ALIEN 2: ON EARTH

In this unauthorized Italian sequel to “Alien” a group of spelunking bowlers (Or are they bowling spelunkers?) discover that their favorite cave and favorite bowling alley are infested with alien monsters that hatch from rocks.

Review Snippet:
Now we are subjected to another ten minutes of watching the group perform a spelunking rescue in every detail. Once Jill’s inert body is hauled back up, the only person at the top is Rod. He starts the process of rigging the ropes so the others can ascend. Unbeknownst to Rod, the camera is slowly panning back through the cave and up Jill’s body to her face. This takes an additional four minutes. So, for the last twenty-four minutes the only thing keeping my attention has been complaining about the complete lack of anything to keep my attention.

Lesson Learned:
Spelunking is an important branch of physics.

TARKAN VS. THE VIKINGS

Tarkan is a string bean with a moustache, the Vikings wear pastel bath rugs instead of furs, and there is even a real, live inflatable octopus. This movie is almost 100% pure kitsch.

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Speaking of appearances and things not looking like they are supposed to look, let’s discuss the hero. Based upon the cover art, Tarkan is the twin brother of Conan the Barbarian as described by Robert E. Howard and painted by Frank Frazetta. The man playing Tarkan in the movie looks nothing like that. He looks like a pink lobster wearing a silly moustache (and a bath mat). He also wears pearl eye makeup. Granted, the pearl color is an improvement over the light blue he wears in the original “Tarkan” (1969), but it still does not look particularly fearsome.

Lesson Learned:
The dog is mightier than the sword.

DISCO GODFATHER

When angel dust dealers move into his neighborhood, Rudy Ray Moore becomes the avenging disco godfather of legend. Yes, he avenges his nephew. Yes, he is a godfather. And yes, dear God, there is disco.

Review Snippet:
The “disco” part is the reason you should not go into this movie unawares. When the film starts, we are inside of a hopping disco club. Get used to the disco; you are going to see a lot of it. You are also going to see a lot of the disco club’s patrons, henceforth known as the disco dancers. Collectively, the disco dancers are the film’s main character. I am harping on this, but you just cannot imagine how much disco padding the film contains until you see it. The only time I have ever been exposed to more disco dancing was a 1977 episode of “American Bandstand.”

Lesson Learned:
During the 1970′s the difference between business formal and business casual was the size of the collar.

GETTING LUCKY

A teenage nerd discovers a leprechaun in an empty beer bottle. The nerd is in love with a cheerleader and the leprechaun must grant three wishes to escape from his glass prison. If you think this sounds like the setup for a teen sex comedy, you are right.

Review Snippet:
Sometimes I wonder if I will ever outgrow my ability to enjoy teen comedy films. More accurately, I worry that I will eventually outgrow my ability to enjoy comedies made for teenage males. I say this because “Better Off Dead” and “Bachelor Party” still make me laugh, and most of my enjoyment while watching “Hot Tub Time Machine” was noticing the homages to earlier teen comedies. Sooner or later (probably when I am in my seventies), I am suddenly going to decide that a nerd accidentally dumping five gallons of yogurt on a blonde wearing a bikini is not funny.

When that happens, I want you to smother me with my pillow and escape to Canada.

Lesson Learned:
Miniature golf has never gotten anybody laid.

THE KILLING OF SATAN

This is a Filipino film about a man who uses Catholic magic to battle the Devil. That alone makes seeking it out a worthwhile effort for anyone who enjoys bizarre cinema.

Review Snippet:
While Lando is talking to the Ghost of Chicken Fried Uncles Past, the Satanists are roughing up the villagers. The poor Catholics are no match for the Prince of Magic’s powers. Heck, they are not even a match for the lesser Satanists who use red radar waves to freeze them (I never realized that religion could be so exciting).

Lesson Learned:
Satan is an immovable object and an irresistible force.

DAGON

“Dagon” is mostly based on another of Lovecraft’s short stories, being about 65% “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” The remainder is 5% “Dagon” and 30% miscellaneous ideas (mostly mutant fish person incest).

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Personally, I’d have taken one look at the locals and decided they were either inbreds, fish mutants, or both (inbred fish mutants). In addition to being spooky in the conversation department, the people of Imboca have pale, clammy-looking skin, bizarre webbing between their fingers, and they never blink. Weirdo freakos, man. Them not blinking is a rather nice touch, even if it looks like the effect was accomplished by the actors wearing uncomfortable contact inserts. The villagers also tend to wander around with rusty knives and farming implements. The only place I have ever been that is scarier than Imboca is West Virginia.

Ah, West Virginia, where the people outnumber the teeth.

Lesson Learned:
Fish got nards.

MEGA PIRANHA

Tiffany creates piranhas large enough to eat a battleship. The fish never stop growing and never stop eating, despite the fact that they don’t need to eat to grow and were meant to grow to eat.

If what I just wrote doesn’t make any sense to you, then I have successfully captured the spirit of this film.

Review Snippet:
Before long, the school of rapidly growing piranhas reaches a major harbor along the river. The carnage is horrific. Not because, as you might suspect, the fish eat everything and everybody in the water. The Mega Piranhas have a startling tendency to leap out of the water at buildings. Upon crashing into a building, a fish then explodes.

Exactly why the piranhas jump into the buildings is never explained. Maybe they are attacking their own reflection, which is odd behavior for animals that travel in schools, or perhaps they are just trying to steal Wi-Fi.

Lesson Learned:
A Hyundai can outrun a Blackhawk helicopter.

THE SPIRIT

Dr. Freex put “The Spirit” under my tree for this Sadistic Santa gift exchange. It’s not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I think that Freex is getting soft in his old age.

What I am saying is that I like my bad movies to be a lot better at being bad than this one.

Review Snippet:
After the battle, the Octopus returns to his subterranean lair with a mysterious box that he stole from a mysterious woman in a hole at the bottom of the city’s sea. When the super criminal opens the box, he finds that it is full of bling. He becomes very upset, because he didn’t want a box full of bling. What the Octopus was looking for was a vase in the box in the hole at the bottom of the sea. Inside the vase is supposed to be the blood of Hercules. All of the cloned morons saw the woman, Sand Saref, leave with the other box. They was watching.

Deprived of the blood in the vase in the box from the hole at the bottom of the sea, the Octopus lets his rage get the best of him. He turns into Samurai Jack and kills the morons. What this accomplishes is a mystery, because the only way he can replace the dead morons is to clone even more morons. Meaning that the new morons are going to be just as stupid as the ones he just chopped up.

Lesson Learned:
Never, ever make a movie in Albuquerque.

MY LITTLE PONY: THE MOVIE

Once more, I delve into a place where man should not go, and it’s full of ponies.

Why do all of the ponies have tramp stamps? Why do I care if the Smooze gives them PMS? WTF is up with the Bushwoolies? Why am I watching this?

Review Snippet:
One of my biggest complaints about the ponies is that all of them have tramp stamps. No, I’m not kidding. Each and every My Little Pony has a design on both sides of their hindquarters that corresponds to their name. So, the name and tramp stamp are connected. North Star has a compass rose on each cheek, Shady has sunglasses for a tramp stamp, and Sweet Stuff has muffins tattooed all over her butt. What would you think of a girl with muffins on her fanny who wants you to call her “Sweet Stuff?” I’ll tell you what you’d think, and it involves sneaking out before she wakes up and never calling her again.

Lesson Learned:
I need to watch more movies with radioactive mutants, killer robots, and RANDOM GRATUITOUS BREAST SHOTS.

SAVAGE PLANET

People travel 20,000 light years across the universe to explore a new planet, only to discover that it is populated by man-eating bears. The bears are not purple. They don’t have tentacles or glowing eyes. They’re just…bears.

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Anyway, the humans’ main problem on this alien planet is, quite obviously, the bears. Anybody who gets separated from the group is eaten by a bear. In fact, if the camera is not focused on a character, they are in grave danger of immediately becoming bear chow.

Something to watch for:
11 mins – Why would you go and ruin a virgin planet by bringing a lawyer with you?
48 mins – The bear ate the lawyer. Paradise is saved.