Category: Reviews

Solarbabies (1986)

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Welcome to the final B-Movie Enema review for 2023!

In 1986, the same year his production company, Brooksfilm, made the fantastic remake of The Fly, Mel Brooks executive produced this week’s movie that is getting the review treatment – Solarbabies. Talk about the ups and downs within a single year. The movie didn’t just have Brooks producing and backing the movie the whole way through, it also had a score from three-time Oscar-winning composer, Maurice Jarre. In front of the camera, you see young stars like Jami Gertz, Jason Patric, Adrian Pasdar, James LeGros, and Lukas Haas. There were also more seasoned actors like Charles Durning and Sara Douglas. The movie had a fairly decent $25 million budget, but it all fell flat. It only grossed $1.6 million at the box office. It got horrific reviews.

So how did this all go wrong?

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The Toxic Avenger (1984)

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He was 98 lbs. of solid nerd until he became… THE TOXIC AVENGER!

Welcome to a brand-spankin’ new B-Movie Enema. As it were, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas, my Enemaniacs! To celebrate, let’s visit Tromaville, New Jersey, the home of everyone’s B-movie uncle, Lloyd Kaufman. Kaufman and his producing partner Michael Herz co-directed this breakout film for Troma Entertainment.

Now, I’ve covered several movies released by Troma from within the distribution arm of Kaufman and Herz’s entertainment company. I’ve even covered a few other movies that featured Kaufman as an actor. Only once, though, did I ever cover a film actually funded, made, and released by the Troma team. I’ve not brought this one up for quite some time. It used to be one that I would reference often, and definitely compare to when I’d see a movie of a particular level of quality. Do you guys remember which one that was?

That one is the cinematic diarrhea disaster that was Pot Zombies.

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The Harder They Come (1972)

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Welcome to a new B-Movie Enema review. This week, we’re going to do something a little different. We’re going to look at a movie that is an outright classic. This week, I’m going to look at 1972’s The Harder They Come by Perry Henzell starring reggae star Jimmy Cliff.

The Harder They Come is widely considered one of the most important films to ever come out of the Caribbean and very likely the most influential Jamaican film ever made. It was a massive hit in Jamaica. Henzell believed the success was mostly due to the naturalistic portrayal of black Jamaicans in recognizable locations and the local people portrayed in a way that allowed the black folks on the island to see themselves on the screen for the very first time. On top of that, when it was exported around the world in late 1972 and early 1973, the film is largely credited for bringing reggae to the world, especially the United States where it became a sensation. In the U.S., the film was distributed by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures where it eventually became a midnight movie hit.

The only issue is that the Creole dialect spoken by locals, known as Jamaican Patois, was so thick, that it struggled to be the same sensation outside Jamaica. It became the first English language movie that required subtitles in the United States. Still, the reviews were mostly good. It would go on to become a cult classic over the decades.

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Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985)

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Welcome to yet another B-Movie Enema, my dear Enemaniacs! This week, we’ve got ourselves a real adventure. In fact, the title says it begins here. What it doesn’t say is that it also ended here. That’s right, I’m going to be writing many, many words about 1985’s Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins!

Where to start? Well, let’s start with our titular hero. Remo Williams is the lead character in a series of pulp adventure novels that go back to 1971’s Created, The Destroyer. He was created by authors Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir. Sapir wrote a handful of other books, but none were as popular as his Remo Williams co-creation. Murphy, on the other hand, is a little more interesting.

Murphy wrote the screenplay for 1975’s The Eiger Sanction starring Clint Eastwood. In 1989, he worked on the story for Lethal Weapon 2 with Shane Black. The TV Series Murphy’s Law was also based on the Trace series of books that he also wrote. Most interestingly, Murphy would be married to Nancy Cartwright from 1988 to 2002, the pair having two children. Who is Nancy Cartwright, and why does that name sound so familiar?

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Dr. Caligari (1989)

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It’s December here at B-Movie Enema Industries, and that means things are getting a little cold. But I’ve got something to warm the bones. By that, I mean something really weird. This week, I’m looking at the avant-garde 1989 Dr. Caligari.

I don’t want to say this is a remake of the German expressionism classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but let’s try to sort all this out. That original version I just mentioned was released in 1920. This was during a time of massive film experimentation in post-World War I Germany. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is one of the most influential early films in history. While 1922’s Nosferatu is a more influential monster film, Caligari twisted the way a story could be told. That wasn’t just a clever way of using the word twisted to describe the look of the film. There are multiple reads about how the narrative plays out.

Dr. Caligari, in the original that is, was a man who went from town to town and did sideshow-like performances with his somnambulist, Cesare, who is forced to obey his every command. Cesare is Caligari’s instrument of revenge against those who wronged him. It turns out that the character who is telling this story is actually a patient in an asylum. Caligari is actually the head doctor there. The other main characters, Cesare, and the girl whom Cesare falls in love with, Jane, are also inmates. It’s an early example of a twist ending and an unreliable narrator in a film.

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Krull (1983)

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Happy Thanksgiving weekend, Enemaniacs! I’ve got a bit of a feast for you for this week’s B-Movie Enema review.

In the early 80s, there were a couple of phenomena going on. The first was the re-emergence of the sword and sorcery or sword and sandal movies. That was mostly due to the popularity of 1982’s Conan the Barbarian but I would also count 1981’s Clash of the Titans as also being an inspiration for the genre of fantasy action films. The other big phenomenon was the adventure sci-fi genre thanks to the huge success of 1977’s Star Wars and 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back.

If you really think about it, Star Wars isn’t really science fiction. More accurately, it would be called space opera. That means it’s a little more fantasy than true science fiction. Star Trek is the more true action science fiction type of movie where it both features some action and adventure but also tackles other concepts that are more sci-fi in nature. The advancements made in special effects also made for movies that could feature more lasers and spaceships and different types of creatures, though maybe the last one would be more due to advancements in makeup effects and artistry. That brings us to this week’s topic, 1983’s Krull.

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Kitten with a Whip (1964)

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Welcome a new B-Movie Enema review, my dear Enemaniacs!

I’ve got something a little different than I usually do on this blog, but I would also say it touches upon a few things I’ve referenced before. The movie I’m looking at this week is 1964’s Kitten with a Whip starring Ann-Margret and John Forsythe. I would label this movie as a late example of the 50s and early 60s “girls gone crazy” exploitation boom. Throughout that era, you had bad girls all played by bombshells who were young and curvy and had a bite to them that made men drool all over themselves.

I’ve talked about a movie several years ago that was a part of a Showtime series of made-for-cable TV movies that were produced by Debra Hill that all took names of classic 50s-era exploitation films and made something slightly different from them. That movie was Confessions of Sorority Girls starring Jaime Luner and Alyssa Milano. Some of these movies were also featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 through the early 90s. That’s where I first saw Kitten with a Whip. The movie is, as we’ll definitely talk about throughout this review, okay, but there is no chance you can watch this movie without noticing the 23-year-old Ann-Margret in the lead role of a bad girl who has all sorts of very sexy issues.

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Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1983)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

We had ourselves a rough one last week, my dear Enemaniacs. The only way to make up for that? Reb Brown.

Oh yes, save us all, Reb! We need salvation from shitty robot ladies who weren’t robots but also maybe brainwashed but weren’t brainwashed. We need something Italian. We need something French. We need something Turkish. We need Yor, the Hunter from the Future!

Welcome to this looooong overdue review for B-Movie Enema. I picked up this Blu-Ray when it was released several years ago with the intention for this to be covered here. I don’t know what kept me from fulfilling that promise the day it arrived, but here we are.

This movie is, indeed, an Italian-French-Turkish co-production. I’ve only once before delved into the world of Turkish cinema, but know they like making movies. They really like making movies that look and play out like American films. But you know the Italians like doing that too. With the Italian side of the production comes director Antonio Margheriti. Margheriti did a lot of lower-budget stuff and was mostly doing the typical Italian genres of crime action films, science fiction, spaghetti westerns, and horror. Notably, Margheriti made films like Castle of Blood starring Barbara Steele, Cannibal Apocalypse starring John Saxon, Death Rage starring Yul Brynner in his final role, and several action movies with David Warbeck.

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