Tag Archives: movie reviews

SCORPION THUNDERBOLT (1983): HORROR FILM

Scorpion ThunderboltSCORPION THUNDERBOLT – Yes, it’s Scorpion Thunderbolt, the horror movie that has absolutely NOTHING to do with EITHER scorpions OR thunderbolts! They could have titled this thing Terms of Endearment 2 and it wouldn’t have been any less appropriate.

Potential viewers will find various years of release listed for this flick like 1983, 1985 or 1988. That’s because this is another of those bizarre cinematic cut-and-paste jobs that we fans of bad movies just love, like They Saved Hitler’s Brain, Spookies, Pink Angels, Monster A Go-Go and so many others.

The original film was titled Grudge of the Sleepwalking Woman and was a Taiwanese horror movie from 1983. Balladeer’s Blog’s old friend Godfrey Ho, the Schlockmeister General of Hong Kong cinema, bought the original movie. That Dr Frankenstein of the editing room padded the film’s run-time by adding some kung fu fights and one of his usual non sequitur movie quickies starring Richard Harrison, then tried to pass the mess off as all one movie. Same ol’ same ol’ for Godfrey Ho, in other words.   Continue reading

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TO THE FOURTH POWER (2013): MORE RELEVANT THAN EVER

American FlagThis review is especially relevant to the insanity of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and the increasingly open hostility between the voters and the ugly criminals who hold elected office. 

TO THE FOURTH POWER (2013) – You’d think it would be impossible to do something creative with the mock documentary format at this point but To The Fourth Power proves to be a thought-provoking and inventive piece set “just a few years from now”.

The movie depicts a near future in which the American people have taken back the 4th of July and have transformed it into more than just a celebration of the nation’s birth: into an expression of the rapidly rising public resentment at the way elected officials represent the wishes of their political party and not the wishes of the people who elect them. Continue reading

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GHOSTWATCH (1992): MICRO-REVIEW

Ghostwatch 1992GHOSTWATCH (1992) – This was a British made for t.v. movie that aired on Halloween Night in 1992. Ghostwatch is a nice – albeit boring – little novelty item for the way it anticipated the paranormal “reality” (LMAO) shows of today.

The telefilm also can’t help but put viewers in mind of the Paranormal Activity series and countless other Found Footage horror movies. Ghostwatch involves much older technology of course but for once, since the make-believe t.v. crew is filming their investigation of a haunted house, it MAKES SENSE for people to be filming everything.   Continue reading

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BLOOD OF DRACULA (1957)

I’ve been getting emails requesting that I review this movie, but I already did in 2010. For the folks requesting it, here it is again. And remember, if you want instant gratification for your bad movie fix you can check my Bad Movie page to see if I’ve already reviewed the movie you’re requesting: https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/

BLOOD OF DRACULA (1957) – Category: Bad enough and with a classically weird premise but not fun-bad enough for my highest rating.   Not to be confused with Blood Of Dracula’s Castle, yet another of the roughly 9,712 movies in which John Carradine appeared. No, this little honey is best remembered as the movie that should have been called I Was A Teenage Vampire. It’s from the people who brought us both I Was A Teenage Werewolf and I Was A Teenage   Frankenstein. Not only Continue reading

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ROCKTOBER BLOOD (1984)

Rocktober BloodROCKTOBER BLOOD (1984) -This example of the Heavy Metal Horror films of the 1980s was produced, directed and written by Beverly and Ferd Sebastian, a well-known pair to all of us Bad Movie Geeks. The premise of this hilariously bad movie is that Heavy Metal star Billy Eye programs something sinister into his latest album by way of backward-masking. (Like “I buried Paul” and others) 

After listening to those hidden messages to make sure they “took,” Billy Eye molests his just-dumped girlfriend Lynn Starling (Donna Scoggin) then uses a knife to injure her. He’s just getting started, though, and from there he proceeds to slaughter most of his band members, a security guard and nearly 20 other innocent people! 

Billy is tried, convicted and executed for the killing spree. One year after his execution his former flame Lynn Starling has formed her own Heavy Metal group called Headmistress. The band is starting its first nationwide tour, called the Rocktober Blood Tour, unaware of the tedium horror about to envelope them. Continue reading

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THE REVENANT (2015): MICRO-REVIEW

Man in the Wilderness

Save your time and money and see this film based on the same events.

THE REVENANT (2015) – Man vs nature movie that, ironically, is far less true-to-life than Man in the Wilderness, a 1971 film based on the same real-life events from the 1820s. ESPECIALLY THE ENDING. Yet the ’71 version didn’t go to the same bizarre levels of hype about its “authenticity” that The Revenant’s marketing does.

Richard Harris played the man left behind to die and John Huston had the role Tom Hardy plays in the newer version. Catch Man in the Wilderness from the comfort of your own home. The only entertainment in the DiCaprio film comes from wondering if he’ll ever say “Yer durn tootin'” in that ridiculous voice he uses in the movie.      Continue reading

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TRUMBO: IS THIS A JOKE?

This movie is further proof that American Liberals are the biggest hypocrites in history.

This movie is further proof that American Liberals are the biggest hypocrites in history.

TRUMBO (2015) – How about “Are you now or have you ever been a racist or imperialist or Islamophobic or privileged?” Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog know how sick I am of the increasingly meaningless “Liberals vs Conservatives” paradigm. It’s just that right now American Liberals are far more pompous and hubristic and in need of being cut down to size.

Case in point: the movie Trumbo. Only American Liberals could be so lacking in self-awareness that they would – in this age of Political Correctness Police and SJW persecutors – trot out (for the millionth time) the story of Dalton Trumbo and some of the other figures who were black-listed during the Communist Witch Hunt of decades ago. For the past few decades Liberals have been the ones black-listing and inflicting draconian punishments on people who dare to hold different political opinions than they do.

We are still suffering under the “Racist” and “Privilege” Witch Hunts that American Liberals continue to pursue with the same sickeningly judgmental attitude and spurious statistics that Joe McCarthy was accused of. How many careers (and therefore lives) have we all seen ruined by the cold, merciless asses of the political left? Often over  simple remarks or organizations the victims belonged to or political contributions they made YEARS earlier. Plus Liberals accuse people of being racists as a scare tactic the way accusations of being a Communist were used back then.

Anyone under 30 (maybe even 40) who watches Trumbo needs to focus on the OBVIOUS parallels to the way American Liberals hound and persecute any behavior they choose to interpret as “racism” or more generally as “hate.” When you watch right-wing zealots obsessively looking for “pernicious communism” and “secret communist messages” in Trumbo’s screenplays make a point of noting the similarities to the way Liberal zealots obsessively look for “racism”, “xenophobia”, “imperialism,” “colonial narratives” and on and on through the entire list of their paranoid fixations.        Continue reading

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JACK THE RIPPER GOES WEST (1974)

Jack the Ripper Goes WestJACK THE RIPPER GOES WEST (1974) – This hilariously lame horror western was also released under the titles Silent Sentence, A Knife in the Dark and A Knife for the Ladies.

Jack the Ripper Goes West is a horror western that plays like a failed pilot episode for a television series given its mere 51 minute running time. When a rash of Jack the Ripper style murders afflict the western town of Mescal their old-fashioned Sheriff Jarrod (Jack Elam) is aggravated to find himself forced to work with an out of town private detective named Burns (Jeff Cooper). 

If this was indeed once planned as a tv pilot (and the incredibly fake-looking buildings in the town might support that notion) the premise was apparently going to be the clash of old vs new methods of investigating crimes. Elam’s sheriff is an old-fashioned hip-shooting, hard-drinking, saloon-brawling man of the past. Cooper’s private investigator is a sophisticated big city criminologist intent on using modern methodology.   Continue reading

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THE HUMANOID (1979): THE WORST STAR WARS RIPOFF

Humanoid 2With Star Wars Episode Seven coming out soon I figured I would examine the notoriously bad Italian ripoff of Star Wars. I know many people consider Star Crash to be the worst of the Italo-Ripoffs but I’ve always gotten more laughs out of The Humanoid.  

The many, many ways this movie steals from Star Wars will become clear as we go along. Let’s deal with first things first:

Richard KielRichard Kiel plays the title figure. His real name is Golob but the Darth Vaderish bad guy arranges for Golob to be the guinea pig for a treatment that transforms ordinary people into powerful “Humanoids”. As a Humanoid Golob loses his beard for some reason but – even more comically – the beard suddenly reappears when he is returned to normal late in the movie.

Humanoid 5Golob in his amped-up Humanoid form has super-strength, is invulnerable to harm and can deflect energy blasts that the Rebel Alliance-style good guys shoot at him. The bad guys plan to use a warhead to expose every man, woman and child on Earth to the bio-treatment, thus creating an instant army of billions of super-powered Humanoids like Richard Kiel. (Good luck controlling them since the treatment will reduce them to mindless animals like Golob.)   Continue reading

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FRIDAY THE 13th: THE ORPHAN (1977) – REVIEW

Friday the 13th The Orphan biggerFRIDAY THE 13th: THE ORPHAN (1977) – H.H. Munro must have turned over in his grave at this adaptation of one of his short stories. This quasi-horror film was re-released in 1979 as just The Orphan and despite the original title it has no connection to the Friday the 13th series of slasher flicks. At least, no REAL connection. I’m surprised some unscrupulous distributor never tried sneaking this into theaters in the 1980’s as a “prequel” to the slasher movies by presenting the insane young boy in the movie as the grandfather of Jason Voorhees.

Even so the title makes it hard not to think of our wealthy young protagonist “David” (Mark Owens) as an ancestor of the hockey- masked slice and dice man from Crystal Lake. In the 1920’s David’s mother accidentally shoots his African Big Game Hunter father Kevin to death during an argument about his frequent overseas trips. David not only witnesses this but sees his mother put the gun in her mouth and kill herself immediately afterward. Next David gets VERY disturbed when a presumed family member (an uncredited Christopher Lloyd in a “blink-and-you’ll- miss- him” appearance) forces him to kiss his dead father as he lies in his coffin. Continue reading

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