Tag: vinegar syndrome

Olivia (1983)

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Last week, we talked about an Italian actor-turned-director’s film, this week, we have a German actor who turned into a rather notable director.

1983’s Olivia comes to us from Ulli Lommel. Lommel was an actor in the 60s. In fact, one of his earliest films was one of Russ Meyer’s – Fanny Hill. But he would work many times over with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who was a particularly controversial filmmaker himself. Fassbinder made a lot of avant garde films and passed away young due to a drug overdose. However, Lommel produced a 1970 movie of Fassbinder’s called Whity a surreal western about a mixed race servant who kills the family he works for and runs away with his prostitute lover. Whity won many awards in the German equivalent of the Oscars.

By the end of the 70s, Lommel moved to America to make American movies permanently. By 1980, he jumped into the slasher craze with The Boogeyman. While the reviews were mixed, and there were many comparisons made to John Carpenter’s Halloween, the movie was a huge success. It was banned in the United Kingdom as a Video Nasty, and was later re-evaluated as a movie that seems to utilize a lot of Lommel’s own fears he had as a child. Boogeyman II was released a few years later. Like the infamous Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, the sequel uses many flashbacks to the first to help fill its runtime. Boogeyman II is pretty much unilaterally disliked.

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Penitentiary II (1982)

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Let’s go back to the story of Martel “Too Sweet” Gordone for this week’s new B-Movie Enema.

Some time ago, I covered the first story in Too Sweet’s trilogy. This week, we pick up where the last left off with Penitentiary II. As seen at the end of the first film, Too Sweet won the prison boxing tournament and was released. However, there’s a bit of a caveat with that freedom as we’ll see in this week’s sequel.

As with the first, Penitentiary II is written and directed by activist and leading member of the L.A. Rebellion, Jamaa Fanaka. Fanaka would ultimately make three films in the saga of Too Sweet Gordone. However, this film has a couple other notable actors appearing in it.

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The Severed Arm (1973)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

This is gonna be a bit of a palette cleanser from last week.

This week’s new B-Movie Enema is gonna look at the 1973 horror revenge movie The Severed Arm from writer/director Tom Alderman. While this is a somewhat inconsequential horror movie from a low budget/indie standpoint, there are a few reasons why I wanted to take a look at it. Before that, though, who is Tom Alderman? Well… I don’t know. Alderman only directed one other movie that sounds like a possible porno (Coed Dorm), and wrote one other movie (The Master-Piece! – which does seem to have a cool poster). Aside from that, it seemed he came and went relatively quickly.

But why am I covering this movie and how do I know anything about this? Well, first and foremost, this was a movie I watched on the beloved Bizarre TV channel on Roku. I may have completed the ultimate tip of the ol’ hat to that now defunct channel, but I’m not done talking about the movies I was exposed to there. It was a movie that played a few times there and I was lucky enough to catch it.

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Blood Games (1990)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

In the long history of the “fans of a losing sports team goes on a revenge-fueled murder spree against the winners” genre, none are better than Tanya Rosenberg’s gripping classic from 1990, Blood Games.

In fact, this movie is so perfect, it’s the only movie Tanya Rosenberg ever made. After Blood Games, she was like, “Yup. I did it. I can do no better, and I should not even try. Suck it, Goodfellas. I made the best movie of 1990.”

Or so I imagine she said all that. I really don’t know. It is entirely possible she’s not even a real person. There is no additional information about her that I can find. I don’t even think this Vinegar Syndrome release of the movie even has any special features talking about her. For all I know, Tanya Rosenberg was created in an exploitation movie lab for the sole purpose of making Blood Games.

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Action U.S.A. (1989)

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Ah…  The good ol’ U.S.ofA.  It’s a sort of cool place, right?  I mean, we are THE country in the world that most people in other countries care more about than their own.  You don’t have to go too far into the rabbit hole of YouTube to find a Canadian guy, British guy, German guy, or a French Canadian guy to see they will release screeds and commentaries about the United States and what’s going on over here.

Then there was the 80s.  If you were around in the 80s, there were a few things that you probably knew:

  1. REAGANOMICS!
  2. COCAINE!
  3. USA! USA! USA!
  4. ACTION!
  5. Fuckin’ Commies trying to take over our country and stuff.

So what better way to celebrate all of that than to close out the decade with a movie called Action U.S.A.? Continue reading “Action U.S.A. (1989)” →

Beyond the Door III (1989)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

B-Movie Enema’s Exorcist Rip-Off Month comes to a conclusion while also coming full circle with the start of the month – and completes a “trilogy” all at the same time.

This week’s feature, Beyond the Door III is, as Wikipedia states, “the third and final film in the Beyond the Door Trilogy“.  It should also state that this and Shock were sequels in name only from the jolly ol’ land of endless opportunities for this blog – Italy.  To complete the trilogy (12 years after the last and 15 years after the first), Beyond the Door III (also known as Amok Train because… sure) features a group of American students who go to Yugoslavia to meet up with Bo Svenson (who we’ve not seen since waaaaay back when I covered The Delta Force in 2016).

There, they witness a sacred pagan ritual.  I am sure that did not, at all, create any issues whatsoever anywhere and that brings about the conclusion of Exorcist Rip-Off Month!  Come back next week when we blast off to the stars for a… What’s that?  Witnessing a sacred pagan ritual in Yugoslavia starts significant problems?  I need to continue on with the movie?  You sure? Continue reading “Beyond the Door III (1989)” →

Penitentiary (1979)

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We’re getting back to some good old blaxploitation with this week’s B-Movie Enema.  Penitentiary was written, produced, and directed by Jamaa Fanaka.

Fanaka was part of the L.A. Rebellion from the late 60s and into the late 80s.  This was a movement of black filmmakers whose whole intent was to make films that offered an alternative to what most deemed “classical” Hollywood films.  This was mostly influenced by Latin American and Italian cinema, but also from an emerging African cinema.

You see, the 1960s was a particularly turbulent time.  After a series of events like the Civil Rights Act, Affirmative Action, and the Watts Riots, society shifted and evolved very quickly.  Affirmative Action allowed for many more black students to attend colleges – and particularly at UCLA which got urged to create an ethnographic studies program to allow black filmmakers to tell more of their story and stories that would expose their struggles. Continue reading “Penitentiary (1979)” →

Mutant War (1988)

Published on by Geoff Arbuckle1 Comment

Last week, I checked in on site favorite Norman J. Warren.  This week, it’s time to check in with another favorite of the site, Brett Piper.

Toward the end of 2019, I wrote about his fun, sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, alien invasion flick Battle for the Lost Planet from 1985.  This time around, let’s look at the 1988 sequel – Mutant War.  Whereas the first movie finds our hero Harry Trent first remembering a series of events that started with him hijacking a space shuttle to being stuck on a pre-planned, five-year course to finally returning to Earth to discover that aliens have landed and more or less messed things up pretty bad.  It made for a nice little movie that, at times, gave me real classic Doctor Who vibes.

As was the case with his later film, Drainiac, and, to a certain degree, They Bite, I appreciate the spirit in which Piper works with and his general effort he puts out for the movies.  I truly do get the feeling that Piper just likes making movies and he doesn’t take himself too seriously.  Good on him.  In truth, he mostly just likes doing effects and creatures, which is obvious in his movies.  That said, sometimes, you just need these little types of movies that don’t take themselves very seriously and just wants to entertain. Continue reading “Mutant War (1988)” →