Tag Archives: movie reviews

MOVIE REVIEW: THE BURQA (2013)

The Burqa: A heroic woman fighting Muslim Apartheid and defending women's rights.

The Burqa: A heroic woman fighting Muslim Apartheid and defending women’s rights.

THE BURQA (2013) – The Burqa deserves to be THE action film of the year. This movie has a daring premise, incredible stuntwork plus more killings and blood squibs than any three Quentin Tarantino movies put together. There’s also an unforgettable performance by the lead actress, whose name is being kept a secret over fears of violent reprisals from Islamist terrorist groups.

The film is set in modern-day Iraq. Our heroine,  known only as “The Burqa”, emerges from the desert sands, clad in the outfit she is named for and with automatic weapons strapped to each of her sashaying thighs. Like Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name and John Garko’s Holy Ghost, both from Spaghetti Westerns, the Burqa is an unstoppable gunslinger who litters the land with her fallen foemen.

The audience first meets the title figure when she saves a teenage Muslim girl from being raped and killed by Islamist fanatics for daring to dress in western clothing and to advocate abortion rights. Countless Continue reading

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Filed under Fantastic Movie Reviews, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, opinion

BAD MOVIE PAGE: MARDI GRAS MASSACRE (1978)

Mardi Gras MassacreMARDI GRAS MASSACRE (1978) – Category: A neglected Bad Movie classic, but its hard-core gore will prevent it from ever having a Plan 9-sized cult following

It takes a twisted sort of genius to make multiple disembowelment murders look boring, but that’s exactly what Jack Weis accomplishes in Mardi Gras Massacre! Today may be Fat Tuesday, but let’s rechristen it “Splat Tuesday” in honor of this late 70’s splatterfest. 

The actual “massacre” part of this movie is an incredible disappointment. An insane, hate-filled man with a knife – no, not Jim Bowie (rimshot) – is roaming around New Orleans during Mardi Gras targeting prostitutes as sacrificial offerings to the Aztec deities he worships. That sounds promising for a horror film but the disembowelment ritual is reenacted word for word and movement for movement for EACH VICTIM! There is no variation and also no suspense because after the first killing we know exactly how all the subsequent sacrifices will play out. The only chills come from listening to the awful disco music that plays during the Continue reading

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BAD MOVIE PAGE SHORT SUBJECT: BE YOUR OWN TRAFFIC POLICEMAN

BE YOUR OWN TRAFFIC POLICEMAN (1958) – I’ve been meaning to review more short subjects ever since I started writing Balladeer’s Blog in June of 2010. With all the other topics I cover I’ve only reviewed two short educational films so far: A Metric America, about how 1980’s America was going to be completely converted to the metric system, and The Energy Carol, a Canadian short about energy conservation adapted to fit the structure of A Christmas Carol

Both of those reviews can be found on my Bad Movie page, and I’ll be reviewing plenty more short subjects in the very near future. For today I’ll examine Be Your Own Traffic Policeman, an educational short about pedestrian safety. This little honey clocks in at barely 10 minutes and was produced by Portafilms, an outfit that was neither as prolific nor as enjoyably frantic as, say, Sid Davis or Dick Wayman. When Davis or Wayman clubbed you over the head with a message you were laughing far too much to mind. 

This traffic safety short is narrated and hosted by Officer Maxwell, known to all of us bad safety short fans from Helping Johnny Remember and Holiday From Rules. Officer Maxwell is accompanied by two children who mindlessly agree with everything he says, obviously fearing for their lives from the unintentionally sinister-seeming Maxwell. After all, at any Continue reading

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ELEVEN MORE NEGLECTED BAD MOVIES FOR HALLOWEEN

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog are very familiar with my Bad Movie page where I examine plenty of under the radar movies that are hilariously awful. Last Halloween season I ran a list of the top Eleven Neglected Bad Movie Classics for Halloween. That tradition continues this year with a list of eleven more neglected bombs. As with last year’s list my Bad Movie page features full-length reviews of each of the movies I’m offering a synopsis of here.

THE RETURN OF DR X (1939) – The notorious film in which the legendary Humphrey Bogart played a zombified mad scientist named Dr Xavier who was brought back from the dead by another mad scientist named Dr Flegg. Much of the fun comes from Bogie’s unmistakable disdain for finding himself in the kind of stinker that Bela Lugosi often waded through. Bogie’s Dr X kills bunny rabbits, surgically drains blood from the hearts of living humans and experiments on babies in a movie desperately searching for a decent script and a likeable character.

DIAL HELP (1988) – Believe it or not Ruggiero Deodato directed this ridiculous horror film. A plucky heroine who has just been dumped by her boyfriend finds herself being haunted by … living phones. No I’m not kidding. These phones kill by strangling people with their cords, using high-pitched noises to Continue reading

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Filed under Bad and weird movies, Halloween Season

THE TOP 11 NEGLECTED BAD MOVIE CLASSICS FOR HALLOWEEN

The less than frightening title menaces from Attack of the Beast Creatures (1983)

Laughing at bad movies is one of the greatest pleasures in life. Regular readers of Balladeer’s  Blog are very familiar with my Bad Movie page where I focus on various film flops that I feel deserve larger audiences because of how dementedly enjoyable they are. Since it’s the Halloween Season this list will present eleven of the most neglected bad horror movie classics, many of which deserve Plan 9- sized cult followings. These are short takes. For my full-length reviews of these and other cinematic turkeys see my Bad Movie page. https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/

MORE HALLOWEEN MOVIE TREATS: MEXICAN MONSTERS https://glitternight.com/2011/10/31/a-halloween-mexi-monster-bestiary/

BLAXPLOITATION HORROR: https://glitternight.com/2011/10/26/a-very-blaxploitation-halloween/

11. THE LIFT (1983) – A killer elevator is the unique menace in this joyously absurd horror film from the Netherlands. A heroic elevator repairman tries to stop the bloody reign of terror of a sentient elevator which the movie’s ads described as “the perfect killing machine”. (?)

10. ATTACK OF THE BEAST CREATURES (1983) – The surviving passengers and crew of a sunken luxury liner find themselves on an uncharted island full of ponds and streams that dissolve human flesh. The island is home to the Continue reading

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Filed under Bad and weird movies, Halloween Season

THE WEIRD, WEIRD WEST: HORROR FILMS WITH A WESTERN THEME

With Halloween approaching Balladeer’s Blog will be doing its usual holiday-themed posts. This time around I’ll give a brief synopsis of western-flavored horror flicks. In keeping with my blog’s theme of covering out of the way topics I won’t be examining movies that are too well known, like Billy the Kid vs Dracula, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter or The Terror of Tiny Town. Ditto for more recent movies like Sundown and Billy The Kid In Hell. As for West World and Welcome to Blood City, those are more science fiction than horror, so they aren’t included either.  

black noonBLACK NOON (1971) – Roy Thinnes stars as an old west preacher who falls in with a coven of witches in the town of Melas (Salem spelled backwards of course).

The witches tempt Thinnes into thinking he’s a prophet and healer, then use his vanity against him and his wife during their dark ritual of the Black Noon, which takes place during a mid-day eclipse.

CURSE OF THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN (1974) –  A medical student and his hippy friends try to renovate a dude ranch haunted by the Headless Horseman. No, it’s not the figure from the Washington Irving tale, but an old-west gunslinger who was unjustly hanged, losing his head in the process. The Horseman now roams the dude ranch by night looking for victims to frighten. SPOILER: The Continue reading

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Filed under Bad and weird movies, Halloween Season, Spaghetti Westerns

BAD MOVIE PAGE: INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973)

INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973) – Category: More weird than bad, but with a classic premise and execution  

This little honey (sorry) is the perfect example of why I prefer bad movies from the 1980’s and earlier: because back then they played them straight and weren’t constantly making self-aware jokes to the audience. If this movie had been made more recently it would have been INTENTIONALLY cheesy and goofy, like the Killer Condom flicks or the Gingerdead Man movies.

Invasion of the Bee Girls plays like a sexploitation version of The X-Files long before that show was on the air. The hero of the movie is a State Department investigator played by cult figure William Smith, known from the tv series Laredo and from countless exploitation flicks like Black Samson to the “Hell’s Angels Fighting The Vietnam War” biker movie The Losers. The film’s screenwriter was THE Nicholas Meyer of Star Trek II and The Seven Percent Solution fame. Herb “The Worm Eaters” Robbins also shows up onscreen.

William Smith’s character, Neil Agar, is sent to California to investigate why a scientist involved in top secret government research dropped dead under suspicious circumstances – he died of apparent sexual exhaustion and people nearby swear they heard a sound like bees buzzing at Continue reading

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BAD MOVIE PAGE: FOR YOUR HEIGHT ONLY (1981)

Weng Weng and Lola

Weng Weng and Lola

FOR YOUR HEIGHT ONLY (1981) – Category: A neglected bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9– sized cult following.

I’ve been delaying reviewing this hilariously bizarre film for years. It’s just so chock full of inane dialogue and WTF moments that it’s a challenge to write a review that isn’t novel-length.

For the essentials: this is a Philippine action movie starring the midget novelty celebrity named Weng Weng as Secret Agent OO (yes, Double O). It sounds like a comedy but what makes it great is that IT’S NOT! It’s played seriously and features Weng Weng using firearms and fancy gadgets like James Bond, engaging in martial arts fights like Bruce Lee, drooling over regular-sized women like Herve Villaichez, sword- fighting as skillfully as Zatoichi and sporting a poorly- concealed bald spot like Ryen Russillo. 

Weng Weng works for an outfit called simply “The Secret Agency”, so I’m guessing it’s one of those generic intelligence services that is MUCH cheaper than name brands. Hell, the head of the Continue reading

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BAD MOVIE PAGE: GANJASAURUS REX (1987)

GANJASAURUS REX (1987) – Category: A film that doesn’t know what it wants to be.

In Balladeer’s Blog’s review of the incredibly bad horror film Horror House on Highway 5 I pointed out that a few scenes gave the impression that the filmmakers might have been trying for a wry parody of slasher movies but lacked the talent to make the film work even as a comedy. Ganjasaurus Rex has that same problem tenfold.  The parts that are supposed to be funny aren’t, the scenes that aren’t supposed to be funny are, and the end result is a cinematic misfit that is more boring- bad than fun- bad.

The film begins promisingly as a sendup of the Reagan Administration’s hilariously naive “Just say no to drugs” campaign. A fictitious arm of the Gipper’s War on Drugs called C.A.M.P. (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting) is leaning on pot growers, burning their crops and hauling them off to prison. That’s the Continue reading

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DJANGO THEATER: A LOOK AT THE FILMS OF THE MOST DURABLE SPAGHETTI WESTERN GUNSLINGER

The best Django, Franco Nero, played the gunslinger in Django, Django Strikes Again and (wink) Django’s Grand Return

Like Tarzan, James Bond and Sherlock Holmes the melancholy bounty hunter Django has been presented in various incarnations and with wildly differing continuity. And like soccer the Django movies have been an enormous success almost everywhere except the U.S. The gunman’s most recent iteration will be as an African American in Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming reboot of the Spaghetti Western hero’s saga.

The great Franco Nero created the role in 1966 in a film so popular in Europe (but banned in the UK for its still- controversial violence) that it spawned a legion of sequels. Some sequels starred Franco Nero or others in the role of Django, while others were just unrelated westerns whose distributors simply  attached a phony Django title to them, sometimes redoing the dubbing to have the lead character referred to as Django, other times not bothering.

Original Django poster In anticipation of the mad rush for the various Django films that will presumably follow the release of the Tarantino reboot with Jamie Foxx Balladeer’s Blog helpfully presents a synopsis of the films featuring (legitimately or not) the most durable Eurowestern hero of them all. And, yes, if you’re wondering, the western bounty hunter Django was indeed the reason George Lucas named that outer space bounty hunter Jango Fett.

DJANGO (1966) – In 1867 Mexico Django, a veteran of the Union army in the Civil War, seeks revenge on Major Jackson, the Confederate officer behind his wife’s death. Jackson and his still-loyal troops, now turned  outright Klansmen, are, like so many other fleeing Confederates,  fighting for the Mexican Emperor Maximillian in the war to keep his throne.   Django battles Jackson’s hooded thugs, even ambushing dozens with the Gatling Gun he keeps concealed in a coffin. When he’s out of men Major Jackson calls on Maximillian’s Imperial troopers for reinforcements and prepares to face Django and the Mexican rebel troops he’s fallen in with. For a detailed review of this unforgettable film click here: https://glitternight.com/2012/08/08/the-original-django-and-two-blaxploitation-westerns-a-primer-for-django-unchained/

DJANGO SHOOTS FIRST (1966) – AKA He Who Shoots First. Django comes into an enormous inheritance from his murdered father, an inheritance he learns he must share with his late father’s unscrupulous business partner, Mr Cluster. Django starts blowing away a host of bad guys as he tries to piece together who is responsible for his father’s death.

DJANGO, A BULLET FOR YOU (1966) – Django uses his guns to protect a group of downtrodden farmers from the villainous, land-grabbing town boss of Wagon Valley. He Continue reading

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