Tag: science fiction

Carnosaur (1993)

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Welcome back to another rip-roarin’ review at B-Movie Enema!

For pretty much all my life, dinosaurs were immensely popular. Moreover, they ignited a lot of children’s imaginations. In the 80s, not only were there movies like Baby: Secret of the Legend which came out at the exact age for me to not only want to see it but to also convince my mother to take me to a theater to see it. The same year, 1985, the Dinobots made their bow in The Transformers. Dinosaurs couldn’t have been more popular than that period of time. Later, a new generation would get the start of a looooong series of animated features with The Land Before Time. Even before that, for decades, dinosaurs were used in all sorts of sci-fi movies, especially the lower-budget ones.

But then came 1993.

I would argue 1993 was the pinnacle of dino-mania. You like that? Dino mania? I am 100% sure no one else has ever said that term before, and they definitely didn’t say it 32 years ago in 1993. Anyway, that’s when Steven Spielberg would have one of his very biggest years ever… maybe for any director in Hollywood history. He’d make two films that year. One, Schindler’s List, would win him the Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture. That was AFTER he released the year’s top-grossing film, and one of the biggest box office champs in the history of movies, Jurassic Park. But we’re going to look at the movie that made 1993 truly the greatest year at the box office for dinosaur movies – Carnosaur.

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Xtro 3: Watch the Skies (1995)

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Welcome to another B-Movie Enema review where we always watch the skies.

That’s Xtro 3: Watch the Skies. Now, we’ve been here, haven’t we? Whether it is yet another Xtro flick that has nothing to do with the original, another ill-advised sequel, or a sequel made because money is needed to live in a world mostly dominated by capitalism, this is nothing new to us around here. Alright, so not that long ago, I reviewed Xtro 2: The Second Encounter and, woof… It was pretty bad.

Creator of the original Xtro, Harry Bromley Davenport couldn’t really get any other work. He did own the rights to the title Xtro and was able to leverage that to Welsh and Canadian producers. He thought he could take the Xtro series and turn it into an anthology series about alien encounters. The first sequel was not an enjoyable experience for the British director, Bromley Davenport. Jan-Michael Vincent was barely functional. The script was kind of dumb and complicated.

This second sequel would be somewhat better for the Briton in some ways and a little more dangerous in others.

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The Super Inframan (1975)

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KAPOW! EXPLOSIONS! PUNCHING MONSTERS! IT’S A NEW B-MOVIE ENEMA!

Welcome back, dear readers. This week, we have a bit of a treat. We’re going to look at 1975’s The Super Infra-Man! This comes to us from Hong Kong and is also known as just Infra-Man or literally translated from Cantonese as Chinese Superman. Now, you might think that literal translation means this is a Shaw Brothers Production ripoff of America’s avatar of DC Comics (no, Batman, not you), Superman, right?

Wellll… It actually isn’t. This is much more influenced by the Japanese TV shows that use tokusatsu. Tokusatsu is the term given to Japanese productions that are live-action AND use a great deal of special effects. The term had been part of Japanese theater dating back to the early 20th century. However, it went big time in the 50s. That’s when the mega superstar, world-famous Godzilla stomped into Tokyo and theaters all over the world. Eiji Tsuburaya was more or less the godfather of tokusatsu techniques. He designed many of Toho’s early monsters, including Godzilla. He then launched the television series Ultra Q, which borrowed costumes from Toho. That would later lead to the various Ultraman series. Ultraman then gave birth to another tokusatsu classic, Kamen Rider.

The Super Inframan is more inspired by those tokusatsu series than the fella in the blue tights and red boots.

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Queen Crab (2015)

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Welcome back to B-Movie Enema, Brett Piper!

We have some favorites here at B-Movie Enema Industries. Last week, I talked about one of the final films I’ve not yet covered on the site from Norman J. Warren. This week, it’s time to talk about another fave around here, Brett Piper. Waaaaay back in 2016, I looked at his 2000 flick Drainiac. That’s one that is kind of looked down on, but I like it for various reasons. I also looked at it for an episode of B-Movie Enema: The Series too. There is a bit of nostalgia for me on it, but I also fully understand it is not everyone’s cup of tea, all things considered.

Later, in 2019, I celebrated 150 reviews on the site with 1996’s They Bite. Now, this is one that is definitely much more of a wink-and-a-nod type of comedy exploitation horror for the Cinemax set. It’s about a porn production being menaced by an actual fish monster, and not the fish monster in their fish monster porno movie. But then I went back to Piper’s earliest efforts with 1985’s Battle for the Lost Planet and 1988’s Mutant War. Both of these are incredibly charming, and I love them for what they are. These sci-fi flicks both feature a lot of stop-motion animation which also revealed that Piper prefers the monster effects far more than making the movie the effects appear in. The latter film also has a villainous Cameron Mitchell, so you know we love that around here too.

We return to Piper’s love of creating stop-motion style monsters with this week’s movie, 2015’s Queen Crab.

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Class of Nuke ‘Em High (1986)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

Welcome back to Troma Month here at B-Movie Enema!

Last week, it just so happened, the month started with a leadoff home run with Tromeo and Juliet, a movie that I believe, by the time we finish this month and I’ve increased my viewership of movies made internally by Troma, will be the best film ever released by the company. I know, I know… Toxie and what have you. There was just something special about Tromeo and Juliet that had my by the balls and shook me about until I cried out for my mommy to save me.

Wait…

Eh… anyway… This week, we’re going back to the 80s when Troma and their fictional hometown of Tromaville was in its infancy. We’re looking at 1986’s Class of Nuke ‘Em High. This horror/sci-fi/comedy was Lloyd Kaufman’s follow-up to his seminal 1984 classic The Toxic Avenger. This time, though, he wasn’t alone. Kaufman shared directing duties with Troma editor Richard W. Haines.

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Xtro II: The Second Encounter (1991)

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Welcome to another B-Movie Enema review descending down from the stars!

In 1983, Xtro came out to little fanfare and a lot of negative reviews. It found itself on the infamous Video Nasties list in its home country, the United Kingdom. But over time, the movie would get a little bit of a following. This is probably thanks to cable and video stores here in the United States, but it is very likely the movie really never did much in terms of success to warrant a sequel (let alone two sequels).

Here’s where the backstory of how we have two Xtro sequels begins. Director Harry Bromley Davenport was in need of a job in the movie-makin’ biz. Well, somewhere along the way, he discovered that while he had no ownership of his 1983 film, he actually legally owned the title “Xtro”. So, this gave Bromley Davenport the idea to create an anthology series of sequels about other alien shenanigans. And that begins with 1991’s Xtro II: The Second Encounter.

But things will take yet another twist…

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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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Galaxina (1980)

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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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