“These late night cosmic bowling parties have gotten way out of hand. Frank’s use of a severed head for league play was proof of that even if it did improve his score average.”

Thirty-four years old and I still hate going to the doctor’s office. First there’s the endless wait in the “waiting room”, but then they call you back to a smaller room that’s yet another waiting room…like it’s some sort of bad horror movie “Waiting Room 2.The Day the Doctor Never Came.” Sure, they say he’ll be in momentarily, but doctor time is on the canine time scale where minutes equal hours. “Soon” actually means “whenever he gets back from lunch.” There are only so many times I can read through the fascinating articles in Golf Digest and Home Pottery Magazine before I resort to the ever-popular games of “Ceiling Tile Counting” or seeing how long I can sleep while sitting up. So finally the doctor magically teleports in and runs through a series of questions the nurse had asked just hours before. “Do you have body aches?” “Yes.”  “Do you have a stuffy head?” “Yes.  Congrats, doc–you’ve just diagnosed that I am not feeling well. Then the prescription is for some over-the-counter medicine that he scribbles on a scrap of paper in cryptic ancient Celtic symbols, along with the advice of, “Get some rest and drink plenty of fluids.” I get charged $30 for the doctor’s visit; my insurance gets charged $3,000; and I go home and crawl back into bed. I should have gone to medical school instead of learning how to paint baskets of fruit.

Doctor Carl Hill in the cult classic “Re-animator” doesn’t really help me with my fear of doctors. He’s the “head” neurosurgeon at the Miskatonic Medical School, where he enjoys peeling cadavers’ heads like oranges in his neurosurgery class, and practices suggestive hypnosis at his dinner parties in the evenings. Our hero Dan Cain, played by Bruce Abbott, is a student there, along with his girlfriend, Megan (Barbara Crampton), and are having some nookie while playing hooky off school grounds. All is happy until Herbert West suddenly appears from a stint in Sweden and insists of being Dan’s new roommate but apparently didn’t read the fine print of no deposit returns in case of blood stains in the apartment lease. West wants to use the basement to perform his continuing studies on re-animating dead flesh, create the ultimate glo-stick, and defy God’s will–typical medical school stuff. Instead of picking the obvious test subjects of a Larry King or John McCain, he uses a dead pet cat, causing the feline to turn into a raging, vicious hell-beast that tries to rip them apart. In other words, your average cat.

Learning from his continuing failures, Herbert is ready to test his re-animation serum on some real stiffs in the morgue. Could this be the ultimate energy drink? He and Dr. Hill sneak in past another dimwitted, made-for-film security guard and inject the serum into a recent accident victim, resulting in a spastic reaction similar to the cat. Then the Dean of the school stumbles in on them, so they shoot him up with some of dead juice, too. Is there a help group for people like this?  Perhaps some sort of DRA (Dead Revivers Anonymous)?

Doc Hill arrives at Herbert’s basement un-announced and plans to take the secrets of the serum and claim it as his own invention. Herbert hits him upside the head with a shovel, and proceeds to remove the doc’s head from his body and re-animate it. Now, that’s how you solve a copyright (an intellectual property?) dispute! But the headless doc outsmarts Herbert, kidnaps Megan, and sneaks into the morgue to perform some group lobotomies. Being decapitated really improves one’s productivity.

Dan and Herbert soon confront the doctor, who is trying to get busy with Megan on an examination table (Can we say, “Sexual harassment lawsuit?”), and then they have to take on a legion of walking dead, exploding chests, and frisky intestine tentacles. Actually med school doesn’t sound very appealing now.

This film is on my Amazon’s Listmania as one of the essential must see cult/b-movies from the 1980’s. It redefines the genre of zombie/mad scientist/dark gore comedies. Well It’s actually the only one in that genre, but it does redefine it. Stuart Gordon directed this classic based loosely on a H.P. Lovercraft short story, as well as another great film, “The Beyond.” Though it did spawn several lackluster sequels, this one is definitely the crown jewel. Also we need to give an honorable mention for Jeffery Combs for creating one of the best horror movie characters in cinematic history, Herbert West. He makes over-acting a work of art. He’s in the same league as Bruce Campbell as Ash for his pure awesome-ness. So check it out, but don’t let your doctor give you that shot of the glowing green stuff,even if he says it’s just to clear your sinuses.

Keep an eye out for…

- Jiffy-Pop eyeballs
- head peeling
- zombie cats
- finger snacks
- labatonomy parties
- skater rink glo-stick overdose
- intestine wranglin’
- padded rooms with a view
- zombie boobies
- horny disembodied heads (is that even possible?)
- the ultimate tribute to the band Talking Heads

rated 9.4 out of 10 for the movie

Check out the trailer for Re-animator

Badmovies.org is pretty much the gold standard for cult and b-movie review sites and we here at Lost Highway view them as the “Master Po” to our “Grasshopper” of a website. So it was a huge honor when we received notice that Lost Highway has been selected as the winner of the Legion of Muck Award for the 3rd quarter of 2008 which Badmovies.org awards out to excellence in b-movie websites.

*Holds trophy in hand* “I had a speech prepared…but I just..sniffle…I’d like to thank so many people…to Bruce Campbell for coining the term groovy and inspiring other amputees everywhere. To Snake Pliskin for not giving a rat’s ass about anybody but himself. To the film crew of Troll 2 who all suffered so much to bring their celluloid masterpiece to the world.  To the gymnastic trainer in Gymkata…you made Kurt Thomas the effiminate man he is today. And most of all to you, the fans….hey wait…the music is telling me to wrap it up..I have so many other people to thank! My wife who barely tolerates other bad movies yet love Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. To Mom and Dad, to my pal Eric over at Genesis hosting who has been gracious to host our crazy ramblings. To Drive-in Dan the all-star rookie here. To the guy on the street corner that sold me Porky’s Revenge for $1.50 when I was 12, to the top loader VCR, to the guy that made velcro and the inventors of Gogurt… because I have no time for spoons!”

Raised on a steady diet of Rosen’s Drive-In’s “Famous Double-Decker Dogs”, and peach iced tea, Dan began to cultivate at a young age a life-long appreciation for the B-movie genre and it’s many sub-genres.

“Drive-In Dan” got his nickname after being born at Rosen’s Drive-In, where his mother worked. She went into labor while serving a customer at the concession window and gave birth while the film “It’s Alive” was playing on the big screen. Dan Rosen (owner and long-time friend of Drive-In Dan’s mother), along with his wife, Marlene, helped deliver the baby. Some of the “regulars” who were standing around at the time started to say his nickname, and from that point forward he became known as “Drive-In Dan.”

That night, Dan became a part of the drive-in’s family, and today he continues to be a local celebrity in his hometown. There is even a hot dog eating contest (that has gained national attention) bearing his name at the drive-in every August 13th to honor his birthday. The added exposure has helped breathe new life into the once dying establishment by putting it on the map as a favorite tourist attraction. Rosen’s Drive-In has become known for its showing of old B-movies from the 70’s and 80’s. In the fall Dan used to put on a yearly haunted house attraction that had sci-fi and horror-themed rooms, complete with traditional “pop-out gags” that developed quite a cult following.

As a young boy, double-billed “creature features” served as his babysitters while his single mom would work the night shift. Around the same time, Dan also started to take an interest in the poster art featured on the drive-in’s marquees for upcoming releases, and began drawing his own versions of his favorites such as “The Thing”, “Halloween 3″, and “Phantasm.” As the years passed, his fondness for the genre grew. He not only enjoyed the movies for their entertainment value, but was also fascinated by the special effects and makeup wizardry used to create the on-screen magic. When Dan isn’t busy running the drive-in’s film projector or greeting hordes of eager movie patrons in the parking lot, he spends his free time dreaming up and bringing to life his own cast of crazy B-movie characters inspired by the many films he has seen over the years.

While searching the Internet for a designer to create a web presence for his horror merchandise business, Drive-In Dan came into contact with graphic artist, Steve “The Retroman” Jencks, who owns and operates Retro DC, which specializes in web design, illustration, and logo branding. During the brainstorming and design phase of the project, Steve mentioned that he also ran a site dedicated to the B-movie genre called “Lost Highway.” The first time Dan visited Lost Highway, it was like he had just entered a paradise for low-budget movie lovers. From the genre-inspired layout to the written reviews, it was clear that this site was created by a true fan who celebrates the fun and cheesy universe of B-movies. In June 2008 Dan was invited to be a part of the Lost Highway family. He hopes that new and regular visitors will enjoy his contributions to the site.

No, this isn’t an exclusive never-before-seen photo from the new “Honey, I Shrunk My Head” movie. It’s Virgil Travis who was shaken, not stirred as a test tube baby.“

Head puppeteer Charles Band of Full Moon Pictures (now Full Moon Features) brings us yet another unnecessary killer doll movie with 1999’s “Blood Dolls.”

This is your typical out-for-revenge billion-are genetic freak who falls in love with his rival’s power-hungry dominatrix wife story, along with a supporting cast of deadly dolls and sideshow rejects that would make even P.T. Barnum feel at home.

The movie opens as software magnate Virgil Travis (Jack Maturin, a.k.a. “Chris”), who wears a latex mask that looks like “Destro” from G.I Joe with a bad case of the chicken pox, has just gotten the short end of an anti-trust ruling.  He seeks retribution with the help of his mini-slaughter squad against those who have double-crossed him (including the judge and prosecutor on the case).  The film suffers from “CGD” (Confused Genre Disorder).  It doesn’t know what it wants to be, and plays like a series of poorly-edited movie clips from a miscellaneous genre compilation DVD.  My gut feeling (not the bad burrito I ate) tells me that this film was thrown together using cannibalized parts from different scripts in order to make a quick buck and launch a new line of toy figures.

There really aren’t a lot of notable action scenes involving the “trio of terror”, except for a “Triple-Doll Dare” that goes horribly wrong, leaving Pimp (a 70’s Blaxploitation-style doll) with a barbecued noggin’, courtesy of a flame-throwing lawn ornament, in a scene reminiscent of Michael Jackson’s Pepsi commerical accident.  The Blood Dolls, designed by Mark Williams, look great and each character is an overblown racial stereotype that will no doubt  have the PC Police in a tizzy.  Unfortunately, the dolls take a backseat to the human dummies in the film with a screen time of less than 5 minutes.  In most cases if you blink you’ll miss them, kinda like Mike Tyson’s 90-second annihilation of Michael Spinks.

One of the brief highlights in the film comes from veteran actor Nicholas Worth (George Warbeck), who delivers some of the best and funniest lines in the movie. The bad news is that Warbeck’s personal security team is so inept  they would make Barney Fife and Gomer from “The Andy Griffith Show” look like trained assassins.   “Squires”, the lead guard, couldn’t hit a target if it was attached to the barrel of his gun, and second-in-command “Security Guy” (actual name) is a comic-book-reading rookie guard who is so dumb, he’d trip over a wireless connection.  In the movie they’re hired to “protect” a multi-million dollar mansion, but I wouldn’t let either one of these losers guard a cheap pack of chewing gum.

As if things weren’t already weird enough with a Bible-thumpin’ clown-faced assassin, an eye-patch-wearing “guard dwarf” with anger management issues, an S&M couple (Harrison and Moira Yullin), and killer dolls, director Band adds an imprisoned all-girl house band to the mix, which is forced (by electrical shock) to perform music selections at the request of their demented master.   When the girls (a slutty version of the Spice Girls) aren’t doing a mean Milli Vanilli lip-synching impersonation, or having extreme wet towel fights while fully clothed, they spend most of their time being trapped in bad music videos.  I’m pretty sure that Venesa  Talor as “Cotton Baby” had a “show boobs” clause in her contract (which wasn’t a problem, being that she is a former stripper) because at 3 minutes 57 seconds into the film, she has a spontaneous “boob-bustion” for no apparent reason, other than to fill a nudity quota of some kind.  It happens so fast it makes Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” look like a full-length feature.

From the first time we meet the Yullins it’s very obvious that Moira (Debra Mayer) is the one pulling all the strings in their relationship, and Harrison is merely a figurehead to his malevolent wife’s ambitions of world domination.  When this oddest of couples isn’t engaged in fetish role play, Mistress Moira sells her soft-core dominatrix videos online, and  Harrison teaches “Creepy Laughing 101″ at the local college, and also practices the fine art of goofy facial ticks.  Although actress Debra Mayer does an absolutely terrific job at modeling a variety of sexy-looking S&M outfits throughout the movie, most of her scenes and dialog with Virgil are so painful you’ll be begging for a morphine drip.

If you’re a fan of films from Full Moon’s glory days, then revisit some of their earlier classics like “Trancers 2″, “Puppet Master”, or “Subspecies” and avoid this shoddy mess of ridiculous subplots and bad directing.

Keep an eye out for….

- Terrifying use of flexible metallic conduit
- Soul-powered dolls
- Jack Attack’s clown makeup from “Demonic Toys”
- Spontaneous boobustion
- Robo-Rotary Tool of Death
- Creepy Laughing 101
- S&M Web of Death
- Song about a killer female sex organ
- Extreme wet towel fights
- Appearance by a Sith probe droid
- Daredevil stunt dwarf
- Dollman comic book cameo
- Dominatrix fashion show
- Jaw-dropping twist ending
- Falling dumbbells
- Surprise appearances by film crew and equipment

rated 2.5 out of 10 for the movie

Watch the trailer for Blood Dolls.

“When New York hookers have a slow week, they’ll often perform as street mimes for some extra cash.”

Back in Junior High science class we were forced to partake of the barbaric ritual of frog dissection. You’d think as a horror/sci-fi fan that I would be giddy in anticipating at slicing open a frog like some sort of evil mad scientist. But honestly real gore is well gross…I don’t like it…I don’t want to see it and I especially don’t want to touch it. The site of my own blood makes me qweezy, changing my daughters diapers is it’s own horror show (by the way never feed your kids pork and beans and fresh fruit before bedtime.) So the thought of pulling out those little goey frogs lungs in science class still makes me …oh…..ugh….wait…qweezy..room spinning….

When watching a horror movie I know the gore is fake, the situations are fake and I’m in no immediate physical danger of loosing a limb or having my soul swallowed… well at least during the work week. If I ever happen to be stuck at a summer camp with a history of teenage mutilations rest assured then I’ll be calling for a cab to take me home immediately. If I’m ever faced with the situation of battling demon elves that I inadvertently let loose while reading from the scrolls of an ancient book..well then that’s just my own darn fault for majoring in ancient Latin. But real life gore, like removing the innards from a helpless tree frog ,is not my idea of entertainment nor is it educational. Given the opportunity, I might try to hook it up to a car battery and jump start that little Kermit back to life. Sure It’ll probably shoot him across the room in an amphibian ball of flames smelling like french fries but at least I tried to bring the little green guy back to life. I am nothing if but pro-frog.

Jeffery Franken faces a similar dilemma in the cult classic Frankenhooker. Jeffrey is a mild manner Jersey electrician who has just lost his fiancee, Elizabeth, in a horrific lawnmower accident. Blondes should not operate heavy machinery while thinking or standing in front of them. Jeffrey somehow sneaks away his fiancee’s head in a bowling bag I’d presume and preserves her in the spacesaver fridge out in the garage right next to to the frozen fish fillets. He also happens to dabble in electro-genetics so he devices a plan to bring Elizabeth back from that great lawn clipping pile in the sky. Through the process of drilling his own head with a craftsman power tool he devices the brilliant plan to develop a batch of jiffy-pop explosive-crack cocaine to use on a group of hookers. It just goes to show people get inspired in all sorts of different ways. So It’s a 4th of July fireworks display of exploding hookers parts giving Jeff an all you can carry buffet of left ho-vers to use for his Elizabeth 2: Electric Boogalo. Through a lightening storm Elizabeth is resurrected as a brand new woman in high heeled Franken boots, purple eye shadow and a pointed bra but instead of being the dimwitted blonde, she’s a crazed hooker monster (a mooker?) out to make some extra cash. The only problem is she keeps scaring away customers and the few that she does bag surprisingly explode from all her pent up sexual static-electricity. All Jeffrey wants to do is settle down and make little Franken babies with her so he goes off to try to rescue her from her new career. I can’t believe I never saw this movie as a teenager It’s truly a fine example of 80’s horror/comedy. There’s also a great twist ending with revengeful spare hooker parts and a pimp named Zorro… you had to know a pimp was going to be involved somehow but he’s not a fencing masked vigilante. So head on down to the video store, put your money on the table and proudly ask if they have Frankenhooker in stock. Some Assembly may be required.

Keep an eye out for…

- combustible crack ho’s
- girlfriend lawn mulching
- head drilling
- explosive hamsters
- extreme sexual static friction
- whiplash decapitations
- bucket of legs and breasts (and it ain’t chicken)
- body building pimps named Zorro
- revengeful spare hooker parts

“Wanna Date? got any money?”
Hey aren’t those the first and last questions you should ask on a date?

rated 9.1 out of 10 for the movie

Check out the trailer for Frankenhooker

“Can we pull over? I think I caught a junebug in my teeth.“

I’ve recently starting go back to the local gym. Repetitive computer mouse movements and the occasional chair shifting aren’t burning the calories like I’d hope. Yes it’s time to lose that pizza gut that I’ve worked on so hard over these past several months. The countless hours sitting in front of a computer to perfect it’s shape and density, it’s truly like a work of art. Sure it hasn’t won me any awards in categories like “most likely to have grease in his veins” but I did get honorable mentions in “most likely to run over your grandma for a doughnut.” or the coveted “achievements in long range Girlscout cookie flavor identification.” I do have a lifetime membership to Fitness USA that I got back in 1997 on a dare and by lifetime apparently that means at some point in my life I plan to use it again so why not now. I figured out why I hate exercise so much…it’s work…and I do a lot of that already, hence the title “working out” but I will keep at it and continue to work those abs and glutify my glutes and perfect my pectorals. Whatever it takes so I don’t gasp for air in exhaustion from opening a jar of tomatoes.

William Smith, a life long body builder, plays a biker named Angel who knows what it takes to stay in shape. This former Marlboro man also knows how to keep a fake mustache attached to his upper lip precariously for long periods of time as evident in his starring role in the 1969’s biker movie “Run, Ange, Run.” A little known fact, Smith also holds the record for 5100 continuous sit ups over a 5 hour time frame barely beating out my record by 5000 or so. William usually plays a b-movie direct to video bad guy these days but finds himself early in his career in the uncomfortable role of a misunderstood sensitive bike type. Angel is hightailing it out of town with his favorite hooker/girlfriend/go-go dancer Laurie, played convincingly by Valerie Starrett. Ms. Starrett is actually the wife of the director Jack Starrett which must have made some of her love scenes a tad uncomfortable. Turns out all the bikers gangs are looking for Angel now since he sold them out for his story to “Like” Magazine for a whopping $10,000. Even in the late 60’s that amount shouldn’t have been enough to sell out your fellow riders but Angel isn’t the shiniest tool in the shed and thinks he’s struck the jackpot. He continually tries to get rid of Laurie a good 3 or 4 times before they even leave town, this despite her bailing him out jail by turning tricks in the parking lot the night before. Now that is true love. His bipolar medication was obviously left at home as he switches back and forth between sensitive Angel and homicidal “I’ll stick a fork in your eye” Angel, but that seems to only makes Laurie love him more.

Through a series of mind numbing motorcycle montages accompanied by the tunes of Tammy Wynette, Angel and Laurie evade the pursuing biker gangs confusing them with a stunt spectacular at a train station that would make Evil Knievel proud. No one under 18 will be admitted during the breath taking train jumping sequence. Narrowly escaping being raped by a gang of train hobo’s Laurie and Angel flee to an abandoned barn to pretend to be in school and to take a literal roll in the hay. I think people with hay fever wouldn’t even find that love scene stimulating. You can almost hear the director screaming “Get your damn filthy hands off my wife!!!” as William attempts his best to grope Valerie without actually touching, an impressive acting skill.

Angel and Laurie then decide to go house hunting and start a life together ala June Cleaver style fulfilling their redneck American dream of owning a beat down shed in the middle of nowhere. The film had taken a sharp nose dive at that point with scenes of them at their dinner table talking about their life and their dreams…then montages of them running on the beach and holding hands to the sounds of flute music…and…wait is this a Lifetime movie of the week? Did I accidentally stumble into a feminine hygiene commercial? What happened to the motorcycle gang that was about rip off his arm and beat him with it? Unfortunately they’re still back at a local bar starting up their own roadhouse dinner theater and picking bars fight with rejects from Docker pants commercials. Be sure to take note of the go-go dancer in the background who continues to dance while heads are getting smashed around her. You gotta love the 60’s for little gem moments like that.

Years, months, or days appear to be go by and Angel is now sans mustache, the ultimate sacrifice of a motorcyclists is shaving, and is now living the good life down on the farm. Angel teaches his neighbor, Dan Felton, to ride a motorcycle and in return Dan gives him a job in sheep dipping. Luckily that’s not as obscene as it sounds and Dan is thrilled to have a job dousing sheep in chemical flea baths for a honest day’s pay. He then starts spouting poetry about birds and freedom and at some point appears to want to cry! (Billy what is wrong with you? Shouldn’t you’ve beaten someone senseless by now?)

Dan’s daughter, Megan, decides to go hang out at a local bar and gets raped by that long lost biker gang I mentioned earlier as they finally learn of Angel’s whereabouts. If you throw enough coincidences in a film, things like that are bound to happen so Dan thinks Angel did it because Megan is now a mute and only screams at the sounds of revving motorcycles. Based on this overwhelming evidence Dan loads up his shotgun to go make mince meat out of Angel back at his shack. My dog barks at the sound of lawnmowers but I don’t shoot the nearest landscaper.

Angel who has been away in the city has returned from finally picking up his check and avoided the long wait at his mailbox. Things go sour from there when the motorcycle gang of four and a very angry Dan show up with shotgun in tow. It’s a rodeo-style showdown with some motorcycle wranglin’ and furniture tippin’ ending with lessons about life, love, and the evilness of greed. Yup ladies and gentlemen it’s a chick-flick.

I think if any lessons I learned from this movie is that… 1. $10,000 is not enough to rat out biker gangs or pay for a year of college. 2. motorcycle montages sung by Tammy Wynette are a great way to fight insomnia. 3. William Smith could crush most people using only his index finger and thumb.

As far as chick-flick/biker films from the late 60’s go this was pretty good. So go grab yourself a Harley and scare up some sheep with “Run, Angel, Run.”

Keep an eye out for….

- bar-room brawl with optional go-go dancers
- off key folk singing
- sheep dipping
- cackling rednecks
- hobo throwin’
- imprompto train jumping evil knievel style
- motorcycle montages
- hay rollin’
- bi-polar domesticated motorcyclist
- mustache wrangling
- chicken feeding
- motorcycle induced sheep stampedes
- babbling homeless Santa impersonators
- Tammy Wynette singing
- extreme facial hair

warning this movie is known to induce drowsiness. Do not operate heavy machinery while watching. If you have allergies to wool or hay we suggest you consult your doctor before viewing.

rated 7.9 out of 10 for the movie

Watch the trailer for Run, Angel, Run.

“Little Johnny didn’t sleep well that night. It may have been due to his new Hasbro’s Demon from Hell night-light.“

When I was a young kid my biggest fears were 1. Having my parents continue to dress me in country western shirts and friction inducing corduroy pants for school and 2. That creatures living in the sewer would come up through the toilet and drag me down to their netherworld. Both of which give me bad flashbacks and why to this day I have yet to use a public bathroom in a rodeo bar. My older cousins would also say those giant green porta-potties were simply a means to transport the toilet creatures from one part of the country to another only furthering my phobias. Sure maybe it was a hoax on a gullible fashion-challenged kid or perhaps it was a part of a larger undercover government conspiracy to thin crowds at county fairs and racing events. The truth may never be known.

In the movie C.H.U.D., the director apparently suffered some of the same childhood dramas as myself and used filmmaking for his therapy. C.H.U.D supposedly stands for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers. Run for your lives! It’s an acronym movie title… oh the horrors! but wait it turns out that it actually stands for Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal which is the name of a secret government policy to dump toxic waste under the city streets of New York. Would New Yorkers even notice the difference…probably not, that is until a cute little dogs get mutilated and a photographer starts screening his calls…thats when the cops are called into action. Christopher Curry plays Captain Bosch…a good cop with a disturbing mustache who is trying to find out the cause of the sudden disappearance of his wife and dozens of homeless people in the city. He meets A.J. played by City Slicker Daniel Stern, a centaurian looking fellow who runs a soup kitchen and is occasionally out-acted by his enormous hair or stained shirts. A.J. (when will the acronyms end!) is convinced that his homeless friends are being snatched up by someone or something in the sewers like a demonic Leona Helmsley looking for a few new hotel servants. The captain isn’t convinced though until they discover a giant moon boot and a clock radio that also acts as a geiger counter…shoot I have those things in my basement and I don’t have a CHUD problem….yet. The clock radio lights up like a Christmas tree indicating something is moving towards them and then the something starts growling. They express mild concern in the possibility of a horrible mutant creature about to munch on their innards and casually head back to the surface to attend a board meeting, successfully diffusing what could have been a actual tense situation.

Meanwhile in what seems like a completely different movie, George Cooper played by John “made for t.v. movie” Heard is taking photos of his pipe-cleaner shapely girlfriend, Lauren, who complain about pimples on her butt and wants to have lots of babies. George is also trying to hunt down one of his other star photo models, a homeless bag lady whom he has to bail out of jail. She brings him down below the city streets for a tunnel of garbage tour and to show him a chewed up leg which resembles someone’s unfinished BBQ ribs dinner platter.

A plot finally tries to rear it’s ugly head but thankfully is squashed via long scenes of useless dialog and dull boardroom scenes that play right out of a community theater production. Where is the cannibalism!? Government and city officials deny the existence of the C.H.U.D.S. then Daniel Stern has a temper tantrum and throws a book silently across the desk and suddenly they starting telling the truth. Guantanamo Bay should take notice on these interrogation techniques.

The officials decide to destroy the mutants by attempting to gas the tunnels and seal off the manholes. Meanwhile the captain simultaneously decides to send in a squad of police officer armed with standard issued flame throwers apparently forgetting the devastating results of what happens when you light a fart only on a much bigger scale.

A.J. and George end up trapped underground as a few escaping mutants attack John Goodman dressed as a copy at a local Diner. The John Goodman sized-snack doesn’t seem to ruin their appetites and they continue their night of rampage. Luaren is also attacked by a C.H.U.D. in her apartment but her class on samurai sword fighting self-defense at the YMCA finally pays off. She then steals a police car with keys still in the ignition and hightails it to the diner to find out where her boyfriend is. The scapegoat government official will do anything to make sure the public doesn’t know about the mutants and attempts to kill all the witnesses including A.J. and George still trapped below the city streets. Always better to kill every innocent bystander then letting them know you were illegally dumping toxic waste.

C.H.U.D is pure 80’s horror cheese. The gory effects are great and the over the top acting made this an enjoyable afternoon movie between info-mercials about carpet cleansers and botox creams. So I say CHUD it out….and always be sure to check the toilet seat before sitting.

Keep an eye out for….

- professional phone screening
- elf-like neighbors
- canine lynch mobs
- standard police issued flame throwers
- mutant neck extenders
- extreme shirt staining
- epileptics with rambo knives
- boardroom theater shows
- coin eaters…keep the change
- lost moon boots
- ground chuck-o-legs
- clock radio’s with optional geiger counters
- aggressive pay phone collectors
- shower clogs
- highbeam eye-lights
- gratuitous use of the term “manhole”
- explosive bread delivery trucks

Name that CHUD

a. Chihuahua Hound Undersized Dogs
b. Communist Hungarian Urban Development
d. Contortionist Hiding Under Desks
e. Contaminated Husband’s Underwear Discovery
f. all of the above

rated 7.6 out of 10 for the movie

Watch the trailer for “C.H.U.D.”

It’s been an extremely busy week and though I did get to watch 2 movies this past week neither really felt they would work well for one of my reviews. But while realizing I would be late yet again with a worthy b-movie review, I thought I’d get a bit creative and put together a video review of these two films that missed the cut. So here’s my first attempt below that I posted to YouTube. I’ll be making these brief video reviews occasionally. Hey now you’ll know my face so you can stop me on the street and kick me in the shins for recommending Troll 2. “You can’t piss on hospitality”

Watch episode 1: A brief review of “Them” and “Two Lane Blacktop”

“Mr. Johnson’s gallstone sculptures not only frightened away customers but so did his permanent look of surprise from passing them.“

In the early 80’s there started a trend of what I’ve termed the meat by-product movies. First there was Porky’s, Porky’s Revenge, Meatballs, then Hotdog and finally cam along Kentucky Fried Movie to deep fry it all together in it’s original recipe of seven herbs and spices. It was a cholesterol carousel of titles whose movie focus was crude humor, fart jokes, and adolescent guys trying to see boobies. Pretty much what I sum up as most of my high school experience… well and most of college.

So on my quest to find movies in the same genre I came across this little gem. At first when I saw this title I thought it said “The Last American Virginian” which I figured to be a History channel special about the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. To my surprise Woodrow Wilson turned out to be a Ralph Machio lookin’ bandanna wearin’ Italian kid in the 1980’s who catches a bad case of the crabs. The obsessive crotch grabbin’ made sense.

The Last American Virgin is the story of Gary (Lawrence Monoson) and his cohorts, Rick “gotta adjust my collar” and glandular-overactive David, affectionately named the “Big Apple” though I found him to be more of a pear shape myself then a round red apple. Gary’s blandness is only surpassed by his lack of personality while the rest of the guys are focused on trying to get laid or deliver some pink boxes of pizzas to housewives with bad Spanish accents. The first half of the movie is a series of lame joke setups for the pizza gigolos and opportunities to blare out some classic 80’s tunes. The plot writers must have been busy getting sleeping in that week.

Gary is in love with the curly haired girl from “Better of Dead”, Diane Franlin, except she’s in love with Gary’s best friend Rick. Diane’s character, Karin, doesn’t have a French accent this time and there’s no John Cussack asking her to fix his camaro, so this film is already more bearable. She shows little to no interest in Gary’s blandness most likely due to his alcoholism or inability to form coherent sentences . Gary wants to loose his virginity as soon as possible as if that would some how make him even more appealing to Karin, so he and his friends go find a hooker way past her expiration date that gives them all a bad case of crabs. Nothing says “will you be mine?” more than a VD. Then as if the director suddenly went on a sabbatical and a highschool drama teacher was flown in to take over, the movie takes a drastic bi-polar mood swing. From upbeat goofy teen comedy to soap drama in less than a second it’ll make your head spin. Karin suddenly gets pregnant from Rick at which point Rick breaks up with her not wanting anything to do with his new prego-girlfriend. Then Gary swoops in like a vampire from a rafter so that weepy eye Karin will have giant shoulder pad to cry on and he can put some of his bland moves on her. In order to help Karin he relocates her into his now dead grandmothers home and they play pretend family (uh….creepy!) He then sells his enormous wood grain stereo at a local pawn shop to help pay for her quickie drive-thru abortion, makes her breakfast, and buy her a pine tree a with a bag of oranges. Take note, 2 gifts not to bring to someone in the hospital. I really don’t want to give away the ending to this but WOW! A total downer and a big cold blast of reality for us viewers. But hey I admire a director with the steel cahonias to not sugar coat the consequences of teen sex and to not give us the stereotypical ending. No wonder this movie bombed in the box office. Their target demographic, horny guys, will laugh at the crude jokes, enjoy the boobies then after the ending go out and steer their car into a tree. Parents, you’ll want to lock your teens in the basement after you see this but I’d recommend giving it a view. Just be sure to wear protection.

Keep an eye out for….

-pink brady bunch station wagons
- sausage measuring assembly lines
- bike vandalism
- extreme devo
- sugar snorting diabetics
- nympho old Spanish housewives
- library rumbles
- illegal use of 80’s pop-up collars
- denim mania
- interpretive Spanish lessons
- emergency brake failure
- after glow upchucking

“When a VD comes along you must itch it…now itch it…itch it good.” - sung to the tune of Devo’s Whip it.

rated 6.5 out of 10 for the movie (I will give the last 20 minutes or so a 8.4)

Watch the trailer for “The Last American Virgin”

“What zombie doesn’t enjoy rockin’ out to the Grateful Dead?“

We’ve had a ongoing debate at work “Where would you go in the event of a zombie outbreak?” I know I know…a common office emergency scenario and a prevalent question in the political debates. But one that still must be answered. Hilary Clinton already faced that situation in Kosovo to which she claimed she grabbed a soldier’s machine gun and laid waste to hundreds of zombified villagers before the infection could spread and I’m not entirely convinced that John McCain isn’t already one of the living dead. Some people think the mall is a good choice, or a prison, or their local bomb shelter. All logical answers but not the best so when the undead overtake our small city I’m heading to Sam’s Club. It’s the perfect fortified structure with some gas tanks in front to load up fuel, very few entrances, not many if any windows, and a life time supply of the largest bulk food items you’ve ever seen. It’s like an Aztec temple of storage boxes and food samples. The only downside is they don’t carry ammo there but generally wherever you find a Sam’s there’s usually a nearby gun shop so you can stop on the way to load up your favorite semi automatic deer shredding hunting rifle. Sam’s club puts the huge in huge-mugnous. You could restart and entire civilization in one of those places or fill it with water and recreate naval battles. Of course zombies love to shop so you’ll most likely have to be clearing house for a while but after that initial carnage you can become the self proclaimed king of wholesale. Sitting on top of your giant throne of 10 gallon jars of mayonnaise and 45 pound bags of cereal. Former Walmart workers happy to serve you since they would still get better treatment under your dystopian dictatorship than their current corporate managers.

In Day of the Dead some survivors choice to try to wait out the zombie apocalypse in an Floridian underground storage facility instead of their nearby Sam’s location. I think that’s where they store Walt Disney’s head on a slab of ice. Lori Cardille plays Sarah, a scientist trying to figure out what caused the zombie outbreak and how to stop it along with her medical associate, a crazy scientist called Dr. Frankenstein who enjoys cutting up the undead to play full size versions of the game “Operations.” After a failed helicopter search for survivors on the surface the crew returns to the claustrophobic caves. It was obviously hard to tell the difference between a zombie with all those wrinkly old Floridians playing shuffle board when flying over them. A small band of misfit military are also stuck with the scientist in the caverns/storage facility as they try to find a cure or ways to domesticate the zombies. Dr. Frankenstein is working on trying to train one zombie in particular he affectionately refers to Bud (taste great, less filling) to do things like brush his teeth, shoot a gun, and not gnaw your face off, much for the same reasons we train monkeys. The military are herding the zombies in the caverns like rotting cattle for the doctor to continue his experiments on but they are growing more restless, more crazy, and more facial hair. Soon they’re starting to question if they should get out of Dodge and leave the doc and his friends to fend for themselves.

The Jamaican helicopter pilot and his alcohol liver soaked partner live further in the caverns in a makeshift trailer park including standard issued Hawaiian lua decor. The only thing missing are the mullets and iron maiden cut-off shirts. Sarah befriends them and the pilot gives a sermon from a lounge chair on how ticked off God is and how it would be best to go to an island and do some fly fishing. Things get worse as Sarah’s now former one armed boyfriend who was already a bit crazy goes certifiable nut job taking himself up the elevator as a sacrifice and letting the zombie gates open. Soon hundreds of zombies are filling the caves ripping army guys apart like old gi-joe dolls given to hyperactive 3 year olds. Sarah and her buddies attempt an escape deep into the caverns with a two by four and a shovel for protection. Good picks for weapons, no reloading.

The main star here is Bub played by Sherman Howard. Bub is the most sympathetic character in the whole film. You just want to take him for a pet. He’s kinda like Lassie the dog except an insatiable hunger for human flesh and the ability to shave but wouldn’t that have made Lassie a more interesting show anyways? Bub exacts his revenge on the military meat heads but instead of using his teeth he uses a magnum and a pretty decent aim as a zombified marine. Meanwhile the surviving military run around screaming like chipmunks while Jane and company flee to the surface to escape in the helicopter now surrounded by zombies looking to hitch a ride. While not as strong a movie as his first films, George Romero was still on his game with this 3rd bleak entry in his zombie series. Far superior to his more recent disasters of Land of the Dead and Diary of the dull..errr I mean Dead. To which I say if your named George and if you haven’t made a movie in 30 years just stop and put the megaphone down. Slowly step away from the camera. Nobody needs to get hurt. And this means you too George “Jar Jar must die” Lucas! As with Romero’s earlier zombie films there’s the heavy social commentary under-current on how we are own worst enemies who can’t co-operate in the face of a disaster..blah blah blah..yeah I know I’ve seen it every year on black friday at the mall, just bring on the zombie carnage. It really is an interesting comment on the times of Regan ’s military machine tactics and our own paranoia so definitely check it out and always remember to groom your zombie properly before feeding and keep your firearms hidden. Remember that guns don’t kill people…zombies with guns kill people.
Keep an eye out for….

- shaving cuts
- hand climbing walls
- bad Jamaican accents
- zombie herding
- cave trailer parks
- head shoveling
- impromptu amputations
- extreme gut rippin’
- severed heads jump starting.
- clown zombies
- zombie-vators
- golf cart hit and runs

I wonder if zombies ever stop to think about all the trans fats and salt they’re getting from eating us Americans. We should be wearing t-shirts with nutritional labels printed on them.

rated 9.1 out of 10 for the movie

Watch the whole dang movie on YouTube!!! (part 1 of 10)….. piracy police start your engines.