Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Th’dread Rattlin’ (2018) (UK)
1/2
A noise phenomenon project has some university students hanging around a stretch of haunted woods where the mysterious sounds originate. That simple premise is put through the wringer with budget arthouse inclinations, hyper-cut editing, electronic music and a narrative that means next to nothing. So, it basically takes almost every aspect of filmmaking I have no patience for (thank god Lucifer Valentine or Lloyd Kaufman weren’t around) and places its schizophrenic pacing in the hands of unlikable or unmemorable characters. There’s a couple missing girls, maybe a coverup, melodrama, psychic bullshit, a sketchy priest with a history, plenty of walking, repeated shots of missing persons flyers, too much dialogue, extended scenes of people looking, dramatic music blaring over scenes that call for none, questionable camera work, drinking, awkward phone conversations, strange staging, the excitement of photography… IN REAL TIME! and and ending that just refuses to fucking end. I have no idea who this for and, quite frankly, I don’t want to know. I like the folklore that is teased and the baffling idiocy of the thing is applause-worthy for all the wrong reasons but that will only get you so far. It’s like me telling a story from my youth after downing a bottle of 120 proof booze… aimless, abrasive and in the end, completely fucking pointless.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) (UK/USA)
aka Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
A wiener kid named Harry Potter is rescued from his Dickensian nightmare home life with the revelation that he’s a wizard and he’s set to go to the magical school for wizards called Hogwarts. Little dude is legendary in magic circles because of an attack by some bald freaky snake-like wizard which left him an orphan (why he’s living with his terrible aunt and uncle) but mysteriously still alive with only a lightning bolt scar on his forehead. Voldemort (snake-lookin’ creep) supposedly died after failing to assassinate a baby but now he’s trying to make his way back by whatever sneaky means necessary. Potter makes more wiener friends at his new school and some enemies including some posh asshole kid by the name of Draco Malfoy and a deliberately untrustworthy teacher named Snape played by the much-missed Alan Rickman. The kids aren’t great at acting but the stacked cast of old pros providing performances for the characters in the periphery are a fuckin’ treat. A bunch of the weak plot can be blamed on J.K. Rowling shrugging and saying “Magic?”. Birthed a whole-ass movie franchise that I begrudgingly fell in love with and now treat as comfort food along with my wife who is always down to watch. Weak digital effects and some horrifying teeth (lookin’ at you Slytherin) distract but Maggie Smith (deeply missed as well) kicks some serious ass as an old witch, Robbie Coltrane (also deeply missed) is great as the Hogwarts groundskeeper and friend to Potter and there’s more than a few ghosts and monsters hanging around. Blink and you’ll miss John Hurt as a wand seller but we’ll see him again “at the close”.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
A wiener kid named Harry Potter is rescued from his Dickensian nightmare home life with the revelation that he’s a wizard and he’s set to go to the magical school for wizards called Hogwarts. Little dude is legendary in magic circles because of an attack by some bald freaky snake-like wizard which left him an orphan (why he’s living with his terrible aunt and uncle) but mysteriously still alive with only a lightning bolt scar on his forehead. Voldemort (snake-lookin’ creep) supposedly died after failing to assassinate a baby but now he’s trying to make his way back by whatever sneaky means necessary. Potter makes more wiener friends at his new school and some enemies including some posh asshole kid by the name of Draco Malfoy and a deliberately untrustworthy teacher named Snape played by the much-missed Alan Rickman. The kids aren’t great at acting but the stacked cast of old pros providing performances for the characters in the periphery are a fuckin’ treat. A bunch of the weak plot can be blamed on J.K. Rowling shrugging and saying “Magic?”. Birthed a whole-ass movie franchise that I begrudgingly fell in love with and now treat as comfort food along with my wife who is always down to watch. Weak digital effects and some horrifying teeth (lookin’ at you Slytherin) distract but Maggie Smith (deeply missed as well) kicks some serious ass as an old witch, Robbie Coltrane (also deeply missed) is great as the Hogwarts groundskeeper and friend to Potter and there’s more than a few ghosts and monsters hanging around. Blink and you’ll miss John Hurt as a wand seller but we’ll see him again “at the close”.
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
Age of Demons (1992) (USA)
⭐️⭐️⭐️
A woman is chained to a wall in a cardboard dungeon built in someone’s basement, judging by her expression when she comes to, she is either shocked or slightly aroused by her own constipation. Halloween decorations and a mutilated Bart Simpson doll add to the “terror” the chained woman wakes up to. A Marilyn-Monroe-looking woman bathed in green light and sporting ridiculously huge conical boobs shambles out, followed by two less memorable ladies and states that the “age of demons” will soon be upon us. Turns out this poor woman will be the 100th sacrifice and the mighty Zordak Empire is dawning. Henchmen that even the Foot Clan would make fun of pop in, the blonde gets her top ripped off and old cone-boobs demands her Hot-Topic-costumed huntress slay the distressed damsel. They manage to open the doorway to hell but the high priestess warns that to summon the demon they will need someone else with fantastic psychic powers and that man happens to be named Mitch Feinstein… yep. Mitch Feinstein. Turns out Mitch got his powers by accident as a gimmick for his death metal band, so the henchmen are sent out to gather up Mitch and of course we’re “treated” to live music that sounds like an opening act at a Horror-con I would never attend. Mitch is worried all the demonic crap his band is getting into is taking its toll on him but it’s also given him telekinetic powers. They do little to protect him from a gang of “Latino” thugs. Luckily the henchmen step in and slaughter the lot of ‘em, grabbing Mitch and taking him to that basement/dungeon where the ladies explain what they need him for. Then we cut to Mitch’s older brother and his friends doing karate in a field. Cue bad dubbing and sound effects. Mitch refuses to help but the blonde leader quickly puts him in his place. The unemployed demon (don’t ask me, I’m just repeating what they said) gets summoned in all his rubber-mask-and-old-lady’s-pink-coat glory. With the demon summoned, they drop Mitch off wherever and command the demon to cause destruction. Of course, more sacrifices will be needed. Mitch goes to his brother for help and off they go to stop the forces of evil. White guy kung fu and in-camera effects go on forever as Mitch gets captured and the same guitar riff plays on ad infinitum. Damon Foster’s Age of Demons is a mixture of garbage backyard filmmaking and the kind of fantasy only the saddest of high school loners wish they could live out. Littered with cringe-inducing racism (somehow the opening claim that it’s meant to amuse and not offend makes it worse), humor that unsurprisingly fails on every level (including gay jokes that just keep going), shit special effects, bad Ultraman cosplay and something I wouldn’t exactly call acting. The bad taste it leaves is momentarily washed away by the talentless dungeon-dwelling evil women and low-grade demon shenanigans but everything in between is a chore to get through. 80 minutes stretches into hours and it comes to a close with a black-magic-activated android called Cybertron coming to the rescue. It’s amazing what Damon Foster was able to do with paper route savings but it’s more amazing that he was able to convince anyone to show their boobs on camera... even if she was a hooker. There’s some nice cameos from a Dead Pit poster, an Angry Samoans shirt, a Fawlty Towers sheet and a Chicago White Sox hat. There’s a lot going against it but somehow when all is said and done, I can’t help but recommend it to fans of Z-grade hijinks.
A woman is chained to a wall in a cardboard dungeon built in someone’s basement, judging by her expression when she comes to, she is either shocked or slightly aroused by her own constipation. Halloween decorations and a mutilated Bart Simpson doll add to the “terror” the chained woman wakes up to. A Marilyn-Monroe-looking woman bathed in green light and sporting ridiculously huge conical boobs shambles out, followed by two less memorable ladies and states that the “age of demons” will soon be upon us. Turns out this poor woman will be the 100th sacrifice and the mighty Zordak Empire is dawning. Henchmen that even the Foot Clan would make fun of pop in, the blonde gets her top ripped off and old cone-boobs demands her Hot-Topic-costumed huntress slay the distressed damsel. They manage to open the doorway to hell but the high priestess warns that to summon the demon they will need someone else with fantastic psychic powers and that man happens to be named Mitch Feinstein… yep. Mitch Feinstein. Turns out Mitch got his powers by accident as a gimmick for his death metal band, so the henchmen are sent out to gather up Mitch and of course we’re “treated” to live music that sounds like an opening act at a Horror-con I would never attend. Mitch is worried all the demonic crap his band is getting into is taking its toll on him but it’s also given him telekinetic powers. They do little to protect him from a gang of “Latino” thugs. Luckily the henchmen step in and slaughter the lot of ‘em, grabbing Mitch and taking him to that basement/dungeon where the ladies explain what they need him for. Then we cut to Mitch’s older brother and his friends doing karate in a field. Cue bad dubbing and sound effects. Mitch refuses to help but the blonde leader quickly puts him in his place. The unemployed demon (don’t ask me, I’m just repeating what they said) gets summoned in all his rubber-mask-and-old-lady’s-pink-coat glory. With the demon summoned, they drop Mitch off wherever and command the demon to cause destruction. Of course, more sacrifices will be needed. Mitch goes to his brother for help and off they go to stop the forces of evil. White guy kung fu and in-camera effects go on forever as Mitch gets captured and the same guitar riff plays on ad infinitum. Damon Foster’s Age of Demons is a mixture of garbage backyard filmmaking and the kind of fantasy only the saddest of high school loners wish they could live out. Littered with cringe-inducing racism (somehow the opening claim that it’s meant to amuse and not offend makes it worse), humor that unsurprisingly fails on every level (including gay jokes that just keep going), shit special effects, bad Ultraman cosplay and something I wouldn’t exactly call acting. The bad taste it leaves is momentarily washed away by the talentless dungeon-dwelling evil women and low-grade demon shenanigans but everything in between is a chore to get through. 80 minutes stretches into hours and it comes to a close with a black-magic-activated android called Cybertron coming to the rescue. It’s amazing what Damon Foster was able to do with paper route savings but it’s more amazing that he was able to convince anyone to show their boobs on camera... even if she was a hooker. There’s some nice cameos from a Dead Pit poster, an Angry Samoans shirt, a Fawlty Towers sheet and a Chicago White Sox hat. There’s a lot going against it but somehow when all is said and done, I can’t help but recommend it to fans of Z-grade hijinks.
Crocodile 2: Death Swamp (2002) (USA)
aka Death Roll
Following a successful (Well, for them at least. There’s a lot of dead people and police officers full of bullets.) bank robbery, a quartet of violent criminals board a plane (dressing like a band of greasers who also saw The Matrix too many times and have a couple venereal diseases amongst them) and head to Mexico. After bad weather forces them to turn around, the criminals hijack the flight and make them fly into the storm. A stray bullet leads to a system malfunction and causes them to crash in a swamp. A small group of survivors (three of the criminals, a sexy stewardess, her nervous coworker, a scumbag lawyer, the pilot, an injured woman and a brainiac college kid) make it out of the wreckage. The leader of the bank robbers forces the survivors to carry their loot and shoots the injured woman to make sure everyone knows he’s serious. The dumbass boyfriend of the stewardess (waiting for her in Mexico) hires a tracker he comes across in a bar (you better believe it’s Martin Kove) to help him look for the lady he loves. The group march through the harsh terrain and a big-ass shoddy-cgi crocodile attacks, killing the pilot. The criminals fill it with led and call it a day. Sucks for them, because that big-ass shoddy-cgi crocodile has a bigger and shoddier mama that’s none-too-happy its baby was slaughtered. It’s time for the folks to be picked off. The cgi quality is exactly what one would expect, so you’ll get no complaints from this seasoned SyFy channel veteran and every so often ya get a giant animatronic head kinda gumming on its victims and I’m all for that. Martin Kove and the dork eventually meet up with the group and after some tension, Kove convinces them he’s the only one that can get them out. A big-ass crocodile encounter helps move things along. They hold up in an old factory and Kove fills them in on the legend of the local devil dragon and the history of horror that lays claim to the area. Jon Sklaroff and his disgusting mustache steal the show as the most depraved member of the gang. It’s exactly what I thought it would be and I’m completely fine with that.
⭐️⭐️1/2
Monday, March 23, 2026
Queen Kong (1976) (UK/West Germany)
⭐️
So, ya take the exact plot of King Kong, switch the gender roles and throw in a bunch of unfunny jokes and what do you have? Well, at 87 minutes one could definitely call it a movie. The female film crew and their male star (Robin Askwith from the far better Tower of Evil and Horror Hospital) head to the wilds of darkest Africa to film a movie. The giant female gorilla in the area falls for the… how do I put this politely… “interesting-looking” Askwith (his name is Ray Fay). Cold-hearted filmmaker Luce Habit puts the lives of everyone on the line to get herself a new money-making spectacle. After losing her main star due to hostile work conditions, she takes to the streets of London and stumbles upon the denim-vested street urchin Ray Fay, being a scuzz and stealing a King Kong poster reproduction. Cue a chase through the streets to silly music… but this ain’t The Benny Hill Show and my patience is dissipating quickly. They jump on the ship, The Liberated Lady (introduced via song), and head out to make their film. Boy meets ape, ape falls in love and everything goes as you’d expect just from the viewpoint of a Carry On… flick with almost no jokes that land and a feminist message lost in a sea of lame bawdiness and racism. Some of the cast are easy on the eyes and some of the comedy is so stupid it’s daftly charming but that’s no recommendation, especially when you can just watch King Kong… doesn’t matter which one, even that bloated Peter Jackson one is better than this.
So, ya take the exact plot of King Kong, switch the gender roles and throw in a bunch of unfunny jokes and what do you have? Well, at 87 minutes one could definitely call it a movie. The female film crew and their male star (Robin Askwith from the far better Tower of Evil and Horror Hospital) head to the wilds of darkest Africa to film a movie. The giant female gorilla in the area falls for the… how do I put this politely… “interesting-looking” Askwith (his name is Ray Fay). Cold-hearted filmmaker Luce Habit puts the lives of everyone on the line to get herself a new money-making spectacle. After losing her main star due to hostile work conditions, she takes to the streets of London and stumbles upon the denim-vested street urchin Ray Fay, being a scuzz and stealing a King Kong poster reproduction. Cue a chase through the streets to silly music… but this ain’t The Benny Hill Show and my patience is dissipating quickly. They jump on the ship, The Liberated Lady (introduced via song), and head out to make their film. Boy meets ape, ape falls in love and everything goes as you’d expect just from the viewpoint of a Carry On… flick with almost no jokes that land and a feminist message lost in a sea of lame bawdiness and racism. Some of the cast are easy on the eyes and some of the comedy is so stupid it’s daftly charming but that’s no recommendation, especially when you can just watch King Kong… doesn’t matter which one, even that bloated Peter Jackson one is better than this.
Botched (2007) (Germany/Ireland/UK/USA)
aka 13
Off-kilter originality shines through in the familiar heist gone wrong plot. After a car accident leaves his partners dead and the stolen diamonds scattered in traffic, a professional thief (Stephen Dorff) is sent by his boss (Sean Pertwee) to steal a historical artifact from a penthouse in Moscow. Ritchie (Dorff) and two Russian brothers manage to break in and steal the piece but when the elevator malfunctions, they and a handful of other folks are let off on the thirteenth floor. Uncooperative hostages turn out to be the least of their problems when they slowly come to realize the twin descendants of Ivan the Terrible are bloodily dispatching all the poor saps unfortunate enough to find themselves trapped on the thirteenth floor. The balletic psychopath dressed up as Ivan slaughters with glee as his twin sister looks for the proper sacrifice to appease their lord. Nothing really goes the way you think it will and everything plays out with a certain zany vibe that may be off-putting at first but soon won me over. The violence is over the top and super wet. A damn fine time.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Off-kilter originality shines through in the familiar heist gone wrong plot. After a car accident leaves his partners dead and the stolen diamonds scattered in traffic, a professional thief (Stephen Dorff) is sent by his boss (Sean Pertwee) to steal a historical artifact from a penthouse in Moscow. Ritchie (Dorff) and two Russian brothers manage to break in and steal the piece but when the elevator malfunctions, they and a handful of other folks are let off on the thirteenth floor. Uncooperative hostages turn out to be the least of their problems when they slowly come to realize the twin descendants of Ivan the Terrible are bloodily dispatching all the poor saps unfortunate enough to find themselves trapped on the thirteenth floor. The balletic psychopath dressed up as Ivan slaughters with glee as his twin sister looks for the proper sacrifice to appease their lord. Nothing really goes the way you think it will and everything plays out with a certain zany vibe that may be off-putting at first but soon won me over. The violence is over the top and super wet. A damn fine time.
Sunday, March 22, 2026
The Vulture (1966) (UK/Canada/USA)
aka Manutara
⭐️⭐️
Super silly and unfortunately super talkative bit of nonsense. An ancestral grudge spells doom for a small family in the seaside village of Cromwell. A schoolteacher witnesses some giant bird with a human head emerge out of a grave and her hair goes white from shock. Rightfully so, everyone thinks she’s a nut but when an American nuclear scientist comes to visit his fiancée, he begins to believe atomic energy may just be the culprit behind the man/bird mutation. The cops think he’s an idiot and stand back while his future wife’s family is dragged skyward and murdered by some large flying beast. The last act reveal of the birdman makes you realize why they decided to keep it off camera (it honestly looks like some dumbass in a bird suit... which I guess it is) but that’s still no excuse for how much damn talking goes on. Mad scientists can be so damn lazy nowadays. Used to be ya had a bone to pick, you’d hit the lab, transform yourself into some stupid-looking bird monster and deliver that mortal kick to the balls to the bloodline that wronged your ancestors. Oh well. I wish this flick was better.
⭐️⭐️
Super silly and unfortunately super talkative bit of nonsense. An ancestral grudge spells doom for a small family in the seaside village of Cromwell. A schoolteacher witnesses some giant bird with a human head emerge out of a grave and her hair goes white from shock. Rightfully so, everyone thinks she’s a nut but when an American nuclear scientist comes to visit his fiancée, he begins to believe atomic energy may just be the culprit behind the man/bird mutation. The cops think he’s an idiot and stand back while his future wife’s family is dragged skyward and murdered by some large flying beast. The last act reveal of the birdman makes you realize why they decided to keep it off camera (it honestly looks like some dumbass in a bird suit... which I guess it is) but that’s still no excuse for how much damn talking goes on. Mad scientists can be so damn lazy nowadays. Used to be ya had a bone to pick, you’d hit the lab, transform yourself into some stupid-looking bird monster and deliver that mortal kick to the balls to the bloodline that wronged your ancestors. Oh well. I wish this flick was better.
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