The Nest (1988)

Director: Terence H. Winkless

Writers: Eli Cantor, Robert King

Composer: Rick Conrad

Starring: Robert Lansing, Lisa Langlois, Franc Luz, Terri Treas, Stephen Davies, Diana Bellamy, Jack Collins, Nancy Morgan, Jeff Winkless, Steve Tannen, Heidi Helmer

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  Roaches have never tasted flesh... until now. She's just an appetizer.

Plot:  A biological experiment goes haywire when meat-eating mutant roaches invade an island community, terrorizing a peaceful New England fishing village and hideously butchering its citizens.

My rating: 4/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Maybe this is one of those movies that, when being made, it seemed like a good idea at the time.  This low budget flick looks great in widescreen and there are some good performances but that's about all I can think of that I liked about it.  This isn't without some lessor acting.  Terri Treas overacts her ass off as Dr. Hubbard.  She would've been great if the rest of the film followed her lead and went total camp and ineptitude.  But it didn't and this is what we've stuck with.  The synthesizer score is your standard low budget fare which hurts.  The biggest problem with this flick is that it's too slow.  90 minutes is far too much for this.  Almost from the beginning people are dying from these mutated roaches (that make a loud radioactive sizzle sound but only when the characters see them and not before).  An hour into this most of the town has been killed and the recently resigned Sheriff Johnson goes to Dr. Hubbard and threatens her to do something about it.  Wow, now there's only thirty minutes left for the skeleton crew of a cast to get picked off one by one until we're left with whoever's left.  And you pretty much know who's going to snuff it and who's going to survive.  I don't mind by-the-numbers scripts, bad acting, adequate special effects and so on because you can still have an enjoyable movie with some or all of those ingredients.  This isn't one of them. 

Ben (1972)

Director: Phil Karlson

Writer: Gilbert Ralston

Composer: Walter Scharf

Starring: Lee Montgomery, Joseph Campanella, Arthur O'Connell, Rosemary Murphy, Meredith Baxter, Kaz Garas, Paul Carr, Richard Van Fleet, Kenneth Tobey, James Luisi

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Where "WILLARD" ended... BEN begins. And this time, he's not alone!

Plot: A lonely boy befriends Ben, the leader of a violent pack of killer rats.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Fucking hell!  If you have a problem with the sound of squealing rats then this will drive you batshit crazy.  It's an assault on your ears.  OK, that's the worst offense this flick committed.  The first film, WILLARD (1971), was by no means a masterpiece (the R. Lee Ermy/Crispin Glover remake was better).  It had its problems, too, but it was mostly with how the two leads were handled.  This picture is a small step down from WILLARD but it doesn't have much to recommend.  It's just OK.  The abundance of squeaks started getting on my nerves by the halfway mark and the ending was so bad I had to lower the volume.  The one bright spot is the kid.  He's great.  The last couple of minutes with him and Ben (when the title song, sung by Michael Jackson, starts) about had me in tears.  WTF?  I know!  Seeing Meredith Baxter so young is wild.  Watch the movie for the kid's performance.  Don't expect any great rat kills or anything cool like that.

Eye of the Cat (1969)

Director: David Lowell Rich

Writer: Joseph Stefano

Composer: Lalo Schifrin

Starring: Michael Sarrazin, Gayle Hunnicutt, Eleanor Parker, Tim Henry, Laurence Naismith, Jennifer Leak, Linden Chiles, Mark Herron, Annabelle Garth

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Terror that takes you beyond any fear you've ever known!

Plot: A man and his girlfriend plan to rob the mansion of the man's eccentric but wealthy aunt. However, the aunt keeps dozens of cats in her home, and the man is deathly afraid of cats.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Only when I come across a nice widescreen print.

This is one of those pictures you watch because the trailer is so unbelievable fun.  Now the film can't sustain that level, of course, but the ending definitely pays off for fans of the trailer.  The lead-up to the last fifteen minutes can drag a little but overall it's an entertaining picture with good performances.  You get the idea that everyone involved was making a serious horror/thriller.  The trailer doesn't project that but it's a pretty well made horror flick and this is coming from 1969!  It's the kind of picture that was very prevalent in the mid to late 70s which makes it unusual just for that.  There's a scene when Aunt Danny (Parker) looses control of her wheelchair on the steep streets of San Francisco.  It's masterfully shot and it's intense and horrifying.  The cats are the real star of the show and those little bastards are not to be fucked with.  You can tell that some of them are being tossed around.  Hopefully they didn't hurt any of them but they really scared the shit out of the actors.  Sometimes you can tell their reactions are genuine and that helps sell the horror.  I'm willing to bet that if I put a nice widescreen print up on the big screen, my score and enjoyment would go up.  The more I talk about this one, the more I like it.

Island Claws (1980)

Director: Herman Cardenas

Writers: Colby Cardenas, Herman Cardenas, Jack Cowden, Ricou Browning

Composer: Bill Justis

Starring: Robert Lansing, Steve Hanks, Nita Talbot, Jo McDonnell, Martina Deignan, Barry Nelson, Tony Rigo, Raymond Forchion, Dick Callinana, Dolores Sandoz

More info: IMDb

Plot: A biological experiment in Florida goes awry. The result: 8-foot long land crabs which roar loudly and kill everything in sight.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

This barely better than average horror film takes itself seriously.  It needed to.  The performances are very good for this sort of thing (it's nice seeing the first James Bond, Barry Nelson, again).  That alone surprised me.  The direction is good and the story, though by the numbers, is good enough.  There's really nothing bad about this picture.  One drawback is that you don't get any killer crab action until the end and it's one gigantic crab that's right there for the actors to work with and not some camera trick.  It's fake looking but it's better than some processed shot that's even phonier.  I was surprised to see that this is the sole credit for Hernan Cardenas.  It's a well-directed film and it's especially good for a first-timer.  Of interest is it's co-written by legendary Ricou Browning and the nice location shooting in Florida.

Frogs (1972)

Director: George McCowan

Writers: Robert Hutchinson, Robert Blees

Composer: Les Baxter

Starring: Ray Milland, Sam Elliott, Joan Van Ark, Adam Roarke, Judy Pace, Lynn Borden, Mae Mercer, David Gilliam, Nicholas Cortland, George Skaff, Lance Taylor Sr., Hollis Irving, Dale Willingham, Hal Hodges, Carolyn Fitzsimmons, Robert Sanders

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  If YOU Are Squeamish Stay Home!!!

Plot:  Jason Crockett is an aging, grumpy, physically disabled millionaire who invites his family to his island estate for his birthday celebration. Pickett Smith is a free-lance photographer who is doing a pollution layout for an ecology magazine. Jason Crockett hates nature, poisoning anything that crawls on his property. On the night of his birthday the frogs and other members of nature begin to pay Crockett back.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Just looking at the poster tells you a little something even though it's A) not funny and B) not about giant frogs that eat people (I would LOVE to see that movie).  It's a standard nature-turning-against-man picture but the appeal is seeing a young (almost 30) Sam Elliott in his first feature starring role and Ray Milland easily playing a right dickheaded grumpy old man.  I've never seen anything less than solid from Milland.  I have so much respect for that guy for winning an Oscar in '45 and still putting in great work in low budget horror movies.  What a class act!  The score is neat.  It's more of an electronic manipulation of insect and animal sounds.  Often it's just an ambiance and it works beautifully.  It was filmed about 90 minutes from my town and it feels so inviting.  I love the soundscape and the location.  This picture certainly has the atmosphere.   The kills are a mixed bag and I'm not sure if it was due to the budget or personnel but it's not like it hurts the picture.  Budget restrictions don't bother me when there's talent in front of and/or behind the camera.  I can't fault anyone for making a movie if their heart's in it.  Yeah, it would've been cooler if the wildlife really cut loose on these people and not just the mean people died.  I was hoping for a higher body count of innocents.  Milland's final moment is pretty weak but it's still a pretty fun flick.  This would have been great to experience at a late night drive-in theater.  The MGM DVD has a nice anamorphic widescreen print with the sole extra in the theatrical trailer in fullscreen.

Zombeavers (2014)

Director:  Jordan Rubin

Writers: Al Kaplan, Jordan Rubin, Jon Kaplan

Composers: Al Kaplan, Jon Kaplan

Starring: Rachel Melvin, Cortney Palm, Lexi Atkins, Hutch Dano, Jake Weary, Peter Gilroy, Rex Linn, Brent Briscoe, Phyllis Katz, Robert R. Shafer, Bill Burr, John Mayer, Jordan Rubin, Sonny Tanning, Fred Tatasciore, Chad Anderson

More info: IMDb

Tagline: You'll all be damned!

Plot: A fun weekend turns into madness and horror for a bunch of groupies looking for fun in a beaver infested swamp.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

Hilarious.  From the first five minutes you know exactly what you're in for.  I kept thinking that there's no way they can continue this level of fun for the rest of the picture but they do.  The acting is quite good (I really liked Zoe (Palm) and her Juliette Lewis-ness (plus she's the only one of the bunch to take her top off but, really, it was her performance that won me...OK, the tits come in at a close second).  She's fun.  At first the three girls are annoying as fuck but they grow on you as the danger increases.  Of all of the 'kids' I couldn't stand Sam (Dano).  He's an asshole to the end.  Oddly enough, all of the non-kid characters are really fun even if they're idiots or assholes.  Fortunately, a lot of people die.  The beavers are great.  It's obvious that they're puppets but that just adds to the fun.  They're creatively handled and they work very well with the tone of the film.  The effects are fantastic.  One character loses a foot and you know they had to green screen the missing but it doesn't look cheap one bit.  The ending is great fun and I really hope they follow this up with what they set up at the end...zombees.  I want to see more from this team.  I went into this thing thinking it was going to be a lame, one-joke movie with some sub par acting, bad effects and slow pacing but it's not.  The film makers do an awful lot with such a small cast and minimal locations.  It's got an 80s vibe but it one-ups those pictures with the fast pacing.  I loved it. 

Dark Age (1987)

Director: Arch Nicholson

Writers: Sonia Borg, Tony Morphett, Grahame Webb

Composer: Danny Beckermann

Starring: John Jarratt, Nikki Coghil, Max Phipps, Burnham Burnham, David Gulpilil, Ray Meagher, Jeff Ashby, Paul Bertram, Ron Blanchard, Gerry Duggan

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Death is only one bite away.

Plot: In Australia's Northern Territory, a massive saltwater crocodile is attacking and killing people. A ranger is assigned to deal with the killer crocodile, but he finds himself at odds with the local Aborigines, who believe the crocodile contains the spirit of their past, and want this Goliath-sized beast preserved. The ranger must work with the Aborigines to develop a plan to respect their wishes as well as protecting the local residents threatened by the crocodile.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Probably not.

#36 on my on-going quest to watch every film from the amazing documentary, NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF OZPLOITATION! (2008)

I love Australian films and I'm partial to the many types of JAWS (1975) clones that followed in the wake of that massive hit.  This is one of the better ones. This is such a clone of JAWS that there are even some scenes that copy it and more successfully than I've seen done before.  Remember when Chief Brody caused a panic when he ran toward the beach yelling for everyone to get out of the water?  In this one it's Cathy (Coghill) doing it and you'll instantly recognize the editing, camera shots and people's movement in and out of the line of sight.  It's fucking great.  And what's better?  It ends with a small child getting chomped by the giant croc!!!  It's already a better film, right?  Yup.

This is one of the few JAWS rip offs that I can forgive because there's so much that's different about it in the location, animal, the use of the Aborigines and the final act of the film.  They make it their own.  The score doesn't work for me and part of that is the cheap sound of the 80s synthesizer.  There are a great number of scenes that don't have any music which was a pleasant surprise.  Some of the action cues are hokey.  If this sounds like your type of flick then it is.  It's not quite good enough for me to find a permanent home in my collection but I'm definitely glad I saw it.

The Hive (2008)

Director: Peter Manus

Writer: T.S. Cook

Composers: Charles Olins, Mark Ryder

Starring: Tom Wopat, Kal Weber, Elizabeth Healey, Jessica Reavis, Mark Ramsey, Pisek Intrakanchit, Kittphit Tamrongweenijchai, Elizabeth Bodner, Chalad Na Songkhla, Sujinthara Phumjan, Dorrie Salmon, Matthew Boylan

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Death is their picnic

Plot: When ants, displaying never-before-seen behavior, seize an island, the controversial Thorax Team is called to stop the massive threat only to discover that the ants are controlled by something beyond this world.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Some things I learned watching THE HIVE...  Tom Wopat is still acting (good for him).  The film makers are fond of the special effects in THE ABYSS ().  Millions of ants can run as fast as the plot calls for.   A mixing board can be used to stand in for hi-tech equipment.  Ants are such a widespread problem in the world that there's a company out there with badass mother fucker employees to combat it, complete with laser guns and whatnot.  You can call a movie anything you want because dumbfucks out there will buy anything.  It should be called THE COLONY (you know, ants) and not something associated with, you know, bees.

OK, it's what you'd expect for a Sci-Fi Channel movie but it's not all that bad, either.  The location shooting in Thailand is a major plus. The acting is OK.  Wopat was working overtime to sell it hard and he was fun.  The worst acting by far was from Kittphit Tamrongweenijchai as Minister Zhing.  WOW does he stand out and that's saying something for this picture.  I wonder how long it takes him to sign his paychecks.  Hey, I'm jealous.  At least he got a check for this.  I didn't get squat and I still haven't been in a movie.  The lovey-dovey stuff between Len (Weber) and Claire (Healey) is really fucking dull and slow.  There's a good deal of unnecessary exposition between these two that drags a lot.  But hey, let's look at some positive.  The special effects, all things considering, are really fucking good.  Allow me to repeat that.  The special effects, all things considering, are really fucking good.  The story is also pretty good.  If it weren't for the slow spots and the occasional laughably bad acting, this would be a pretty good flick.  If this had a bigger budget and better film makers it could be something that would play in theaters much like STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997).  It's not a bad low budget B-movie and I'll go on record as recommending it...so long as you lower your expectations.  I don't want to be THAT responsible.

The Birds (1963)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Starring: Tippi Hedren, Suzanne Pleshette, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Veronica Cartwright, Ethel Griffies, Charles McGraw, Doreen Lang, Rugh McDevitt, Joe Mantell

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Suspense and shock beyond anything you have seen or imagined!

Plot: A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people there in increasing numbers and with increasing viciousness.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

Man, oh, man does watching a movie in a theater make all the difference sometimes.  I watched this twenty years ago thinking it was just OK.  I recently got to see it at the local cineplex and it was FUCKING AWESOME!!!  It's clear Tippi Hedren didn't have much, if any, acting experience.  She does OK but stack her up next to everybody else, especially the super cool mo-fo Rod Taylor and it's clear who went to school and who did not.  Now that that's out of the way, the movie is pretty damn chilling.  There's no music. Bernard Herrmann is my favorite film composer and I hate that he didn't score it but it works really well without music.  The big stars of the show, of course, are the birds.  WOW!  No CGI here.  Sometimes the effects are a bit dodgy by today's standards but, shit!  This is 1963.  This would have definitely given me the creeps if I saw it fifty years ago.  I was most impressed by how much the actors (specifically Hedren) had to work with live birds.  Some of the scenes were crazy messed up at how brutal they looked.  I'm not surprised that there were injuries on the set.  Jeez.  I thought the high-pitched shrills of the birds was too much but that could have been the speakers at the theater.  I'm so glad I got to see this on the big screen because I would have probably overlooked it the next time I'm on a Hitchcock kick.  I'm overdue for one, too.  I've been wanting to watch all of his flicks in chronological order for too many years now.  I need to get that started soon.

Night of the Lepus (1972)

Director: William F. Claxton

Starring: Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun, DeForest Kelley

More info: IMDb

Tagline: They were born that tragic moment when science made its great mistake... now from behind the shroud of night they come, a scuttling, shambling horde of creatures destroying all in their path.

Plot: Fed up with the bunnies hopping across their land, a group of ranchers tries to stunt the rabbits' growth with a hormone. But instead of reducing the bunny populace, it makes the animals 150 pounds larger and gives them an appetite for human flesh. Are the ranchers any match for the ravenous rabbits' reproductive skills?

My rating: 4/10

Will I watch it again? Nope.

#65 on Dusk to Dawn Drive-In Trash-o-Rama Show Vol. 1 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

Giant killer rabbits. You've got to know that you'll need to check your brains at the door. I'm sure the name actors who took this gig thought as well but at least they got paid. I watched this Easter weekend on a double bill with JESUS CHRIST VAMPIRE HUNTER (2001) with a group of friends outside under stars on a big screen. It's cheesy fun with everyone in it taking it very seriously. Just like in other classic humans-versus-giant-animals flicks (like THE FOOD OF THE GODS (1976)), the giant bunnies are filmed in slow motion on model sets. It's dorky as hell but it provides a lot of laughs. LEPUS isn't the campy home run you'd hope for but with several friends and alcohol, it can make for a reasonable evening.

Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981)

Director: James Cameron

Starring: Tricia O'Neil, lance Henriksen

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The Terror Is Back....But This Time It Flies!

Plot: A scuba diving instructor, her biochemist boyfriend, and her police chief ex-husband try to link a series of bizarre deaths to a mutant strain of piranha fish whose lair is a sunken freighter ship off a Caribbean island resort.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? Shit, why not?

OK, look. It's a sequel to the low budget Roger Corman-produced PIRANHA (1978) and they've upped the ante by making the piranha live in salt water AND FLY! What would you expect from a movie like this? That is was James Cameron's directorial debut is just icing on the cake. It's actually pretty good considering. It's got everything you'd expect from a horror movie of that era, nudity, gore and great kills by FLYING FUCKING PIRANHA!!!


And the women! WOW!

Wait! What the fuck is she doing in this picture?

The effects of the FLYING FUCKING PIRANHA (!!!) are pretty damn good. Hell, they're great! I'm glad they kept the cool piranha sounds from the first movie. It's got a story that's just crazy enough to work and the pacing's good enough that you won't be bored - especially when watching this with friends and liquor. There's plenty to keep you interested until the final FLYING FUCKING PIRANHA beatdown on the resort guests.




If I had but one wish for this movie it'd be for a better score (sorry Stelvio Cipriani, I like a lot of your other work but this one just didn't cut it. I'm sure Corman gave you all of fifty bucks for your trouble and you just retorted by giving him a box filled with fifty bucks worth of notes).


Besides, it stars Lance. Even when he was young he looked old and tired. Seriously, it's pure cheesy fun so don't be turned off by the the title or what you think it is. Check it out, check your brains at the door and watch some FLYING FUCKING PIRANHA!!!

Squirm (1976)

Director: Jeff Lieberman

Starring: Don Scardino, Patricia Pearcy

More info: IMDb

Tagline: An avalanche of killer worms...writhing across the land in a tidal wave of terror!

Plot: When a vicious storm ravages Fly Creek, Georgia, several power lines collapse, and the electrical current they transmit provides power to an underground burrow of worms. Soon, the slithering pests become outsized and begin to terrorize the town, while a Southern belle and her city-slicker boyfriend attempt to do battle with the giant creepy-crawlers.

My rating: 5/10

Will I watch it again? Nope.

#42 on Dusk to Dawn Drive-In Trash-o-Rama Show Vol. 1 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

The best way I can sum this up is that it's watchable. It's competently shot. The acting would have been better if it were so-bad-it's-good but it's not. Pearcy fares best as the female lead. Her Southern accent's the best as is the rest of her performance. Everyone else is just so-so. It's not the actors' fault that it doesn't work. I'm guessing that belongs to the writer/director Lieberman. The pacing isn't too bad but there's just not much to get you excited. I mean, come one...killer worms? If the film had more fun with itself I could've gotten into more.


A lot of the money shots are in the trailer. Unfortunately, SQUIRM is just another typical yet competently made horror film that doesn't deliver on any scares and has very little meat on it. It's as throwaway as worms on a fish hook. Now, if they had flying worms...THAT would have been a step in the right direction.

Great White (1981)

Director: Enzo Castellari

Starring: James Franciscus, Vic Morrow, Joshua Sinclair

More Info: IMDB

Tagline: A quiet, restful summer in the lazy coastal town of Port Harbor is abruptly about to end.

Plot: An enormous and angry 35 foot Great White Shark takes revenge on humans when they build a beach just for swimmers by a coastal town. After several shark attacks, and the Mayor does nothing to stop it, James Franisscus and Vic Morrow sail in pursuit to stop it.

My Rating: 5.5

Would I watch it again? Once was plenty.

#2 on Dusk to Dawn Drive-In Trash-o-Rama Show Vol. 1 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

There's something about great movies and their subsequent knockoffs that fascinate me. Maybe it's the hope that the knockoff will come close to being a great, fun movie like its originator. JAWS (1975) is one of the all-time greats and there will never likely be another as good.


PIRAHNA (1978) is easily the best of the JAWS clones I've seen. Sure, it's blatant in its inspiration but it's also a helluva good time. It doesn't take itself too seriously and it's low budget is stretched more than Heidi Fleiss's meat curtains. GREAT WHITE takes a simpler, less creative approach in that it's just saying, "Hey, remember Jaws? We saw it, too!"

Soooo we're gonna put up a shark fence...HERE!

There's nothing really special here because everything it's attempting was done better in JAWS. Morrow's got the unenviable role of playing Robert Shaw's counterpart. Shaw was Welsh and Morrow is Scottish (although his accent wanders all over the place). They're both shark hunters and they both die by the shark. OK, I will give GREAT WHITE a huge round of applause for Morrow's death scene. Well, it's not his death scene so much as it's his contribution to the shark's death scene. That was pretty fucking cool. More on that later.




Considering what it is, it's quite a well-made film, technically speaking, of course. If you're a fan of director Castellari like me (INGLORIOUS BASTARDS (1978) and a string of good spaghetti westerns and exploitation films in the 60s, 70s and 80s), you'll definitely want to check this one out.

Vote for me 'cause I used to be a 70s porn star!

Same story as JAWS. Shark terrorizes a coastal town, local politician doesn't heed the warnings and lots of people die. They both have mechanical sharks (and this one didn't look that bad, surprisingly). But JAWS didn't have underwater shots like this:

"One thing's for sure, it wasn't a floatin' chainsaw."

After the Mayor fucks up by thinking they can protect the race contestants with a shark-proof fence and snipers on the ready...

He pulls the biggest WTF moment out the picture and goes after the shark with a helicopter! Trolling a large chunk of meat on a hook, Mayor McStupid thinks he can catch it. Sheer brilliance. Here's how it turns out for the Darwin Award Honorary Inductee:













TONS of stock shark footage of varying quality and of different breeds of shark that are supposed to be the same one.

So Morrow dies earlier by getting caught up in a cable that the shark is also tangled in. When the shark takes off, so does Morrow which eventually kills him. Now Morrow had an explosives belt around his waist with a detonator. After he's been long gone he shows up (still dead) when Benton (James Franciscus) could really use some help, stranded on this floating pier debris. Benton watches as the shark devours his already dead buddy, screams, "DAMN YOU!", dives very stylishly into the water and presses the detonator which, in affect, blows up the rubber shark.









I'd be likely to give it a better score but that the film makers didn't give a shit about ripping off many scenes and situations from the first two JAWS films, I can't really do that. They really tried to make a serious shark attack movie hoping that audiences will have either forgotten the original or remembered it and thought it would be just as good. What makes it worse is that GREAT WHITE came 6 years after JAWS!!! I'm betting they were hoping audiences had forgotten. I'll bet further still that they were wanting to forget this one. They got their chance because Universal successfully sued to have this pulled from theaters days after its release.