The Bees (1978) Review

My Return To Vlogging

A Boy and His Dog 1975 Review

TRUCKS Video Review

SOUL MAN 1986 REVIEW

CRITTERS (1986) Video

Vicious Lips (1986)

Welcome back everyone.

This week I am looking at another classic film you probably have never heard of, I know I hadn’t.   The film is called Vicious Lips and is an hour and seventeen minutes long with the credits.

The film’s plot is that the owner of the night club Radioactive Dreams on another planet needs a new band.  A promoter is given the job of getting a new band to the club on Jupiter in the next 24 hours. The lead singer dies in a hit and run and so he also must get a new singer and get this all done and get them to the club in 24 hours or the owner will kill him.

The movie is kind of a rock opera with some catchy 80’s rock music from the band Vicious Lips and a lot of random alien scenes that make no sense, at times it feels like I’m watching an adult take on Alice in Wonderland or Dorothy in OZ with random musical numbers.  The film also feels like it is full of filler so that they can pad this out to feature length and it is barely over an hour long when you take off the credits.

This is going to be a short review because there isn’t much to say about this short film.  The Actors didn’t do much before or after this film, the only person who is still going is the writer and director Albert Pyun.  I now know I have seen two of his films, when I was a kid I saw all Three Captain America films and Albert directed the 1990 film with Matt Salinger as Captain America and Ronnie Cox and Ned Betty were in this film.

But back to Vicious Lips the title of the film is the name of the band and the lead singer is called Ace Lucas and she is wanting to leave the band and Buddy Asher the promoter begs her to stay and she walks off screen and we have a sound effect of a car crash and she is now dead.

Buddy now needs to find a new lead singer so turns around sees a poster for Solo High school talent show and the one and only person he sees is a girl who when she sings at the talent show sounds like a man, her name is Judy Jetson, I’m serious.

The rest of the film is about Judy integrating with the band which doesn’t go well and their journey to Radioactive Dreams night club on the planet. They crash on a desert plant called pleasure planet Inc and there is a creature that takes many forms of other people and things it seems to be tormenting the girls in the band especially Judy, I think it is meant to be a reference to the Thing and Alien, but It reminded me of the polymorph from Red Dwarf.

They get off the Pleasure plant Inc and make it to the nightclub on time and perform after being introduced by an aardvark looking alien host and that is the end of the movie.

Like I said not much to this film, at one time it appears that the movie is just a long dream sequence and then it isn’t, we then end up at the night club.  It is very forgettable as a movie though I will say the lighting and cinematography is better than Nightmare Weekend and the music is great and very catchy the band is kind of like a more hard-core version of the Cherry Bombs from Howard the Duck.

I wouldn’t recommend it for the plot or characters, but you could have it on in the back ground of a party just for the music and weird visuals.  If I want to watch a rock band movie, I would rather watch Spinal Tap because who doesn’t love to have the six-finger man with his amps that go to eleven like his fingers.

Remember folks, be careful what you watch.

Nightmare Weekend (1986) BLOG

 

Welcome to another blog from Movie and TV mistress, today's film is called NIGHTMARE WEEKEND from 1986 this film was distributed by Troma Entertainment.

The plot is a scientist has created a way to alter the minds of animals by turning things in to spherical balls which is ingested by the animals. His assistant a Miss Clingstone wants to test this on humans and sell it to another person. The Spherical balls turn people in to what the synopsis calls Mutantoid Zombies.  A subplot of the film is a romance between the scientist’s daughter and a bloke called Ken helping Miss Clingstone.

So, nothing outlandish about the plot and nothing that sounds awful when you consider I have watched many a bad SYFY channel film. 

This film is a low budget independent film distributed on Video by Troma entertainment and at least Troma can hold their head up that they did not make this film.  

Troma do make low budget B movies but they also distribute many films too.  What surprised me in my research was the movies they have distributed. Some of the films they distribute date back to the 1930s even though Troma only started in the 1970’s but one that really stood out for me that they distributed was the Studio Ghibli film MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO.  I know what you’re thinking but Disney/Pixar distributed that film and yes they did but before they did Troma Films, under their 50th St. Films banner, distributed a dubbed version of this film in the United States theaters in 1993 and then on VHS and laserdisc in the United States in 1994 and on DVD in 2002.  However as happens in the industry the rights to the dubbed film expired in 2004.  As Disney does they bought the rights and created a new dubbed film and released it again in 2006.

But back to NIGHTMARE WEEKEND, this film is badly lit and badly dubbed and the reason for the bad lighting, filming and dubbing will be explained but first I want to discuss the characters of this film.

So the first one is Ken played by Dale Midkiff you may remember him from PET CEMETERY as the father, he was also in the TV series THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and FLIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD or as I like to call it Zombies on a Plane. Anyway, he is quite well known and this is one of his first leading roles.

Ken seems to be a bad guy at the start and as the movie progresses the line becomes blurred, but it is not clear at the end what side he is on.  After the opening of the film he does wear white and gets involved with the scientist’s daughter Jessica.

Miss Clingstone if the villain of the film.  She appears to be played as a wicked stepmother so over the top and wants to be with Ken but also seems to be wanting the scientist and treats Jessica and a maid in the way a classic fairy tale step mother would.

Jessica is the scientist’s daughter. She is incredibly naive for an 18 or 19-year-old, she is so naïve that she does not know what her feelings are and has to ask her computer called George to explain her feeling and what love is.

The other characters are all there just to have sex and be killed or turned into Mutantoid Zombies so nothing really to be said about them they are all pretty one dimensional.

The film starts with a darkly lit scene of 2 blokes trying to break in to the scientist’s home to steal the computer program and then we see a hand puppet, I’m not joking there is a hand puppet working a computer which is alerting him to the possible break in.  I was shocked when I saw this green lipped and green haired hand puppet. And it is a major character in this film his name is George.

George creates a spherical ball and it shoots towards one of the guys climbing up the building and smashes his face and kills him instantly. We are less than 5 minutes in the film and a hand puppet has killed someone.  

We get the titles with a very 80’s song which I have to say is very catchy and is in the opening and closing of my Vlog below.

Jessica tells her friend she is going home and can’t join her for some experiment that her friend will be doing at the weekend.  Jessica’s friend gets a limo with two other girls, they head to the scientists house.   None of them see each other until the very end of the film.  The house isn’t that big. 

Nothing happens for the next 55minutes of this film except for sex between the girls in the limo and blokes they met at the Stag pub near the house.  One of the blokes having sex in the Stag is actor Robert Burke he has sex with a girl on the pinball machine while others watch, thankfully the girl seems in to this while Ken and Jessica and others watch them, otherwise it would be like THE ACCUSED where Jodie Foster’s character was raped on a pinball machine.  

There is no character development during this entire film, there is nothing likeable about any of the character or sympathetic about any of them, if anything Jessica is ridiculously childlike for her age.

As I have said nothing happens in this film during the first hour of any substance, this movie is an hour and 24 minutes long and at the hour mark while the girls are all having sex with blokes they picked up at the Stag. Miss Clingstone starts having the computer called Apache create multiple spherical balls to change the girl’s personalities.  These balls also kill the blokes before turning the girls including the maid into Mutantoid Zombies that then kill anyone else still alive and attack Jessica who finally sees her friends.

Meanwhile Ken has picked up some money from a buyer for the computer program for Miss Clingstone and is waiting for her at the airfield.  But he is in love with Jessica after a very silly romance story during the film.  He is not going to give her the money.  When Miss Clingstone arrives at the airfield and gets out of her car, the Zombie maid steps out the back of the car and slits her throat, the next part is so hard to see I can’t see what happened to Ken, the only thing I know is George is saying warning must protect Jessica and the film ends on a shot of Jessica screaming.

The film is poorly lit. So much so you cannot see what is happening a lot of the time, the sex scenes are badly lit but you can see the silhouettes of what people are doing during the sex scenes, I’m not sure if this was to get the film a lower rating or not and the gore in the film is very minimal so nothing that could have made this a video nasty.

One of the online producers for this film posted a user review explaining the reasons this film does not make sense and feels like a soft-core porn film. He posted the following on IMDB.com

As you can see if this poster on IMDB is to be believed and I feel he is, the reason for the confusing and badly filmed movie is the French writer and porno director and to many producers trying to control the film.  As they all say too many cooks spoil the broth and that is so true of movies too.

Would I recommend this?  

No, it is an awful film, what do you think? … OF COURSE NOT it is so bad, and I feel the title should have been my first clue as it was a nightmare weekend when I watched this and now I have written a review and filmed my first Vlog, So thanks for the inspiration to tell people to avoid this movie.  Do I think it is the worst film ever made?

No, I have seen much worse.  It is just bad, sadly not the so bad it’s good type of film. 

Well remember what I always say folks… be careful what you watch.

Nightmare Weekend 1986

Here is my first Vlog, I will post a blog on this film as well, I still have lots to talk about this film

Oasis Of The Zombies (1982)

Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have watched this film.  I watched it over a year ago and swore then that it was the worst film I had seen and would never watch it again.  As the Bond title goes Never say never again.

So why, you may ask has it come to this, to sit here and watch this movie again? Why to review it, of course.   A lot has happened to me over the past few years, and my writing was the first thing I stopped doing and I am working on regaining my creativity after a few years of being depressed. But please don't worry it wasn't this film that caused it.😉

Hopefully this review will not be as boring as I felt the movie was the first time I saw it.

Supposedly the plot of the film is: An expedition searching for treasure supposedly buried by the German army in the African desert during WW II comes up against an army of Nazi zombies guarding the fortune.

I really enjoyed Dead Snow, so based on that plot I thought sure I'd enjoy this, so I said go ahead sounds like a silly horror film.

Movie starts with an orange Suzuki 4X4 driving though the desert to an Oasis, to some awful incidental music that sounds like the musicians have given up before the movie has even begun.  We have two young women in tank tops and very short shorts and no bras, who decide to go for a walk around the Oasis. 

They find a some WWII weapons, Swastikas and a cannon, the blonde is jumpy about a weird noises she keeps hearing, the brunette says she's not leaving without the butt of the gun she found.  It also sounds like she says the following:
"There must have been a battle here, Rommel's legions against monkey's horny highlanders"
Either I miss heard that or the actress dubbing the film was making up some weird dialog 😉

We hear the weird noise again and get a shot of a spider and the blonde girl runs off.  Then like at the end of Carrie, two hands appear from the ground and grab the blonde girls legs she screams and the brunette comes running and is also grabbed by the zombies.

At 4 minutes into the film with have the opening credits, with more awful incidental music, over a stock image from Egypt I think.

We are introduced to a big burly guy and a girl, he leaves her in the car to smoke while he goes up to talk to someone, we see some war medals on a table and see a man with a mustache asking the burly guy if his research is accurate and we get the back story of what happened in the Oasis.

Basically, some Nazis had six hundred Million dollars in gold, they were intercepted at the Oasis on there way somewhere and a legend states their ghosts guard the gold.  Your classic Gold Curse seen in many movies including  Pirates of the Caribbean .

Once the Mustache man tells the Burly guy exactly where the Nazis were intercepted, the burly Guy kills him using a pen with a secret knife in it and takes the map.  I guess Mustached guy didn't know that you should never divulge all the information when someone asks, when it comes to treasure, it will always lead to your death.  we are then introduced to Mustache man's son Robert in London who gets the news his father is dead and needs to go the Africa immediately.  The dubbers don't even sound that interested in what they are saying.

It appears that Robert arrives in Africa and reads thorough his dads war diary, lucky that he reads the exact part of his fathers diary to tie up what happened to his dad and the Nazi gold mentioned earlier.  Like in the movie House we get a flash back to WWII, this flash back.  The British Army led by Roberts dad ambush the Nazis in the Oasis and killed them. It is a great action scene and works well but then Roberts dad walks off to the desert and nearly dies but is found by locals who rescue him and care for him.

I think the person doing the music for this film was asleep on the keyboard, it's kind of like how a yawn is contagious the sound of music played by a sleeping musician makes you want to sleep and yawn.  😴

Mustache Man (Roberts Father) falls in love with the daughter of the man who saved him.  After the father tells him the oasis is cursed and to not go back there he goes for a walk in the desert with the daughter and she gets naked and they kiss. thankfully the son is reading this and his narration kicks back in showing us more WWII desert battles and repeats of earlier shots.  We find out the girl died giving birth to Mustache man's son.

OK, when he started reading the diary, Robert was on his own, now he appears to be surround by College friends and has been telling them the story. I'm a bit confused I thought he had gone to Africa but he hadn't, he was still in college, he had he fathers war diary and figured this was the time to read it sure dad dies I should read his diary and then persuade my friends to go in search of treasure in the African desert.

Finally the Burly guy is back arriving at the Oasis  with the girl and another couple of blokes, they set up camp, the two blokes talk about taking the gold they find and keeping it for themselves and decide to walk around the Day for Night Oasis.  At last we see a Zombie at 34 minutes into the film and it looks hilarious.

I know zombies rot but surly after 40 years both eyes would have gone not just one or is this a relative of One Eyed Willie from Goonies?   It doesn't even try to eat either of the men it strangles the loud mouthed one while the other is attacked by three zombies.  The zombies then turn there attention to the tent and the burly guy come out, sees them and shoots at them but it does nothing the girl pops out screams and is grabbed and eaten by the zombies while burly guy runs off to the truck to escape, but a zombie on the back of the truck bites him before he drives off.

We get some very dodgy shots of the girl being eaten by the zombies, of course her clothes have been ripped off, it looks like they are eating something very private.😜😜

Robert and his three collage friends arrive in "Egyptian" Town in a 4x4 and one of them is wearing a fez and the car is full of boxes with CAMEL written on them, that is the first thing I do when I travel buy a ton of CAMEL cigarettes, no wait that is what you do at the airport on the way home, perhaps this was all for the production crew.

Before doing anything the college kids must shop so here is a boring pointless montage of shopping. then them walking through the town while everyone stops to pray.  they bump into a couple of blokes filming who happen to then take them to a sick man and you guessed it that would be the burly man who was bitten, talk about a lucky coincidence.

Everyone watches as the burly man stumbles around the grounds of the house he has been treated at he falls on to some hay and and Robert shouts at him asking him where the Oasis is and calls the Burly man Kurt, but Kurt dies unable to tell them anything.  the locals tell Robert and his friends that he met the walking dead.  If only I was watching that show, i might be more interested.

The locals burn the body on the haystack the men filming from earlier film and ask why and apparently if you don't burn them they come back.  So good to know Fire stops Zombies coming back and I though a bullet to the head would do that.

Nearly an our in to this film and Robert finally does what he said he would do over half an hour ago and that is go to see the sheik that looked after his father and whose daughter had a son.  The Sheik explains that Robert is his grandson, which no one could figure out from the flashback (DUH!), and he tells Robert where to find the Oasis even though earlier he said it was cursed and that no one should go there.  The sheik must truly hate his grandson to send him to his death by zombie. 😩

The people filming that they met earlier got to the Oasis before they did and have been killed, lucky sods there is still over 20 minutes of this film and I am finding it hard to keep going I just want this to be over.   One of the men that were filming survived and says the following  "Zombies, the living dead they came out of the sand out of the sandwiches" he then collapses they take care of him and the girl who was apparently unconscious and has a minor scratch on her face and they all start digging around the oasis still trying to get the gold.

We have a gratuitous sex scene between the girl and one of Roberts friends while another stands in the Oasis watching and we start to see he Zombies rise and attack him.  Please end already and can the sound guy please stop playing with the wooden fish instrument that was in every music class at every school I went to,  it is so annoying.

The film guy tells Robert and his girl that the only way to stop the is fire and to hold out till dawn.  daylight didn't bother them before as at the start they attacked the two girls during the day.  make up your mind movie.  Robert and his girl and film guy get full and pour it around and ignite them and Robert and his girl survive his grandfather the Sheik turns up and asks did you find what you were looking for and Robert says "I mostly found myself" yeah right, whatever.  The movie finally ends with Robert ad his girl going with the Sheik

I still hate this film, it is boring there are no characters or Character development, so much so we don't find out peoples names except Robert till they are about to die or are dead.  There is nothing good about this film the dubbing is weak and feels like the actor are as bored as I am watching this film, like I've mentioned the music is woeful and adds to the coma inducingness of this film.

I would not recommend watching this once let alone twice, it does not get better or funner, Beetlejuice would be bored, I would rather watch the Exorcist or Rosemary's baby multiple times and I thought they was slow and boring, but in comparison they are anything but.

Till next time be careful what you watch 😱😱😱

CELLAR DWELLER (1988)

Welcome back, Today's offering is a film not many will have heard off and one when I was a child I was scared of.  Cellar Dweller is a 1988 horror film about artists that work in the old house that belonged to a comic book creator who died in a fire back in the 1950's.   Well that's the basic starting point, but lets get started.

The film starts suddenly on VHS and opens with Gothic text informing you "30 Years Ago" and we pan down from a full moon to see Jeffery Combs from Re-Animator (1985) inking comic book frames, then we get some shots based off what he is drawing, filmed in the style of Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead (1981) at this point it is not clear what is going on with the editing but it does become clear I promise.

The monster of Jeffery's Comic is the Cellar Dweller and is a large ugly beast with a pentagram in a circle on its chest.

This is where it gets silly, wouldn't you just know it Jeffery Combes has a spell book, that looks a bit like the Necronomicon.  He should know better as he has been in a few HP Lovecraft inspired films and HP Lovecraft did enjoy using the Necronomicon in his stories.  When will people learn nothing good comes from that book.  Though I will admit I do enjoy Ash vs Evil Dead.

So Jeffery reads from the book he even reads the warning, but ignores it.  Right behind him the comic becomes real, he runs off.  Jeffery grabs the axe that appeared after he drew it in the comic and heads back to fight the beast in the cellar, but this is dark magic and it can't be killed by an axe, Jeffery pics up some paper and lights it so he can see the beast.

However, he has lit the pages of the comic therefore killing the beast and as he watches the beast die he drops the burning pages on some cloth and accidentally sets fire to the house trapping himself and dies. 

This all happened in under 10 minutes the beast is defeated and Jeffery is dead, so how is there still another hour and 10 minutes of this film?

Well the credits start rolling so you would think maybe someone forgot to rewind the film but no that would be to easy.

While the credits are rolling, I will give you some information on this film's creators, these credits are going on for quite a while and I don't want to fall asleep before the rest of the films starts.  The credits state that it was written by someone called Kit Du Bois, this is a pseudonym for Don Mancini the writer and creator of the Child's Play (Chucky) Films, this is his first film credit and he choose to be credited as Kit Du Bois I tried to find out why but I couldn't.  John Carl Buechler directed this film he directed Troll (1986) and Ghoullies 3 so that could explain the look of the beast.

Finally the credits are over, on with the film. and just in case you forgot the opening was set 30 years ago, they put on screen in Gothic text that it is "30 Years Later"

We are introduced to our heroine Whitney Taylor played by Debrah Farentino who arrives at the Art institute that was set up in the location of Jeffrey's home from the start of the film.  It is a dark stormy night. (Oh the horror stereo type.) Yvonne De Carlo of The Munsters fame startles her, they go to Yvonne's office and Whitney gives a history of her life and her love of the Cellar Dweller Comics.

In Classic fashion Whitney is told she is not wanted at the institute but that the board have stated that Yvonne had to find somewhere for her.  She is then shown around the building and told that the Cellar is off limits and Whitney imagines a hideous version of Jeffery killing the girl that was a nameless victim of the beast at the start of film.  Whitney is introduced to all the other artists in the institute that include painters, videographers, performance artists and a writer.

We see another of Whitney's nightmares and then one of the artists is outside screaming to the moon just to release her tension.  We get some more back story about Whitney and her enemy Amanda who is at the institute.  Whitney goes exploring the cellar though she was told it as off limits and we get an obvious jump scare because Phillip who is a finger painter startles her in the cellar.  Whitney finds the Necronomicon and reads the passage from the start of the film so the spell is activated.  Whitney then requests to be allowed to work and sleep in the cellar. 

Amanda and Yvonne conspire to get rid off Whitney, but Amanda becomes the first new victim of the Beast that Whitney has created from the original art, she draws a comic strip where Amanda is attacked and eaten by the beast.  What has been drawn happens, but no one hears Amanda's screams for help.

We are 43 minutes into the film with another 31 minutes left and though the Beast in the comic asks Who's next.  I just don't care.

One by one the other artists are killed off by the beast either by Whitney's design or by the Beasts choosing, it really doesn't matter the other characters are in the film just to be victims.  Whitney and Phillip discover the beast is real and that Whitney brought the beast to life with her imagination and tries to destroy it by lighting the pages on fire but it doesn't work and Phillip vanishes and Yvonne De Carlo becomes the beast and attacks Whitney.

Whitney trows stuff at the beast and chucks white out which lands on the comic causing the beast to disappear.  Whitney then uses her art to try and bring everyone back and chains up the beast in her drawings.  This all appears to work, Whitney and Phillip burn the comic art to kill the beast but she also destroys the ones she just drew of all the other artists and she is left on her own, or so she thinks and the beast reappears and credits roll as we hear her being eaten by the beast.

I should explain how I know this films, you see when I was 8 or 9 years old, my dad rented this film and let me and my little brother watch it with him.  Now having watched this as an adult I can see no issue with the film it is not scary it is short, it is predicable and has all your classic requirements for a 80's horror film jump scares, gratuitous tit shots and characters with no back story there just to be killed.
But I, as my husband will account, can be easily scared as I have a vivid imagination.

The monster in this film, when I was younger, was the thing of nightmares.  It was my Sully but not funny, I was so afraid as a kid I literally could not go near my bed because I thought this monster was underneath it and I would jump on to my bed from a distance and not let my arms hang off the bed as I was scared it would pull me under, you get the idea.

So why did this movie which is so bad scare me so much, well I think it is like Sadako in Ringu, making something you like and trust, TV and in this case a comic something terrifying, but who knows.  I was sacred of Michael Jackson in the Thriller video so Maybe I was just a scaredy cat.

The whole premise of the film is that imagination can create monsters, therefore as long as you have the monster in your imagination it cannot be killed.  However, this means that by the beast killing Whitney at the end it killed it's self as there was no one left to hold the beast in there imagination.

This is a short harmless film, would I recommend it probably not, it has an interesting cast list but that is all it feels more like a pilot for a series similar to Tales From The Crypt, even the style of the comic in the film is in the same style as the title of that show and comic series.

I would say it's worth a watch if you like bad 80's horror or Jeffery Combs.

Well till next time.

KING KONG LIVES (1986)

King Kong Lives is a direct sequel to the 1976 film King Kong staring Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges.  One of my issues with that film, was that King Kong swaggers up to the Twin Towers and doesn't move like a gorilla but that is for another blog for another day.

To start with King Kong Lives makes it clear that it is a sequel, by showing us the ending of King Kong and him falling to his death from the Twin Towers.  They then state it is 10 year later and that King Kong has been in a coma ever since the fall. (Char Right.)

The University that owns King Kong have been keeping him alive and have built him a giant replacement heart, but they need blood from his species to perform the operation. (Cause no other Ape species blood will do for the King.)  Since he is the only known giant gorilla there is no hope and they have wasted a fortune keeping the creature alive and building a giant mechanical heart. (How is this University still operating, they should be bankrupt)

Meanwhile, in a small studio covered in green jungle plants our male hero is introduced Hank Mitchell.  Think Jack Colton from Romancing the Stone but cheaper and dumber.  He apparently has been walking his donkey for a while and they decide to take a nap, and wouldn't you just know it he tries to take a nap in Lady Kong's hand (I think the film makers should have called her Queen Kong.) she is smitten with Hank and runs after him.  Thankfully he is saved by the native extras from the beginning of Raiders who knock her out with blow darts.

As quickly as that we have another Kong and the University are bidding on it as they need the plasma for King Kong but they don't want the female ape.

So the Female ape is bought and shipped to the university so that they can get the blood and finally do the operation they have been waiting 10 years to do and bring King Kong back to life.

When I was 6 years old and saw this film, the operation scene was very memorable for me and I thought it was amazing.  Now as an adult it kind of works, but I feel like I'm watching Lilliputians operate on Gulliver and it just looks ridiculous, I feel like people could have fallen into the open chest cavity and been lost.

If they  re did the operation today it would be performed in a similar way to key hole surgery but with massive tools operated by giant robot hands rather then by Linda Hamilton.

Linda is wielding that giant medical saw.

After the Operation King Kong wakes up from the induced coma on his own and can smell Lady Kong and he is seriously horny then again most men are when they wake up.  Linda is worried about the new heart so sedates him.

Kong wakes up again that night and hears Lady Kong's cries and he brakes out of the operating theatre that he has been in and gets to her and frees her, they run off into the Arkansa mountains.   Hank Mitchell and Amy (Linda Hamilton) go after the apes together and against the Army instructions.  they find the apes before the army and Amy keeps and eye on Kong's heart with a mobile computer.

The apes flirt as do Amy and Hank, so we get a human relationship mirroring the apes because a whole movie of the apes comunicating in gunts would be just as bad as the Star Wars Holiday special, no one needs that, just thinking of the Holiday special and the wookies makes me start to rock.

The Army Captures Lady Kong and puts her in a really deep pit and don't look after her very well and blow up King Kong, or so they think.  King Kong is still alive and recuperating in the swamps and searching for Lady Kong.

King Kong has been living in the swamp for 8 months unnoticed and Amy and Hank have been trying to get access to Lady Kong and set up a reserve for them in Bornio. When Amy and Hank do get to see her they see she is not well and not eating.  and no one has realised that Lady Kong is pregnant.  King Kong leaves the swamp, finally gets Lady Kongs scent and gets to her.

The Army attack and tries to kill them both King Kong takes all the bullets and colapses after Lady Kong has given birth to there son.  King Kong gets to see his son before he dies and we see lady Kong and Son of Kong living happliy in the reserve Hank set up for them.

This is a silly film and there is a lot of things that make no sense, but the film isn't awful i would say I would rather sit through multiple viewings of King Kong Lives than Peter Jackson's King Kong.

There are things wrong, like the fact there is no scar form the operation on King Kong's chest and the fact that the Army arn't using satalite images of America to find the apes and King Kong after they think they blew him up.

However, my personal favorite issue with this film is the fact that no one, not even Hank and Amy who slept very close to the apes in the mountains, heard or felt the vibrations of the two giant Apes making love.  Considering that other times in the film like when King Kong falls down the ground shakes and people nearly fall over themselves from the shock waves.

When I watched this film again for the first time since l was a child, I enjoyed it for exactly what it is pure cheesey 80's monster film, yes the special effects are dated and obvious, but that is true of any film over time.  I felt the ape acting was better then it was in King Kong (1976).

This is a film that a lot of people are unaware of or have forgotten, it wasn't a successful film, but it's fun, very silly, over the top and then very sweet.

Squirm (1976)

Well it is a new year and time to focus on some interesting films and to write my blogs and give my opinion on these films.

Squirm is a 1976 film about killer worms.  I know what your thinking, how on earth can worms kill someone?   My answer even after watching the film is I have no idea,  they claim that the killer worms are blood worms that bite. 

Now I admit that these worms are ugly and appear to have teeth, but still they are worms they aren't fast or very big.

So on with the film, it starts with a text scrawl explaining that on September 29thh 1975 a sudden electrical storm struck the small coastal town in Georgia, which caused the power lines in the town of Fly Creek to collapse, the power cables put electricity into the ground.  The storm also cut the town off from others. 

Yet another mother nature film claiming to be a true story with a text scrawl that states Fly Creek experienced what scientists believe to be one of the most bizarre freaks of nature ever recorded.  Seriously how gullible do they think we are to believe worms can kill.

We are then introduced to the stars of the film after shots of nature and worms we are shown a red headed girl in the shower and a gardener, Think Lawnmower man before VR.  The red head called Geri catches Roger the lawnmower man staring at her while undressed, well that's what happens when you stand naked in front of the window.

Geri needs to pick up her new boyfriend who is visiting her from New York, but with the roads flooded, she asks to use Rogers Truck.  I must explain Roger's Father is a worm farmer and sells them for bait, Roger transports the worms in the creates in the back of  his truck.

Mean while we finally see Geri's boyfriend Mick who appears to have everything you would need to camp out, he gets off a bus that has to turn back in the middle of the woods because there are trees down and the road is flooded.  Mick then asks the stupidest question "you don't know if there any toilets around here."

Just when you think he won't make it out of the woods, he falls into a deep hole and Geri finds him right then and bursts out laughing.  Ain't that lucky.

We see the road, which doesn't appear to be badly flooded at all, she tells him to hang on as they drive through a puddle.

Geri stops in town to get a block of ice for the house.  and Mick goes into a diner where the sleaziest sheriff ever has his hand right up the waitress' dress.  everyone in the diner is talking about the storm and Mick asks for a Egg cream which appears to be a chocolate milkshake and a worm is in it.

Now this is a diner for local people and as Mick is not local they all think he played a prank and that will continue for the rest of the film.

The film just doesn't make much sense, the sheriff doesn't believe Geri and Mick when they tell him on two separate occasions about dead bodies that they find as they appear to have disappeared when they take him to them.  This is classic of horror films that the law do not believe the protagonist.  but it's the fact that Mick takes a scull off a dead body and goes to the town dentist office, breaks in and checks the teeth against x-rays.

Mean while Geri is fishing with Roger and he tries hitting on her and ends up face first in worms and they burrow into his face but don't kill him, instead by the end of the film he appears to be a worm king.

The film seems to jump about and when Geri is busy doing stuff with Roger and Mick needs a companion for his investigation then we are introduced to Geri's annoying little sister.  All the town's people are weird and keep trying to sell their rubbish as antiques.

About an hour into the film even though we have seen skeletons and Mick decides that the worms are killing people though Roger wasn't killed. a tree falls on to Geri's house which leaves them open to the elements and all the worms the next half hour of the film is watching millions on worms swarm and squirm around and kill people, my favorites are Geri's Mother in a rocking chair becoming a mass of worms as they eat her alive and the sheriff who is sleeping with a women in a prison cell.

I have to say it is a well shot film and not the worst mother nature revenge films I have ever seen, but the script and acting are awful.  would I recommend this, well, I would if you like bad films that are so bad they are funny.  The early make up effects of Rick Baker are awesome and I seriously feel like Jeff Fahey based his performance of The Lawnmower Man on Roger in this film.

COMBAT ACADEMY (1986)

I like watching bad films, usually bad films can be comical like “The Room” (2003). When I saw this film on a shelf in CEX for 75 pence I though what the hell I'll check it out.

This film is from the writer and makers of “Police Academy”, cause you know that means “great”. This film was not released at the cinema, it wasn't even straight to video it was a TV movie. This tells you a whole lot right there.

The film has a very recognisable cast, it is a who's who of 80's TV comedy stars. we have the boy from “Christine” trying to be a teenage version of Mahoney but he is not as charming or likable as Steve Guttenberg.

The film is the feature film debut of George Clooney as a character who is a bully, thief and has a character arc which are totally out of place in this so called comedy film.

I put this on the other night as I felt like a bit of 80's cheesy comedy and I like George Clooney, I was hoping for something in the vain of “Police Academy” and possibly “Return of the Killer Tomatoes”. Sadly this film was like neither of these.

The film starts with the teenage leads setting up loads of pranks all around the high school and then standing back as they all go off at school. Nothing funny with this, you've seen it all before in other teen comedies of the 80's like “Animal House” or “Revenge of the Nerds”. The boys are called to the principals office where they are reprimanded. Their parents are called, you would think this would make them send the boys to a military school, but Max, the Mahoney wannabe’s father finds the antics of his son hilarious, so nothing further happens.

Max and his friend pull another prank on a group of workman digging up a road, they get the workman to dig the other side of the road, as you do. This lands them both in court and the judge Mr Jefferson from “The Jefferson's” who sentences them to attend “Combat Academy”.

They try to get kicked out by doing pranks at the academy, in the same way that Mahoney tried to in “Police Academy” but no luck. So they are forced to stay at the school till the end of the year. Max's best friend with a stutter decides to just go with it and not do pranks anymore, he ends up doing well and becoming a corporal.

Max still doesn't want to get involved, but falls for the girl from “National Lampoons European Vacation”. He helps George Clooney deal with his feelings towards his father and stop stealing. The film ends with a war game between “Combat Academy” and a Russian military school, which the kids decide to end as a draw and as friends rather then enemies. Max stays at the school and supposedly gives up his pranks to be burnt and his friend goes off with his girl friend and parents. While Max's final prank is to have fireworks from his prank box to go off.

That is the story of this film in a nutshell, I wanted to like it and laugh but this film is not funny. I read reviews online after watching it.

People gave it 2.5 stars and said it was hilarious, I would like to know exactly what they found hilarious about the film. The one and only time I laughed during this film was when George woke up hungover, his bed was in the woods near the war game with all the other cadets surrounding him. He said “What are you all doing in my room, why are all these trees in my room?” as you would expect George delivered this line brilliantly and was the best thing about this film.

This film has so many well known faces, there was Robert Culp, Jamie Farr, Dick Van Patten, John Ratzenberger, Bernie Kopell (the doctor from the Love Boat). Richard Moll (crazy guard from Night Court) and randomly Marc Price (Skippy from Family Ties). All of the recognisable stars are in there trying to be funny and I know they can be, but the script and characters don't work.

This film was a confused mess.

It starts off trying to be a teenage version of “Police Academy” then tries to be a John Hughes film and tries to be just like “Stripes”. I would rather watch “Stripes” or “Private Benjamin” then this film because they are funny.

Though George's character Biff starts of as a distasteful person who is a Kleptomaniac, the problem is George is such a likeable person and so charming you can't hate him even when he tells Max off and pushes a kid into a pool. What they should have done in my opinion would to be to have cast George as the lead as he would have made that character more likeable and indisputably funnier.

The film is not badly made, it is not the worst film I have ever watched, I just found it dull. The problem with it is that no one seems sure what film they are doing.

Robert Culp and George Clooney are in a serious film, where as Richard Moll is doing something very random in each scene and doesn't add anything to the film, I'm reminded of “1941”. All the stars trying to out do each other, which is why both of these films struggled to find an audience However “1941” is actually funny and has talented funny people in it.

Would I recommend it? No, unless you have absolutely nothing better to do or watch