Category: 1980s

Graduation Day (1981)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

When you get to the month of May, and you’re in school (especially high school), you’re all about getting the hell out of there for a summer of goofing off and sleeping in. So, with this week’s B-Movie Enema review, let’s celebrate the impending graduation of the class of 2023 with a look at the 1981 slasher horror film Graduation Day.

This comes from director Herb Freed who made only about ten movies. In 1976, he made Haunts with everyone’s favorite B-movie star, Cameron Mitchell. Then, in 1980, just before making Graduation Day, he made another horror film called Beyond Evil. Now, what’s interesting is that Beyond Evil starred Linda Day George. when he made Graduation Day a year later, he cast Linda’s husband Christopher George as his lead. Interesting how that comes around. Then, in 1985, he made another kind of cult classic 80s film, Tomboy, starring Betsy Russell. However, by the end of the decade and into the 90s, it seemed that Freed then mostly made video store and cable type movies that have a bit of a reduced budget and lesser marketing.

So, yeah, we have Christopher George in Graduation Day. Now, we saw him previously in City of the Living Dead. This is definitely at the end of his career. He would die in 1983 from a heart attack at the age of 52. He’s not the only character actor to be found here in this movie, as we also have Michael Pataki. Pataki appeared in the Spider-Man TV movies of the late 70s as well as bit parts in Rocky IV and Halloween 4 where he appeared as Dr. Hoffman. Additionally, we have an appearance of Linda Shayne who as in classics of B-Movie Enema lore like Humanoids of the Deep, Screwballs, and Lovely But Deadly. Not only that, but we have Linnea Quigley who has been in too many of B-Movie Enema alumni films to list. Finally, we have the queen of gameshow letter flipping, Vanna White, in one of her seven feature and television film appearances.

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The House on the Edge of the Park (1980)

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This article was written, edited, scheduled, and completed prior to the unfortunate passing of supporting star Giovanni Lombardo Radice.

Welcome back for another B-Movie Enema review. This week, I’m taking a look at 1980’s The House on the Edge of the Park.

This is one, and let me know if you’ve heard this line before, that I remember catching a part of on Bizarre TV. I don’t remember anything that I saw, but I remember this movie’s lead star, David Hess. Hess is quite the recognizable guy if you’ve seen Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left. Let’s face it, most of you reading this blog have seen that one. But Hess would basically go down in “infamy” as Krug, the leader of a group of nogoodniks who kill two innocent girls just looking to score some weed before going to a rock concert.

Beyond that, Hess also would become best known for playing scuzzy villains. In House on the Edge of the Park and Hitch-Hike, he plays guys who either murder people or take them hostage… or, well, both. Most of the other movies that he appeared in just had him play bit parts as in the case of his reunion with Wes Craven in Swamp Thing. But he actually had other talents as well. He directed the Christmas slasher To All a Goodnight. Despite being recognizable for being the leader of a horrific gang of rapists and murders in The Last House on the Left, Hess actually was quite the singer and songwriter.

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Demonoid (1981)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

What is it that they always say – “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop?”

Yeah, that probably best sums up this week’s new B-Movie Enema review. We’re making a run for the border, and, no, it’s not for Taco Bell… unless you want me to have explosive diarrhea. Well, maybe you do, but I don’t want that for myself. No, it’s for Alfredo Zacarías and his supernatural thriller, Demonoid!

You know what’s great about that? This is the second time we featured a movie written and directed by Zacarías. Oh yeah, I covered him way back in 2018 with his nature-gone-wild epic, The Bees. Even though the reviews of this movie isn’t exactly kind, calling Demonoid a “tedious possession movie” and what have you, I know what I saw in The Bees. I could argue that one was also sort of tedious in how it was made, but goddammit if it wasn’t fucking bonkers at times too. That gives me a tad bit of hope that I could get something decent here in Demonoid.

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Lurkers (1988)

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What do you think? More Roberta Findlay? Sure! Why not?

Welcome to this week’s new B-Movie Enema review. I’m Geoff Arbuckle, and this is 1988’s Lurkers. Now, if you think back to 2019, I took a look at Findlay’s Prime Evil. That movie was okay for the most part. However, what I think everyone could agree on is how freakin’ awesome the devil creature that shows up is. The year before Lurkers and Prime Evil, Findlay also did Blood Sisters. That one was a little less than interesting but not without some fun.

The far more interesting elements of those movies, of course, is Roberta Findlay. I’ve mentioned about how Findlay worked with her husband, Michael, on films, but it wasn’t a great relationship. That said, she worked with him while they were separated. She did porn and horror… That’s about it. But that’s perfectly fine too. Most of her movies weren’t particularly high budget, but she often worked as both director and cinematographer on her films. The number of credits as either role on a film is fairly impressive considering she really only had a roughly 25 year career. My point is she kept busy making movies.

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Nightwish (1989)

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

Nightwish is one I’ve wanted to do for some time. The primary reason is that I saw this some years ago on the defunct Roku channel that we all love and miss, Bizarre TV. This movie has a nice mix of spooky horror business and sci-fi elements. And when I think about it, this is kind of what you might expect in the late 80s moving into the early 90s now that the genre was moving beyond the, at the time, quickly deflating slasher subgenre.

This movie is somewhat unremarkable when it comes to the behind the scenes business. Director Bruce R. Cook made only two films in his directorial career. This was his second of those. Interestingly, the art direction is quite good, though. It calls back memories of something that Stuart Gordon would have made. These would be movies like Re-Animator and From Beyond, and it really should look like that because the art direction on Nightwish was done by Robert A. Burns, the art director on Re-Animator and From Beyond – as well as other genre classics like The Howling, Tourist Trap, The Hills Have Eyes, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He also did two more B-Movie Enema alumni Disco Godfather and the B-Movie Enema: The Series selection Microwave Massacre.

Not a bad career if you ask me.

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Space Mutiny (1988)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle3 Comments

Oh. Boy.

Welcome back to B-Movie Enema and the grand finale of David Winters Winter. If you’ve been reading all month, I’ve been kind of teasing what the finale was going to be. If you know what David Winters is maybe best known for, particularly in the 80s, and if I was teasing an 80s film of his that has some questionable decisions made in the production and set decoration, then you had to know it was going to be Space Mutiny.

Of course, Space Mutiny is best known for being one of the funniest episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. And what that episode is best known for are all the muscleman jokes made at lead star Reb Brown’s expense. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve called someone Rip Steakface, or Brick HardMeat, or Crunch Buttsteak, or Reef Blastbody, or Roll Fizzlebeef, or Big McLargeHuge, or Eat Punchbeef, or even Bob Johnson. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said one of those names when I see Reb Brown. In fact, I’m sure I used some of them when I covered the 1979 Captain America movie he starred in! It’s part of my very blood. Those 40 parody names are just some of the best jokes ever written for a TV show.

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Mission Kill (1987)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle1 Comment

Just when you didn’t think David Winters Winter could get any better, things heat up with this mid-80s action spectacular with an all-star cast!

Welcome back to B-Movie Enema and the third week of this theme month celebrating the man, the myth, and the legend, David Winters! This week, I’m looking at 1987’s Mission Kill. Hoo boy do I have lots to talk about with the cast of this movie. However, I guess we should talk a little bit about the date of release for this movie.

I have put 1987 as the year of this movie and referred to it as 1987’s Mission Kill. If we want to get a little pedantic about this, I guess I could say it’s 1985’s Mission Kill. That’s what IMDb has it listed for. That’s what will show up in everyone’s filmography, but it really kind of is 1985 when this movie was originally released. It played in France at the Cannes Film Festival in May of 1985. It then went to West Germany 13 months later. Another 13 months later, it was in Japan. It wasn’t until December of 1987 before it got released on video in the United States. Is it possible it played here in either 1985 or 1986 in theaters? Maybe. But we’re going with that 1987 date, okay? Okay.

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