Theme Months – Page 6

Mission Kill (1987)

Published on January 20, 2023January 26, 2023 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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The Last Horror Film (a.k.a Fanatic, 1982)

Published on January 13, 2023January 19, 2023 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome back to B-Movie Enema and our special January theme month, David Winters Winter.

This week, we’re going a little earlier in the 80s to see what David Winters would do in the horror slasher genre with The Last Horror Film. This movie also goes by the title Fanatic. In fact, my DVD that I have of the movie comes with that second title. I’m not sure if this was something that played in theaters with Fanatic, or if that’s just the home video distribution title from Troma Entertainment.

Either way, The Last Horror Film co-stars musician Judd Hamilton who also co-wrote the movie and co-produced the film with Winters. Hamilton was the brother of Dan Hamilton of Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds who had the 70s hit “Don’t Pull Your Love”. Judd did a little bit of surf music to rock to country. He was married to the lovely Caroline Munro from 1970 to 1982.

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Thrashin’ (1986)

Published on January 6, 2023January 12, 2023 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

After finishing out 2022 with Get Crazy, I decided it wasn’t time to leave the radical 80s behind quite yet.

So to kick off 2023, B-Movie Enema is going to look at a quartet of 80s David Winters movies in a theme month I’m calling David Winters Winter! We aren’t really doing this in any kind of timeline or chronological order. Nah, I don’t think we really need to do that. BUT what I did want to do is look at movies of Winters’ that came from different genres. We get things started with his teen skateboarding drama, Thrashin’!

This comes during a time in which skateboarding exploded. Skateboarding had been around as a relatively popular activity for kids at least back to the 70s when my brothers were kids. By the 80s, it became something of a lifestyle. Skater fashion would eventually kind of take over from the late 70s/early 80s punk fashion before being replaced by more hip hop fashions by the end of the decade and going into the 90s.

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Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Published on October 31, 2022August 25, 2024 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

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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Night of the Demons 2 (1994)

Published on October 28, 2022August 25, 2024 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

In the greatest season of the year, there lies the greatest month of the year, and, within that, is the greatest weekend of the year. Oh yeah, it’s Halloween weekend, Enemaniacs! B-Movie Enema has not one, but TWO reviews for you in just four days. We get things started today with this week’s new article that revisits a favorite movie to watch during this time of the year.

Remember back to 2018. In a five-day stretch, I covered the classic 1988 Night of the Demons. I followed that up with the 2009 remake for Halloween Eve, right? Well, it’s time to go back to the Angela shenanigans for this 1994 sequel to that original class, Night of the Demons 2. And since we’re talking about going back to the well for this movie, I find it interesting that it was actually even made to begin with.

I kind of mean it. Six years passed between Night of the Demons and this first sequel. That’s right, there were two sequels made. I’m guessing there was some attempt to cash in on the original’s popularity for being a cable TV flick and an oft-rented horror masterpiece. So, a sequel was made and sold to Republic Pictures and Paramount for a brief theatrical run and video release by the respective companies. Since this is a movie all about the aftermath of a Halloween party gone wrong and a new Halloween party taking place, it only makes perfect sense that Night of the Demons 2 was released on May 13, 1994.

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Jack-O (1995)

Published on October 21, 2022August 25, 2024 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome back to our Halloween and October spooktacular celebration right here at B-Movie Enema!

This week, we’re going to the video store and renting one of those classic direct-to-video horrors that would dump into stores every fall to give everyone that good ol’ creepy feelings for Halloween. We’re going to look at the 1995 slasher Jack-O! Not only is this a video store classic, but it’s also a Fred Olen Ray-produced indie thriller. It also had one of those video boxes that you’ll always remember as the primary monster of the movie, a pumpkin-headed creature named, appropriately Jack-O-Lantern, stares menacingly at you while carrying his scythe.

Jack-O was also directed by Steve Latshaw. Latshaw did direct a few movies, but was probably best known for being the writer who cranked out several scripts from the late 90s until about 10 years ago for the likes of the aforementioned Ray, as well as for Jim Wynorski. It’s his relationship with Ray that is most interesting.

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Hack-O-Lantern (1988)

Published on October 14, 2022August 25, 2024 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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Boo! A Madea Halloween (2016)

Published on October 7, 2022August 25, 2024 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

You know? I feel like it was only a matter of time before Madea came to B-Movie Enema. And, sure, maybe I could have started with the beginning of the MCU (no, not that one – the Madea Cinematic Universe), but screw it. It’s time for Halloween and dagnabbit, this seems to be oozing with potential to begin with. So, here it is… Welcome to the blog, Tyler Perry, and let’s talk about Boo! A Madea Halloween.

Damn… There’s a lot to unpack here, but I think we should do some seasonal stuff first.

October is kind of a special time for me. It’s the centerpiece of my favorite season, fall, and a month that I love getting bundled up with the lights out and watching horror movies. It was also the month in which B-Movie Enema was born. Way back in 2014, B-Movie Enema began, but it also ended shortly afterwards. However, once it was resurrected in early 2016, October has been a whole thing here. This month, I’m doing all movies that have a very specific Halloween slant to them. We begin with Mr. Tyler Perry and his Madea character.

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