Tag: musical

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006)

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Welcome back to B-Movie Enema and the final week of Troma Month!

This month has been a fun one, hasn’t it? Whether it’s a love letter to Kaufman’s appreciation of William Shakespeare in the romance Tromeo and Juliet, or the earlier Tromaville kids run amok horror Class of Nuke ‘Em High, or the most Troma film of them all, Terror Firmer… It’s been a good time visiting these classics from the 80s and 90s master of gross-out comedy, horror, and comedy-horror, Lloyd Kaufman. But now, we bring things to a close with another dark comedy-horror from the man himself. However, this time, we have a bit of a twist.

This time we have a musical.

Yes, it’s Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. This time around, Kaufman has a little uncredited help from one of the co-writers of the film, Gabriel Friedman. Friedman would go on to be a producer for specials for the cable channels E! and G4, as well as for online series like The IGN Show. In fact, he mostly worked on a lot of specials and behind-the-scenes stuff, including making-of documentaries for Troma films like Terror Firmer and Citizen Toxie. His writing credits are mostly for Troma films like this one, Make Your Own Damn Movie!, the aforementioned fourth Toxie flick, and Lloyd Kaufman’s most recent, #ShakespearesShitstorm.

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Voyage of the Rock Aliens (1984)

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Welcome to the final entry in B-Movie Enema’s Pia Zadora Month.

1984’s Voyage of the Rock Aliens, believe it or not, pretty much ended Pia Zadora’s film career. There are still a few film credits in the ten years following this movie, but in only one of those did she ever play a character. That came in John Waters’ 1989 camp musical Hairspray where she played a “Beatnik Chick”. The other three film credits were all playing herself. Perhaps the most notable of those films in which she appeared as herself was in 1994’s Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult.

Fittingly, in that, she is performing at the Academy Awards.

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Stunt Rock (1978)

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This week, B-Movie Enema goes down under for another Australian treat.

This week’s movie comes from Brian Trenchard-Smith. He’s someone we’ve seen around these parts a few times. The first movie of his I ever looked at was one he was only a co-producer on, 1982’s Blood Tide. However, I later took a look at two other films of his that are way better. The first was also from 1982, the dystopian, Most Dangerous Game-inspired Turkey Shoot. Then, I looked at the first of two sequels to one of my all-time favorite Halloween movies to watch, Night of the Demons 2.

I pretty much knew that Trenchard-Smith was someone I could cover a large portion of his filmography in a few different ways. Hell, 1983’s BMX Bandits features a teenaged Nicole Kidman in the early stages of her career. There was a trio of movies of his that we’ve looked at over at Film Seizure – Leprechaun 3, Leprechaun 4: In Space, and Dead End Drive-In. Those two Leprechaun movies could very easily appear here on this blog. But I decided to go a little more interesting for this week when it comes to Trenchard-Smith’s filmography. This week, I’m going to look at the mockumentary/action/musical Stunt Rock from 1978.

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Get Crazy (1983)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle1 Comment

And so we have come to the end of another year. B-Movie Enema has done all sorts of fun stuff throughout 2022. We revisited Russ Meyer. We entered into the Madea Cinematic Universe for the first time. Also, for the first time, Steven Seagal showed up to sit around for a couple hours. We plowed through Lucio Fulci’s Gates of Hell Trilogy. AND I’ve done all sorts of digging into the themes of the Phantasm series. We’ve done it all, Enemaniacs.

So, let’s close things out with a movie that actually got fairly decent review from none other than Janet Maslin from The New York Times. Yessir… It’s time we celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of the next while we all Get Crazy!

What’s more, this is the return of a director we’ve seen before – Allan Arkush. Arkush co-directed the incredibly fun Hollywood Boulevard with Joe Dante. That’s a fun movie. I feel like we could very easily do more of Arkush’s stuff. His next film was as a co-director on 1978’s Deathsport that stars Claudia Jennings. Then, he rattled off three solo efforts in quick succession – Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (probably his most fondly remembered), Heartbeeps (a big ol’ swing and miss in terms of movies), and Get Crazy. Arkush had talent and still works today in TV. In fact, he was a Primetime Emmy Award winner for his musical mini-series The Temptations.

Again, the Roger Corman family tree making good in the biz.

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Cool As Ice (1991)

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Gather ’round, kiddos. On this Christmas Eve, hear this tale of horror that was unleashed onto the world one day shy of a fortnight before Halloween in the year 1991. Yes, it was said that this creature would stalk only the flyest of small town honeys. It was said you could hear him coming as the wind would whisper:

“Alright stop… Collaborate and listen… Ice is back with my brand new invention.”

It is then, when you realize something will grab a hold of you tightly. It shall flow like a harpoon daily and nightly. Will it ever stop, you wonder… Yo, I don’t know.

You are now in the grasp of Vanilla Ice, and you will be Cool As Ice.

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The Apple (1980)

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There are movies that are bad. There are movies that are REALLY bad. Then there’s The Apple.

The Apple was Cannon Films co-owner Menahem Golan’s fever dream of a passion project. Right there, you see it? You see the three red flags of that statement? First, Cannon Films. They were the schlock studio of all schlock studios of the 80s. They cranked out movie after movie of fodder that I could cover on this site. In fact, I have! I could very easily load this blog of Cannon articles week after week after week. It is almost unfair to every other movie ever made.

Then you have Menahem Golan. Here’s a guy who is fairly fascinating. He’s not a bad idea guy. He knew how to sell his movies. He knew how to crank out that schlock onto cable, video stores, and movie theaters – all over the world. The problem was that he didn’t have very good, completely well-thought out ideas. He had almost no concept of nuance. Anyone outside the United States is either an enemy or a weak-willed wimp in the face of terrorism. Chuck Norris shows up and kills everything, but, because some of those people he killed were indeed bad guys, he is right. That’s the mindset of Menahem Golan.

Then, there’s the concept of a passion project.

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Jem and the Holograms (2015)

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I’m a child of the 80s.  I bathed in the glory of the awesome toys and amazing cartoons of the decade.  While a lot of the sheen of those shows faded as I grew up, it’s okay.  That’s because I’m a grown up and can understand that those things are special for what they were then and it’s hard to recapture that love and the exact feelings I had when I first discovered the cartoons.

That said, I still love the toys and still smile at everything surrounding those glory days of cartoon and capitalist infusion.

Now, while I didn’t exactly watch or love the show Jem and the Holograms, I knew A LOT of people who did.  Regardless of watching or not, and certainly not having the dolls that were released, I still liked the gimmick and idea of the whole concept.  I talked about it a couple weeks ago when I reviewed Teen Witch, but wish fulfillment is really, really, really important to young people.  Jem certainly encapsulated that too, but it wasn’t entirely made specifically for girls.  Maybe not the toys, but the show had a fairly decent mass appeal. Continue reading “Jem and the Holograms (2015)” →