Category: 1980s

Get Crazy (1983)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle1 Comment

And so we have come to the end of another year. B-Movie Enema has done all sorts of fun stuff throughout 2022. We revisited Russ Meyer. We entered into the Madea Cinematic Universe for the first time. Also, for the first time, Steven Seagal showed up to sit around for a couple hours. We plowed through Lucio Fulci’s Gates of Hell Trilogy. AND I’ve done all sorts of digging into the themes of the Phantasm series. We’ve done it all, Enemaniacs.

So, let’s close things out with a movie that actually got fairly decent review from none other than Janet Maslin from The New York Times. Yessir… It’s time we celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of the next while we all Get Crazy!

What’s more, this is the return of a director we’ve seen before – Allan Arkush. Arkush co-directed the incredibly fun Hollywood Boulevard with Joe Dante. That’s a fun movie. I feel like we could very easily do more of Arkush’s stuff. His next film was as a co-director on 1978’s Deathsport that stars Claudia Jennings. Then, he rattled off three solo efforts in quick succession – Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (probably his most fondly remembered), Heartbeeps (a big ol’ swing and miss in terms of movies), and Get Crazy. Arkush had talent and still works today in TV. In fact, he was a Primetime Emmy Award winner for his musical mini-series The Temptations.

Again, the Roger Corman family tree making good in the biz.

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Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann (1982)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle1 Comment

One year ago tomorrow, the world lost a fascinating entertainer, Michael Nesmith.

This week’s B-Movie Enema will take a look at the first feature film Nesmith produced, Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann. This movie is the rare science fiction western that deals with time travel when Lyle Swann (played by Fred Ward), champion off-road racer, gets zapped 100 years into the past in an accident dealing with an experiment. Now, this movie is notoriously known for being slow to get started, but more current reviews tends to be quite favorable and even calls the movie a fun romp.

But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to talk about Michael Nesmith. Nesmith is one part of a huge aspect of my youth. I grew up in a household with an older mom and siblings that were quite a bit older than most people I went to school with at home. So, I had a huge appreciation for older music. I was hip to the Beatles or Tom Petty or Led Zeppelin or even less appreciated groups like the Eagles and Aerosmith before most anyone else I knew. Then, in 1986, the Monkees, which I was already sort of aware of, made a HUGE comeback.

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Savage Streets (1984)

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This one is a long time coming…

Welcome to this week’s B-Movie Enema. When I say this was a long time coming it’s because I’ve known of this movie for a long time, had a copy of it, and have always wanted to find some way to talk about it because it exists in a peculiar time of exploitation in the movies – the 1980s. In addition to that, it also has some not insignificant people in the cast. This week, I’m going to be digging into the Danny Steinmann film Savage Streets starring Linda Blair.

I’ve been looking for a way to cover this movie somehow. I got it with the possibility of it being featured either here at B-Movie Enema or as part of a theme month of movies with the word “Savage” in the title over at Film Seizure. However, considering I have an extensive backlog of movies to feature here, I decided I needed to pull the trigger and clear this one off the list. By the way, A LOT of next year is going to be clearing backlog, but I digress. Let’s start looking at the people involved with this movie, beginning with director Danny Steinmann.

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Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

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Happy Halloween to all my Enemaniacs!

It’s been quite some time since I did an actual Halloween film from the franchise that gave us a guy in a spray-painted William Shatner mask. In 2016, I was watching Fear Fest on AMC and Halloween: Resurrection was on and I realized how really bad that movie was and I needed to put my thoughts to the world. And I did! Then, in 2017, I did it againwith my favorite of all the Halloween sequels, Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

But, much like it was on October 21, 1988, the wait is finally over. I’m back to covering the exploits of one Michael Myers with Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. This feels good. This feels like home. I’m back to talking about Halloween sequels that are either kind of oddballs or flat out bad. This one lands somewhere in between, but we’ll talk about that more in a bit.

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Hack-O-Lantern (1988)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle1 Comment

Welcome back to B-Movie Enema!

We’re celebrating the wonderful month of October with a whole slate of Halloween-themed movies. Last week, we got things started with my first (and likely only) trip into the Madea Cinematic Universe with Boo! A Madea Halloween. This week, we’re going to do a whole lot better. I’m going to delve deep into the 1988 slasher/satanic panic/Halloween classic Hack-O-Lantern.

What’s really interesting about this movie is that it’s still fairly obscure. Yet, there are two very popular shows that featured this movie at different times that should have made this movie a lot more popular. First, it was featured on RedLetterMedia’s Halloween 2017 episode of Best of the Worst. That’s one of the better episodes of Best of the Worst too. Then, it was featured on The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs for that show’s 2020 Halloween episode. Hell, it was even featured on an October 2012 episode of The Cinema Snob.

It was also the movie in question during an episode of The People’s Court surrounding a rights issue that ends up being a whole other story due to potential muddy ownership and how a show like The People’s Court actually works (meaning something that was supposedly a slam-dunk case against the streamer only for it to be taken out of civil court and into a television court space), but I digress.

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Silent Rage (1982)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

It’s been a minute since B-Movie Enema did anything with Chuck Norris, hasn’t it?

Yeah, in fact, it’s kind of surprising that this blog hasn’t done even more with the kung fu, karate chopping, 80s superstar. In the six and a half years of this blog being kind of a constantly running thing, this week’s movie, Silent Rage, is only the fourth movie I’ve covered starring the man with the plan, Chuck motherfuckin’ Norris.

Before we get into the movie, let’s talk a little bit about the man, the legend, the omnipresence that is Carlos Ray Norris.

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Hyperspace (aka Gremloids, 1984)

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Hey there guys, gals, and enby pals, it’s time for another B-Movie Enema and, this time around, I think it’s safe to say that the legacy of the movie being featured way outweighs the movie itself.

First, the basics. We’re looking at the 1984 sci-fi comedy Hyperspace, which also goes by the title Gremloids in the United Kingdom. It is an early example of Star Wars parody, but not the first by a long shot. Nothing about that is exactly unique. Parodies of the massive hit that is Star Wars go all the way back to shorts like Hardware Wars. That’s not even mentioning the various sci-fi movies that were simply trying to utilize George Lucas’ space opera as a template for their own quick buck cash-ins. Then, of course, that’s not even mentioning all the Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and Turkish versions of the movie too.

Hyperspace was created by Todd Durham. Durham is a comedy writer. He mostly worked as a script doctor. It was in that role that he conceived the idea for the incredibly popular Hotel Transylvania franchise which is one of the few credits he actually does receive. You see, being a script doctor means you can claim credit for a lot of movies actually working, but you rarely really get on screen credit.

Hyperspace is not without some star power, though maybe not exactly the most recognizable in 1984. This movie stars Chris Elliot and Paula Poundstone. These two were making a name for themselves in the 80s, but maybe not quite this early. Elliott would have recurring appearances on David Letterman’s talk show as a comedy player. Poundstone would later go on to really cash in on HBO when they started doing regular stand-up comedy specials.

But they aren’t the real legacy of this movie… Not by a long shot.

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