Tag: action

Firebird 2015 AD (1981)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

On your marks… Get set… B-Movie Enema!

Alright, it’s 1981… Due to some circumstances that I am positive we didn’t help, the United States entered into a period known as the 1979 oil crisis. What this meant was that we were having some issues procuring oil for our gas-guzzling cars. Now, I know this because I had a couple in the course of my lifetime, but cars in the United States were either guzzling gas due to being MASSIVE and very long, or if you weren’t cool like me, you might have had a car that was just thirsting for gasoline because it was a sportier car or a Hemi. Really, all throughout the 70s, there were periods in which gas stations didn’t have gas, or there were long lines for people to put just a couple of gallons into their cars to be able to make it to work, or they went without.

Now, what would happen in the decades that followed (minus a couple of short periods of instability) was falling gas prices thanks to what would be known as the 1980s oil glut. No foolin’, prices would fall by about 65-70% in just a few years. However, in between the crisis and glut, pop culture decided to use the energy problems as the basis of some stories. Famously, the whole concept behind why there was a millions-of-years-long war between the Autobots and Decepticons on The Transformers was over energy, thanks to the real-world energy crises over the prior decade. That is also our starting point for the movie I’m reviewing this week, 1981’s Firebird 2015 AD.

Continue reading “Firebird 2015 AD (1981)” →

The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie (1989)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

This week’s B-Movie Enema review gets… biblical?

Eh, sure. Anyway, not long back, I covered The Toxic Avenger Part II, the long-awaited sequel to the smash Troma hit from 1984. Filmed at the same time was a second sequel, and the topic of this week’s review, The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie. That title should give a hint to a couple of things in this movie. First, Toxie is going to be tempted by a deal with the devil, specifically the devil that Toxie knows – Apocalypse, Inc. Second, I think the title was likely inspired not just from the 1988 Martin Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ, but probably more by that film’s pop culture popularity while both of these Toxic Avenger sequels were being filmed.

The Last Temptation of Christ wasn’t just a well-reviewed film for Scorsese, but it really was a hot-button topic during late 1988 and early 1989. No foolin’, the film created a BUNCH of controversy. There were terrorist attacks, death threats, and a whole lot of protests from upsetty Christians and Catholics because the film depicted a scene in which Christ, played by Willem Dafoe, and Mary Magdalene, played by Barbara Hershey, consummated their love for one another. When it comes to canonical religious texts, that’s not something the Jesus folk like to hear about. They like to think that the Christ was above earthly passions and/or Magdalene was a whore.

But I definitely digress because I ain’t no religious guy so I can’t speak to too much gospel.

Continue reading “The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie (1989)” →

Money Plane (2020)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

This week, B-Movie Enema cashes out.

Let us take a trip to July 2020. The country, nay, the WORLD was in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. Remember that? COVID? You should, because, technically, it never really went away. It’s here… forever. Just like me, sitting at this computer, writing these reviews… I am forever.

Anyway, during the dark early days of the pandemic, and no movie theaters or restaurants open to get out of the house to enjoy, along came streaming services busting out all over the goddamn place. Content was flooding the void… for better or worse. Every streaming platform was booming. Movies that would have been buried by the mega releases in theaters were now being consumed by a greater percentage of the population. During this time, it was uncertain when new blockbusters were ever going to return. It wasn’t even sure if movie theaters were going to survive the shutdowns. But then, like a silver bird flying in from the far-off horizon, came a savior…

Money Plane.

Continue reading “Money Plane (2020)” →

Welcome Home Brother Charles (1975)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome back to B-Movie Enema and spooky month 2025’s theme, Black Horror Halloween!

This week, I’m not entirely sure how much I want to talk about this movie before diving right in. To get this out of the way, I’ll be reviewing 1975’s Welcome Home Brother Charles. Generally speaking, this month was intended to kind of highlight blaxploitation and horror. This movie is probably technically neither. I will talk a little more about what I think the actual horror of this movie is directed at, but why it’s hard to frame this as a blaxploitation movie is due to the writer/producer/director, Jamaa Fanaka.

Fanaka is back for his third time on this blog. Previously, I covered Penitentiary and its sequel, Penitentiary II. Brother Charles would be his first commercial film. In 1972, before making this movie, he made a short called A Day in the Life of Willie Faust, or Death on the Installment Plan. That was his student film made at UCLA, which was received fairly well. It was about a heroin addict. When I covered those two Penitentiary films, I made mention that Fanaka was keen to not have his films be called blaxploitation by audiences or critics. He felt the term was a little reductive or dismissive of his attempts to portray life for black men.

Continue reading “Welcome Home Brother Charles (1975)” →

Dangerous Men (2005)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

What is it with these damn movies with “Men” in their titles?

Welcome to the 500th review at B-Movie Enema. Holy shit, 500! That’s the number of miles they go at the Indianapolis 500, or half the number of miles I would walk to be the man who falls down at your door! That’s how many dollars it would take to get me to… I dunno… visit Delaware or something. Nah, I’m just messin’ with ya, Delawarians.

Anyway, 500 reviews and it’s time to tackle one of the all-timers when it comes to being batshit insane – 2005’s Dangerous Men. This movie was mostly under the radar for a very, very long time. In fact, it had to because it took 21 years to make it! Production started in 1984 when director-producer John S. Rad (the pseudonym for Jahangir Salehi Yeganehrad) decided to try his hand at making movies. Yeganehrad/Rad was from Iran and worked as an architect on films. He came to the United States during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Five years later, he began to audition actors for his first American film.

Continue reading “Dangerous Men (2005)” →

The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Welcome back to another trip to Tromaville, New Jersey, for a brand new B-Movie Enema review!

Back for Christmas 2022, I took a trip to everyone’s nuclear waste-ridden town to discuss Lloyd Kaufman’s original superhero, The Toxic Avenger. That 1984 breakout hit for Kaufman’s Troma Entertainment was brash, offensive, slapdash, but brilliant in many ways. The sheer irreverence in Kaufman’s style of comedy is in full display here. That wasn’t Lloyd’s first film he directed, and it certainly was not his first comedy, but this was the one that skyrocketed Troma into the vocabulary for all those exploitation, trash cinema fans scouring the video store shelves looking for some depraved weekend entertainment in the 80s.

Funny enough, Lloyd Kaufman’s sex comedies between 1979 and 1983 all had titles with exclamation points: Squeeze Play!, Waitress!, Stuck on You!, and The First Turn-On! You gotta love Lloyd’s commitment to the schtick. Then again, considering how bombastic his mannerisms and the way he speaks, I have to assume he shouted the titles he wanted to put on his movies, and the guy who made the title cards just thought that was part of the title.

Eh… Anyway, considering a bigger budget remake of the original The Toxic Avenger is now hitting theaters across the country, starring a for-real Emmy Award-winning actor, Peter Dinklage, I figured it’s time to revisit the world of Toxie. This week, we’re going to look at the 1989 sequel to the original, The Toxic Avenger Part II.

(Oh, and my official review of the new Toxic Avenger movie? It’s a lot of fun and has a surprising amount of heart but keeps the counterculture vibes of Lloyd’s original intact. 4 out of 5 stars!)

Continue reading “The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989)” →

Carnosaur 2 (1995)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

It’s time to go back to the Jurassic Era for another dino-rific review at B-Movie Enema!

1993’s Carnosaur was a massive hit. Okay, well, maybe not as big as Jurassic Park, but still, it was a significant hit for Roger Corman’s New Horizons production company. To say that it was riding the coattails of JP is not even facetious. It had to have. Both were based on books and featured dinosaurs. One was getting a ton of attention because that Spielberg guy was directing it. Sure, it was riding coattails, but it worked. The movie made a modest amount of money at the box office and was popular on VHS and cable television.

So, two years later, New Horizons was at it again with Carnosaur 2, which is the movie we’re going to be talking about this week. Because the sequel was greenlit while the first was in production, John Carl Buechler, the effects artist who made the dinosaurs in the first film, could save what he made and take care of it while they got the script and pre-production stuff off the ground. Michael Palmer wrote a script and took a lot of inspiration from Corman acolyte James Cameron’s Aliens plot. Corman tapped director Louis Morneau, who, if we’re being honest here, is mostly known for making sequels and pretty bad movies like The Hitcher II: I’ve Been Waiting, Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead, and the terrible Bats.

Continue reading “Carnosaur 2 (1995)” →

Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965)

Published on by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Goddamn, I love Godzilla…

And you do too. I know you do. Why? Because you’re here. There is no way in the world that the internet is used for people to only search for stuff they don’t like in order to find people to only affirm your negative thoughts on something, right?

Uh… heh… Um, right?

Anyway, welcome to a new review here at B-Movie Enema! I’m Geoff Arbuckle, your B-Movie Enema dude, and this week, I’m diving into the world of Godzilla for the very first time on this site with 1965’s Invasion of Astro-Monster (also known as Godzilla vs. Monster Zero, or, simply, Monster Zero in America). By 1965, Godzilla was a pretty big star in Japan. His first film, 1954’s Gojira, was a dramatic tale of how nature points out the folly of man. It was successfully imported into the United States, with added footage from the future Perry Mason, Raymond Burr, as Godzilla: King of the Monsters!, and, right away, an international superstar was born. After a sequel that isn’t exactly the best-received of the classic films from Toho, Godzilla blasted his way back into theaters after a seven-year hiatus with a showdown against American superstar monster, King Kong. From that point forward, Godzilla would appear almost every year between 1962 and 1975.

Continue reading “Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965)” →