Before getting his butt kicked by a chick with telekinetic powers in “The New Blood”, or taking a cruise to the big apple in “Jason Takes Manhattan”, Director/writer Tom McLoughlin takes a cue from Dr. Frankenstein and resurrects Jason and the “Friday the 13th” franchise with his entry, “Jason Lives.”

Tommy Jarvis, who’s on a weekend pass from the nuthouse, decides to go visit an old family friend at a cemetery that he hasn’t seen for several years. During the short drive over we find out that the old family friend is Jason Voorhees. Man, he should have gone to Disneyland. There’s no need to worry about Jason; he’s as dead as Vanilla Ice’s rap career. After pulling into the cemetery Tommy jumps out of his truck along with Allen Hawes (Ron Padillo), and they start searching for ol’ Wormface’s grave like they’re on some kind of demented Easter egg hunt. Soon they come across a headstone with the name Jason Voorhees on it, but Tommy, for some crazy reason, doesn’t think he’s found the right grave and wants to make a positive I.D. Seriously? How many people named Jason Voorhees would be buried in the local cemetery anyway? Hawes doesn’t think this is a good idea and throws a brief hissy-fit. But he doesn’t want to risk loosing his ride home, so he and Tommy grab shovels and they start digging “Raiders of the Lost Ark”-style until they reach the top of the coffin. Shortly after popping off the casket lid like a can of Pringles, Tommy gets blind-sided by a childhood flashback (audio only) of him tenderizing Jason’s meat suit with a machete.

Without warning he “snaps” and grabs the nearest metal object and heads back to Jason’s coffin. This is just great! Now we have a crazy guy stabbing a dead corpse with a metal pole during a t-storm in a “Friday the 13th” movie–oh, man–this can’t be good. And before you can say, “Chi-chi-chi-cha-cha-cha,” lighting strikes the metal pole sticking out of the dead psycho’s body, and Jason lives. Hawes sees Jason and pauses just long enough to have a “girl moment”, and then disappears offscreen. I really don’t understand what the big deal is. So what? He saw a walking corpse… It’s not like he just saw Rosie O’ Donnell in a two-piece micro-bikini. Now THAT’S freakin’ SCARY!

Tommy quickly realizes that he has dug up a very big problem (ya think?) and grabs a can of gasoline that I had seen earlier, and starts splashing it all over Jason, who is slowly advancing towards him like he has rigor mortis or something. Tommy then strikes a match and is about to make a “Jason S’more-hees” when–what-da-ya-know–it rains and puts the match out. Now this wouldn’t have happened had Tommy used REI Storm matches. And I can tell by the, “Oh, crap! What do I do now?!” look on his face that he’s fresh out of ideas. Fortunately for him though, Allen returns onscreen with new-found courage and a Plan B, which consists of running up behind Jason while yelling a Braveheart-ish battle cry, and whacking him across the head with a shovel. Now for a second there I thought Jason was going to have to sit out another movie. But aside from a couple of cobwebs getting knocked out of place, ol’ Coffin Breath wasn’t phased one bit. Not the same can be said for a stunned Hawes, who gets killed before the movie’s opening credits. I guess Ron Palillo (Hawes) had to leave early for a “Welcome Back Kotter” reunion.

After Tommy speeds off to the police station to get reinforcements, a lightning-fast Jason makes up for lost time spearing, impaling, crushing, and hacking his was way towards a personal best and franchise high body count. When he’s not having stare-downs and showdowns with Sheriff Garris, he likes to mug for the camera, do James Bond tributes, and enjoy the lakeside scenery while taking power walks through the woods.

Tommy stays busy in the movie getting thrown in jail, falling in love, doing a little B&E (breaking and entering), being suspected of murder, and running from the law. But somewhere during all of this our crazy friend amazingly finds the time to buy and then read a couple of step-by-step books that tell him exactly how to kill Jason. Now this sounds too good to be true, and it is–because the hockey-mask-wearing fiend has already signed on to do five more movies after this one. But I don’t think Tommy knows about this because he and Megan are still preparing for Jason’s big send-off.

Later that night they all meet up at the camp for a wet and wild threesome in the middle of the lake. It’s not what you think… But don’t worry about Jason adding you to his already impressive body count because, trust me, Tommy and Megan are keeping him very busy this time around. So you’re safe wherever you watch the action. And besides, once Tommy drops anchor on the USS Voorhees at the bottom of Crystal Lake, courtesy of some steel chain and a boulder the size of an asteroid, ol’ Jason won’t be going anywhere until the next sequel.

This is your typical “Friday the 13th” movie minus the scares, nudity and gore of earlier films. Director McLoughlin doesn’t even attempt to scare the audience with “Jason Lives.” His installment is about as terrifying as an episode of “Goosebumps.” But I’ll take an un-scary “Friday the 13th” film any day over a ridiculous sequel like “Jason Goes to Hell” that has a body-jacking Jason who eats an evil heart (what???) and swaps spit and Hell Slugs with his victims.

Another bummer is that this movie has zero nudity which means you’ll just have to wait until the next sequel “The New Blood” to see any hot chicks take their clothes off. To me having a “Friday the 13th” film without any nudity is like having Mork without Mindy, or Michael Knight being without his car buddy, KITT. I mean c’mon, this isn’t an episode of “7th Heaven”, it’s a horror movie, so let’s see some skin. The closest it gets is seeing Megan, the very talented Jennifer Cooke, sporting a pair of 80’s jeans that are so tight, the seams can be heard crying “uncle.” And for anyone out there who has a bare knee fetish, you should definitely get your fix whenever Cort appears on screen with his knees falling out of his ripped jeans. The movie doesn’t have a lot of gore, either, except when Jason shows his creative side and does his version of a Jackson Pollock painting using a female counselor’s blood and gooey insides. At least “Jason Lives” has a couple of really cool kills. Like when Maggothead himself gets a three-for-one decapitation using a pimped-out chrome machete. Another one has the undead psycho evening the score with the sheriff when he snaps him in half like a cheap number two pencil after their second showdown. Now that’s what I call a tiebreaker! The next kill reminded me of when I used to pull the heads off my cousin’s Barbie dolls. It involves a female counselor who gets her head ripped off after making the fatal mistake of pouring lemon and lime soda over Wormface’s head. I guess Jason prefers Pepsi.

The cast is fairly bland by “Friday the 13th” standards. Even the usual crop of walking cliches isn’t here. But there is one character named Martin who really stands out. If you liked Crazy Ralph from Parts 1 & 2, and Edna from “A New Beginning”, then you will definitely get a kick out of this crusty caretaker. When he isn’t involved in cover-ups over at the local cemetery where he works, he can be overheard serenading his bottle of hooch, affectionately named Kathleen. Sadly though, while walking home from work one night, Martin meets his end and gives fans a great death scene that has Jason using a broken bottle to tap his neck like a keg of beer. This gives new meaning the old saying “the bottle killed him.”

For a franchise that suffers from advanced sequel-itis, the acting is surprisingly solid. The group of attractive female camp counselors are believable as friends working at a summer camp. Even the sheriff and deputy act like they’ve known each other for years. Thom (I haven’t had an acting gig in years) Mathews gives a credible performance as a troubled young man who still has a major case of Jason on the brain. This sequel has the best production values of any movie in the series. We get some creepy opening shots of fog floating across the lake and crawling along the ground that reminded me of the classic horror movie “The Wolfman.” It’s just a shame that director McLoughlin didn’t build on this atmosphere and create a film full of thrills and chills. However, on a positive note, resident “Friday the 13th” composer Harry Manfredini is back with a brand new and totally awesome sounding score to celebrate Jason’s return. Now, as far as I’m concerned, a “Friday the 13th” movie just isn’t a “Friday the 13th” movie if Manfredini isn’t doing the music.

In the end I still enjoyed seeing the real Jason back onscreen (Roy doesn’t count), but I just like Jason better when he kills you with a machete, and not with humor.

- Extreme swimming in skin-tight jeans
- 3-for-1 decap attack
- 1 Pimped-out chrome machete
- Gratuitous display of knees
- 1 Frankenstein-esque resurrection
- Jason’s James Bond Tribute
- 1 Corpse covered in a “Fear Factor” Party Mix of creepy-crawlies
- 1 Boat propellor to the face
- 1 Power-walking undead killer
- 1 Machete covered in strawberry jam
- 1 Fried and furious undead psycho

Rated 8.3 out of 10

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Check out the trailer for Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives

Lost Highway would like to welcome the Msytical, Misty Wilkins as a guest reviewer to Lost Highway. ” I am an aspiring writer who loves Sci-Fi and is interested in crime drama, loves music and I have sarcastic wit. I like to write about various subjects. I realized writing is something I am meant to do, so I decided to follow my dream.” You can follow Misty on twitter @mystica43229 and visit her blog at mistysmusings.wordpress.com.

I have never eaten shrooms and I also have never been keen on trampling through pastures sifting through cow patties to find them either. Now, I am sure there are some people out there that will do anything to fuzz their mind off. They feel like getting a little crazy; hopefully see a pink unicorn dancing with a big blue elephant or perhaps run around naked feeling like they are dancing with Lucy in the sky with diamonds. I am sure they will go far out into the boonies for that trip, but to Ireland? A little extreme perhaps? Maybe Ireland’s shrooms have a better experience?

Some teens decide to take a trip to the land of the Leprechaun to find some shrooms and trip the light fantastic. Of course, one teenager’s main reason for going is for a stud she met while on a trip and wants to see him again. I don’t know about you, but if a guy I barely know asked me and my friends to go to Ireland to find poop laden psychedelic fungi in the woods, a red flag would immediately rise. Nothing good happens in the woods in the middle of nowhere in a foreign land right? Riiight…

The cast is filled with the typical characters in a teen slasher film in the woods; you have the good girl in love, her stud and tour guide, the hippy chick who doesn’t shave her pits, the hippy chick’s idiot boyfriend, the jock and the slut. On their journey to their campsite, they hit a deer in the road and immediately, the strange dwellers of the woodlands come out to collect the dead deer. Yes, the dwellers are creepy looking; they have no teeth, are very dirty and speak a very strange local language. The stud tells the group to move on and leave them alone. No problem.

Once at the site, which is beautiful by the way, they begin their hunting for shrooms. The lady in love eats a shroom (called a deathcap that induces rage, gives you foresight and makes you be able to contact the dead if you survive the initial seizure) that her lover/guide tells them specifically not to eat because of those facts. What does she go and do later?

Yes, you are right; she eats it, gets very sick and starts having crazy dreams… The rest of the group trips as well on the “good” shrooms, starts telling campfire tales of the nearby abandoned catholic school and other local myths that starts to get their minds racing. But, after that, pure chaos ensues. The jock decides to go off in the woods at night and then the carnage begins… I have to admit, the tripping scenes are great. For a movie of this caliber, the special effects are pretty good. Strange beings in the shadows are hunting them down one by one in gory fashion.
(Are they the strange dwellers they saw before? Or is it something different?) Oh, so much blood and guts and a lot of running and literally tripping through the woods.

Are all of these killings in their minds? Is it really happening? Is something really picking them off one by one?

Shrooms was produced by Paddy McDonald and Robert Walpole directed by Paddy Breathnach and written by Pearse Elliott and was limitedly released in February of 2008. Surprisingly, Shrooms is an entertaining movie. There are a lot of good gory moments, some sex and some humor. I still do not want to eat shrooms and camp out in the woods though.

- Axe to the head
- Hairy armpits
- Great trippy flashbacks
- Murder by a feral child
- Talking cow
- Insane monk

5.5 out of 10

Check out the trailer for Shrooms

Lost Highway would like to welcome the Syrin of Cinema, Krysha Syrin as a guest reviewer to Lost Highway. “My attraction to B-movies started merely a year ago, after entering college. After attending what was to later become a weekly movie night at a friend’s house, I realized how much I missed the silver screen. We watched Grindhouse and I was intrigued. I wanted to know the inspiration behind the film, the history of the bygone grindhouse generation. Weeks upon weeks of researching and interviews later led me to the true fans of the trade. Before I knew it, I was grabbing a Netflix subscription, scouring video stores, and getting my hands on all the B-movies and exploitation films I could.

Between attending classes and working towards a degree in Creative Writing, my spare time is spent viewing all sorts of films and trying to entice everyone I know to do the same.” You can check out her website as well as follow her on Twitter.

At first glance, Hobgoblins appears to be a strange off-shoot of Gremlins. Look again. Hobgoblins is a quirky mix of bad puppetry, bad acting, and an explosion of the 80s crammed into 90 minutes of non sci-fi torture.

The plot, should you ever find yourself forced to scrape one up off the bottom of this barrel, consists of a senile janitor named McCreedy who sends his interns off to their doom by trusting them to follow instructions and not investigate an unlocked, green-glowing vault. His latest janitorial protégé, Kevin, manages to free a “great evil” which McCreedy had tried to warn him about in sentence fragments but failed do to his senility.

Kevin attempts to correct his wrongdoing by wrangling up the Hobgoblin with his ragtag crew. Amy, his girlfriend with exceptionally high morals; Daphne, who thinks “morals” are a brand of condom; Daphne’s boyfriend, Nick, a war vet who probably got discharged for smuggling out grenades; and Kyle, female in-training.

At some point or another, the entire crew falls prey to the Hobgoblins cunning trickery, resulting in their arrival at Club Scum and the inevitable progression of the film further, much to any viewer’s dismay.

- Thugs
- Loose women
- Frigid women
- Spandex pushed to its limits
- Mortal Kombat: Garden tool edition
- Puppet-induced hallucinations
- Flailing
- Van rocking
- Extreme parking
- War flashbacks
- The plot (and let me know if you find it)

2.5 out of 10

Check out the trailer for Hobgoblins

I consider my time as a teenager not too traumatic. I mean it was no Wonder Years though there’s been times where a disembodied voice would annoyingly narrate over me. My teen years just weren’t filled with all that typical drama, angst and teenage rebellion you’d come to expect. I had a few good buddies, couple of ex-girlfriend and enjoyed watching lots of b-movies.

Back then I drove a 1969 Camaro SS that was given to my on 16th birthday (and yes my dad is that rockin’ cool.) I’m not sure why he trusted the car to a 16 year old lead foot who thought “Gone in 60 Seconds” was a drivers education video but I wasn’t going to complain.

The car was a thing of beauty. Daytona yellow with SS striping and a 300 small block v8 that we pulled out of a Monte Carlo just ready to break free from that hood. It had a low 411 gear ready to run a quarter mile in a heartbeat and it would take all your weight resting on that brake pedal just to hold it back at the stop light. It was like a wild animal ready to pounce and rip through any foreign compact that got in it’s way. My buddy and I would go to the cruise in town on Friday nights driving around aimlessly for a few hours, wastin’ gas, loading up on junk food, and occasionally stopping in at the Big Boy’s parking lot. For some reason all the cool kids liked to hang out there. Maybe it was just the siren call of that giant Big Boy statue smiling endlessly onwards mocking us with his dead cold stare taunting us while holding that giant burger. *shivers*

But my car drank gas like a sponge and eventually I had to put it into storage and drive something a bit more practical and a lot less exciting. Sure I drive a mini-van now, but my Camaro is still waiting in an undisclosed location. Patiently looking forward to taking to the streets again and if you listen quietly at night you might still hear that engine purrin’.

Speaking of muscle cars with a mind of their own. “The Car” features an unmarked Lincoln demon car terrorizing a small country town with it’s thirst for blood… unleaded blood of course. The horn blaring hell car bumps off a few bicyclists while barreling down the highway one day, but soon it shows it’s true motives when it makes a human speed bump out of a french horn playin’ hippie and then goes on a hit and run spree with a high school marching band. Yes Satan has a deep hatred of marching band music. This was a bit surprising as I would have thought marching bands greatest hits would be on a continuous loop in Hell’s waiting room.

Some of the survivors take refuge in an old cemetery whose holy ground notoriously protects them from the likes of vampires, werewolves, and more importantly demon cars. The loud mouthed band teacher, Lauren, decides that’s the perfect time to taunt and belittle the unseen driver. I mean really how do you trash talk a car? “Your daddy was an Etzel” “Your momma’s so old she farts dust out her tailpipe.” The whole scene was just unnecessary.

Meanwhile, Luaren’s boyfriend Wade (James Brolin) is hanging out at the police station. He’s a divorced father and part time lawman who besides having the unfortunate name of Wade he also sports an epic 70’s mustache. Stache’s like that usually only grow on serial killers or porn stars so props to Wade for making it work.

Wade’s band of emotionally fragile deputies attempt to catch the car but Satan has seen plenty of episodes of Dukes of Hazzard and knows how to outsmart them law folks. The way I figure it this small town consists of about 100 people total so that breaks down to about 40 marching band members, 20 drunken wife beaters, 10 rodeo cowboys and the rest are sheriff deputies. logically, there should’ve been plenty of law enforcement to go around but the car continues bouncing people off it’s bumper like ping pong balls. Even the sheriff gets run down in the middle of main street and Lauren gets offed in her own home like a bug on a windshield. Not so much a drive-by but more of drive-thru kill.

Wade teams up with the town’s reigning wife beatin’ drunk and resident explosive experts (aren’t they usually the same person?) and they plan to lure it to the rock quarry where all made for TV movies go to die. As luck would have it the car can’t be found though and nobody had gotten killed lately but Wade arrives home one night to find the car parked in his very own garage just sitting around mooching a few oil quarts, reading his Motor Trends and puffing out some carbon monoxide. Mustering up a Jackie Chan stunt dive he escapes through the garage window and flees on his jr. dirt bike with the evil car in hot pursuit. With a total disregard to helmet laws he lures it outside town limits for the big demon showdown and pyrotechnic light show spectacular. They could charge admission for fireworks finales like that. Just add some heavy metal music and Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat and you’ve got yourself a show.

This movie had made for TV movie written all over it with very little gore but plenty of melodramatic acting. The main star of course is the car itself. It was designed by the late automobile customizing extraordinaire George Barris. George also designed the original bat mobile, the Munster’s car as well as the sweet ride for The Hoff’ in Knight Rider. Big props to Mr. Barris for making this car a true killer on wheels and making me fear tinted window Lincolns.  Retroman says take a test drive with “The Car”. It’s a hot pocket of car killin’ mayhem with some b-movie cheese inside. But “Caution: Contents may be hot.”

- 1 Lincoln Deathcar with optional truck horn
- 1 James Brolin mustache
- 3 Car crashes with multiple crash and burns
- 1 Motorcycle chase with gratuitous demon explosion
- Extreme off-road biking
- French horn homicide
- Marching band hit and run
- Car door fu
- House drive-thru service
- Rodeo marching band shows

8.4 out of 10

Check out the trailer for The Car

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Do you remember where you were when man landed on the moon? When they brought down the Berlin Wall?  When MTV used to play actual music? Really…eesh how old are you anyways? Luckily now you can now be a part of history having your own twisted thoughts adorned on the official Lost Highway B-movie Survival t-shirt. A high quality Glidan shirt that’s soft and comfy and won’t easily fade like your memory is. Buy your piece of history here.