Geoff Arbuckle

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985)

Published on December 8, 2023December 14, 2023 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome to yet another B-Movie Enema, my dear Enemaniacs! This week, we’ve got ourselves a real adventure. In fact, the title says it begins here. What it doesn’t say is that it also ended here. That’s right, I’m going to be writing many, many words about 1985’s Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins!

Where to start? Well, let’s start with our titular hero. Remo Williams is the lead character in a series of pulp adventure novels that go back to 1971’s Created, The Destroyer. He was created by authors Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir. Sapir wrote a handful of other books, but none were as popular as his Remo Williams co-creation. Murphy, on the other hand, is a little more interesting.

Murphy wrote the screenplay for 1975’s The Eiger Sanction starring Clint Eastwood. In 1989, he worked on the story for Lethal Weapon 2 with Shane Black. The TV Series Murphy’s Law was also based on the Trace series of books that he also wrote. Most interestingly, Murphy would be married to Nancy Cartwright from 1988 to 2002, the pair having two children. Who is Nancy Cartwright, and why does that name sound so familiar?

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Dr. Caligari (1989)

Published on December 1, 2023December 7, 2023 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

It’s December here at B-Movie Enema Industries, and that means things are getting a little cold. But I’ve got something to warm the bones. By that, I mean something really weird. This week, I’m looking at the avant-garde 1989 Dr. Caligari.

I don’t want to say this is a remake of the German expressionism classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but let’s try to sort all this out. That original version I just mentioned was released in 1920. This was during a time of massive film experimentation in post-World War I Germany. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is one of the most influential early films in history. While 1922’s Nosferatu is a more influential monster film, Caligari twisted the way a story could be told. That wasn’t just a clever way of using the word twisted to describe the look of the film. There are multiple reads about how the narrative plays out.

Dr. Caligari, in the original that is, was a man who went from town to town and did sideshow-like performances with his somnambulist, Cesare, who is forced to obey his every command. Cesare is Caligari’s instrument of revenge against those who wronged him. It turns out that the character who is telling this story is actually a patient in an asylum. Caligari is actually the head doctor there. The other main characters, Cesare, and the girl whom Cesare falls in love with, Jane, are also inmates. It’s an early example of a twist ending and an unreliable narrator in a film.

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Krull (1983)

Published on November 24, 2023December 1, 2023 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving weekend, Enemaniacs! I’ve got a bit of a feast for you for this week’s B-Movie Enema review.

In the early 80s, there were a couple of phenomena going on. The first was the re-emergence of the sword and sorcery or sword and sandal movies. That was mostly due to the popularity of 1982’s Conan the Barbarian but I would also count 1981’s Clash of the Titans as also being an inspiration for the genre of fantasy action films. The other big phenomenon was the adventure sci-fi genre thanks to the huge success of 1977’s Star Wars and 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back.

If you really think about it, Star Wars isn’t really science fiction. More accurately, it would be called space opera. That means it’s a little more fantasy than true science fiction. Star Trek is the more true action science fiction type of movie where it both features some action and adventure but also tackles other concepts that are more sci-fi in nature. The advancements made in special effects also made for movies that could feature more lasers and spaceships and different types of creatures, though maybe the last one would be more due to advancements in makeup effects and artistry. That brings us to this week’s topic, 1983’s Krull.

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Kitten with a Whip (1964)

Published on November 17, 2023November 23, 2023 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome a new B-Movie Enema review, my dear Enemaniacs!

I’ve got something a little different than I usually do on this blog, but I would also say it touches upon a few things I’ve referenced before. The movie I’m looking at this week is 1964’s Kitten with a Whip starring Ann-Margret and John Forsythe. I would label this movie as a late example of the 50s and early 60s “girls gone crazy” exploitation boom. Throughout that era, you had bad girls all played by bombshells who were young and curvy and had a bite to them that made men drool all over themselves.

I’ve talked about a movie several years ago that was a part of a Showtime series of made-for-cable TV movies that were produced by Debra Hill that all took names of classic 50s-era exploitation films and made something slightly different from them. That movie was Confessions of Sorority Girls starring Jaime Luner and Alyssa Milano. Some of these movies were also featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 through the early 90s. That’s where I first saw Kitten with a Whip. The movie is, as we’ll definitely talk about throughout this review, okay, but there is no chance you can watch this movie without noticing the 23-year-old Ann-Margret in the lead role of a bad girl who has all sorts of very sexy issues.

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Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1983)

Published on November 10, 2023November 16, 2023 by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

We had ourselves a rough one last week, my dear Enemaniacs. The only way to make up for that? Reb Brown.

Oh yes, save us all, Reb! We need salvation from shitty robot ladies who weren’t robots but also maybe brainwashed but weren’t brainwashed. We need something Italian. We need something French. We need something Turkish. We need Yor, the Hunter from the Future!

Welcome to this looooong overdue review for B-Movie Enema. I picked up this Blu-Ray when it was released several years ago with the intention for this to be covered here. I don’t know what kept me from fulfilling that promise the day it arrived, but here we are.

This movie is, indeed, an Italian-French-Turkish co-production. I’ve only once before delved into the world of Turkish cinema, but know they like making movies. They really like making movies that look and play out like American films. But you know the Italians like doing that too. With the Italian side of the production comes director Antonio Margheriti. Margheriti did a lot of lower-budget stuff and was mostly doing the typical Italian genres of crime action films, science fiction, spaghetti westerns, and horror. Notably, Margheriti made films like Castle of Blood starring Barbara Steele, Cannibal Apocalypse starring John Saxon, Death Rage starring Yul Brynner in his final role, and several action movies with David Warbeck.

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The Stepford Wives (2004)

Published on November 3, 2023November 9, 2023 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome to B-Movie Enema.

You come to this place for movie reviews. Sometimes you get a laugh. Sometimes you might feel the pain I felt while watching a movie and you begin to cry. If you are some sort of weirdo that thinks heartbreak would feel good anywhere, then might I suggest you get the fuck out of here you goddamn monster?

We’ve been in this neighborhood before. Yes. Back in July, we took a trip to a scenic village to see what 1975’s The Stepford Wives was all about. We return again to check out the 2004 remake starring a pretty A-list cast of actors like Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Christopher Walken, and Glenn Close. Not only do you have some pretty powerful actors involved but you also have the film being directed by Frank Oz.

But oh boy were there issues with this production.

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Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

Published on October 31, 2023November 2, 2023 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

For the 400th time, welcome to B-Movie Enema, and, most importantly, allow me to extend to my Enemaniacs a very happy Halloween!

What better way to spend the greatest of all holidays, and this milestone review, than with that murderous monster Michael Myers? Well, you might want to table some of that excitement. That’s because it’s time to take a look at one of the most blasted entries in the entirety of the Halloween franchise. Yeah, we’re cursed, my dear readers. Let’s discuss 1995’s Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.

Alright, check it out… Let’s go back to September 29, 1995, the day the sixth Michael Myers epic hit theater screens. I was 18 years old and a high school graduate. Sure, you might think I should have been a freshman in college, but, well… You don’t realize how absolutely listless and lazy I was (and still am). I didn’t go to college right after high school, pffft. Hell, when I did go to college the following year, I only stuck around for, like, two years.

What was I talking about? Oh, yeah Halloween 6. I didn’t have that interesting story about that September night way back in my youthful days of 1995. But I was excited to see the new movie. I like Mikey Myers. I expected this sixth entry long before 1995. Six years had passed since the previous film’s release and that one ended on a cliffhanger. I had lots of questions about whether or not that would actually be picked up and continued with the Man in Black and Michael Myers being part of some sort of organized thing, hence the tattoo of the Thorn rune symbols on those two characters’ wrists.

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Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

Published on October 27, 2023November 2, 2023 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Happy Halloween Weekend, my dearest of Enemaniacs!

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know that October is a big deal with B-Movie Enema. It was in October 2014 that the blog was started. When the blog returned in 2016, I always tried to have some sort of theme (be it loose or a tight theme) each October. I’ve also treated Halloween itself as a kind of big deal. In fact, that SERIES has been visited and revisited a few times over. It started in 2016 when I covered the absolute worst of the series. Then, in 2017, I talked about the one that gets the most misunderstood hatred in the series.

After 2017, I took it kind of easy on the franchise, but last year, I returned to the series with the movie that brought ol’ Mikey Myers back to the franchise after that misunderstood entry. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers wasn’t just a return to the series after six years of the franchise being completely left in the past, but it also kicked off a trilogy of sorts. Today, we follow that up with that movie’s direct sequel and the middle chapter of this sort-of trilogy with Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.

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