Geoff Arbuckle

Afraid (2024)

Published on March 27, 2026April 2, 2026 by Geoff Arbuckle1 Comment

There’s a part of me wanting to ask ChatGPT to write this new B-Movie Enema review.

But I won’t do that, Enemaniacs! If there’s one thing I have, it’s my integ…rit..y? Sure, my integrity. I’m full of it. Anyway, this week, I’m reviewing 2024’s Afraid (or AfrAId) from director Chris Weitz. But before we talk about Weitz and his movie about artificial intelligence run amok, we should maybe say a few words about Jason Blum and Bumhouse Productions.

If I’m being honest, Blum is maybe the guy who deserves Roger Corman’s mantle of being a guy who knows how to make movies on the cheap, and quickly, knows when to spend a lot more money, and how to usually turn profits. He’s also had a stable of filmmakers who have gone on to do pretty great things after having success with a Blumhouse film. Jason Blum kind of knows that it doesn’t take hundreds of millions of dollars to make a movie that will drive people to the theater. Each year, he’ll make a few films for less than $10 million, a few (like Afraid) for a little more, and then when to spend a lot more. It’s been a very, very long time since the company released a movie that made less than its production budget.

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Zardoz (1974)

Published on March 20, 2026March 26, 2026 by Geoff Arbuckle1 Comment

Welcome back to B-Movie Enema, my lovely Eternals and Brutals, it’s motherfuckin’ Zardoz!

Man… Where to begin with this movie? I think it’s best to start with the director, John Boorman. Boorman is a rare breed in filmmaking. The British filmmaker got his first directing work on TV in the early 60s. In 1965, he got his first film to direct, Catch Us If You Can (Having a Wild Weekend on IMDb and in its American release). That was part of the in-rush of British Invasion pop bands going from vinyl to celluloid, as it starred The Dave Clark Five. Two years later, he made an American crime drama film, Point Blank, starring Lee Marvin. He followed that up with a war film and a drama before making his biggest splash.

In 1972, Boorman made one of the all-time great 70s thrillers, Deliverance. This was a film that starred an already established leading man, Jon Voight, and established Burt Reynolds as the man who would become THE box office star of the decade. It’s quotable, and one of those movies that even if you haven’t seen it, you know it. If for nothing else, the idea of an intimidating pair of “Dueling Banjos” when you are somewhere you aren’t so sure you want to be in the South came directly from Deliverance.

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Howard the Duck (1986)

Published on March 13, 2026March 19, 2026 by Geoff Arbuckle1 Comment

Oh boy, Enemaniacs… This week and next is gonna be a doozy at B-Movie Enema.

Near the end of 1973, the 19th issue of Marvel Comics’ anthology series Adventure into Fear, writer Steve Gerber introduced a new character that was a parody of what were once referred to as cartoon funny animals (what we would call anthropomorphic animals today). This character was cynical. He chomped cigars and was a bit ill-tempered. A little over a decade later, for some reason, largely unknown producer George Lucas… Wait… Let me double-check that. Oh… I meant to type “one of the most powerful producers, George Lucas.” My bad.

Sorry about that. But anyway, for whatever reason, one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood thought his follow-up to ending the phenomenon that was the Star Wars Trilogy should be a movie based on this character whose popularity might not exactly be as widespread outside the comic spinner racks. The movie proved to be one of the greatest missteps in film history. The movie was 1986’s Howard the Duck, directed by Willard Huyck and co-written by Gloria Katz.

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Frankenstein Unbound (1990)

Published on March 6, 2026March 12, 2026 by Geoff Arbuckle1 Comment

A new review from B-Movie Enema is bounding your way!

2025 was the year of Frankenstein. Guillermo del Toro’s long-awaited adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic novel of a scientist who plays God and cobbles together a living thing from dead flesh finally saw the light of day. That del Toro adaptation was well-cast with Oscar Isaac playing Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi doing amazing work as the Creature. It was gorgeously shot and designed. Seeing two perspectives to tell the full story was amazing. It was solidly in my Top 10 list for last year. I’m not alone in this praise. It was nominated for many Academy Awards.

Let’s also not forget that releasing to theaters today is Maggie Gyllenhaal’s reimagining of the themes of loneliness and monstrous love in Mary Shelley’s seminal work, The Bride! So, yeah, Dr. Frankenstein and his creation(s) are all over the place right now. Plus, speaking of awards, while I’m sure del Toro’s Frankenstein will be picking up at least two or three awards come next weekend, the Queen of this year’s awards season, Jessie Buckley, is celebrating her crowning achievement with another solid performance as the titular Bride. If you’re a monster kid like me, you’re eating well at the trough of Shelley’s work and the present-day adaptations.

However, it was the success of last year’s Frankenstein that got me thinking I should do something for Shelley’s creature – especially as Gyllenhaal’s feminist monster movie is hitting screens. Obviously, I’m not so sure about Guillermo’s masterpiece being what should be covered at a site like this, and I literally just watched The Bride! last night. So I needed to look elsewhere. I landed on the movie that had an eye-popping (no pun intended) box art at the video store. 1990’s Frankenstein Unbound isn’t just what we’re going to be talking about in this review, but it also serves as the final film in which the great Roger Corman was ever credited as director.

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Drive Me Crazy (1999)

Published on February 27, 2026March 5, 2026 by Geoff Arbuckle3 Comments

We’ve made it, my dear Enemaniacs. It’s the final week of Melissa Joan Hart Month at B-Movie Enema. And this is the headliner for sure.

1999’s Drive Me Crazy has a bit of a story behind it. Very clearly, this was Melissa Joan Hart’s movie. It was released by 20th Century Fox, but with 90s teen movies doing pretty well, and she doing pretty well on ABC’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch, it was impossible to think there wouldn’t at least be an attempt to get her into a movie. In a way, this was accomplished the year before when she made a brief, near cameo appearance in one of the most beloved cult classic teen flicks of the 90s, Can’t Hardly Wait. That was less an attempt to get her onto the big screen and more of a “Hey, we’ve got every young up-and-coming actor in this movie, and the Kid from Dick Tracy, so… Get the teenage witch girl!” thing.

No, Drive Me Crazy was specifically for Melissa to spread her wings a bit and give the movie thing a real try. While the movie had its struggles with critics, it wasn’t that big of a flop when it came to the box office. It cost about $8.5 million and brought in nearly $23 million. Not too bad in terms of the teen movies of the era. While nowhere near the box office darling as 1995’s Clueless or 1999’s She’s All That, Drive Me Crazy turned a profit where Can’t Hardly Wait and Empire Records, both beloved cult films, did not.

I think the problems came with the reviews, and one other very big confusion for audiences that came in the form of Britney Spears.

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Nine Dead (2009)

Published on February 20, 2026February 26, 2026 by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

It’s another Melissa Joan Hart Month review here at B-Movie Enema!

By 2008, our lovely leading lady was married, a mom, and no longer Sabrina the Teenage Witch. For the most part, she was exploring other interests while still doing some TV work in guest appearances, like on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and in TV movies like 2007’s Holiday in Handcuffs. The latter, I suspect, started the work she did with ABC Family on cable and later led to lots of other holiday-themed TV movies. It also probably led to her being cast in 2009 on the main ABC network competition, Dancing with the Stars.

I digress. As part of her more grown-up roles that came after her work as Sabrina Spellman, we have the movie that is getting reviewed this week, 2009’s Nine Dead. Nine Dead was filmed over a few weeks in the summer of 2008. Hart is playing an Assistant District Attorney and has ditched her usual blonde locks for darker hair because she has a dark secret. In fact, everyone in this movie has some dark and serious shit to deal with. After the completion of filming, the movie kind of sat around until New Line Cinema would pick up the distribution rights and get this movie out on DVD and streaming.

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Twisted Desire (1996)

Published on February 13, 2026February 19, 2026 by Geoff Arbuckle3 Comments

Welcome back to B-Movie Enema and another entry in our Melissa Joan Hart Month!

This week, we have a staple of the network television movie – true crime. Quite frankly, if you’re curious when there was a time when true crime did not have an audience, the answer was never. Whether it was in books, or those old pamphlets that probably led to Jack the Ripper becoming really famous, or plays, or movies, true crime was always a way for people to rope in some audiences. Later, as networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC were making original movies to air as movies of the week, the 70s saw a lot of movies in the horror and thriller genres. However, as the 80s and 90s came along, most of the famous stuff was either historical epics or salacious true crime.

And salacious true crime is what we have for 1996’s Twisted Desire.

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Backflash (2001)

Published on February 6, 2026February 12, 2026 by Geoff Arbuckle3 Comments

Welcome to B-Movie Enema, my Enemaniacs.

It’s February. What happens in February? Well, it’s the last month we all have to deal with winter… if you aren’t in places like Miami or, I dunno, Calgary. That’s a good thing. It’s also the month that is basically dominated, at least in the first half of the month, by the lovey-dovey bullshit that is Valentine’s Day. That’s not such a great thing. It’s a Hallmark holiday. You should celebrate love and what have you every day…? Eh. Anyway, when it comes to Valentine’s Day, you do get those Conversation Hearts, and that’s a good thing.

But the best part of February is that on February 11, every goddamn year, I turn a year older. I get more and more detached from marketing campaigns. I get more and more gray, in the handsome, distinguished way. I get to have lunch with my dad at one of my favorite restaurants. And I get a lot of messages wishing me a good one. I used to not be a big fan of my birthday, but, dammit, I’ve kinda grown to like it the older I get.

So, for my own birthday, I’m celebrating here at B-Movie Enema with something I’ve been known to do from time to time. I’ve done it for Alyssa Milano, Phoebe Cates, and Jacqueline Lovell. It’s time to do what I’ve should have done a loooooong time ago, and do it for someone I’ve got a very long history with – Melissa Joan Hart. Yes, it’s Melissa Joan Hart Month for February! And we start with her in a supporting role in 2001’s Backflash.

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