Category: Quly

Queen Kong (1976)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

And a new challenger steps into the ring at B-Movie Enema!

Welcome to a new review and… woof. 1976’s Queen Kong is pretty bad. Pret-ty pret-ty bad. For those who have, somehow, followed me for years as I keep punching myself in my own dick time and again on this blog, you know I got pretty upset around 1986’s King Kong Lives. The reason why I loathed that movie is that I sincerely love the 1976 version of King Kong. In fact, it’s my favorite version. It’s the one I saw so many times when I was growing up. To have a sequel kind of dumps all over the sad ending of that movie. King Kong Lives felt especially hurtful because it was the same guy producing that as the 1976 King Kong and it felt like a kind of cheap follow-up to Godzilla 1985.

Now, when it comes to Queen Kong, this week’s movie, we have a whoooole different story. This is just a deeply bad movie. I can’t even be mad at it. It’s that kind of bad. But… Notice this movie is dated 1976. In a way, this is one of the first instances of a mockbuster. It was well-publicized that Dino De Laurentiis was making a new King Kong film. So British filmmakers decided to slip out ahead of it with a parody. It’s a little exploitation. It’s a little sex comedy. It’s all farce. So, in that, there’s a tiny bit of charm to this very bad movie. I’m not sure if it’s as fun as, say, A*P*E when it comes to bad movies you can watch with your buddies and a case of cheap beer, but there’s charm.

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The Quiet Earth (1985)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

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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The Quest (1996)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

Well hot damn, Enemaniacs! It’s the Fourth of July weekend! Here in the United States, we tend to use this weekend, and the next several weeks afterward (much to the dismay of dogs everywhere), to blow up whole ass chunks of our country with fireworks that are supposedly illegal but everyone can get their hands on them by way of going to a makeshift fireworks store, but I digress…

What was I talking about?

Eh, never mind. Anyway, It’s July and I decided to do something kind of clever for this month’s slate of reviews. I did a little housekeeping by looking at all the movies I covered over the past 435 reviews and came to a realization. I’ve covered a movie starting with 25 of 26 letters in the English alphabet. The only letter I haven’t touched yet? Q. Yeah, I had never covered a movie with a Q title. I mean, for shit’s sake, I have covered THREE movies beginning with X with a fourth planned for later this year!

So with that said, welcome to QULY! All four reviews this month will be a movie starting with the letter Q. To get things started, on this most sacred of sacred weekends in the US, let’s talk about a movie starring a Belgian martial artist in a movie that takes place in Tibet, and then premiered a week early in Turkey… The Quest!

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