Directed by Nolan Ball and Bryan Roberts

Starring: Edward X. Young, Colleen Cohan, Beatrice Strobl, Kachina Dechert, and Bethany Taylor

Have you ever had ultra hot mess drunk chick hit on you at the last call mark at a bar? I mean she’s really long in the tooth, probably a tad to a ton overweight, not attractive or coherent by any stretch of the imagination, but is desperate for any minuscule amount of attention or affection and has sunk to the most dire level to achieve a trace amount of fulfillment. Your heart in a strange way goes out to them and you hope that they can get what they need in a safe and hopefully compassionate way, but you can’t provide any of it because you know that it’s in so many ways WRONG. That’s the way I think about the movie, The Green Monster.
This movie is a hot mess. It’s definitely a style over substance feature and it desire to be clever and to cover a wide spectrum of topics on a bargain basement low budget is like trying run a buffet restaurant with one package of lomein noodles.

The movie opens with a teenager having a baby at a convenience store’s bathroom. She dumps the baby in the garbage and takes a ride with a kindly male worker of the convenience store. Following the horror movie handbook of overly done horror movie cliches of the last 100 years, The Green Monster’s kindly male worker at the convenience store is a blood thirsty psychopath who kills the girl and grinds her up into food for the store to sell. Cut to three high school girls (Beatrice Strobl, Kachina Dechert, and Bethany Taylor) who go to the convenience store after they have a weird low budget Mean Girls/”Hit Me Baby One More Time” walk down their high school hallway montage sequence for no reason whatsoever. It turns out that one of the friends who is named Bree (Strobl) likes to go to this place for her “cosmetics” even though it’s on the dreaded other side of the tracks (even though all theses track sides look like white bread Massachusetts). The “cosmedics” that she purchases actually are chocolates that are made by the man and woman ( Edward X. Young and Colleen Cohan) of the convenience store who used the recipe from the handbook mentioned earlier.

Bree gets killed by the school’s druggy bully and he killed her parents to for shits and giggles. He notices that she’s eating her candy while he’s killing her and decides to go to the convience store with his buddy (aka the only other person seen in the high school since this film’s budget is so low they actually have less students in the high school then “Saved By the Bell”) for a chance to get their hands on their candy fortunes. Of course, they get killed in short order. So it’s up to the two other school friends: the ballet girl (Dechert) and the overweight girl (Taylor), along with the new boy who lives across the street and goes to the high school (even though he looks likes he’s in his mid 30′s and might be older than the woman who is playing his mother) to figure out what’s going on and take on the evil convenience store psychopaths in a series of events that are almost as unintentionally funny as The Room.

… Almost.

The Green Monster could of been a cult movie classic of laughingly bad dementia, but dang it, the filmmakers showed some actually professional skill here and there, so the laugh out loud bad parts are mere evidence of laziness versus out and out ignorance. The opening credit sequence is first rate and could be passed off as big budget studio fare. Also there’s a cool part where the convience store clerks are killer the druggy bullies and the knife stabbing motion goes with the sound of the music which was entertaining. The acting for the most part is pretty decent. Sure the Colleen Cohen is over the top as the lady killer and Edward X Young’s Louisiana accent sounds more like Fred Gwynne’s in Pet Sematary, but it was fitting either way. The writing was all over the place and idea of a “Wish Burger” might keep me giggling for weeks, but it takes a strong endurance to get to that “Wish Burger”.

I really wanted to like The Green Monster, but I can’t recommend it since it’s too lazily done to reccomend it for all it’s cheesey goodness and too incomprehensible to understand all the things that it’s throwing at it’s intended viewers. For example, the candy/cosmedics that Bree eats have a healing agent that cures her of face blemishes. Some of these blemishes are suppose to disappear after the druggy bully attacks her and she eats the candy, but you barely
a change, yet the film uses this fact to move along the plot. Also and more glaringly, “the green monster” of the movie title, well that’s the name of the dumpster next to the convenience store in the movie, but the name is never uttered until the last 10 minutes. I guess that’s the name of that the sanitation company gave to those dumpsters in that area that the film was made, which no one outside of the area that the film was made would of known about unless it was mentioned earlier since most people will think of The Boston Red Sox when “the Green Monster” is mentioned.

God knows I would love to watch a movie were a literal Green Monster would rip Red Sox fans to shreds, but this movie wasn’t that. Sorry, I’m a Cubs fan and if I hear one more Red Sox fans talking about reversing the curse (which wasn’t an actual curse just a moniker created by a sports writer in the 90′s) one more time, I might play kickball with Ted Williams frozen skull.

Where was I? Oh yeah, this movie is a hot mess.

DVD Release Company: MGM / 20th Century Fox (http://www.mgm.com / 20th Century Fox)
Language: English
Length: 107 Minutes
Image: Color
Year: 1990
Rated: R (Violence and Language)
Release Date: Steptember 15, 2009

“I’m your number one fan, Paul.” – Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates)

MOVIE REVIEW

A movie that makes you think twice about becoming a celebrity; Misery delves into the mind and the world of an obsessively violent stalker. With interesting characters, a solid story, and a situation that makes you uncomfortable to the point that it hurts, one can say that the movie adaptation of the Stephen King novel does have the same take away dread feeling as it’s novel counterpart.

Famous novelist Paul Sheldon (James Caan) just finished his new book in the Misery series where he kills the Misery character off and for good. As he travels back to New York from his cabin in Colorado, an unsuspecting blizzard takes a turn for the worse, forcing Paul off the road and crashing his car into the piling snow. Saved by a former nurse Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) who claims to be his number one fan, Paul can’t help but to thank his lucky stars for his gracious savior that is until he learns that Annie is a Misery obsessed stalker of the insane kind who won’t accept the fact that Misery is dead in his new book. Trapped inside Annie’s guest bedroom with two broken legs, he is forced to burn his work and rewrite it the way Annie wants him to or else.

You have to hand it to Rob Reiner. Only a handful of directors can actually pull off a Stephen King novel movie adaptation. He stands in the ranks of among other notable directors such as Stanley Kubrick and Frank Darabont but Reiner excludes himself with his own style. Actually, he is really a mixture of those two other examples. Reiner is atmospheric and isolated while also building upon characters, making them fascinating even if they’re not suppose to be. The sense of cold and harsh snowy weather in tone is reflected in the personality of that of Annie. She is can be serene like the idyllic winter scenery of Colorado’s snowy tops. She can also turn to ice and be as as nasty as the fiercest blizzard with her obsession and her rage, overpowering means and abilities to someone in a weakened state; this makes Annie the most dangerous person in the world for accident victim Paul Sheldon. We’re even given the obvious chance to catch on to how the weather affects Annie. She notes that when it rains outside, it gives her the blues. Reiner makes this connection so well between Annie and the surrounding atmosphere that it can be unintentionally ignored.

Expressionless insanity.

Some of the credit has to go to Kathy Bates too. Playing a very religious with a quirky sense of humor and, well, overall persona is a challenge but if done right and convincingly, it can be just as frightening because who knows if someone that acts overly delightful can act just as overly malicious. It’s bi-polarity at its scariest. Having Annie as a character with a nursing background is the topping on the fruitcake because a nurse is someone you entrust with your life. Kathy Bates performs Annie so well, that if you saw her in any other film you wouldn’t be able to help yourself but to typecast her as the deranged Annie Wilkes. Her fascination in the Misery character, in Paul Sheldon, and in her eager to love Paul and Misery at the same time while dealing with her own issues of depression and aggression makes the character genuinely believable.

Calm before the storm.

I don’t want to pass up on James Caan either. Numerous A-list celebrity male actors have passed up on such a shadowed, yet a role of determination and survival that I have to give a slow clap ovation to James Caan. The character of Paul Sheldon comes off as weak; he is a famed writer looking for that motivation to push himself beyond cheesy romance novels. If you look closely at Paul Sheldon, you see a man with unlimited strength, a man that doesn’t panic in the wrath of Annie, and a man that is calm and collect when the opportune time to escape or to foil Annie’s intentions come about. The middle really stands out to me. I want to compare to other films where a person is trapped in a home and freaks out, foolishly and clumsily tries to escape the abode with little to no common sense. Those types of films are a dime a dozen. Paul Sheldon must try to escape by means of a wheelchair and does it with such newly found calamity and such deep calmness that it delivers a more heart pounding situation, leaving you salivating on the thought of him being caught and what will become of him. I don’t think anyone else could have conveyed that better than veteran actor James Caan. He is a bit smug in his deliveries and that adds a bit more to his character, I think, in trying to build an emotionless wall against Annie. We see more of his smugness later on in the movie as his situation becomes more dire and hopeless.

Like I said at the beginning of this review, Reiner makes the smaller characters more interesting than they usually are portrayed in other films. Buster, the town sheriff, is one of those characters. He is built up so much that you start to like the guy. He’s smart and playfully sarcastic, especially with his wife who is just as equal in manner. This was one of Richard Farnsworth’s last major roles and I don’t think there could have been a better actor to really make Buster as interesting as Farnsworth made him. I could very well look at Buster and cast him off as a character I wouldn’t give two thoughts about. Thanks to Farnsworth and Reiner, we are given a third character to have feelings toward.

Misery can get a bit bloody.

The overall review of Misery is off the charts. This is a solid story that doesn’t miss a beat or have any hiccups. There are no flaws present. It is a well made novel adaptation which is rare, especially for a Stephen King novel adaptation because there are so many mediocre and terrible ones out there already. This film doesn’t leave much to imagination but with its minimalistic effects, that isn’t an issue. You would want to see everything that could be possibly be shown because if you hide too much for the imagination in a contained film like Misery, it’ll be too bland and could possibly be a snore of a film.

BLU-RAY REVIEW

The image transfer is the best I’ve seen for Misery. The 1080p really brings out the colors of the rural scenery and really puts the wrinkles on the faces. The lossless audio is, well, kind of soft. A bit disappointing but at moments of struggle, it giddy ups into an explosion of sounds. I’m also at a loss of words for the menu and the cover art. For a Blu-ray menu, it is kind of dull. It isn’t animated and it just wreaks of unimaginative creativity. The cover art is a bit lame as well as it is just the same cover art used for the anniversary DVD edition.

At this point in the review, I would talk about the special features. Unfortunately, I can’t. It isn’t because this release doesn’t come with extras because it definitely does but this is a Blu-ray review, not a DVD review and that is what the extras are in – the DVD format. The second disc is the DVD special features from the anniversary edition as well. Why couldn’t they be transferred into Blu-ray format? Was it cheaper this way? Was it just pure laziness? It is disconcerting to think because I don’t want future releases to have the same fate.

The overall Blu-ray release of Misery is very low. With no extras to review on the Blu-ray, unattractive menu and cover art, and lackluster audio, I have determined that this is to be a poor presentation of such a great movie with a beautiful image transfer. I wish I could be just pleased with the movie alone but I can not defy my principles as a home entertainment media reviewer.

(M.A.R.K. 13)

DVD Release Company: Severin Films (http://www.severin-films.com)
Language: English
Length: 93 Minutes
Image: Color
Year: 1990
Rated: Not Rated
Release Date: October 13, 2009
Tagline: No flesh shall be spared.

“…and for the good news, there is no fucking good news!” — Angry Bob (Iggy Pop)

MOVIE REVIEW

A twisted post-apocalyptic world transcends into a life beyond frightening. Hardware comes alive as Richard Stanley’s most profound work of big brother controlling a desolate wasteland and turning it into a playground for the ultimate killing machine. Played out like a metal or grunge type music video, this psychedelic dream takes you into a surreal setting only to bend and twist your mind, warping it in order to prepare yourself for what the M.A.R.K. 13 has in store for your delicate flesh.

Earth ravaged by industrial radiation and America consolidated into a government controlled system, there isn’t much hope for the survivors in a dried up wasteland during a 110 degree Christmas season. Dylan McDermott’s character, Mo, is a scavenger who brings his sculptor girlfriend Jill, played by Stacy Travis, a Christmas present in the form of a metallic skull of a disassembled drone. However, the skull is part of an all out assault, but malfunctioning, drone called the M.A.R.K. 13 that can regenerate itself near a power source, has an arsenal deadlier than a small army’s cache and can seek out body heat with its infra red vision. Trapped within her apartment, Jill comes face to face with the maniac machine that is programmed to believe no flesh shall be spared!

What I really love about Hardware is that the 90% of movie takes place with in Jill’s apartment. Due to a limited budget, this was their main location and there was really some work put into it. What can be more terrifying than being mechanically locked inside your own place with a loose cannon of a drone with a motley of mortally fatal weapons? Its that age old story, made popular by James Cameron and Arnie Schwarzenegger back in 1984 with Terminator, that machine will one day turn against man. Of course, Hardware is on a much smaller scale but there is some definite influence being played out here. The look of the M.A.R.K. 13 and the grim, bland or almost socialized apartment of Jill really does transmit an uncomfortable and darkish gritty bleakness that has you looking for some kind of hope or salvation. I like to believe, and I’m pretty positive on this too, that director Richard Stanley wanted to convey this sort of tone.

You’re dead, pal!

Stanley’s vision comes off like a poor man’s cyber-punk, tripped out version of Terry Gilliam mixed with the odd heavy color induced images and strange human-less reactions of David Lynch. Its an interesting concoction but there are moments of Stanley seeping through the cracks that are in between. He reeks heavily on the usage of the western iconic and uses his background in music video making to his feature film advantage. I remember watching Dust Devil which was released a couple years after Hardware and thinking that movie really viewed itself like a horror western. There are moments like those in Hardware as well – the desert, the loner cowboy-ish characters, the slide guitar soundtrack – all can be made to a conclusion that there is a bit of homage to westerns. Also, with the use of fast-cutting images, some intentional and some unfortunately unintentional, and the use of vibrant colors of red, blue and yellow, Hardware could be considered an 93 minute music video for Gwar (who was briefly in the flick) or a similar group.

The cast is rather awkward. Dylan McDermott just didn’t seem to fit the persona of Richard Stanley nor fit the rest of the cast for that matter. We can all blame Miramax Pictures for that, or we can thank Miramax Pictures for the funding salvation, but as far as casting goes, all the blame goes toward the production company. Due to contract arrangements, a limited selection of Americans had to be cast and they ended up with Dylan McDermott who has to be the worst actor in the film. Maybe in The Practice television series he was phenomenal but, here, he is the awkward and unlikely hero who never conveys in getting stronger or growing to be the hero he should be and those advancements are well with in the script yet aren’t acted upon. I would say that it is unfair for the rest of the cast when his final scenes are at their climax peak because those scenes were probably some of the best of the movie and he just dumbs it down for a lack of a better term. John Lynch, who plays Shades, has to be my favorite and the most underrated character. His mysterious background of working for some sort of future space agency and his Hindu-getting-stoned-religious-out-of-body experience is played out perfectly as uncomfortable humor. William Hootkins plays Lincoln, a peeping tom with a mouth that is too fast and too perverse that could ape the sleaziest of porn producers. It was great fun watching him work his ad-libbed dirty dialogue. Lets not forget the cameos by Iggy Pop, Lemmy of Motörhead and Carl McCoy of Fields of the Nephilim; I think they, along with a western dark score from Simon Boswell, speak for themselves to the magnitude of the attitude the movie produced.

Carl McCoy as the Nomad…nothing has really changed in his appearance.

The effects are a bit outdated. I reminisce about the good ole days when effects of today would revert back to the outdated effects. They’re just more natural and practical looking. The M.A.R.K. 13 had its moments of cheap, barely-passable realism but there were also those moments of frightening believability. For the budget, there isn’t much complaining here because Hardware feels like a multi-million dollar action sci-fi horror film. Gore shots have to be noted here too; an excellent source of visual stimulate gruesomeness. The MPAA and, once again, Miramax Pictures, screwed the film over, of course. Miramax rejected some of the scenes from the script as they were expressed as inhumane to see a person struggle while dying. The MPAA gave the film an X-rating and this caused Richard Stanley to hit the cutting board, reducing lengthy gore scenes into rapid cuts of brief gore. Unfortunately, this release isn’t a director’s cut so we never really to get see those scenes worked into the film which this review believes hurts the film a little – just a little.

Cooler, yes?

There is one moment of concern that I had. Before the chaos begins, Jill paints the skill in the colors of an American flag. Yet, the paint is gone when the rampage reboots itself. There is no real explanation for this and wouldn’t have been damn right cooler if it killed the people while sporting the colors of an American flag painted on top of it’s dome? I guess, this was another Miramax censorship statement where we can’t show America as a form of unstoppable destruction. I’m also positive that this was symbolism for some kind of conflict where the U.S. was involved, probably the tension of the pre-Gulf War, because you have to remember that Richard Stanley is a British activist who, in his liberal ways, would run off to fight with a guerrilla army than bow down to capitalism.

The overall review of the film ranks very high. Hardware produces the similar resulting effects of drugs, it delivers a sinister killer and the unique scenario does one for catching the interest of any person with a demented mind. As the first feature film of Richard Stanley, I am thoroughly impressed with a constant hard-on. There is a deranged mind and an eye for cinematic thought behind Stanley. I can see where he would be shunned from America cinema and not receive many offers from anywhere else, but if given the chance and with a decent script, you could witness a master at work.

DVD REVIEW

Severin Films two disc special edition release is really worth the money. Taking the old VHS image and remastering it remarkably shows the real effort in restoring this gem. Finally, true widescreen 1.85:1 ratio and a 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound for the great soundtrack that is actually flawless – I couldn’t ask for more. The bountiful extras are what make this Severin release so outstanding. The second disc is jammed pack with Stanley’s short films such as The Sea of Perdition, Rites of Passage and the super 8 version of Hardware titled Incidents in An Expanding Universe. You also receive a lengthy making of featurette, a brief mentioning of the ill-fated sequel to the film and deleted and extended scenes which stay in the old VHS format. I had a problem with the making of featurette. I must had had a defective copy or something because it would pause in the middle of the interviews. So, if this is a mass defect, it would effect the ranking some but not much.

The overall review of the Hardware DVD is very high. Packed with extras and correctly formatted, I found the Severin release to be as pleasant as pleasant can get almost. The pausing in the making of featurette worries me a bit for this might be a massive defect and I surely hope it isn’t. The DVD art is absolutely stunning – the blue and white metal skull really appeals and jumps right at you. It is simple yet industriously dangerous. I fell in love with it when I first laid my eyes upon it. Make sure you pick up this immediately! Hardware hit shelves Tuesday, October 13, 2009 – don’t delay or else your flesh shall not be spared!

Ah, back to the good stuff!

After veering briefly into Gregory Dark-land, I got to go back home again and see another in the always enjoyable Night Eyes series. Now I’m up to part three and like the two before it, I’m finding there’s a lot to be said about Andrew Stevens take on sleaze. Um, I mean erotica!

Admittedly not as good as part 2, Shannon Tweed returns as a new character for an entirely different storyline. This time she’s Zoe Clairmont, star of the hit TV series Sweet Justice (her partner in crime on the show is Shannon’s real life sis Tracy, who is FANTASTIC as the bitch from hell). Zoe’s on again/off again boyfriend attempts to rape her after a fight and dontcha known it? Night Eyes Security to the rescue. The assailant escapes, but Zoe’s obnoxious producer hires Andrew to keep a close watch on his billion dollar bimbo. Romance, intrigue and full frontal nudity ensue.

So. Good.

Night Eyes III is a little lighter on story, and that’s saying something since these movies have hardly any story at all, but like its predecessors, it’s fun, sexy and a great romp for Shannon fans. She pulls out all the stops in her performance here and as per her usual
style, rises above the threadbare material.

Andrew Stevens is extremely likeable as Will. But by this point, I’m thinking he’s totally unprofessional. I mean, does he really fall in love with all of his clients? Seriously, keep in your pants!

For some reason, in this movie Will now has a daughter! Funny that he’d never mentioned her before, but here she is, spending the Christmas holidays with her dad. Or rather, spending the holidays with Will’s housekeeper, since he works the graveyard shift and schtups Shannon in his spare time. What a way to earn a paycheck!

Also, the intrigue in this movie actually revolves more around Will and Night Eyes Security than Shannon. Seems there’s another competing security company in Beverly Hills – only this one is evil! And I’m not using that term lightly. Especially uniformed guard Jim Stanton (Tristan Rogers) who apparently loves being a uniformed security guard so much, he’ll kill for it! Wow, that’s love of a job.

Anyway, most of the sexy sex stuff shows up in the middle. In fact all of the sexy sex stuff is in the middle, minus one salacious scene with Monique Parent at the beginning, and one scene with Tracy where she looks DYNO-MITE. I quite liked Tracy and am disappointed she only appeared in a handful of movies. Seems beauty and talent runs in the family. Oh yes, she was in Gregory Dark’s Night Rhythms and they don’t even really show her face! How cruel, Mr. Dark. How cruel.

I know, I know. We’ve all been waiting for it… an erotic thriller about child molestation. Now what could be hotter than that? Strangely, Play Nice is just such a film in the subgenre dealing with that very unsavory topic… and somehow manages to make it entertaining.

Seriously.

I’m not sure how they did it either, but the folks behind Play Nice took something so sleazy and un-hot, if I may use that term, and mixed it up with a lot of graphic sex (thanks to Robey and Ed O’Ross). They shook it up real hard (no pun intended! OK, maybe a little pun) and what came out was a likable romp about a serial killer named Rapunzel who stalks divorced men accused of diddling their little girls. Yikes! O’Ross is Jack “Mouth” Penucci, one of those I-don’t-play-by-the-rules kinds of guys that are always getting in trouble on the job even though they almost always get their man (or nymph if you will). While searching through police records, he meets the sheepish Jill (geddit? Jack and Jill?!?) and the two begin to see each other (a lot of each other, if you get my drift). Well, a couple of hot dates later and the bookish Jill is ready for some heavy duty S&M type action, which makes Jack not such a dull boy, but also a little uneasy. Mostly because he’s a divorced father who isn’t molesting his daughter so mixing rough sex while investigating this disturbing case just ain’t his style. It doesn’t take long before Jack decides to end it with Jill and wouldn’t you know it, the identity of Rapunzel isn’t far behind (in fact, the first scene gives the whole convoluted mystery away).

Horror fans will spy the awesomest final girl ever, Amy Steel from Friday the 13th Part 2 as well as Ann Dusenberry from Jaws 2. Both are in fine form, although relegated to smaller parts. I kind of wish this movie had starred Steel instead of Robey. Steel was such a natural; it would be interesting to see how she would have handled a sexy starring role. As for Dusenberry, she wowed me in The Men’s Club and I’m positive she would have been splendid as the lead here too. That’s not to say that Robey isn’t good, but these two… well, you just can’t compare them.

Maybe Play Nice was so interesting because it was directed by a woman (Terri Treas, who is most famous for playing Cathy Frankel on the Alien Nation TV series). There’s an appealing mix of insightful observation with pure exploitation and a grand sense of fun, making the film a unique viewing experience. It’s still one odd duck. The pacing and script are marginal and some of the acting is downright wooden, but although the films starts off a bit shaky, there’s something captivating lurking underneath and before you know it, you want to see where it goes. Yeah, yeah, yeah it’s, like, so totally obvious who the culprit is, but the concept is unique and learning about what drives Rapunzel to murder is kind of fascinating stuff. That doesn’t mean I ever had to see Ed O’Ross naked, but you take the good and you take the bad when you’re learning about the facts of life!

Not so Basic Instincts: Night Eyes II (1992)
Review by: Amanda By Night

Shannon Tweed was already a Playboy Playmate of the Year (1982) and had racked up an impressive list of acting credits as long as your arm when erotic thrillers came knocking on her door in the early 90s. And it was these films, including the sequel to the salacious flick Night Eyes that really put her on the map. She had already appeared in a handful of these types of movies before Night Eyes II, but there was just something so good about the pairing of her and Andrew Stevens. There was also something to the fact that she was a beautiful woman who did nudity and could actually act. Shannon definitely brought up the bar in any production she graced, making her a bit of a Claudia Jennings to the world of the erotic thriller.

Shannon is excellent as Marilyn, the lonely housewife to Hector (Richard Chaves), a South American wannabe politician. She bankrolls his career and he ignores her at every turn – Good going Hector. Trust me, it’s not like he’s going to be getting this hot of a lady all the time, you know. Unfortunately, being embroiled in the world of the South American government has its downfalls and Hector and Marilyn soon he finds themselves as marked targets ripe for assassination.

Enter Night Eyes Security.

Ernie from the original is now gone, replaced by Tim Russ, who is now Will’s (Andrew Stevens) partner. The two have great chemistry and come across as realistic friends. Will’s still dealing with the fiasco of a relationship he had with Roberts in the original, leaving him once-bitten-twice-shy, although Shannon is poised to change all that with her kooky and sexy ways. She ends up hiring Will on as a personal bodyguard when she realizes her husband doesn’t give two licks if she’s the one who winds up in front of a stray bullet. Together, Will and Marilyn will uncover a deadly plot and find an interesting (and way too graphic) use for berries! I’m not kidding.

The thriller part of Night Eyes II doesn’t really kick into gear until the end when Shannon becomes a target and Will has to protect her. The sex part doesn’t really factor in either until slightly before that. Still I found Night Eyes II to be a very entertaining film.

Credit has to go to Shannon who makes even mundane things like working out captivating. OK, she makes it awesome. She’s beautiful and talented and practically carries this film on her back. This time around though, the rest of the cast is great and not at all stale like they were in the original. The script itself is interesting and isn’t over done. Night Eyes II starts off with a bang too, featuring Will chasing down a sly safecracker. After that, the pacing remains consistent and stays pretty quick and fun throughout the film’s short running time. So it might not Mensa material, but it is something that attempts to entertain and manages to pull off that feat quite nicely.

Cover Story (1993) (This is part of our new section Not so Basic Instincts: The Best in Sex Thrillers by Amanda By Night.)

Gregg Smith, where are you?

Gregg was the writer/producer/editor/director of Cover Story, an early 90s erotic thriller that spun a convoluted yet entertaining tale of a reporter and his obsession with a dead girl. It’s bit like the old Dana Andrew’s movie Laura, only with boobies. Also, there’s rap-music galore (Ram Luv, I adore you!), gay gangsters, Tuesday Knight (Nightmare on Elm Street 4) in the WORST wig in the history of wigs (Take that Loni Anderson!) and Robert Forster as the guy who couldn’t generate an emotion if you ate his kid in front of him (and yes, he’s STILL gorgeous!).

William Wallace is Matt, the guy who sometimes wears open vests without shirts. One night, his girlfriend Allison (Marisa Cody) gives him some nookie and then blows off her head. A year later Matt finally moves into a new place, determined to get back to work and back to living. He moves into the apartment of a dead girl named Reen (Tuesday Knight) and becomes obsessed with learning about her after the landlord gives him a videotape where she’s all donned in mime makeup and goes on and on about how turned on she gets looking at herself. Oh-Kay. Anyway, Matt also meets frumpy law student Tracy (Tuesday again) whom he likes but thinks is uh, err, frumpy (and he’s right). I mean, Reen wore MIME makeup, which is way hotter. While Matt attempts to learn about Reen and how she ended up all dead-like, these gay Mafioso types keep harassing him and breaking into his apartment and pulling guns on him and stuff. Apparently Reen left something behind and these guys are determined to get it. And it’s not the clap!

Cover Story is a lot of fun. Maybe some of the plot devices are tired, but it’s got just enough quirks to make it feel a little fresher.

And Ram Luv! Not sure how this guy ended up in the movie, but he plays an ex-crack dealer who is on the verge of rap stardom. He keeps his mostly white audiences in rapture by talking about finding a good woman, before he sings about his Bad Attitude (one of the lines goes “I’ve got a bad attitude, they call me Mr. Bad Attitude”!). He kind of takes Matt through the seedy underbelly of city life, but is a character that definitely wasn’t needed. Thank god he signed with Wiz-a-tron Records (I’m not kidding, that’s a REAL record company!)…

The leader of the effeminate gang is Julian (Leland Orser, who’s gone onto a pretty nice career) and he’s a lot of fun too. He hangs around this uber-buff gay man named Steven (Steve Parrish) who is just the right amount of butch and bitch to make a fairly convincing heavy.

Not a ton of sex, very little sleaze, with just a touch of violence and yet, still a good movie. Not an easy feat to pull off! I’m assuming Gregg Smith is a pseudonym. On IMDb, Cover Story is his only credit, but c’mon, this kind of a genius mind couldn’t have only made ONE film. I’m not that stupid.

Want more from Amanda By Night? Check out Made for TV Mayhem

Director: Roman Nowicki

Teraz Films / Color / NTSC R0 / Unrated / Varying Aspect Ratios / Dolby Stereo / Language: Polish / Subtitles: English / 90 min. /

“WARNING: EXTREME EROTIC HORROR!!” boasts the cover of this Polish sleaze-filled, zero budget, giallo/slasher curiosity. Someone like me (and most of my readers) who is always looking for something different, entertaining and challenging, how could I not pick this up right away? Well, mostly due to my unfamiliarity with it. I have been seeing it, as well as its subsequent sequels, on different genre DVD websites for a couple of years but never pulled the trigger until now. The cover looks as lurid and boundary pushing as anything I have ever seen. And after reading the synopsis, I just had to see it.

The opening scene finds two detectives investigating the body of a completely naked woman who has been stabbed to death. They reminisce about how this murder reminds them of a murder that happened recently in which a girl was naked and torn in half. We then meet a couple of janitors who work at the local bus station and spend their time undressing passersby with their eyes and spouting misogynistic lines about how all women are whores and “deserve what they get”.

Review by Greg Baty of The Playground Movie Reviews

Continue Reading Fantom Killer (1998)

aka Yi boh laai beng duk

Director: Herman Yau

Cast: Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Yeung Ming Wan, Fui-On Shing, Wong Tsui-ling, Miu-Ying Chan

Kai (Wong) is in the midst of fucking his boss’s wife when he is interrupted by said boss and promptly reprimanded… or humiliated, whatever… tomayto, tomahto. Anywho, this enrages Kai and he kills everyone in sight and if they have a vagina, he rapes them. 10 years later, he has escaped the Hong Kong authorities and is now living in Johannesburg, South Africa which, oddly, has a “China Town”. He works for a restaurant owner and his cunty wife who take advantage of their knowledge of his “situation” by underpaying him and generally mistreating him.

So Kai goes along with his boss to buy some cheap meat from the nearby Zulu tribe and they stumble upon the tribe in the midst of a ritual for some of their people who are infected with the Ebola virus. After purchasing the rancid meat from the tribal leader (who spoke fluent English with an American accent) they accidentally run into a tree and wreck their vehicle.

Review by Greg Baty of The Playground Movie Review

Continue reading Ebola Syndrome (1996)

Satan and Moronic Mark throw us a curveball this week by reviewing the never released, Roger Corman produced, Fantastic Four. It may not be a horror movie but it is pretty horrible.

The Fantastic Four

Trivia: In an interview with filmmaker Kevin Smith, Fantastic Four creator Stan Lee said that, unbeknown to the cast and crew, this movie was never intended to be released, and was made only because the studio who owned the rights to make a Fantastic Four movie would have lost the rights if they did not begin production by a certain date.

“Moronic Mark accidentially sold his soul to Satan, while drunkenly filling out applications to job postings on the internet. Now he has to watch and review the worst movies ever made and post up the results in his little webshow called ‘Satan’s Screener.’”

]]> http://www.horroryearbook.com/543742/satans-screener-fantastic-four-1994/feed 0 http://www.horroryearbook.com/543688/satans-screener-sorority-babes-in-the-the-sorority-babes-in-the-dance-a-thon-of-death http://www.horroryearbook.com/543688/satans-screener-sorority-babes-in-the-the-sorority-babes-in-the-dance-a-thon-of-death#comments Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:10:59 +0000 Moronic Mark http://www.horroryearbook.com/543688/satans-screener-sorority-babes-in-the-the-sorority-babes-in-the-dance-a-thon-of-death

Moronic Mark continues his quest to watch and review the worst movies ever made. Now he has to take his third dosage of Kansas City Missouri’s village idiot, Todd Sheets, with Todd’s film, SORORITY BABES IN THE DANCE-A-THON OF DEATH (a blantant SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMEBALL BOWL-A-RAMA knockoff that’s actually financed by David DeCoteau).

Moronic Mark accidentially sold his soul to Satan, while drunkenly filling out applications to job postings on the internet. Now he has to watch and review the worst movies ever made and post up the results in his little webshow called “Satan’s Screener.”

Sorority Babes in the Dance-A-Thon of Death (1991)

]]> http://www.horroryearbook.com/543688/satans-screener-sorority-babes-in-the-the-sorority-babes-in-the-dance-a-thon-of-death/feed 0 http://www.horroryearbook.com/543670/satans-screener-hellmaster http://www.horroryearbook.com/543670/satans-screener-hellmaster#comments Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:08:47 +0000 Moronic Mark http://www.horroryearbook.com/543670/satans-screener-hellmaster This Episode: Hellmaster - Video after the jump!]]>

John Saxon is an evil professor and David Emge is off to stop him at a college attended by less than 20 people. Moronic Mark has to watch the results.

Hellmaster (1992)

Directed by Douglas Schulze

Tagline: He’ll show you the way to hell and meet you there!

Moronic Mark accidentially sold his soul to Satan, while drunkenly filling out applications to job postings on the internet. Now he has to watch and review the worst movies ever made and post up the results in his little webshow called “Satan’s Screener.”

Watch the video below….

]]> http://www.horroryearbook.com/543670/satans-screener-hellmaster/feed 0 http://www.horroryearbook.com/543494/das-komabrutale-duell-1999-the-playground-movie-review http://www.horroryearbook.com/543494/das-komabrutale-duell-1999-the-playground-movie-review#comments Sun, 25 May 2008 15:22:58 +0000 Greg http://www.horroryearbook.com/543494/das-komabrutale-duell-1999-the-playground-movie-review

Writer/Director: Heiko Fipper

Cast: Heiko Fipper, Mike Hoffman, Stefan Hoft

I like to think that I’m a pretty astute movie watcher. Even the most convoluted plots tend to make sense if you watch them intently enough. That is not the case when a movie is just plain shitty. When the story is secondary to say, gore, you had better ba-ring it (imagine me saying that with my pointer finger waving around and my neck making a circle with my head)!

The “plot”… HAAAAA!HAAAA!HA!!!!… sorry, I couldn’t say it with a straight face. OK, OK… *ahem*… the “plot” follows a gang war started after a dude’s father is accidentally killed. That’s it. That small nugget of story is just a device to sorta justify the next 80 minutes of mind-numbing, horribly executed gore. Think the early films of Peter Jackson if they were made with shit instead of film stock.

Continue Reading Das Komabrutale Duell (1999) Here

Review by Greg Baty of The Playground Movie Review

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