Category: Reviews

Pajama Tops (1983)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

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

January 2025 has been dedicated to Pia Zadora. Right here in the middle of the month dedicated to the lil’ starlet is not a feature film shown on the big screen. We’re going to look at the 1983 TV movie Pajama Tops. This “movie” was directed by Robert Iscove. Iscove has a whole lot of credits on his filmography. This includes a LOT of TV stuff. He directed episodes of Wiseguy, Star Trek: The Next Generation, 21 Jump Street, The Flash, American Playhouse, Great Performances, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

However, Iscove then made two kind of famous movies. One is famous for being one of those 90s movies that gained a huge fanbase and the other is kind of infamous. The one with the fanbase is 1999’s She’s All That. Yeah, everyone loves She’s All That, right? Rachel Leigh Cook, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Paul Walker! Yeah! We love those guys. However, the other film that isn’t so well-liked is 2003’s From Justin to Kelly. That’s the movie that starred the winner and runner-up of the very first season of American Idol – Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini.

Can you believe American Idol is still going?!?

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Fake-Out (a.k.a. Nevada Heat, 1982)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome back to B-Movie Enema and another entry in January’s Pia Zadora Month!

Alright, so check this shit out… Last week’s movie, Butterfly, was directed by Matt Cimber. I had mentioned that we had already seen one of his movies (The Candy Tangerine Man) and that it was highly unlikely we would never see him again on this blog. Well, I wasn’t just whistlin’ Dixie. He’s already back! Yeah, Matt Cimber made two films in 1982 and both starred Pia Zadora!

That brings us to Fake-Out. At times, this movie was also released under the title Nevada Heat. I actually know it was called that because that was the name on the box we had at the video store I worked at in the 90s. Anyway, whereas Butterfly was a James M. Cain-adapted crime drama, Fake-Out sticks with the crime part of the genre, but it’s also a comedy. But it also gives Zadora a chance to be on film and sing too.

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Butterfly (1982)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

Happy New Year, Enemaniacs!

B-Movie Enema kicks off 2025 with a whole month dedicated to the pint-sized starlet Pia Zadora. Why? Because why not! She’s spunky and cute and she happened to make some pretty bad movies. But where do we start? Santa Claus Conquers the Martians? How dare you think I would stoop so low to pick this low-hanging fruit! No, like lil Pia herself, I’m going for the fuckin’ gusto. This month is gonna be wild, my friends, but we’re kicking things off with 1982’s Butterfly.

Now, I can hear you already… “What’s Butterfly? Why are you rizzing this up so much already? Is this really the gusto?”

Holy shit, yes it is, and I will explain why in a bit. First and foremost, we’ve got ourselves a returning director, Matt Cimber. Cimber did The Candy Tangerine Man. This will definitely not be the last time you will see his name on this blog in January. And I promise you Mr. Cimber has a whole lot more I could cover on this blog between his sexploitation, blaxploitation, and his fantasy film Hundra. Anyway, this guy was mostly known for lower-budget fare but he might be best known as being the ex-husband of Jayne Mansfield. He and Mansfield divorced about a year before her untimely death in 1967.

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Galaxina (1980)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome to B-Movie Enema, and let’s all say goodbye together to 2024.

I’m sure by now, people have made the final decision if 2024 was good, bad, or meh. I’m also guessing we’ve already made the determination that 2025 has to be better, right? Well, to send Old Man 2024 out, I figured it was high time to talk about the 1980 sci-fi comedy Galaxina.

Now, obviously, there’s an elephant in the room when it comes to this movie. We’ll talk about her in just a moment. First, what I find kind of interesting about this movie is that the movie is not without a great deal of imagination and fun with more than a hint of camp. But it wasn’t cheap. The movie cost $4 million. That’s a mid-range budget in 1980. What’s even more peculiar is that this is a mid-range budget movie that was originally supposed to be shot in three weeks. What’s more, is that it took LESS than 20 days to shoot because of bad weather. So, we have ourselves a multi-million-dollar picture that was supposed to be shot in less than three weeks, only for it to be shot in even less time, and just to get the movie out, scenes were cut so it leaves the movie sort of incomplete.

You gotta love these types of Hollywood lore.

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Spaced Out (1979)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Since this is the holiday season, Enemaniacs, I figured I deserve a bit of a gift. After all, Metamorphosis was so lacking in charm and good vibes, that I kind of need something. So, for this week’s B-Movie Enema review, and with Christmas just around the corner, I’m gifting myself the return of a favorite around these parts, Mr. Norman J. Warren.

Hell yeah, guys, gals, and non-binary pals, Norman J. Warren is back!

One of the things I’ve always loved about our friend Norman is that he doesn’t seem to ever make the same movie twice. Certainly, if you go through his filmography, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any two movies that resemble each other in succession. That’s what we have here with 1979’s Spaced Out. In the 60s, Warren made sex comedies but decided to move into horror in the 70s. In three consecutive years, he directed Satan’s Slave, Prey, and Terror. All three of those have been covered here, and all three are quite different in terms of horror films. Spaced Out would be a return to his old form, as it were, with a comedy.

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Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor (a.k.a. The Deadly Spawn II, 1990)

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Howdy Enemaniacs!

This here is what I like to call a “happy little accident” around here at B-Movie Enema. Last week, I reviewed the cult classic sci-fi horror The Deadly Spawn. This week, I’m looking at the 1990 sort of sequel Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor, which is also known as The Deadly Spawn II. This was ABSOLUTELY NOT INTENDED!

If you’re a regular reader here, I’ve mentioned how I was scheduling out the remainder of this year with a bunch of movies that were either in need of a review because they’ve been lying in wait for a long time or they came from the multi-packs of movies I had that played a crucial role tot he start of this blog 10 years ago. The Deadly Spawn was a movie that I wanted to review for a while. Metamorphosis was a movie in one of those packs. I scheduled them next to each other not realizing they were connected.

So, yeah… A happy little accident.

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The Deadly Spawn (1983)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome to a new review here at B-Movie Enema!

This week, I decided to go back to the first half of the 80s for a movie that was made on a really small $25,000 budget but turned out to be much better than most would expect on such a small amount of money. Let’s talk about 1983’s The Deadly Spawn. The origin of the movie came from producer Ted Bohus back in the late 70s. He got the idea after reading a National Geographic article about some seed pods that were found and recovered from the Arctic. Obviously, it sounds an awful lot like the all-time classic sci-fi movie The Thing from Another World, but this real life scientific discovery fueled Bohus and he got right to work on a creature design for an eventual movie.

Originally Bohus thought about a rubber suit that would be worn by an actor, but when John Dods, an associate producer and effects director for the movie, was brought in, his imagination was also put into overdrive. He came back with a bunch of alternate looks and the primary creature that would be used to spawn her deadly offspring that is in the movie. From that, the money was raised and they brought in director Douglas McKeown to bring everything to life.

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Madame Web (2024)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend, Enemaniacs!

And oh boy does B-Movie Enema have a feast for you this week. Yeah… Let’s hop into our little real-world time machine and allow me to take us back to Valentine’s Day 2024. Just, what, nine months ago? Oh god… Is this the baby that was conceived by my slutty indulgence in taking in a double feature at the AMC Indianapolis 17? No wonder my tummy got bigger and this week’s review feels like I’m giving birth to a butt baby. I AM giving birth to a butt baby!

Where was I? This review is already fucking off the rails. Anyway, back then, I took myself on a double feature date to the theater and left disappointed, but in different ways. This week’s review is focused on the first of the two movies I watched because the Bob Marley movie was just kinda bland and not at all like the movie being discussed today… Madame Web.

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