the delivery of them. "Lose the zero, get with the hero" - pure gold.
Do what ever it takes to see this film. Beg, borrow, steal or even buy it. For all those who still wear Day-glo clothing or caps with polished metal logos, who still shave lines into their eyebrows or just consider themselves romantics, Vanilla will reinforce what you already know: You are Cool as Ice. It's also a hell of a lot better than watching Vanilla on Celebrity Boxing, no really it is.
Trivia:
Gwyneth Paltrow nearly took the role of Kathy until her father advised her against it.
In the VH1 "Behind the Music" episode that featured Vanilla Ice, it was stated that Robert Van Winkle was paid a cool $1,000,000 for his role as Johnny Van Owen.
A pair of smugglers manage to pick up a castaway while running from the authorities, who turns out to be the only survivor from a secret mission to destroy a mysterious superweapon designed by the evil Count Zartham. The smugglers are soon recruited by the Emperor to complete the mission, as well as to rescue the Emperor's son, who has gone missing.
A User Review:
This movie is completely insane. The plot makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, which is pretty much par for the course with Italian knock-offs like this. The special effects are colorful and eye-popping, the sets designed by some wonderful nut with an eye for that crazy psychedelic art deco-cocaine-disco-Flash Gordon look that Italians do so well. The actors are completely at a loss as to how to act/react to the film they are in and I loved it.
What else can one say about a film where the best performance is delivered by....David Hasselhoff. Scary but true. Not even the usually mesmerizing Marjo Gortner can do anything with the logic-defying lines of dialog he is forced to utter. After 10 minutes I was laughing so hard I knew I'd found something unique.
I rarely venture down the road of "so bad its good" movies but STARCRASH is mind-boggling in its cheesiness. Characters can tell the future but won't let anyone in on what is going to happen because "You would have attempted to change the future...which is against the law." A depressed and hung-over-looking Christopher Plummer states at one point, " I wouldn't be the Emerperor of the Universe if I didn't have a few talents. Now, Imperial Spaceship--halt the flow of time!" (not bad, eh?)
Joe Spinell, dressed like a dime-store Satan and dubbed by a man who sounds dangerously constipated, declares at one point, "By sundown I will be the most powerful man in the universe!" And you sit there and think, Sundown? You're in outer space, dude!There are many such hilarious lines.
I could go on and on: There are jerky stop-motion monsters, psychedelic blobs of light that attack people for no explainable reason,a robot who begins the film speaking normally and then about 15 minutes in starts talking in a southern accent,Christmas tree lights masquerading as stars, a weapon called The Doom Machine and a central non-performance from the ravishingly lovely but blank Caroline Munro, she of the stilted delivery and mis-matched eye-lines.
So, if you are looking for a rousing sci fi adventure with narrative coherence, decent special effects,and good acting, watch Star Wars; but if you're in the mood for an incomprehensible but colorful mish-mash of Ray Harryhausen movies, old Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials and just about everything else up to and including the kitchen sink, watch STARCRASH. You certainly won't forget it soon. Did I mention the leaping cavemen?...
Trivia:
David Hasselhoff contracted food poisoning during the shooting of the movie; a production assistant had to fill in for Hasselhoff for a fair share of the scenes in which his character Simon's face is covered by a mask. Moreover, Hasselhoff did most of his own stunts and accidentally knocked out an Italian stuntman's tooth on his first day of doing stunts.
A rash of bizarre murders in New York City seems to point to a group of grotesquely deformed vagrants living in the sewers. A courageous policeman, a photo journalist and his girlfriend, and a nutty bum, who seems to know a lot about the creatures, band together to try and determine what the creatures are and how to stop them.
A User Review:
C.H.U.D. is one of those movies that should be bad because its about subterrainian ground-dwellers that are cannibalistic living in a poor area of New York City. There are no big stars in the film, yet John Heard and Daniel Stern are not nobodies either. The budget for the film was obviously limited, yet, despite these possible criticisms, I was pleasantly surprised after seeing this film. This is a wonderful film filled with tension, good acting, a thoughtful script, witty dialogue, and some creatures that certainly looked pretty scary to me. The basic premise of the film is that homeless folks that live underground have come in contact with radioactive materials which transform them into horrible-looking mutants that go on a rampage and kill men and women for dinner. The creatures look quite impressive. This film also throws some social commentary into the mix as well concerning the ever burgeoning homeless problem as well as the storage of harmful wastes. The acting all around was pretty good with Christopher Curry standing out as a policeman and George Martin as a city official seemingly in charge. Good Stuff Here!
Trivia:
"C.H.U.D." is an acronym for "Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller", but it also means "Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal", as one can (barely) read on the crates full of toxic materials.
In the original movie, the cyborg-teachers were all destroyed. Well that's what we thought, but there's one more rogue military robot out there determined to clean up the education system.
A User Review:
Oh man, this braindead shlockfest looks like it just may have been made in someone's Califorina back yard! The acting is sub-porno, the sets would've made Ed Wood giggle & the dialog is some of the most unintentionally hilarious drivel ever to exude from a human head. In a weird way I recommend it, albeit only in a certain way. CLASS OF 1999 II is so relentlessly silly, cheap & badly acted that you can't help but play the home version of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000. If you're hanging out with a few friends & have downed a few beers (or other mind altering substances) this hapless craptacular can be highly entertaining. Sasha Mitchell's wooden non acting is awe inspiring (or perhaps vomit inducing). The film also contains one of the dopiest & most unerotic sex scenes since SHOWGIRLS. If you subscribe to Showtime this deliriously inept flick pops up a lot VERY late at night or early morning (for you wake-n-bakers).
Trivia:
When John handcuffs Ice in the fireplace and sets him on fire, a close-up shot of the gas valve shows it in the off position
Eve is a robot, modelled on "her" creator. Eve's armoury includes a nuclear bomb, which for unexplained reasons is on-board during Eve's testing. When things go wrong during the tests, Eve is lost in the big city. Enter the rescue team, which includes the real (human) Eve. They must find and disarm her before she goes "bang". Eve is programmed to protect herself at all costs, so when she runs into a problem, she resorts to her super strength; hence the destruction.
A User Review:
Of all the thousands of movies I've seen that have employed guns and tanks and exploding things, this is the first that made me want to turn the gun on myself. As each scene wore on and on, I kept gesturing in the air to 'hurry it up'. It was as if dead people were on the screen. The characters spoke so slow, I began to doubt that any of them ever spoke before! A world of frustration. There was only a little tension, a fair plot and a whole lot of inconceivabilities. Supposedly, the robot was infused with the memories and life experiences of her/its creator. So, it was expected to act and respond according to this 'information'. Yeah, right. Yawn. Gregory Hines was right for the role and his performance was very good, as expected. Everybody else were rank amateurs, as evidenced by their uninteresting, wooden deadpan styles. Avoid this movie unless you want to eat your own lead salad.
Trivia:
Just before this film was released, TV and radio spots were issued that featured a rap score not used in the film itself. The score was performed by Charles Jackson a.k.a. C.J. SKYY and Michael Haney a.k.a. Ice Mike.
Reporter J.J. wants to write a story about an Afrika rallye, 3000 km across desert and steppe. Unfortunately her driver and car get lost only days before the start, so she hires ex-stuntman Eddie and buys a wreck of a car from her last money. Eddie can help her to a new motor - by stealing it from the ruthless count Borgia, who from now on is their hardest and meanest competitor in the rallye.
A User Review:
About the only item worth noting on this lackluster film was the chemistry between Stockard Channing and David Carradine. It seemed as if the two actors were reading off each others reactions rather than a script. Perhaps that was part of the problem with this movie.
At times this film reminded me of the Disney film "The Love Bug." Of course "Safari 3000" is no where near as good a movie as "The Love Bug," and that isn't saying very much. Absolutely skip over this movie and be glad you haven't given up two hours of your life.
Trivia:
Christopher Lee has said in interviews that a chunk of his role was removed in editing.
A team of undercover narcotics agents is conducting an investigation when things mysteriously begin to go haywire. One by one, the squad is eliminated by an assassin. To help discover the identity of the karate killer, the police enlist the aid of karate champion Matt Logan.
A User Review:
Low budget, wooden acting, and sappy make the basics for this film. Not awful as other Norris movies, but it is a stinker. The Karate fight at the end is ok, but the rest is boring. The Karate is not that much special now with all the other action films, and the part with his foster son is over the top sappy. Well not bad with what they had to work with.
Trivia:
Chuck's son Mike can be seen as a skateboarding pizza delivery boy.
A waxwork museum comes to town, and a mysterious man invites some teens to come to a special showing at midnight. Once inside, while viewing different exhibits, the scenes come alive and the viewer is sucked into the story being portrayed.
A User Review:
I expected more from the cast and the great plot. While watching this, though, that feeling of uneasiness didn't settle over me like it does for many movies. It was great but the main character really should've been thought out more since it was who it was. Character development was overlooked, yet again, and that brought down the level.
On the upside, though, the movie was good since it had a good supporting cast and the scenes were creepy in their own way. Not TOO creepy, though... I liked the idea towards the end, though it seemed a bit odd. It was probably more aimed towards a higher body count. The methods were cool, however, so I had to give this film a 6.
Trivia:
Writer/director Anthony Hickox wrote the screenplay in only 3 days.
Roger Mortis and Doug Bigelow are cops that are chasing crooks that are dead serious about crime. Or should I say they are chasing dead crooks perpetrating serious crimes? Seems some nutcase has learned how to bring back the dead and is sending them on crime sprees. Now these indestructable goons are in the way of officers Mortis and Bigelow. To even things up, when Mortis is killed (in the line of duty, of course) he gets a jump start from the Resurrection machine and takes the fight to the zombie bad guys.
A User Review:
Who told Joe Piscopo he could act? He's not much of a comic, and he's a dreadful actor. Treat Williams has talent, but he's utterly wasted here, stumbling from one bad scene to another, with Piscopo following like a loyal dog, barking bad dialogue. As with the dreadful Forest Whitiker/Anthony Edwards cop flop Downtown, this movie suffers from exceptionally poor dialogue, and even worse direction. There are moments where you think the actors weren't even aware the camera was rolling, and other scenes where the actors are just waiting for their lines, as though the director was out to lunch or something. What could have been Lethal Weapon meets Dawn of the Dead becomes a series of predictable incidents that are more or less rehashes of previous buddy cop films. Lethal Weapon and 48hrs and Running Scared worked not because of gimmicks, but because of the characters. Dead Heat fails on every level because there was zero attention paid to script and character.
Trivia:
The lead character is called Roger Mortis. Mortis is the Latin word for "death"
Dean Crept and Mike Mattress are two government agents, 'G-men' whom are murdered in an ambush and sent straight to the hot and fiery realm of hell. Dean and Mike manage to escape using a magical dimension traveling crystal to land them back on Earth where they decide to open their own private investigating service, with some stolen money from their killer Buster Lloyd, and soon land a fashionable office space with an attractive and loyal secretary-of-all-trades named Marete. Dean and Mike's first job is to help a mysterious femme fatal named Gloria Lake who fears her wealthy husband is plotting to swindle out of her inheritance. But before that can happen, the husband is murdered, and Dean and Mike are the suspects. With a relentless police detective tailing them, Dean and Mike try to solve the case, while dealing with the Devil's agent who follows them up from hell to bring them back within 46 hours.
A User Review:
I first read of this film on Mike Allred's website and knew it was a low-budget B-movie, so I didn't figure it was worth checking out. But I ended up coming across it at a flea market so I got it and I have to say ,it absolutely is worth watching. It's full of that bizarre charm that turns a B-flick into a cult classic. Anyone familiar w/ Allred's artwork knows it has a very 60's vibe to it, so it's only appropriate that the movie seems to borrow camera-work and color schemes from TV shows like 'Batman' and 'The Monkees'. There's a wonderful mash-up of genres taking place here, including "hard-boiled crime noir", "mad scientists" and "superheroes" in what is essentially a story about redemption. Considering the small budget this movie had there is some really strong talent at work here. I highly recommend watching this movie if you get a chance. I only hope that when a 'Madman' film finally gets produced they respect Allred's work as much as this movie does.
Oz, a rebellious teenager who just got expelled from his preppy school returns for one final prank. But as he goes to the basement to set things up, he stumbles upon a security consultant, former school employee, that just took the entire school hostage for millions in ransom. Oz must rely on his youth and love for pranks to outwit the devious criminal mastermind.
A User Review:
What ever happened to originality? In commenting on this film the only thing comes to mind is an old david spade bit...i like this movie the first time i saw it when it was called TOY SOLDIERS! for those of you who are unfamiliar with this 1991 flick, it's about this prep school where certain wealthy students are taken hostige by some man (with an accent) and held at gun point for ransom, but a rebelious teen plots to over turn the madman who has an extremely large arsenal. you may be thinking to your self...gee but isn't that the same plot as the 1997 movie MASTERMINDS. well at least that's what i thought after watching it! sure there are some differences but in the end this movie is lacking one very big thing...originality!
Trivia:
The film made only £76 on it's UK cinema release, making it the lowest box office taking of 1998.
Alex Manning is a troubled suburban teenager. Her mother committed suicide and the school counselor feels that she has not dealt with her feelings properly. Manning and her friends decide to visit the local video arcade known as "Dante's Inferno" where a new virtual reality arcade game called "Arcade" is being test marketed by a computer company CEO who is more than willing to hand out free samples of the home console version and hype up the game as if his job is depending on it, and it is. However, it soon becomes clear that the teenagers who play the game and lose, are being imprisoned inside the virtual reality world by the central villain; "Arcade". And it gets worse when a virtual reality game begins to take over the minds of teenagers. The computer company felt it would be a good idea to use some of the boy's brain cells in order to make the game's villain more realistic. Instead, it made the game deadly...
A User Review:
So I was at blockbuster and I thought, "Hey, a movie about video games! I love video games! I better get some popcorn 'cause I'll be having fun tonight" So I popped it in my VHS player, and tried REALLY hard to like it. Its basically crap, and there is no point to it. I watched the entire thing, and I've got to say, it was really boring. Basically, these kids are kind of beta-testing some virtual reality game, and things go *cue the dramatic music* horribly wrong! Yeah, seriously, its horse feathers.
I had no idea Seth Green was in this.
Now I suppose I'll have to go back and watch it again. Maybe this time around, I'll enjoy it?
Two janitors (George Carlin, Ben Stiller) working as janitors at a brokerage firm become rich by making investments based on insider information they gather from the brokers' garbage.
A User Review:
I can't tell you that much about Working Trash being that I turned it off after about 20 minutes from the sheer agony it was causing me and the others in the room watching it. Yes this movie may have Ben Stiller, George Carlin and even voice of Homer Simpson (Dan Castellaneta), but none of them had a hope of helping save this.
I had trouble when I tried to categorize this film. Apparently blockbuster claims it is a comedy. The only joke here is that this movie made it on to the shelf.
A champion fencer accidentally kills an opponent in a match. Disgraced, he is blackballed from the fencing community, until a mysterious stranger saves his life one night from a gang of muggers. He soon finds himself caught up in the world of underground illegal swordfights, where combatants fight to the death.
A User Review:
Not even the "swordsmanship" of this dog could keep me from laughing out loud at the truly forgettable and entirely laughable attempts at writing, acting and directing.
OK, I get it, you aren't suppose to watch "Blood Sport" for the acting, but there is a definite standard of acting and story that have to be present, even in pure action flicks. And it just wasn't here.
My recommendation, invite some friends over, rent this lame-o flick, drink a lot and MST it to death (don't worry, it won't take much effort).
Oh yeah, and the swordplay is really not that great. Mainly there to appeal to the Ren Fair crowd that think that wearing a dull costume blade, and watching Highlander repeatedly, constitutes their unlimited knowledge of the blade.
Trivia:
In the first fights without swords, a guy dodges an attack by back-flipping and landing on his belly. After this he gets up and does a double front kick, Again he falls, this time on his back. During both falls a crash mat can be seen.
Serial killer is genetically mutated in car wreck on the way to his execution. After which, he becomes a murdering snowman hell-bent on revenge for the sheriff who caught him.
A User Review:
Yes this a B- grade horror. But at least the producers, directors, and cast does not pretend this flick is manna from heaven. The plot is corny, a psychotic serial killer on his way to execution is splashed with genetic acid turning him into a snow man. The snowman a.k.a. Jack Frost then goes on a murdering rampage to find the small town sheriff that finally arrested him. With a limited budget the crew had to make do with limited special effects, most of the money appears to spent on the snowman's costume. Particularly difficult shots are managed by cartoons or pan away shots (shots where the camera moves away to disguise the details).
This is no kid's movie and should not be confused with Disney movie of the same title. If you do not let your children watch pg-13 movies alone than parents should not let their kids watch this movie. This movie has two claims to fame. 1. The beautiful Shannon Elizabeth did her first major movie role. The scene where Jack Frost attacks Shannon Elizabeth is worth watching a few times. 2. This movie has the worst snowman joke ever. The joke is so bad that the directors credit the joke teller in the credit list.
A mad javelin thrower kills teenagers in the school. All promising athletes are executed in the most brutal way.
A User Review:
If Friday the 13th and Fame had a child, Fatal Games would be their campy offspring!
Students attending an athlete academy are getting speared by a mad javelin thrower!
Other than the clever choice of weapon, Fatal Games doesn't add anything new to the slasher genre. It follows a very routine plot, which at times becomes quite repetitious and the cast is pretty weak. It has a completely dated 80's style - the cast even wears leg warmers! The javelin murders (hah, good alternate title!) are fairly gore-free and I dare say darkly funny at times. The revelation of the killer's identity is surprising though the motive is pretty silly.
Abby McWilliams and her brother Loren are particularly normal teenagers. Their parents Mac and Mary Beth are killed in an accident. It's decided that Abby and Loren live in Glenby, Florida with their Aunt Fay and Uncle Charlie who own a gas station and an amusement park. Loren and Abby don't have much trouble making friends at their new high school. Loren starts dating Karen, the local sheriff's daughter while Abby starts dating Mark. Loren feels uncomfortable when he sees a blond-haired guy harassing Abby in the lunchroom. Mark tells Loren and Abby that the blond-haired guy is Eddie Dutra, a teenage drug addict who is the leader of a gang of redneck thugs. Loren helps Abby keep Dutra at a distance. Dutra's retaliations keep getting more vicious until Dutra forces a showdown at the amusement park by kidnapping Abby.
A User Review:
Stupid stupid stupid movie. I remember seeing this, but I remember it being really old in the mid-80s. I guess that is how easy it is to forget meaningless dumbass movies like this. Lori Laughlin is hot though. I do remember that line though, by John Philbin, ""it got the jug-ler" after those pit bulls attacked one of the owners. How stupid he looked saying jugular like a redneck white trash. It puts a bad taste in my mouth thinking how horrible this stupid movie was. The censors say that I have to have 10 lines of text in order to submit my comment. Ten lines on this trash movie? Give me a break, this movie isn't even worth ten turds. 0 out of 10 stars.
Fred P. Chaney receives as inheritance after the death of his mother a speaking horse that also has good knowledge about the stock-market. With the help of this horse Fred gains a lot at the stock-market of Chicago
A User Review:
why anyone would choose to watch this movie and then turn around and complain about how awful it is baffles me. you're given a silly title, Hot to Trot, Bobcat Goldthwait as a star, and a blurb mentioning a talking horse. how could this movie NOT be utterly stupid? of COURSE it is stupid! and that's why it's great! sure, the jokes are juvenile and rather stupid, though in my opinion there are a few zingers in there (how is a three-stoogie horse humping a Volvo NOT funny?) but sometimes that's what you want to watch: utter stupidity. this movie succeeds as a brainless comedy with easy to grasp humor and blatant...stupidity! i sincerely doubt it ever tried to be more than just that. so, for what it is, it's a huge success, and if you want to sit back and not think and enjoy an 80s flavored 80 minutes with a talking horse and an annoying guy whose jockey pants are too tight, then by all means, i highly highly recommend this movie. if you're too uptight to relax and enjoy it on some level, then yeah, skip it. I've personally seen it at least 20 times since it opened in theaters when i was 9 years old, it's in my video collection and a favorite to pop in when i'm sick, cleaning or trying to get someone to laugh and feel silly, and yeah it sits surrounded by films by the likes of Wim Wenders and Jeunet, above The Seventh Seal and to the right of Dr. Strangelove.
Trivia:
After Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), 'Tim Burton' was offered to direct, but declined.
Jack Deth is a kind of cop/bounty hunter in the bleak Los Angeles of the future. He's become obssessed with chasing Whistler - an evil criminal who uses powerful hypnotic powers to convert people into zombie like creatures known as trancers. Whistler has managed to escape through time travel and is loose in 1980s L.A. but Deth is on his trail.
A User Review:
This low, low budget sci-fier is somewhat derivative, but it's kind of a take-off on Bladerunner-type movies, rather than a ripoff of them. Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) is a detective in the future who's sent back to 1985 to stop a madman who's decided to kill the ancestors of the city council of Deth's time. With the help of Lena (a young Helen Hunt), Deth fights Trancers (who have fallen under the control of the madman) and his own culture shock.
It's a short movie (76 minutes), and things move pretty quickly; plot isn't so much of a focus as a annoying gnat that appears from time to time. But for being so short, the characters are pretty well developed - and one huge bonus is that Deth isn't an no necked, shoot-first idiot, as renegade cops are often portrayed.
Trancers is original, often-funny sci-fi cheese. It's great to see Thomerson and Hunt.
Trivia:
Audio/visual unsynchronized: After Jack shoots Santa Claus, he is grabbed by Santa who says 'welcome to the 20th century Jack Deth' but you can clearly see Santa's mouth not talking.
A story about a cyborg who is programmed to kill a scientist who holds the fate of mankind in his hands.
A User Review:
Sergio Martino's next futuristic film after his classic AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK, is unfortunately not apocalyptic, instead deciding to go more after the "bleak future" feel from BLADE RUNNER. Borrowing quite a bit from BLADE RUNNER and THE TERMINATOR, the movie stars Greene (a muscle-bound carbon copy of Mel Gibson for all practical purposes) as a cyborg who gets in a whole lot of trouble and has to find a way to get his old personality back.
The action scenes are wonderfully lame and cheaply done, the cast was outrageously tiny (and packed full of no-names in pivotal roles, many of whom aren't even credited), and the special effects often cheap and uninteresting. Poor production design, poor costumes, bad writing, but the general silly but meaning-to-be-serious atmosphere work well. This is thanks in large part to Claudio Simonetti's wonderfully cheesy downbeat synth score which has a way of staying with you long after seeing the film.
The colorful supporting cast of veteran Italian performers also nearly made up for these flaws. The late Claudio Cassinelli is great in his final role as a crazed bounty hunter, as is George Eastman as a vengeful Mexican arm wrestler. Donald O'Brian is sadly wasted in a nothing role as a mad scientist. Strangely enough, recognizable veteran stuntman Sergio Testori gets an unusually large part as John Saxon's top henchman (and even gets a couple lines in as well). Saxon is underused until the last act where he gets to run around with a laser gun bigger than he is!
Unfortunately large chunks of this film are rather dull and uneventful, and sure takes its time to get going. The last 20 minutes or so are pretty fast paced and feature some cool and out-of-place Sergio Stivalleti gore FX. A likable enough cheapo Italian cheapo action adventure, just very disappointing if you consider Martino's other work. Stay tuned for the ending freeze-frame and quote, which are thoroughly amusing.
Alternate Titles::
* Arms of Steel * Fists of Steel * The Enforcer * Atomic Cyborg * Return of the Terminator * Programmed Muscles
When a group of terrorists (led by Luther) take over a high school making the students in it their hostages, it is up to several of the students (led by Lenny) to help prevent disaster while the authorities (Slater and General Wainwright) do their part on the other side.
A User Review:
The movie kept my attention the entire time because it was so god awful. Corey Haim in a Bruce Willis "Die Hard" type role, Alan Thicke playing a hardened police chief, Dick Van Patten as a general, and a bunch of goofy terrorists who just happen to have as super model type as one of them. How can you go wrong? The special effects are lame, especially the guided missile that looks like a rocket model kit that you build at home only on a bigger scale.
This movie is terrible, make no mistake about it. But it's so terrible that you can't help but laugh and watch to see just how cheesy it's going to get. It's actually quite entertaining.
Trivia:
Near the beginning of the movie, two students mention that Coach Wynorski is having an affair with a female student. The director of the movie is Jim Wynorski.
Investigating the mysterious deaths of a number of farm animals, vet Rack Hansen discovers that his town lies in the path of hoards of migrating tarantulas. Before he can take action, the streets are overrun by killer spiders, trapping a small group of towns folk in a remote hotel.
A User Review:
Even the most avid fans of 70's kitsch-cinema will have difficulties defending this "Kingdom of the Spiders", as it basically is rubbish from start to finish! Immensely entertaining rubbish, though, with lousy but unscrupulous plotting and over-the-top action sequences that'll keep you amused unconditionally! Charismatic actor and professional cool dude William Shatner stars as the veterinarian of a little Arizona town that developed a BIG spider problem on short notice! Tarantulas have suddenly altered all their natural instincts and they're turning against the yummy cattle and – of course – the unknowing inhabitants of the little town. The female scientist Diane Ashley explains that this is due to the destroying of their normal food sources with pesticides etc, but it's too late... The extremely venomous spiders eat their way the town and really nothing can extinguish them! "Kingdom of the Spiders" actually is so damn entertaining because of its ineptness! The screenplay doesn't even bother to drag in theories about genetic mutation or military experiments gone wrong, like it usually is the case in this type of creature-features. The spiders are just furious at humans and eat them...period! Although very low-budgeted, some sequences are well-mounted and quite suspenseful. Especially the obligatory mass-hysteria scene in which the poor villagers get overrun by millions and millions of tarantulas is a fine example of trash-cinema. Director John "Bud" Cardos, previously an actor is dreadful drive-in horror movies himself, clearly had great fun making this good old-fashioned "Don't-mess-with-Mother-Nature" flick, so why shouldn't you! His enthusiasm even was so big he threw in a hilariously inappropriate country & western soundtrack! That's fabulous!!
Trivia:
The stunt driver who hits Mayor Conner misjudged his speed and hit the brakes just as he made contact. Instead of the car taking out the mayor and then careening into the water tower, you can see it stop briefly and then accelerate again to get enough speed to take out the water tower.
Be on the lookout for:
A scene where the girl is on the bed. Shatner grabs her then throws her on the floor to save her from the spiders not realizing there are spiders on the floor too.
A government funded project looks into using psychics to enter people's dreams, with some mechanical help. When a subject dies in his sleep from a heart attack Alex Gardner becomes suspicious that another of the psychics is killing people in the dreams somehow and that is causing them to die in real life. He must find a way to stop the abuse of the power to enter dreams.
A User Review:
I saw this during the eighties when it originally came out and thought it was terrific and scary. However, this movie does not hold up at all. It's not just the technological advancements in special effects that makes this movie so dated, after all movies like "The Thing" and "The Exorcist" came out before this. A scary movie is scary no matter when it came out.
This movie is just silly. The president's fear of nuclear war is treated so brazenly that it doesn't hold up now that the Day After decade is over. The story is so brisk in the extreme nothing is giving time to develop. Only the ideas are presented and not explored. Quaid and Sydow are good but even they can't save this movie. The dialog is very stilted at parts. Christopher Plummer is just silly, not menacing. Tommy Ray isn't scary any more. The snake man looks so rubbery and stupid that I can't believe I was ever scared of it in the first place. They did a terrible job with it. The transformation effects are now laughable. They didn't have to be. Kate Capshaw is awful (she always was; maybe that's one of the reasons you don't see her in much anymore now that she is married to Spielberg).
This is just not that strong a movie and time has not been kind to it. I thought it was great when I was 10 but it just isn't scary or fun. Awful music by Maurice Jarre. Not because it is an electronic eighties keyboard soundtrack like Jerry Goldsmith's Runaway. No this is just bad and it sounds bad on this DVD. No themes develop and even the chase music is boring. Very weak. Similar genre movies from the eighties that hold up and you might want to check out instead: Twilight Zone the Movie, Gremlins, Poltergeist, Brainstorm, Fright Night.
DVD-This DVD is also not very good either. The picture quality is very crisp most of the time. There is some wavering in some scenes. The special effects unfortunately don't benefit from all that detail in picture quality. The worst part is the sound. It comes in DTS and Dolby Digital. It is hardly 5.1 like the box advertises. Occasionally you get some weak directional effects. But for I would say 80% of the movie everything is in the center speaker.
Trivia:
Dennis Quaid was the first and only choice for Alex Gardner, after the producers loved his dedication for the role and the project during it's pre-production stage.
