Psycho Cop Returns (1993)

PsychoCopTwoCoverAs soon as you see Psycho Cop eating a donut in slow motion at the beginning of Psycho Cop Returns, you know the Psycho Cop series is on the way up after an initial outing that was by turns unrelentingly bad and blandly forgettable. The scene in the diner where Psycho Cop eavesdrops on a couple of office drones planning a bachelor party establishes that everything we loved about Psycho Cop (he’s a fat pig!) will remain, while ditching the dumb stuff (college kids on vacation at an isolated mansion), and adding a new and exciting nemesis to battle the evil fatty fuzz (strippers!).

Then, as if to confirm that this isn’t your slow-witted step-brother’s Psycho Cop, the opening credits play! It’s a rocking tune with police sirens as one of the instruments and the credits are interspersed with shots of Psycho Cop’s cop car. There’s all sorts of satanic symbols painted in blood in it! Body parts are freaking everywhere inside! I don’t even know how Psycho Cop had room to sit down in there! Especially with his fat ass! His license plate is even attached upside down! All of us strong Satanists recognize that as the ultimate salute to the Horned One! Continue reading “Psycho Cop Returns (1993)”

Psycho Cop (1989)

PsychoCopCoverMovies like Psycho Cop depend on their villains being super cool instruments of death, dismemberment, and destruction! They need to look like a bad ass, they need to demonstrate cunning and power, and while they don’t necessarily need to speak, when they do, they need to be able to deliver those vicious one-liners with convincing bile.

Here, we have a fat guy in a cop suit who moves like his night stick is rammed up his ass, insists on wearing a goofy expression that calls to mind a simpleton whose biggest concern is where his candy bar went, and gives us the lamest and most predictable cop talk imaginable. You don’t even have to see the movie to imagine him stumbling around and babbling about the right to remain silent while killing a guy. And that was his best effort! Continue reading “Psycho Cop (1989)”

I Am Omega (2007)

When I saw that the last man on Earth had somehow ended up facing an army of the undead in a parking garage armed with only a pair of nunchucks, I wondered just how dimwitted all the other people who didn’t survive must have been. And when the last man on Earth saw a rabbit and giddily began chasing after it, I thought that perhaps this was some sort of scenario where a mutant virus had attacked the human brain destroying all those with I.Q.s over 50.

But when the last man on Earth got drunked up on a six pack of beer, took a whiz on some rocks and shouted, “I’m pissing on you, world!” I began to feel reassured because the one thing I’m looking forward to when the world ends is the ability to relieve myself on the go without worrying about someone whining about me watering his precious rose bushes. Continue reading “I Am Omega (2007)”

The Mole People (1956)

First time director Virgil Vogel mixes up traditional 1950s monsters with one of those lost civilizations populated by rulers and priests in cheap looking robes and stringy kung fu beards from 1930s cliffhangers like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon and ends up with a painlessly stupid effort highlighted by people getting pulled down through what looks like kitty litter by stuntmen in bump-ridden bug-eyed masks.

Jud (Leave it to Beaver‘s Hugh Beaumont) and Roger (genre vet John Agar of Tarantula among others) are doing some archeology at a site in Asia and discover stone tablets that have all sorts of back story about Sumerians and how they were flooded and had to take an ark to some place not so wet. Continue reading “The Mole People (1956)”

The Seven Magnificent Gladiators (1983)

SevenMagnificentGladiatorsVHSCoverThe ancient world was one where Gods walked among mere mortals. Gods who were endowed with powers such as immortality, superior fighting skills, magic swords, and leather outfits any of you kinky bastards would be proud to prance around in. And we’re talking both the girls and guys – the ancient world was not as repressed as us modern types. And these Gods had names that we recognize even today! Names such as Brad Harris! Sybil Danning! And the most incredible of them all, Lou Ferrigno!

Some of you may be nodding your head in recognition as you surely recall Brad, Sybil, and Lou in the Italian sword and sandal classic of 1983, Hercules. Yes, it was a thrilling tale of bad special effects and bears being hurled into outer space, but why rehash that spectacularly sweaty piece of trash again? Continue reading “The Seven Magnificent Gladiators (1983)”

Sammy, the Way-Out Seal (1962)

Sammy the Way Out Seal DVD CoverFor those of us that grew up with a pet seal, this movie is like a welcome trip down memory lane! All of us remember the cans of salmon pilfered from the pantry. Those nights long ago when we would hook up an impromptu shower in the tool shed for our slippery friend seem just like yesterday! And I still can’t play a game of checkers without thinking about how my pet seal would always know the best move to make! I guess all that fish really is great brain food! Continue reading “Sammy, the Way-Out Seal (1962)”

Dial: Help (1988)

If you’re tired of Italian movies about zombies, cannibals, ancient Greeks, and cross-dressing slashers, Dial: Help provides some welcome relief in that it strives to achieve something just a little different. Of course striving to achieve something isn’t exactly the same as actually achieving something since the little twist put on things here is that instead of a fashion model being harassed by a guy in a wimpy beard or demented family member, she is being stalked by her telephone!

Wait! Where are you going? Haven’t you ever had problems with your phone? Don’t you see how you could extrapolate the everyday reliance and natural fear of a telephone into a full blown Italian horror movie? Continue reading “Dial: Help (1988)”