Fade to Black 1980 Fade to Black Enterprises

Director: Vernon Zimmerman

Starring: TV character actor Dennis Christopher and Mickey Rourke(?)

A young Christopher stars as Eric Binford- the ultimate movie geek. He works in film stock warehouse and lives with his crippled aunt, his room plastered with movie posters, Marilyn Monroe cut-outs and old 8 x 10s of Hollywood stars. There he sits every night after work, watching videos or old 8mms on his home projector.

He meets an aspiring australian actress named Marilyn, who looks just like Marilyn Monroe. She takes a liking to him but accidentally stands him up. Despondent, he heads home to the comfort of filmland. Kiss of Death is the movie and just as the climax comes, his crabby aunt rolls up in her wheelchair to bitch him out (yet again). Well, it's been a rough night. He snaps, and down the stairs she goes- just like in the movie...

After scaring the bageezus out of Marilyn in the shower scene right out of Psycho, he goes after a hooker who gave him a bad time, then some asshole from work named Richie (though uncredited, I swear it's Mickey), then the boss, and a double-crossing movie producer. Each killing by a different character from a different movie! Nice touch.

But in the end, it's Marilyn he lures to his "photography studio" to act out The Prince and the Showgirl. By now the cops are on to him, along with some hippie psychologist who wants to save him (when he's not fucking the cute lady cop). His romantic fantasy thwarted, Eric drags Marilyn down Hollywood Blvd to Mann's Chinese Theatre for his swan song, White Heat.

Like the hippie psychologist, you can't help but feel for Eric. "He didn't stand a chance.", the doc's commentary on the effects of TV on childrens' brains. Christopher, who has been on just about every TV show from the '80s to now, gave the performance of a lifetime in this film. A fantastic movie about a kid who lost his way between the movies and reality. XXXXX

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! 1965 Eve Productions

Director: Russ Meyer

Starring: Tura Satana, an obviously italian girl named Haji(?) and from countless beach movies, it's Lori Williams!

Varla (Satana) leads a gang of rogue, hot-roddin' go-go dancers. She, Rosie (Haji) and Billie (Williams) are out in the desert racing their little sports cars one day, when a young couple happens by. The girls challenge Romeo to a race and after Varla runs him off the track, she wrestles him to the ground and breaks his neck! 

In town, the girls and their hostage, stop for fuel and there Billie spots the hunky son of a local oil magnate. The plan is hatched, right there at the gas station. The girls will go out to the ranch and find the old man's "stash"! They follow the Jeep pick-up out to the ol' place but find it's nothing but dirt and wrecked cars. After sneaking around a bit, Varla gets caught and somehow it translates into a lunch invite for the girls.

But the old man is a dirty old man and has designs on the young girl. When he puts the moves on her, she runs and all must go out looking for her. The old man's other son picks her up, coming back from town, and brings her back to the house. To show her appreciation, Varla tries to seduce the dutiful son, much to her lesbie lover Rosie's dismay! Billie, meanwhile, passes out drunk and the girl again escapes. For this, Billie gets a knife in the back, as she runs for the gate.

Varla then runs over the old man, in his wheelchair, and sends Rosie to fetch the knife from Billie's back. The hunky son is there and helps her with the knife, right into her gut! Then it's man vs. machine as Varla tries to squish the hunk between her car and the barn. He wins and Varla runs off into the desert with the the Jeep in hot pursuit!

Typical Russ Meyers here: Big tits, over the top acting and a ridiculous story! I have to admit that after all the hype, I was a little disappointed- especially after Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was so good!! I guess this was a step towards that picture, so it's all good in it's own time. As for Mudhoney, which was the second in the double-feature. After seeing the Rob Zombie intro, I felt I'd seen enough... Faster Pussycat? XXX

Fear Chamber 1968 Azteca Films

Director: Juan Ibanez

Starring: Boris Karloff!

Karloff stars as a "mad doctor". He has discovered some kind of rock being, which feeds off the hormones in human blood triggered by fear. To feed the beast, he takes in women boarders and, with the help of several assistants, scares them out of their wits in his "fear chamber". He then feeds a small amount of their blood to the creature and send s the girls on their way, thinking they just had a bad dream.

Things change, when they nearly scare a girl to death. The doctor decides it's too dangerous to continue but it's too late... The rock fiend can feed itself! This we find when one of the boarders, a would be burglar, stumbles into it's grasp! The doctor kill the beast and sends his daughter and her beau on vacation, while he rests under the care of Helga, one of his assistants. She, however, has other plans.

She seduces the retarded orderly into helping her bring the creature back to life! Believing the creature will bring him worldly riches, the orderly bring more women to feed the thing and eventually goes crazy with greed, turning on everyone. Now it's up to the feeble old doctor to find out what the creature really wants before it's too late!

I've seen better but I've seen far worse! Karloff is good as the aging doctor and although it seems laughable to use a "spook alley" to illicit enough fear to feed the beast, I have seen some terrified females at our local haunted house.  The creature itself, is a hilarious bit of foam rubber "rock". We never really see its whole form and it's probably just as well. Helga's S&M lesbian overtones and the raven-haired stripper add just enough erotica to turn this from crappy to kinky! XXX

First Spaceship on Venus 1960 Crown International Pictures

Director: Kurt Meatzig

The first half of this movie feeds up a typical science fiction scenario, complete with a cute tank-like robot for the whole family. Basically, a team of scientists discover an unidentified object and through meticulous study, determine that it is a recording device and it is from Venus! Suspicious of the intent of the venutians who sent it, they decide to take their fancy spaceship to Venus instead of Mars, as they had planned.

Off they go in their above-average spaceship! Along the way, they battle the usual technical difficulties and of course, a meteor shower (you can't take a trip through space without dodging some meteors, right?) Oh, and don't forget the space-walk to repair the damage to the ship, after being belted by one of those meteors. Yup, we have it all!

It's when the ship lands on Venus that this picture really changes. They land in this strange and empty land, as surreal as any Yves Tanguy painting but darker with strings of psychedelic clouds cutting through the atmosphere. Our trip has suddenly turned into an acid trip! There is no sign of our venutians, only the robot-spiders they left behind and they tell a chilling tale... The venutian plan to conquer Earth!

Gone is any semblance of sanity as our explorers battle forces seen and unseen, all the while searching through one bizarre landscape after another for the elusive venutians. The green slime (which likely spawned The Green Slime) almost does them in at one point and every clue they find seems to deepen the mystery until we all find out the shocking truth about the venutians!

Despite the Disney-like beginnings, it all pays off grandly in the end with some of the most amazing and imaginative scenery. The story is good, the set design is far above par, the acting as good as any from the period... Only the "science" is ridiculously flawed, and maybe a couple of action sequences are forced. It doesn't matter... I haven't seen anything else quite like it! XXXXX

Fleshburn 1984 Armitraj Productions

Director: George Gage

Alleged native american Calvin Duggai was put away in an insane asylum some years ago for abandoning his fellow men in the desert, during some "indian witchcraft" ritual. Now, Calvin has broken free and he wants revenge on the psychiatry quacks that put him there. One by one he rounds them up, ties them up and makes for the desert- once again.

There, he abandons them- leaving them for dead in the harsh conditions. You've got the somewhat sexy older broad, her whiny city-boy husband Jay, some old guy named Earl who get crippled along the way and Sam, the boy scout amongst them. It is he who gets them through the first night and finds them water and food.

They scratch out a living, trapping rabbits and collecting water with a sheet of plastic, until Jay disappears while out looking for salt. Sam recovers from his hawk attack(!) and starts out for the highway. Along the way, he find the injured Jay, holding up in a cave and they team up. They find it, yeah! Oh, but wait... There's Calvin and he's got a gun!

Whether intended or not, I felt as though I'd been trapped at this movie for as many days as our friends were trapped in the desert! "Will it ever end?" I wondered aloud many times throughout. Then there's Calvin... Someone asked why Sonny Landham didn't get more roles. Well, all he did in this movie is flex his muscles, grunt and perform ridiculous "indian witchcraft". Nice try... but not enough. X

The Flying Serpent 1946 Producers Releasing Corporation

Director: Sam Newfield

We're off to Mexico, or maybe new mexico. Shady Professor Forbes has stumble onto something grand, a stash of aztec gold and even grander, the legendary winged serpent, Quetzalcoatl. He's a widower... See his wife found out the hard way that our bird thing doesn't like anyone have his feathers.

So, when Forbes fears meddling archeologists and developers may find his secret stash, he gets a novel idea... Use the feathers to "mark" his targets! About this time, an annoying radio personality, Thorpe, catches onto the story and heads west to solve the mystery for his listeners. Naturally, Forbes doesn't waste any time giving Thorpe a feather. But he give the feather to the sheriff and the "bird" misses it's mark.

With the sheriff now dead, it is up to Thorpe to unravel the mystery and right away he suspects Forbes is up to something. He teams up with some locals and they set up a trap, using another of Quetzalcoatl's feathers as a lure (don't ask why he hasn't gone looking for these other 3 feathers when old Forbes releases him).

So, live on the radio, Thorpe enters the secret cave and finds the gold and the "bird". The mic goes out and Thorpe goes out to help fix it. Qeue Forbes to enter the cave with his step-daughter. As you guessed, he lays the whole thing out for her on the newly fixed microphone, for Thorpe and all to hear. They rush the cave to save the step-daughter!

Okay, the acting is typical of the era- a little stiff. It's the budget we need to discuss. Quetzalcoatl is the bottom of the special effects barrel. Apparently, it was pretty expensive to film the flight footage (the fishing line is high-test!), so they use the same footage every time Forbes releases the beast! This was truly terrible but funny enough for an X.

Forbidden Planet 1957 Loew's Incorporated

Director: Fred M. Wilcox

Starring: Leslie Nielsen (of Naked Gun fame!)

Believe it or not, this is the first time I've seen this movie all the way through! It's the year 2257 and we humans are now capable of traveling beyond the speed of light, to far off galaxies. A crew is sent out, in a flying saucer, to find out what happened to a exploratory mission, some 20 years ago, to a planet in the Altair-4 solar system. A planet much like earth in size and climate.

On their approach, they discover a radio signal- a warning actually, from one of the crew of the previous mission. Being tough guys with a job to do, they land anyway and meet up with Dr- Morbius, a professor and seemingly the only inhabitant of the planet. He has the interlopers to lunch, prepared by his trusty robot, Robby, and explains to them what happened to the rest of his crew. After lunch, the professor's daughter walks in in her shorter than short skirt and sets the long traveling visitors to drooling.

They take turns hitting on her, while Morbius fills Commander Adams (Nielsen) and ship's doctor in on the past inhabitants of the planet. Adams feels that the knowledge these aliens left behind should not be solely controlled by Morbius but about this time, his own crew starts to fall prey to an unseen terror back at the ship. They set up a perimeter but find it of no use as the gargantuan, invisible creature kills again and again. What emerges is the reason the far advanced aliens had died off 2000 years earlier. But can they convince Morbius of this before all is lost? Don't count on it...

Fun, colorful and brimming with Disney-esque fantasy. When we finally find out what the monster is, it's just ridiculous and then we a further insulted with talk of "god". Aw, the good old days... This one spawned a dozen shitty TV shows in the following decades! They call it a classic but I call it XX.

Foxy Brown 1974 American International Productions

Director: Jack Hill

Starring: Well, again... Pam Grier and Sid Haig, but also Antonio "Huggy Bear" Fargas

a. k. a. Coffy II, which is really what this is. Not even so much a sequel, as a remake. Foxy (Grier) is hip chick, living in the big city, sometimes with her dope-head, wheelin' dealin' brother, Link (Fargas)- who happens to owe $20,000 to some drug kingpins. Foxy's man, a former narco-cop, has just had plastic surgery so he can retire without fear of retribution.

Unfortunately for our happy couple, Link figures it all out and sells them out to the drug lords. They shoot the brotha-cop dead, right in Foxy's arms. So, just like Coffy, now you got one pissed off sista on your case! She tracks down these murderers, a woman and her cronies, posing as a modeling agency, but really running whores.

Again, like Coffy, Foxy goes undercover as a prostitute, where she "belittles" a judge and turns the tide on the drug running bitch. Out for vengeance, the dragon lady captures Foxy and sends her to "the ranch", where two hicks shoot her up with heroin and make it with her like she was their own sister. But you can't keep Pam Grier on her back. She fucks those hillbillies up and plots her particularly nasty revenge with the unwitting help of a rogue pilot (Haig, without the foreign accent).

While not quite as good as Coffy, it is nonetheless a very good '70s action picture and a perfect Grier vehicle. And Pam is in good form, sporting some giant attitude, some swingin' polyester and that impressive set of juggs... Not to mention the trademark afro, from which she produces a small chrome automatic at one point! Fantastic!! XXXX

Frankenhooker 1990 Shapiro Glickenhaus Entertainment

Director: Frank Henenlotter

A modern retelling of the Frankenstein story, with an electrician named Jeffrey who dabbles in medical experiments in his spare time. His latest creation: A brain with an eyeball in the front, which he keeps in his fish tank! And when he's feeling confused, Jeffrey just picks up a power drill and gives himself a lobotomy!!

Anyhoo... at a BBQ one summer day, Jeffrey's chubby girlfriend is showing off the "remote control lawnmower" he invented and doesn't stop to think she's standing right in front of it. Horror of horrors, she is chopped to bits on the lawn! Jeffrey manages to get her head, a foot and a hand before the cops show to clean up the mess.

Despondent over the loss of his love, Jeffrey decides to build her anew with parts from other girls and what better girls than hookers! He travels into the city, where he meets some perfect specimens. Back home, he develops a new "super crack" so the girls can kill themselves, leaving him blameless. New dope in hand, he travels back to the city, where he makes an arrangement with the girls' pimp to size the girls up. In the process he gives them the crack and one by one, the explode! Jeffrey gathers all the best parts in Hefty bags and climbs out the window.

Promising to rebuild all the girls, he first sets about rebuilding his love and in a fierce lightning storm, he succeeds in bringing her to life. Trouble is, she not his love. She's the obnoxious hooker who first approached him in NYC. Once she finds he has no money left, she knocks his ass out and takes off back to the city. Dangerously electric, several men get fried by her "love" before Jeffrey catches up. The pimp finds her first though and knocks her head nearly off!

Jeffrey takes her back home, with the pimp following close behind, and reattaches her head. A little more juice and she's back to life and this time she's the girl Jeffrey loves. Too late, Zorro the pimp picks up a machete and chops Jeffrey's head off. About this time, the hooker parts Jeffrey had been keeping in a fridge full of purple water, they come to life and attack the pimp! Now it's up to Jeffrey's girlfriend to save his ass!!

It's bad but it's also hilarious... Just one ridiculous thing after another and such shitty special effect. The cover says, "It's a stitch!" and boy is it right! XXXX

Frankenstein 1931 Universal Pictures

Director: James Whale

Starring: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive and Dwight Frye

Starring "?" as the monster? Mary Shelley's classic tale comes to the silver screen. Henry (Clive) is the consummate mad scientist, working feverishly in his laboratory and shunning the outside world, including the girl he is about to marry. Everyone is concerned about Henry and finally, the fiancée has had enough- she must see him, damnit!

Henry, meanwhile, has been busy collecting corpses, with the help of his faithful assistant, Fritz (Frye). He has just got this mess sewn together when a knock comes at the door. Drat! Those pesky friends! No bother... Henry lets them in and allows them to witness the night's festivities- the "birth" of his creation! Maybe they should've stayed in town... 

With a mighty bolt of lightning, the creature (Karloff) does come to life and at first, things are OK. But when Fritz mercilessly teases the creature, it lashes out and kills the sadistic little creep! Despite the escape of the creature, now referred to as a "monster", Henry decides he must go on with his wedding. All goes well until a local man carries his drowned little girl into town- dead at the hands of the monster!

Hands down the finest screen adaptation of Shelley's story. No amount of color film, special effects nor adding the author's name to the title can make a motion picture top this one. Colin Clive's Frankenstein is the gold standard of mad scientists- he and his lab recreated (often badly) in thousands of movies to follow and despite the obvious departure from the novel, the image of Karloff's monster is what we all picture when the name Frankenstein is uttered! XXXXX

Freakshow 2006 The Asylum

Director: Drew Bell

The carnival rolls into town and the carnies are called to a meeting with the boss. The boss, some english troll with sores all over, warns the crew that no mutiny will be tolerated. Amongst that carnival crew? A band of merry (OK, not so merry) thieves intent on pocketing the ticket sales. This is a motley crew of stereotypical movie thugs and their token chick- a shapely but not too pretty blonde.

The blonde hatches an additional plan, which the thugs decide to go along with. She will seduce the old troll and get more than just the ticket sales! She moves in and the horny old bastard doesn't stand a chance. He, or likely his dick (which I hope doesn't have as many sores as his back!), falls for her hard. He asks her to marry him... And she agrees.

To celebrate their engagement, a dinner is thrown and to welcome the blondie to the brood of carnival freaks, they propose a toast. All the booze goes into a bowl and all partake, as she squirms in her seat. Apparently she can sleep with some old yellow tooth leper but can't drink from the same cup as the elephant man! Unbelievable...

Well, one way or another, old man leper finds out about blondie's little plot and turns his army of freaks against her crew. Once the thugs are all beat to pulp, the boss can take his ultimate revenge on the bitch who broke his sick carnie heart! And oh what a revenge it is!!

"Banned in 43 countries" brags the DVD cover. Although, probably just the same islamic and communist countries all american movies are banned in. This one's all style and until toward the end, no substance. The ending is good but damn, it's a long time coming- an almost agonizing long time. Also, I couldn't tell if this was set in the '30s, '40s or last week. It had an old-timey feel but then there were "modern primitive" scenes thrown in, largely just for shock value. I just don't know... XX

Frogs 1972 American International Productions

Director: George McCowan

Pickett Smith is a tree hugger in a canoe. A denim wearin' photographer, doing a series on water pollution. While he is snapping away, he is nearly run down by drunken motorboater, Clint and his sister, Karen. They stop, fish him out of the water and take him back to their posh, southern mansion. There, he meets the rest of the Crockett clan; cousin Michael, cousin Kenneth, his brown sugar model girlfriend, aunt Iris, uncle so-and-so, Clint's wife Jenny, the two kids and crotchety old grandpa.

Gramps is bound and determined not to let anything spoil their annual 4th of july/4 birthdays party, especially not a few extra frogs than usual. With the phone dead and the maintenance man missing, Gramps sends Smith out to explore. He finds the maintenance man face down in a stream, snakes and frogs from head to toe! Back at the house, he tell Grandad but hell no... nothing will ruin the party.

Next day, they're all set up but where is everyone? Michael got eaten by spiders, Kenneth is dead in the greenhouse, Iris chased a butterfly but caught a rattler and uncle was gobbled up by gators. Even though they only know of Kenneth's death, Brown Sugar and the mansion staff are not wanting to stick around and see what happens next. Clint agrees to take them back to the mainland. There they are swarmed by deadly gulls!

After seeing Clint's boat adrift, with no Clint, Smith and Karen decide they must save the kids. Gramps insists on staying, so they leave his ass behind and make the mad dash to the dock. There, Jenny is being devoured by crabs. They set out, in the canoe, fighting off snakes, gators and whatnot along the way. Eventually they wind up in the same place as Brown Sugar and the maid and butler, but all that's left are their suitcases... Sacre bleu! Finally they find a ride and back on the island, Grandpa chokes down another drink as the frogs close in.

It's like The Birds, in brilliant color with more realistic effects. Unlike the Hitchcock classic though, it's not very suspenseful, way too slow paced and just plain ludicrous! Enough funny scenes to warrant XX

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