Directed by Marc Rocco | Starring Catherine Mary Stewart, Cameron Dye, Steve Railsback There are movies about music that capture the soul of rock and roll. Almost Famous, Sid and Nancy, This Is Spinal Tap. And then there’s Scenes from the Goldmine, which captures the soul of being passed out backstage, face down in a … Read More “Scenes from the Goldmine (1987): Fool’s Gold and Rock n’ Roll Regret” »
A Firm Recommendation to Apply Ice to Your Eyeballs After Viewing Ah, Bodily Harm. A title that warns you upfront—and delivers. Watching this 1995 erotic thriller is like slipping into a warm bath of clichés, only to realize the water’s filled with expired body oil and half-written dialogue. It wants to be steamy, dangerous, and … Read More “Bodily Harm (1995): The Only Injury Here Is to Your Brain Cells” »
Directed by Thom Eberhardt | Starring Catherine Mary Stewart, Kelli Maroney, Robert Beltran The apocalypse has never looked so good. Night of the Comet is a gloriously weird slice of 1980s cinema that dares to ask: what if the end of the world came with shoulder pads, zombie mall cops, and a killer synth-pop soundtrack? … Read More “Night of the Comet (1984): Valley Girls, Zombies, and the End of the World” »
Directed by Nick Castle | Starring Lance Guest, Catherine Mary Stewart, Dan O’Herlihy Let’s be clear: The Last Starfighter is ridiculous. It’s about a trailer park teenager who becomes an intergalactic hero because he’s really good at an arcade game. This is pure Reagan-era fantasy, a cinematic fever dream born from the unholy union of … Read More “The Last Starfighter (1984): Beam Me Up, Beta Unit” »
Directed by Glenn Gebhard | Starring Pat Berry, Keith Brennan, Tom Brennan There’s a special place in cinematic purgatory for movies that try to make 4×4 desert racing look thrilling and somehow end up with the intensity of a retirement home bingo night. Desert Steel is that kind of movie—a low-octane, straight-to-video relic that should … Read More “Desert Steel (1994): More Rust Than Racing” »
Directed by Deryn Warren | Starring Mark Hamill, Apollonia Kotero, Amanda Wyss You know you’re in trouble when a movie with the title Black Magic Woman has all the mystique of a burned-out lava lamp. This 1991 straight-to-VHS occult “thriller” stars a sleepy-eyed Mark Hamill, two actresses trying to salvage their dignity (Apollonia Kotero and … Read More “Black Magic Woman (1991): A Hex of a Mess” »
Directed by John D. Patterson & Hugh Parks | Starring Mary Crosby, Andrew Stevens, Amanda Wyss Alternate Title: Sybil With a Shotgun You ever trip over an old VHS tape in a dusty thrift store bin, look at the cover and think, “This might be insane in a fun way”? And then you pop it … Read More “Deadly Innocents (1989): Psycho Babble and Hostage Nonsense in VHS Hell” »
Alt Title: Two Indians, a Car, and a Whole Lot of Metaphor There’s a version of Powwow Highway that might’ve worked—a gritty, soul-searching road movie about Native identity, broken systems, and the tension between tradition and protest. But this? This is a meandering, slow-rolling sermon on wheels that feels like it was written by someone … Read More “Powwow Highway (1989): Smoke Signals Without the Fire” »
Directed by Deran Sarafian | Starring Brendan Hughes, Sydney Walsh, Amanda Wyss, Scott Jacoby Alternate Title That Would’ve Been More Honest:“Bram Stoker’s Waste of Time” Once upon a time, someone tried to make a sexy vampire thriller on a budget that couldn’t afford garlic, let alone fangs. The result was To Die For (1988), a … Read More “To Die For (1988): Softcore Satanism for the Late-Night, Half-Asleep Crowd” »
Directed by Savage Steve Holland | Starring John Cusack, Diane Franklin, Amanda Wyss, Curtis Armstrong Tagline Should’ve Been:“Heartbreak. Hilarity. Hallucinations. And a hamburger that sings Van Halen.” Welcome to the gloriously deranged, wildly creative, and borderline unhinged world of Better Off Dead—a teen comedy so off the rails it makes Ferris Bueller look like a … Read More “Better Off Dead (1985): A Suicide Comedy So Weird, It Lives Forever” »
