Category: 1980s

The Allnighter (1987)

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Welcome back to another bodacious review at B-Movie Enema!

The 80s… I’m surprised there were any movies like Reds or Gandhi or Terms of Endearment or Out of Africa released during that decade. It seemed like most movies from the era were either muscle-bound hunks of men with giant guns or sexy boner comedies or beach party movies… that were also boner comedies. In a sort of way, the 80s revived the beach party movies of the late 50s and early 60s. I guess people, for some dumb reason, like seeing sexy people in skimpy bathing suits frolicking and making kissy faces with each other.

Enter writer/director Tamar Simon Hoffs and her 1987 comedy The Allnighter. Now, The Allnighter was one of those movies that ALWAYS caught my eye at the video store. Why? Because Tamar Simon Hoffs put her own daughter, singer Susanna Hoffs, on the cover with her graduation gown wide open and her skimpy matching bra and panties showing. That’s a hell of an ad campaign.

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The Prowler (1981)

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Just like this week’s killer, B-Movie Enema is peepin’ and sneakin’ up on all you dressed in our best, most spookiest World War II fatigues.

But I’m only here to deliver a rose and a new review! Welcome back, my dear Enemaniacs. This week, I’m finally reviewing one I’ve wanted to do for quite some time – 1981’s The Prowler from Joseph Zito. The Prowler is probably most remembered for those great Tom Savini kills. While the movie didn’t get great reviews upon release, as well as not making a profit off its meager $1 million budget, the movie does have a cult following. Again, I would assume it’s the Tom Savini gore effects, but there are a few more things to consider.

One of those things I’ll talk about later, but I think there is a guy behind the camera who helped get this to cult status, Joseph Zito. Zito is known for genre schlock. Zito’s first film was 1975’s Abduction, and he followed that with 1979’s Bloodrage. Both are considered those extremely sleazy types of exploitation horror. That served him well for his next two movies, the one we’re going to be diving into in much more detail shortly, and 1984’s Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, the entry many consider to be the best in the franchise.

What’s kind of funny is that The Final Chapter would be the last horror film he’d make.

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Trapped (1982)

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You can’t say we don’t get around here at B-Movie Enema.

Over the last month and a half or so, we’ve gone from outer space by way of Japan to the sewers under Los Angeles before we hopped across the Atlantic to hang out with crooks in Italy to a top secret facility out in the American desert lousy with dinosaurs to New Zealand to Tromaville, back to Japan, and here we are… headed to Canada for some thrills and chills. We are definitely piling up the frequent flyer miles. Anyway, this week, B-Movie Enema is reviewing a 1982 film that has a few different titles. We’re going to refer to it, as seen above in this article’s headline, as Trapped. The other titles it is known by are The Killer Instinct and Baker County, U.S.A. The latter is one I’ve either seen at a video store or heard of somewhere along the way (as well as being the title given to the film by IMDb).

Trapped has some returning folks that we’ve talked about before. The director of this flick is William Fruet. Fruet directed 1986’s Killer Party, which is a VERY old review here dating back to, like, 2017. Fruet also worked on the 1983 Peter Fonda/Oliver Reed horror film Spasms, which is definitely one I remember from the video stores thanks to an eye-catching box. Seriously… was I supposed to be looking at the naked girl screaming in the shower or the monster-faced man below her?

The answer was “yes.”

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The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989)

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Welcome back to another trip to Tromaville, New Jersey, for a brand new B-Movie Enema review!

Back for Christmas 2022, I took a trip to everyone’s nuclear waste-ridden town to discuss Lloyd Kaufman’s original superhero, The Toxic Avenger. That 1984 breakout hit for Kaufman’s Troma Entertainment was brash, offensive, slapdash, but brilliant in many ways. The sheer irreverence in Kaufman’s style of comedy is in full display here. That wasn’t Lloyd’s first film he directed, and it certainly was not his first comedy, but this was the one that skyrocketed Troma into the vocabulary for all those exploitation, trash cinema fans scouring the video store shelves looking for some depraved weekend entertainment in the 80s.

Funny enough, Lloyd Kaufman’s sex comedies between 1979 and 1983 all had titles with exclamation points: Squeeze Play!, Waitress!, Stuck on You!, and The First Turn-On! You gotta love Lloyd’s commitment to the schtick. Then again, considering how bombastic his mannerisms and the way he speaks, I have to assume he shouted the titles he wanted to put on his movies, and the guy who made the title cards just thought that was part of the title.

Eh… Anyway, considering a bigger budget remake of the original The Toxic Avenger is now hitting theaters across the country, starring a for-real Emmy Award-winning actor, Peter Dinklage, I figured it’s time to revisit the world of Toxie. This week, we’re going to look at the 1989 sequel to the original, The Toxic Avenger Part II.

(Oh, and my official review of the new Toxic Avenger movie? It’s a lot of fun and has a surprising amount of heart but keeps the counterculture vibes of Lloyd’s original intact. 4 out of 5 stars!)

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Death Warmed Up (1984)

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It’s time for another shambling review here at B-Movie Enema!

We don’t cover New Zealand enough around here, if I’m being honest. The islands that make up the southern hemisphere nation have made quite a splash in film over the last 40+ years. While it’s unfair to tie New Zealand’s film legacy to Australia’s, it might be fair to say that after the rise of Australian cinema in the 70s, New Zealand was able to follow suit and offer its own blend of plots, concepts, and quirks to film audiences.

What’s kind of interesting, this site has been full of Kiwi products over the last year and a half. In March of last year, I looked at Peter Jackson’s adult take on The Muppet Show, 1989’s Meet the Feebles. The wonderful 1985 science fiction drama, The Quiet Earth, came to the site in the form of a review in July. Then, in August of last year, the 70th episode of B-Movie Enema: The Series hopped in our Battletruck to watch Warlords of the 21st Century. All three of those movies have their own qualities that are fun, thought-provoking, or just outright weird. Now, it’s time to discuss another Kiwi film of note – David Blyth’s 1984 sci-fi zombie flick, Death Warmed Up.

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Scared to Death (1980)

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AAAAAAHHHHHHH!

Wow, guys. I am really Scared to Death this week. Welcome to a new review here at B-Movie Enema.

If you would, think back to December of last year. I reviewed the movie The Deadly Spawn. That little 1983 sci-fi horror flick was quite fun. By absolute accident, the following week, I covered Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor. What I didn’t realize at the time I scheduled those two reviews to be done, months ahead of being published, was that they were from the same series. The Deadly Spawn was the original. Metamorphosis is a sort of sequel. Well, this year, while not scheduled back-to-back, I have scheduled two more films that are related to each other – 1980’s Scared to Death and the 1990 sequel Syngenor.

This time, they are much closer in connection.

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Primal Rage (1988)

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Welcome to this animalistic new review at B-Movie Enema!

This week, we’re looking at one of those classic Italian movies that wants to be an American horror film, 1988’s Primal Rage. Those are fun, aren’t they? This one comes from a couple of names of pretty decent note. First, you have director Vittorio Rambaldi. He’s a bit of a nepo baby. His father, Carlo, was a two-time Academy Award-winning visual effects maestro. He won for 1979’s Alien and 1982’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestial. Carlo Rambaldi had a third nomination for 1976’s King Kong. By the way, that’s my very favorite King Kong too. Look at Jessica Lange, in her big screen debut, and tell me it’s not the most beautiful of all the versions of that tale.

While Carlo would go on to do the effects for the awful King Kong Lives, he would end his career on this film for his son. Interestingly, though, I can only think of one thing Carlo would create for this movie, but we’ll get there when we get there. The last name Rambaldi would not be the only major Italian name associated with this movie, though.

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The Unseen (1980)

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Welcome to a killer new review here at B-Movie Enema.

This week, we’re looking at an early 80s film that I think has a little underground cult appeal. We’re going to discuss 1980’s The Unseen from director Danny Steinmann. Steinmann is likely a name horror fans will recognize, even though, for The Unseen, he used the credit Peter Foleg. Like with last week’s movie, Carnosaur, which had special effects done by Friday the 13th Part VI: The New Blood director John Carl Buechler, Steinmann is also a Camp Crystal Lake alum. In 1985, he co-wrote and directed his final film, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. By far, that is Steinmann’s most famous movie, for better or worse.

I don’t envy the guy who had to make the only other movie without Jason Voorhees in the franchise after the character became the most defining part of the series.

After getting his start in the 70s in the adult industry, directing the porno High Rise in 1973, Steinmann didn’t really do much with film for another seven years when he crossed over into the mainstream with The Unseen. At least, he wasn’t in the director’s chair or writing scripts. He did work as an assistant on 1975’s The Man in the Glass Booth and a 1977 TV movie for Gene Roddenberry’s Spectre.

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