(Ryan Lies is a staff writer for No-Fi "Magazine" and is Rated PG and Rated R too.)

starring David Allen Brooks, Eileen Seeley, directed by Michael Cooney, , 2002
Distributed by

Not since the 60’s have we had a movie with the balls call itself something like The Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman. I mean, even though we’ve had a slew of B-monster pics masquerading as A-budget Hollywood crap over the last few years (Mimic, Anaconda, Independence Day), none have had the guts to just come out with it and give themselves the exploitive, trashy titles they deserve. Wouldn’t Anaconda have been just a slight bit better if it had been called Attack of the Giant People-Eating Snake? Hell yeah it would’ve.

Anyway, I am a huge fan of the original Jack Frost. It was just unabashedly stupid and cheap. I mean, the production had so little money that they couldn’t even shoot the movie during the real winter, so they glued paper icicles to the awnings on the buildings, and threw a little bit of fake snow around.

This sequel has none of its predecessor’s charm, and little of its chintzy inventiveness. Normally, I would say “Leave it alone!” but it was a movie about a killer snowman, for god’s sake, and so when I heard the plans for a sequel, I thought, “Cool, let’s do it.” Unfortunately, the filmmakers didn’t go into this one with even an inkling of how to get their tongues into their cheeks. The movie flops around for the first hour like a dying fish.
What happens is, it’s a year later and the cop from the first one is still haunted by his run in with the killer snowman. The first scene is somewhat funny, seemingly poking fun at the first film’s goofy premise: the cop is in a psychiatrists office and the doctor is having a hard time keeping a straight face as the cop relates his tale of a Mutant Killer Snowman terrorizing his small town; when the cop tells him that they foiled the snowman in the original by using antifreeze, the doc loses it. This almost works as a little jab at the first film, as if the filmmakers were tying to explain their hokey movie to “serious” film viewers.

After that, though, the movie deflates. The cop and his wife are going on a vacation to the Bahamas, “where there’s no snow in winter.” This is supposed to help the cop get over his anxiety. Of course, someone has dug up the “remains” of Jack Frost (he was buried in “an unmarked grave” in bottles of antifreeze) and is doing experiments on the molecules or something. Who knows? It’s never said. Anyway, a janitor tips over a fish tank holding Mr. Frost and the water seeps into a drain where it somehow ends up in the ocean. And, you guessed it, he’s headed for the Bahamas … for revenge. How did the snowman know the cop who stopped him was vacationing in the tropics? Once again, who knows?

Once there, the snowman begins killing, the locals begin panicking, and the cop must ultimately come face to face with the killer he thought he finished off. My first complaint is this: on the box it says this movie is rated R, but you wouldn’t know that from watching the damn thing. There’s absolutely no gore, and hardly any on-screen violence. In fact, many of the kills are filmed so ambiguously that you have no idea what the snowman even did to the person. On top of that, there’s many bubbly-headed beachbabes around, and plenty of opportunities for gratuitous nudity, but we never get any of that either. Even a scene where a woman goes for a nighttime skinny-dip is filmed like it was a gum commercial (hell, those are sexier!) When it comes to B-movies, you have to deliver the goods, man. No one’s watching the sequel to a killer snowman movie hoping to learn about the glories of the spirit and the miracle of the universe. We want blood and bare ass.

Only during the last half-hour of the movie does it gain even a shred of fun, and, dare I say it, creativity. Jack Frost starts popping out little snowballs that grow fangs and eyes and these snowballs start to take over the island. It’s really an absurd touch, and I must admit, it brought a smile to my face.

So, I’ll admit, the ending is worth seeing, if only for the silliness of watching a bunch of paper-mâché balls get knocked around by adults brandishing Super-Soakers full of antifreeze. It’s really dumb, but you’ll get a kick out of it. In fact, just watch the opening scene, and then fast-forward through the movie until the hour mark, stopping occasionally to pick up a few bits of plot here and there (you won’t need them, but at least you can say you did it). Then, at the hour point, just crack open a beer and watch the snowballs fly. It’s better than the first two hours of Titanic, I can say that much.

(Ryan Lies is a contributing writer for No-Fi "Magazine" and likes paper-mâché balls.)

starring Robert Ginty, Donald Pleasence, directed by David Worth, , 1985

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise: this movie is actually pretty fun. If you’re in the right frame of mind. I suggest maybe a six-pack of Killian’s, or a shot or two of something. And, if you’re not a drinker, then it can still be enjoyed as pure camp. You have to know that going into it. If you slide this video into your VCR expecting a great post-Apocalyptic thriller in the vein of Mad Max, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

I bought this video for about 4 bucks at a local used CD store, and to me it was worth every penny.

The story deals with a man known as the “Rider” who zips around on a computerized, talking motorcycle, blowing away freaks and outrunning the Omega Force, which is the new breed of fascist law enforcement that has emerged after the fall of the world. The “Rider” comes across a band of people who call themselves the Enlightened. They foresaw the “Rider’s” coming in a prophecy and eventually convince to him to help fight the Omega Force, which is lead by the soft spoken but no less nefarious Donald Pleasance.

OK, that’s the plot. But it really just gets in the way of enjoying the silliness of the movie. The filmmakers seem to be going for some kind of anti-fascist message, which is fine; I’m nothing if not completely opposed to fascism. But if you try to read into this message and take the film seriously, you’ll be clutching your head after about twenty minutes in sinus-splitting agony.

Instead, concentrate your attention on the other goodies that abound: zombie-like mutants, scavengers with multi-colored hair, a crazy midget, a couple of kung-fu guys who look like they wondered off the set of Barry Gordy’s The Last Dragon, some really over the top Nazi-like costumes worn by the Omega baddies, and of course there’s that talking motorcycle, an obvious attempt to mimic K.I.T.T. from NightRider. The computer only speaks in 80’s slang, which I personally found amusing as hell.

I guess I can’t really say much about this film, because it’s not the type of movie you really need to analyze in a review. It’s best viewed as pure camp, and that’s that. The acting is horrible, especially Ginty. He makes Chuck Norris look like Kevin Spacey. Donald Pleasance plays his part exactly like a guy who’s doing the job strictly for the paycheck. He delivers his dialogue with one eye on the exit. Which, in a strange way, makes his performance all the better. Or funnier, at least.

Perfect Late Night viewing as far as this movie geek is concerned. Somebody go throw some popcorn in the microwave and grab me a Hulk freezer-pop!

(Ryan Lies is a contributing writer for No-Fi "Magazine" and must destroy Omega Force.)

(Ryan Lies is a staff writer for No-Fi "Magazine" and likes losing at strip poker.)

THE MANSTER
starring Peter Dyneley, Tetsu Nakamura, directed by George Breakston & Kenneth Crane, 1960
Distributed by Gotham Distribution
DVD Reviewed By: Ryan Lies

The Manster has long been one of my favorite late-night creature-features. I hadn’t watched it in a couple of years, though and thought it was high time I revisited it once I realized it had premiered on DVD. And I still loved it. It’s more fun that it really has any right to be. My girl watched it with me and we both had a ball with it, adding our own MSTie commentary to it.

An American foreign-correspondent climbs high into the mountains of Japan on the trail of a story involving a scientist who’s doing research on human evolution. While there the scientist drugs him and injects him with some sort of experimental serum and turns the reporter into a raging alcoholic, misogynistic asshole, who eventually grows a hairy hand and an eyeball on his shoulder, which eventually grows into a second head. While all this is happening the reporter begins killing people in the streets while his estranged boss and wife try to save him.

This movie could’ve been called "The Jerkster" because the reporter’s transformation into a womanizing, verbally abusive husband is so mean-spirited and vitriolic that it almost makes you cringe. That’s if you take this crap seriously. Which there’s no reason you should. But yeah, he gets injected with strange serum and before he turns into a hideous, homicidal monstrosity, he turns into the worlds’ biggest jerk. This would be a great flick to watch after your girlfriend dumps you.

The picture on this disc is no better or worse than it ever was on VHS, but who cares? Flicks like this are supposed to look like crap. Polishing it up would expose all the seams and ruin it. I suggest watching it on the tiniest black and white TV you can find. Then grab a twelve-pack, invite some obnoxious buddies over and pop this baby in. Declare OPEN SEASON on it from frame one and have a ball!

The Manster is the shit, man … ster. (That bad joke courtesy of my girl Daintry.)

(Ryan Lies is a contributing writer for No-Fi "Magazine" and hates being called "The Ryanster" or "The Liester".)

SINDERELLA AND THE GOLDEN BRA
starringSuzanne Stbelle, Bill Gaskin, directed by Loel Minardi, Unrated, 1964
GOLDILOCKS & THE THREE BARES
starring Rex Marlow, Vickie Miles, directed by Hershall Gordon Lewis, Unrated, 1963
Distributed by Something Weird Video
DVD Reviewed By: Chris Beyond

Here upon this DVD lays the first two (and only) true Nudie Musicals. Oh, sure, there was that Cindy Williams film from the 70s called The First Nudie Musical, but these are the real thing, baby!

The first film on this 2 movie special edition is Sinderella And The Golden Bra and it goes without saying that it is very weird. It sort of reminds me of Cinderfella or Snow White And The Three Stooges, but the boobs in this film aren't people just playing dolty characters. The songs are not bad for their time and it made me want to burn a CD from the audio on the film. You know the story here...you haven't seen it, but you know the story. Sinderella wants to go to the ball, but her evil stepmother and stepsisters keep her busy at home doing chores. Her "fairy" godfather comes down and grants her wish, but as she leaves the party at the stroke of midnight (per the original story), the Prince's sticky fingers are only able to grab her bra before she runs away. Well this, of course, leads to a massive search around the kingdom to find the woman who fits the bra. Alas most of the whom are either too big or too small. Will the Prince find Sinderella (who they usually call Derella) and live happily ever after? Well, you already know he will,but that is not the point. This is an interesting film and is worthy of a group viewing or background at a party.

The second film, Goldilocks And The Three Bares, is not based on the fairy tale at all, but involves some people in the entertainment industry who find out one of their own is secretly a...(gasp!)...nudist! This film is actually the true "first nudie musical".shot in `63, and directed by Hershall Gordon Lewis (Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs). Nudist films tend to be pretty boring, but this one is interesting and the commentary with William F. Friedman and Mike Vraney makes it even better. You gotta love William Friedman's commentary tracks for Something Weird Video. He always has interesting stories to tell. For example he didn't hold back as to how he felt about the male lead in this film (he didn't like him very much). He also points out something that I didn't catch while watching the movie...that same actor is also missing half of a finger. Crazy.

As almost always on Something Weird DVDs, there are a ton of extras on the disc including a bunch of shorts, a ton of retro nudie trailers, and a gallery of vintage nudie magazine cover artwork (being a self taught student of retro cover art, this feature was a really cool suprise)! Definitely worth a rental or a purchase if you are into the genre.

(Chris Beyond is the creator of No-Fi "Magazine" and sings naked sometimes too.)

John Michael McCarthy instantly made a fan of me with his first full length film Teenage Tupelo. It's grainy black and white Drive-In style was a perfect homage to a genre that pretty much no longer exists in modern filmmaking. I was lucky enough to meet J.M.M. at this year's Miss Exotic World competition where he was a judge. To me, this is equal to meeting Tarantino or Doris Wishman. Anyway, he passed along this, his latest film, for review and here we are now with me writing and you reading. How charming.

Superstarlet A.D. actually seems to be a continuation of the film that was within the film Teenage Tupelo. In that film D'Lana Tunnel was watching an old apocalyptic themed burlesque film where starlets ran around in vintage underwear fighting off cavemen in broken down trailers. In this film starlets run around in vintage underwear hunting down cromagnon-like cavemen in apocalyptic Memphis, now called Femphis. All men have devolved into the cavemen in question while all women have evolved into superstarlets and roam in gangs designated by hair color. Many of the women roam the city wearing old film reels on their backs. These reels contain footage of their ancestors in old burlesque loops. The two main characters in the film are from different tribes (blonde and brunette), but have fallen in love against the wishes of other blonde and brunette superstarlettes. They travel the ruins of Femphis searching out brunette Naomi's grandmother's burlesque film. Along the way they encounter "Beauty Cults" like the brunette Satanas, the blonde Phayrays, and the evil redheaded Tempests. They also encounter a strange time traveler who may or may not hold a secret about the past. Who knows. As you can tell, this is a strange film and can be hard to follow at times, but that doesn't mean that it's not good.

Ok, the bad news about this film first. Lloyd Kaufman (the head of Troma) introduces the film and informs us that they digitally cleaned up the film. I think this worked against it a little bit since it comes off as a little TOO clean. This type of film (which like Teenage Tupelo is shot mostly in black and white) needs the grain and scratches. The film feels like a lost document and those little honest bits of grain would have helped with the theme. Troma's computer retouching of Cannibal: The Musical! was great, but it wasn't needed here. As far as the story, it took a second viewing with John Michael McCarthy's commentary track to really know what was going on. Still the film was entertaining...really way-out and weird, but entertaining. One interesting fact from the commentary was that Naomi's blonde partner Rachel was actually played by 5 or 6 different actresses. I didn't quite catch that when I first watched it, but I did notice that she looked remarkably different in a scene when her hair was down. The commentary track actually made me want to see the film again armed with the knowlege of what was going on.

So this isn't a film for everyone, but if you are a fan of retro-style, machine toting supervixens, and pycho singing demonesses...this could be the film for you and your friends to watch in a group. Now, I gotta go watch that copy of JMM's The Sore Losers I just got!

(Chris Beyond is the creator of No-Fi "Magazine", likes blondes, but prefers brunettes.)

Wow, remember back when the paper version of No-Fi "Magazine" used to review the occasional 70s adult film as a joke? Well, this "film" made in 1990 was in a friend of mine's DVD player I was using recently and I forgot to put it back in the machine when I returned it (no, not the cute "accidently forgot to return it" excuse... It was actually legitimate). I guess that person knows now who I am talking about. Anyway, Holly-Tron threw it in our own player as a joke and we actually sorta' watched the film via the commentary track.

First off, this was like no other commentary track on any other film as far as I know. The director actually taped himself at the editing bay where you see the video playing in the background as he comments on the scenes as he fast-forwards through the film. This was actually cool (for what it's worth), because the sex scenes looked quite boring. So John the director (who is also the "butt-man" in the title) talks us through the set up of the scenes and why he chose to shoot scenes in certain ways and editing choices. There are a few stories about the actors "performances" and aside from him taking short breaks from the film to fondle his girlfriend, it is actually more clinical than raunchy. He didn't really talk about one of its stars, Madison, who we interviewed back in Issue #3. Nor did he mention that Zara Whites became a huge mainstream star overseas after her porn career (don't ask me how I even know that). I guess this was interesting in a "wow, pornos have comentary?" or a "so that's the thought process behind these" sort of way.

Oh, one creepy thing of note, he mentions that when he shot this film, one of its stars Alexandria Quinn had ID and birth records that showed that she was 18 although she was really 17 at the time. So her scenes were cut out of the movie on the DVD. BUT in his commentary, he has to cut the camera or turn the camera whenever she is on his monitor. Although we, the viewers, don't see her, doesn't that imply that he may, in effect, be in possession of child pornography? (I believe that all filmakers who worked with her were cleared of any wrongdoing on their parts.) That is your debate topic for this evening. Talk amongst yourselves.

(Chris Beyond is the creator of No-Fi "Magazine" and likes more than just butts.)

As Public Enemy once famously said, “Don’t believe the hype!”

And that’s about all I can say by way of warning you about this flick. The cover art for the DVD looks promising: a bloodied female face, obviously that of a recently butchered victim. And above her dead visage read “Original Uncensored Version.” Always a good thing.

Flip to the back and you find out that Unhinged sounds pretty much like any other exploitation horror movie: a group of teenagers get in a car crash, are taken in by strange family, and then things get bloody and nutty. Well, of course, that doesn’t sound all that exciting, but look around the plot synopsis and what do you see? Why “Unhinged outsold Poltergeist before being banned!” and “Contains nudity, violence, language, disturbing themes,” and “graphic violence and full nudity caused English Parliament to ban Unhinged in 1985!” and “Now, for the first time ever Unhinged is available for purchase!” Wouldn’t you buy a movie with that much purportedly going for it? Of course you would. So is this worth it?

Whatever. This movie sucks. And I’ve watched it three times, so I feel I have the right to say that. I have a lot of patience for B movies and exploitation movies. I generally like most of the ones I see, and I’m rarely that hard on a movie. Being a low budget filmmaker myself I can sympathize with most low-budget/indie efforts and I try to cut them some slack. But not this time. There’s only one thing going for this movie and that’s the ending. It’s pretty sweet. And maybe, just maybe it’s worth it for that. But after sitting through it three times (I had to understand where all the hyperbole was coming from – I mean, that cover was pretty convincing!) I don’t think so. If the ending of this movie could be transplanted to another movie, well then that other movie would have a kick ass ending. Unhinged doesn’t deserve its cool ending.

I really hate to be so negative and I would love to say better things about this, but if you watch the extras on this DVD, there’s an old 1980 interview with the director and one of the stars (the only actually good actress in the thing, I might add) and even he can’t think of anything interesting or relevant to say about his own movie. He just stammers away, talking about how horror flicks make money and whatever. Never once does he appear to actually be proud of what he did, or have any real passion for what he’s talking about.

I guess it goes to prove that just because a movie got banned for whatever reason, or because it has tits and ass and blood and guts doesn’t mean it’s GOOD. It just means they lucked out and landed a distributor that’s good at slinging hype. There are, after all, a lot of folks out there who get paid good money to polish turds on a regular basis. Stand up and refuse them! Don’t let them bamboozle you, adventuresome movie geeks! We may shell out our hard earned money for the silliest of cinematic trifles at the drop of a hat, but it doesn’t have to mean we’re completely gullible!

In other words, don’t buy Unhinged. If you do, you’ll hate yourself in the morning.

(Ryan Lies is a contributing writer for No-Fi "Magazine" and is well hinged.)