Somewhere in Hollywood, in a dimly lit room filled with empty Yoo-hoo bottles and broken dreams, someone said: “Let’s make a movie with dinosaurs, alien caves, leather bikini babes, and Sybil Danning—and let’s make sure absolutely none of it makes sense.” And thus, The Phantom Empire was born. Or maybe just coughed into existence like … Read More “The Phantom Empire (1988): Raiders of the Lost Budget” »
Before the internet, before TikTok, before adult swim… there was Amazon Women on the Moon—a deranged, scatterbrained, glorious grab bag of TV-channel-flipping lunacy wrapped in 85 minutes of barely coherent, blissfully chaotic sketch comedy. It’s not a film so much as a fever dream about watching cable TV at 3 a.m. with a concussion. And … Read More “Amazon Women on the Moon (1987): A Love Letter to Late-Night Insanity” »
Welcome to Reform School Girls, where the bras are bulletproof, the guards are sadistic dominatrixes, and every girl in juvie looks like she got lost on the way to a Poison concert. It’s not just a movie—it’s an 80-minute mugshot of Reagan-era trash cinema that tries so hard to be edgy, it cuts itself on … Read More “Reform School Girls (1986) – A Prison Sentence in Exploitation and Aqua Net” »
If you ever wanted to know what would happen if a third-rate Indiana Jones movie got drunk, took a nap in an Egyptian sarcophagus, and woke up as a straight-to-video disaster starring Cameron Mitchell and Sybil Danning, then The Tomb(1986) is your answer. And no, that’s not a compliment. This isn’t just a bad movie. … Read More “The Tomb (1986) – Where Mummies Go to Die… of Boredom” »
If Young Lady Chatterley II were a car, it would be a powder-blue Pinto stuck in neutral, sputtering out moans and bad English accents while the radio plays lite jazz porn music on loop. This is not so much a film as it is a long, slow, Vaseline-smeared fever dream about women in corsets pretending … Read More “Young Lady Chatterley II – The Sequel Nobody Asked For, Starring the Libido of a Houseplant” »
“Imagine if someone dared you to make a werewolf movie using only Romanian tax breaks, leftover leather, and Sybil Danning’s cleavage—and then you failed.” There are bad sequels. There are insulting sequels. And then there’s The Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf—a movie so bafflingly terrible, it makes the original Howling look like Citizen … Read More “The Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf – A Hairy, Hilarious Train Wreck of a Sequel” »
A sun-soaked sleaze-comedy with equal parts cheesecake, shootouts, and unintentionally hilarious dialogue – “Malibu Express” is dumb fun if you know what you’re in for. By 1985, writer-director Andy Sidaris had fully committed to his unique brand of cinema: glossy, playboy-inspired spy flicks loaded with action, nudity, and tongue-in-cheek dialogue. Malibu Express marked the real … Read More “Malibu Express (1985) – Guns, G-Strings, and Goofy Sleuthing in 80s Softcore Spyland” »
What could’ve been a fun grindhouse romp turns into a grim, poorly made slog that mistakes degradation for drama and violence for entertainment. The Jungle Warriors is one of those films that, even by exploitation standards, crosses the line from guilty pleasure into genuinely unpleasant territory. Released in 1984 and featuring an oddball cast including … Read More “The Jungle Warriors (1984) – A Sleazy, Mean-Spirited Misfire” »
Equal parts erotic thriller, slasher flick, and teen sex comedy—this Sybil Danning vehicle can’t decide what it wants to be, but it’s watchable for what it is They’re Playing with Fire is one of those movies that looks like it was pitched as Porky’s meets Fatal Attraction meets Friday the 13th, and then nobody ever … Read More “They’re Playing with Fire (1984) – A Steamy, Sloppy Thriller That’s More Sizzle Than Substance” »
A bargain bin knockoff of a knockoff, with more grunts than greatness and more muscles than meaning It takes a special kind of cinematic hubris to blend The Magnificent Seven, The Seven Samurai, and Gladiator tropes into one film and somehow wind up with none of the original appeal. Enter The Seven Magnificent Gladiators (1983), … Read More “The Seven Magnificent Gladiators (1983) – Sword-and-Sandal Schlock at Its Most Tired” »
