The Trauma Nurse is ready to ride into the post-apocalyptic wasteland as she and Geoff watch Warlords of the 21st Century and wonder at the bad guy’s Battletruck on a new episode of B-Movie Enema: The Series!
Category: 1980s
Xtro (1983)
I sure hope you like slimy and gross-out horror because that’s what B-Movie Enema has on tap for this week’s review!
Xtro is a 1983 sci-fi horror film that some think is one of the many responses to the 1982 runaway hit E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. I believe that misaligns this movie with those more exploitative or cash-grab knockoffs. Yes, E.T.’s immense popularity led to many movies that wanted to “answer back” by featuring nasty, very unfriendly alien invaders as an almost rejection of the big box office brought in by the very sweet and family-friendly film from Spielberg. This is not one of them for a couple of reasons.
The first is that I think this movie has much more credit to pay toward two late 70s sci-fi horror films; 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers and 1979’s Alien. In Xtro, we have a very slimy and gross alien that wears the disguise of a recognizable human character. It is also weirder than that as far as where the alien comes from that we’ll dig into later. The primary reason why I do not think this is a response to E.T.’s popularity is because this film was originally intended to be released by New Line Cinema in 1982. Even if we give the conservative release schedule in 1982 of very late December, the production value, the creature, and some of the design work put into the movie wouldn’t have had time to get written, all the pre-production done, and the film shot and edited and put in the can for release that quickly after E.T. It just couldn’t have been possible.
Even on this film’s very scant $60,000 budget.
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B-Movie Enema: The Series Episode #68 – Terror at London Bridge
Geoff and Nurse D head to Lake Havasu for this week’s episode of B-Movie Enema: The Series to watch the Hoff in Terror at London Bridge!
B-Movie Enema: The Series Episode #66 – Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned
In 1980, Toei Animation and Marvel Productions were at the end of an agreement deal to cross-adapt each other’s properties. That resulted in Shogun Warriors, a Japanese tokusatsu Spider-Man series, and this animated adaptation of The Tomb of Dracula – Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned.
The Quiet Earth (1985)
Welcome back to B-Movie Enema!
Quly is continuing on and for this third week, we go to the “other” “down under” for this cult classic from New Zealand. This week, I’m going to discuss Geoff Murphy’s The Quiet Earth. Interestingly, I’ve been familiar with Geoff Murphy for almost 35 years. In 1990, I was super excited to see Young Guns II. I love those two Young Guns flicks. In 1992, I went and saw Freejack which he also directed. So, yeah, I was pleasantly surprised that his name was attached to this because I knew who he was.
Plus, us Geoffs stick together.
Anyway, the origins of The Quiet Earth began in 1981. The obvious connection was that the book this was based on was published that year. We’ll touch upon that in just a moment. But 1981 also saw the release of New Zealand’s first bonafide box office hit, Goodbye Pork Pie. The director of Goodbye Pork Pie? That’s right! It’s Geoff Murphy. And, yes, it basically made his career. He followed that up with Utu which led to a discussion around New Zealand’s history and the treatment of Maori people. After Utu, The Quiet Earth was Murphy’s next film and this hit cult classic status as well. Most of the 90s was spent in Hollywood with mixed results for Murphy, but he would return to New Zealand to be the 2nd Unit Director on fellow Kiwi Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Murphy passed away in December 2018.
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B-Movie Enema: The Series Episode #65 – Kill Squad
Things are getting weird on this episode of B-Movie Enema: The Series! Geoff and Nurse Disembaudee are in kung fu fightin’ moods as they watch Kill Squad. Can anyone save them from their aggressive feelings?
10 to Midnight (1983)
Cannon Films is back for this week’s B-Movie Enema review and they are bringing one of their biggest stars with ’em!
It’s hard to believe this is only the second time I’ve done a Charles Bronson movie on this site. To think, he has all those Death Wish movies. He’s got some cool-ass-sounding thrillers and action flicks in the 70s. With all that, the best I could do is Assassination? Well, it’s time to do better, and, this week, I do have one that is better.
Remember when I did the Chuck Norris 1982 thriller Silent Rage? That was this cop thriller that also had some horror and even some science fiction elements. That was part of a time in which crime thrillers were still a big deal, but horror was on the rise big time. If we were to add to that the fact that Norris was becoming a rising star who was just a couple years away from becoming the other “Chuck” at Cannon Films, it’s hard to not kind of tie all of this into this week’s movie that is getting the review treatment, 10 to Midnight.
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B-Movie Enema: The Series #61 – Warrior of the Lost World
Geoff and Nurse Disembuadee hit the road in the post-apocalypse with this episode of B-Movie Enema: The Series as they check out Robert Ginty in Warrior of the Lost World.
bmovieenema.com 