Category: Reviews

Little Darlings (1980)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome back for another entry in this year’s Camp Crappabuttawipe at B-Movie Enema.

You know, summer camp isn’t just running for your life from a crazed killer. Nah, it’s also a place where coming-of-age comedy-dramas can be told too. That’s kind of what we have here with 1980’s Little Darlings. This movie comes to us from first-time director Ronald F. Maxwell. He was only 30 years old when this film went into production. However, he had already been a professional working in television since the mid 70s. Maxwell followed this up with another film starring one of the stars of this movie, The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (along with Dennis Quaid and Mark Hamill in between Star Wars sequels). Later in his career, Maxwell shifted to Civil War epics, the largely appreciated Gettysburg in 1993 and the largely despised Gods and Generals in 2003.

As for our leading ladies in this movie, the other one who would work with Maxwell follow-up is Kristy McNichol. McNichol was already a veteran of television shows from her teenage years. She was a regular nominee for Emmys in the late 70s for the drama series Family. Later in her career, she would appear in 100 episodes of the comedy Empty Nest. With Little Darlings, McNichol would follow that up with the aforementioned The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia along with a Golden Globe-nominated performance in Neil Simon’s Only When I Laugh. Unfortunately, her appearance in the 1982 comedy The Pirate Movie (a movie absolutely slaughtered by critics upon release) probably harmed her ability to keep up the momentum her earlier film appearances granted her.

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Marshmallow (2025)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome back to week #2 (heh) here at B-Movie Enema’s Camp Crappabuttawipe!

This week, we’re looking at something a little bit different… A horror movie taking place at a camp that is not just new, but more than just a generic slasher film. We’re reviewing 2025’s Marshmallow from director Daniel DelPergatorio and writer Andy Greskoviak.

I think we need to focus right there on that director’s name. Daniel DelPergatorio is a hell of a name for a horror director. That name sounds like he’s Danel of the Purgatory. And… well, what do you know? That’s actually how his name translates from Spanish. That’s fuckin’ rad. What’s also pretty fuckin’ rad is that I already know his work. He served as co-director for the 2009 animated short Tales of the Black Freighter that was released alongside Zak Snyder’s adaptation of Watchmen. The Black Freighter story was interwoven into Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s Watchmen story, but, for very obvious logistical reasons, would not be able to be added to the live-action film’s flow. Still, that’s pretty awesome that DelPergatorio worked on that as his directorial debut.

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Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle1 Comment

The summer is upon us, campers, and to celebrate, B-Movie Enema is spending the next three weeks camping in the great outdoors.

While movies set at summer camps are largely a horror thing, there are comedies, dramas, and kids’ flicks we can pull from over the next 13 weeks. Some are pretty crappy. Some are pretty funny. One is just for me. It’s gonna be a good time. So, with that, I want to welcome all my Enemaniacs to what I’m calling:

Here at Camp Crappabuttawipe, we aren’t on stolen land. No, we paid for it, and it was surprisingly expensive too. But we’ve got lots of activities for the Enemaniac looking to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday, modern life. We’ve got slasher killers, crazy hulking killers, and… um… legends of crazy slasher killers. But wait! There’s more! We’ll have raft races against other cabins. We’ll probably play a little grab ass here and there. We’ll even try to reconnect with our actress mother, who was known as a scream queen in her career before her tragic death. It’s gonna be fun!

And it all starts with the long-awaited return of a horror franchise to B-Movie Enema – Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers.

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Caligula (1979/2024)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle3 Comments

B-Movie Enema has existed from the morning of the world, and it shall exist until the last star falls from the night. Although I have taken the form of the Enema Man, I am all men as I am no man and therefore, I am a God… of buttholes.

Ah yes… This was bound to happen, wasn’t it? There are infamous movies, and there is 1979’s Caligula. Known as the gigantic budget sex film produced by Bob Guccione and Penthouse Films International. Guccione was the founder of Penthouse Magazine. Penthouse, as per my reckoning, as a guy who once had a subscription to both that and Playboy in my younger years, was known for two things. The first was the Penthouse Forum, in which people supposedly wrote letters that sounded a little more like erotic fiction than anything else. The second was the fact that the women in the magazine, at least when I had the subscription, tended to be more of the adult actress type of models, and therefore, unlike Playboy, which specialized in girls-next-door types, the Penthouse Pets tended to be a little raunchier in their pictorials. Playboy was more artful. Penthouse was more sexual. Hustler was dirty.

But what people don’t really know is that Penthouse was involved in funding for films for a long time. They chipped in funding for studio pictures like Chinatown and The Day of the Locust. Guccione never produced his own film. So he decided he wanted to not just produce a movie of his own, but make a grand spectacle about a time in which spectacle was sexy as fuck. So he said that Caligula would be the guy he’d make his movie about. He started working with an Italian producer, Franco Rossellini, whose uncle, Roberto, was one of the most prominent Italian filmmakers. He then eventually hired author Gore Vidal as his screenwriter.

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Missing in Action (1984)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

This review was written in advance of Chuck Norris passing away on March 19,2026 following a medical emergency. It’s not exactly written to be a tribute or an in memoriam to Norris, but more of a typical review of Missing In Action. That said, this movie is one of the more important ones in his filmography and the start of a franchise we will return to later in the year. It will be at that point that there will be more to say about the passing of an 80s action icon.

Oh boy, it’s time for some Chuck Norris/Cannon Films goodness on this week’s B-Movie Enema!

1984’s Missing in Action is kind of an important movie for our two primary entities. First and foremost, this was the first film Chuck Norris made for The Cannon Group and producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. That also meant that Cannon got Chuck Norris, an action star already, to more or less become the face for the company for years to come. This movie also brings director Joseph Zito back for another go at B-Movie Enema. Zito had previously directed The Prowler in 1981, but 1984 probably brought his two most recognizable films to his filmography – Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter and Missing in Action. In 1985, Zito, Cannon, and Norris teamed up again for another movie that really should find its way to the blog someday soon, Invasion U.S.A.

It’s really hard not to compare Missing in Action to 1982’s First Blood. First Blood probably kicked off the subgenre that Letterboxd likes to call vetsploitation. And how could it not? It was Sylvester Stallone in a really good performance as John Rambo, which then led to several leading action characters in the 80s being somehow a part of the Vietnam War. Missing in Action originated as a treatment by James Cameron for Rambo: First Blood Part II. That’s where the Rambo flicks and the Missing in Action series both get their pretty tight similarities. Golan and Globus totally owned up to the fact that Cameron’s treatment served as the inspiration for their series. So they released Missing in Action and Missing in Action 2: The Beginning as quickly as they could to get it out ahead of Rambo to avoid any legal issues. I wasn’t entirely sure how that avoided issues, but whatever, it was the Go-Go Boys doing what they do best, go-going.

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Can’t Stop the Music (1980)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle1 Comment

Do the milkshake, the milkshake, my Enemaniacs.

Guys… I… I’m not sure how to even start this review. Welcome back to B-Movie Enema and yet another review on this web zone. Boy oh boy do we have a doozy for you this week. 1980’s Can’t Stop the Music isn’t just a box office bomb. It isn’t just a critical disaster (to the exception of one movie reviewer’s very odd opinion), It isn’t just a movie about the disco group Village People, a group that, themselves, are kind of a massive dose of campy pop culture jokes. It also helped pave the way for a Hollywood tradition that is very hit and miss with me.

The movie was kind of meant to be about the formation and near-overnight success of Village People. Village People were formed in 1977 by Jacques Morali (played by Steve Guttenberg in his film debut) and his business partner, Henri Belolo. They were hitmakers in Europe and came over to New York City to break into the American music market. The first member to join the band was Victor Willis, who was the cop character in the group. Willis wrote most of their hits and was the lead singer of the group. He was the only performer on the first Village People album. To find other stage performers to mostly dance on stage to Willis singing, Willis first handpicked Alex Briley who portrayed the G.I. of the group and remained with the group for 40 years, and Morali chose Felipe Rose, who wore the Indian costume during performances. Rose was found in a local gay BDSM club with a name that is every bit as gay as it is awesome – The Anvil.

When the record proved to be a major hit, the rest of the band was formed by way of putting out an ad in a theatre trade paper. Glenn Hughes was added as the leatherman. Randy Jones saddled up as the cowboy. David Hodo built his entertainment foundation as the construction worker character. 1977’s Village People and 1978’s Macho Man were okay sellers, but later in 1978, Cruisin’ proved to be a MASSIVE hit, and it was followed by another hit album, 1979’s Go West.

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Killdozer (1974)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

A new review at B-Movie Enema is KILLDOZING ITS WAY INTO YOUR COMPUTERS!

Hell yeah, brother! It’s time for this oddball made-for-television flick from 1974. Look out! It’s Killdozer! Killdozer was first released as a 1944 novella by Theodore Sturgeon. Sturgeon wrote a ton of reviews (somewhere around 400, which means I have written more, so take that, Mr. Killdozer), along with a bunch of short stories, and about 11 novels. He even ghost-wrote an Ellery Queen mystery novel. Ellery Queen was someone my oldest brother would read when I was a kid.

Sturgeon also wrote a couple of very popular Star Trek episodes in the 60s. The first was “Shore Leave” which featured members of an away team seeing a bunch of crazy visions like characters from Alice in Wonderland and damsels in distress. The second was a VERY popular one, “Amok Time.” This introduced the Vulcan mating ritual, pon farr, and the first time the phrase “Live long and prosper” was uttered. It was also the first episode to feature the Vulcan hand salute. Some other scripts he wrote that went unproduced introduced the concept of the Prime Directive, the doctrine that Starfleet and the Federation operated by when visiting new worlds.

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Moment by Moment (1978)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle1 Comment

Welcome to the most sexually charged review of B-Movie Enema ever.

This week, I’m going to review 1978’s Moment by Moment from director Jane Wagner. We’ll talk about Wagner momentarily, as she is the writer, collaborator, and wife of one of the stars from this infamous movie. But when it comes to Moment by Moment, there are two guys we need to focus on first. That would be the leading man of the movie, John Travolta, and producer Robert Stigwood.

Travolta’s rise to superstardom was already well on the way in 1978. Sure, he was already famous for the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter. In 1976, he had a strong supporting role in the Brian De Palma horror masterpiece Carrie. But it was his leap to taking lead roles in 1977 that really made him a household name and one of the great movie stars for a few years to come.

And it was Robert Stigwood who launched that superstardom.

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