“Maybe I’ll stick one of you in a giant bowl and keep tapping on the glass and see how you like it? Did you ever think how loud that is to me?! Did you!!!?”

When I was in junior high in the mid 1980’s there was a few things to look forward to.. acne, voice changes and the jr. high dances weren’t one of them. The awkward pre-teen ritual of horrible dancing in a dimly lit school gym still etched in my memory. My parachute pants swaying softly in the purple neon light to the soft rock hits of Foreigner.

Fortunately we never have to witness such horrors to our band of pre-teen heroes in the cult classic “The monster squad” They’re more concerned about kicking monster butt and saving the world than asking the girl in head gear to the dance from home economics class (hey I can still make a mean pasta meatloaf so stop laughing.)

Andrew Gower plays Sean Crenshaw the self appointed leader of the Monster Squad. Whether leadership is measure by the length of your spiky 80’s hair or the level of monster killing knowledge is unknown but Sean soon discovers that Dracula has taken residents in his town searching for a holy amulet and book of spells that will unleash the forces of darkness. Along with his fellow foul-mouthed club members Patrick, Del, Horace and Rudy they attempt to track down the amulet before Dracula uses it and opens a portal to untold darkness, or as we like to call it New Jersey.

Dracula isn’t a one man mission though. He enlisted all the Universal theme park monsters to help him including a hilarious squishy faced werewolf who is more feret like than wolf, a hastily put together mummy who at any moment looks like he’s going to crumble in a strong wind, the gill-man who is a literal fish out water, and of course the legendary Frankenstein brought back to life via some vampire issued jumper cables.

Dracula sends Frankenstein to get the spell book from the kids but unfortunately Frankenstein has the heart of a dead Auntie who liked to bake cookies and decides to join the Monster Squad and play dress up with Andrew’s little sister Phoebe. Franken-wuss apparently blends well with the crowd of 13 years olds going un-noticed by towns folks and authorities as a 7ft tall peeping tom.

The “Mon” Squad learns the secrets of stopping Dracula’s world domination from a scary German guy played convincingly by Leonardo Cimino. Mr. “S.G.G.” translates the book and tells them of the portal will suck out all the evil monsters out of the world like a giant Hoover vacuum cleaner leaving behind just the fresh scent pine. But only if read by a virgin at midnight while holding amulet of goodness (typical dimenisonal portal stuff). Virgin’s were in low supply in the 80’s but their market value was at all time high so They instead settle on Del’s older sister figuring close enough should count for something. It doesn’t. They should have went to Frankenmuth, Mi. I’m sure there’s some German virgins there sorting Christmas ornaments somewhere and they would have gotten an excellent chicken dinner as well.

Well things end up as a monster battle royal in the town square as Scary German Guy attempts to give a crash course in German to Andrew’s little sister Phoebee. Dracula’s Vampire vixens are encircling, Mummies are aggressively hitchhiking, the wolfman is searching for Snausages…. and Gill-man…well he’s just left gasping for air. Who will survive and will they save the world from the forces of darkness and how will they get back in time for a jr. high dance?

A fun cult classic for the foul mouthed kid in all of us who’s watched all those vintage Universal horror films. I say give it a try and if you’re ever attacked by a werewolf just kick him in the nards.

Keep an eye out for…
- close range vampire archery
- feret-faced werewolves
- single-ply mummy wrapping
- intense Jewish pie slicing
- pyrotechnician vampires
- peeping Frankenstein
- Fishing with Twinkie bait
- virgin imposters
- cat-faced teachers
- monster air delivery services
- garlic pizza kung-fu
- gratuitous use of the brother from “The Wonder Years”

“for some reason I really want to drink a Pepsi, go to Burger King then buy a new pair of Adidas after I watched this. Can you say product placement?”

rated 8.7 out of 10 for the movie

Check out the trailer from Monster Squad.

“Dead Lobster, For the sea food killer in you”

I think the most prevalent signs of the apocalypse happened back in the 80’s. Reganomics, the band Wham!, and the sudden occurrence of a multitude of underwater monster movies including the Abyss, Leviathon and this seafood disaster called DeepStar Six.

Greg Evigan plays “no first name” McBride, a scraggly lumber jack navy pilot waiting to get out from deep sea duty to return topside for some well deserved McRest. Yes the same Greg Evigan from the horrifying tv show “My Two Dads.” I believe that show was canceled right after “Alf” thankfully.

McBride is a part of a group of underwater military rejects including a Amish looking porn peddler, a Russian scientist cranked up on Red Bulls, and resident scientist babe Nia Peebles who appears to have stumbled onto the wrong movie set by accident.

The story revolves around a poorly planned deep sea missile base the underwater team is supposed to setup on the sea floor but discover an ancient cavern instead. In the tradition of other film’s underwater caverns you always get a malevolent mutant sea creature thrown in for free. So get your bibs and shell hammers ready because there’s not enough butter to stop this lobster mutant.

The crazy crustacean attacks submarines, swims faster than a missile and infiltrates the DeepStar Six base via chomping on canned spam victims and a quick snack of Ms. fruity Peebles. The remaining survivors, which unfortunately includes Mr. Evigan, load up on their stock piles of shotguns and co2 tipped spears to take on Mr. Crabs now blocking their way to freedom.

A lot of the characters are cheaply killed off through a series of accidents mostly due to a weasely character named Snyder who trips into people with co2 canister tipped spears and accidentally detonates nearby nuclear bombs. Snyder freaks out and tries to get to the surface in an emergency escape pod before he should properly decompress….
pop goes the weasel.

The remaining survivors must battle the monster while figuring out a way to escape to the surface before the base has it’s own nuclear meltdown or they run out of air. Can the movie budget handle all of this?

This film wasn’t as great as I remember when I saw it in my local theater as a teenager. With very little plot and gallons of of water, it’s directed by the same guy that brought us Friday the 13th so I had hopes that a hockey masked scuba diver would arrive on a submarine and clean house. That would have made the movie more interesting and maybe now I wouldn’t have such a craving for buttery lobster. I say check it out and order a side of shrimp.

Keep an eye out for…
- underwater door crushing
- scuba diver chomping
- 2 accidental underwater nuclear explosions
- death by jiffy-pop de-compression
- emergency CPR (Crustacean Pulminary Resuscitation)
- pool party strobe lights
- lobster harpooning
- explosive c02 spear to the chest

“This movie defines deep sea doodie”

rated 6.7 out of 10 for the movie

Learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out this riveting clip from DeepStar Six. Snyder’s response at the end is priceless.

“By the order of Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada, I command you to pull my finger”

Alex Rogan (Lance Guest) is a depressing teenager living in a low scale trailer park. He has vague dreams of getting somewhere in life because he likes to stare wishingly at his planet mobil hanging in his bedroom and to stalk the mailbox for rejection letters from community colleges. Between unclogging toilets and ignoring his girlfriend Maggie Gordon (Catherine Mary Stewart) he spends an obscene amount of quarters on a nearby mammoth sized arcade game called “The Starfighter.” to dull his pain.

His apparent short term life goals are realized late one night when he beats the scoring record which brings out all residents of the trailer park like a soccer game final in Brazil. I don’t think the guy that cured polio got this much fanfare.

After the night long celebration of parades and fireworks, Alex is approached by the game’s flim-flam inventor, Centauri, played by Robert Preston who kidnaps him in a pimped out starcar whisking him off to another far away planet. It turns out the game was actually a test to find real star fighters much like the army games the government is churning out for recruiting. Because there’s nothing you want more than white nerdy guys who sits in front of computer screens all day operating firearms or in this case saving the galaxy.

Not too thrilled with the prospects of getting vaporized in a space battle, Alex heads back to Earth only to find a robot clone of himself has been getting busy with his girlfriend, creeping out his family, and is now target practice for lobster headed alien cops.

Alex decides me must finally faces the challenge to fight as the remaining starfighter in a desperate battle against the armada to save the galaxy (mainly because he doesn’t want to get blasted by alien hitmen on Earth). With the help of his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle headed co-pilot, Grig, they wage a one ship war against an entire squadron of bad computer generated graphics

.A neat little sci-fi movie from the 80’s that was every Atari playin’ Geeks dream. Give it a try but bring lots of quarters.

Keep an eye out for…
- giant holographic balding aliens
- bifocals made of real eyeballs
- squid faced distempered co-pilots
- Outback steakhouse’s Onion “Death Blossoms”
- 9 year old Hugh Hefners
- grannies listening to pop music
- translator collar clips constructed from old digital watch parts
- aliens with Ed Asner hair cuts
- flash mobs of videogame spectators

“This movie is what destroyed Atari”

rated 8.9 out of 10 for the movie

Learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out the trailer for The Last Starfighter

“The French apparently lack our fine skills in parallel parking.”

If Gymkata had a bigger budget, a real plot, and people with actual gymnastic/karate skills and you mixed it all together in a giant French blender you’d get District B13. Not since Circus De Soleil have I seen so many French men jumping through hoops and swinging on ropes.

It’s the far distant future of 2010(?) Paris has isolated off the criminal ridden parts of the city with a giant wall armed to the teeth with police and machine guns. This is to prevent anyone from crossing the border that might not like Jerry Lewis or isn’t wearing a beret and carrying a baguette. The French can be so snobby that way.

David “don’t call me Tinker” Belle plays Leito, a drug dealer who crosses the line when he destroys a Sam Wholesale size supply of heroine that belongs to a district’s crime lord. Leito must have downed a dozen Jolt colas before breakfast as he escapes the hit squad in a dazzling display of jumping through windows, scaling down the sides of buildings, leaping across roofs and jumping over moving cars… all the while keeping his hair looking perfect.

Unfortunately Leito gets double crossed by the local authorities when he tries to turn the drug dealers in at the border. Thrown into a jail transport he unwittingly joins up with an undercover cop, another acrobatic French Kung-fu expert named Damien Tomaso. “Pasta” Leito and “The Sauce” Tomaso now their own action team plot together to rescue Leito’s sister who is held captive by the drug thugs back in District B13. They also need stop a neutron bomb from killing millions of people along the way if they run out of things to do.

The action is intense with more kicks and jumps and groin smashes that would even make Jackie Chan winded. Definitely check it out and Don’t forget to uncork a fine bottle of wine. It helps make the bad French dubbing more bearable.

Keep an eye out for…

- French Vin Diesels in Don Ho shirts
- Brautsworth broiling
- Fast and the Furious casting rejects
- street thug bunk beds
- impromptu street gymnastic routines
- chained 7 ft tall amish wrestlers
- balding juan valdez gangsters

“b5, b23, b13…viva la bingo!”

rated 8.3 out of 10 for the movie

Learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out the trailer for District B13

“Alien technology that can teleport crap from the Pottery Barn freaks me out too.”

Back in high school I had a science project where a clock would run off a potato. At the time I thought that was pretty impressive. If only I knew then how to alter the fabric of the time space continuum through advanced spud technology. Maybe then I would have beaten that kid with the ketchup volcano. But is science really ready for the dark secrets the potato holds? I think not.

In the movie “my science project” the school’s best grease monkey Michael (John Stockwell) has a similar problem except his science project is a genuine working alien time machine. Not actually building it himself (cheater) he instead finds it in an abandoned military base with his new found geek girlfriend played by Danielle von Zerneck. She’s a geek because she wears giant glasses according to the guide to creating 80’s stereotypes for movies.Michael doesn’t get the extra credit he hopes for when the time machine suddenly absorbs their hippy science teacher played by Dennis Hopper via a failed battery jump. The time machine, now feeding off an electric outlet starts warping in artifacts from the past like an extreme episode of Antique Road Show and Michael has to stop it from destroying the fabric of time and space. All this before Magnum P.I. starts.

Apparently electricity is really slow so it gives Michael just enough time to race the bolt of electric current out of town in his supercharged GTO and rig up a series of elaborate explosives to a utility tower. Mike’s Buddy,Vince, who fits the role of Italian greaser nicely, helps him rob a store for the explosives and helps get them arrested. Soon they have to infiltrate the high school which is now over run with gladiators, dinosaurs, and other football player mascot wanna-be’s to help save his girlfriend from a fate of permanent home room detention.

The movie is pure 80’s cheese but an enjoyable trip back in time. Remember to pack your leg warmers and bring some extra hairspray when traveling time warps and look out for stoned hippie cowboys on the way out. Oh and bring a potato.

Keep an eye out for…
- Spencer Gift Shop $20 electro-globes
- ancient wookie attack
- T-Rex seeking rocket launchers
- storm trooper vandals
- Dennis Hopper Hysterics
- apocalyptic mutant attack
- muscle cars that can exceed the speed of light
- grease monkey and nerd co-op teams
- Good Fellas extras reject

Why does Dennis Hopper always play a crazed hippy?

rated 8.2 out of 10 for the movie Learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out a scene from My Science Project