I meant to post this back at the end of 2008 and yet it got delayed due to my 31 days of film project. Listed below is the original review in its entirety.

In November of 1978 Star Wars fever was still running hot. The film had come out the previous year and merchandise was still selling well and The Empire Strikes back was already in the mind of George Lucas. Seeking a way to get in on the Star Wars money making action further expand the story of the Star Wars universe. CBS looked to make a two hour special using the Star Wars characters along with musical acts, comedy and action to sell a lot of ad time. Lucas agreed although had little to no involvement and it was left to some variety TV show people. What they produced was one of the worst moments in television history.

There really is nothing that I can say about this that hasn't been said hundreds of times before. Han Solo and Chewbacca are rushing back to Chewy's home planet for some holiday known as Life Day. What this involves is never fully made clear but storm troopers show up at the Bacca household looking for the man of the house.

Most of the special is either grunts and groans from the Wookies or strange segments by guest stars such as Harvey Korman, Bea Arthur and Art Carney. For one who is a die hard Star Wars fan there is probably a lot to find sacrilegious but since I'm not a fan I merely found myself staring silent at the screen.

After its original airing it was never shown again. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your take) someone recorded it and started making bootleg copies which can be found at conventions and Bit Torrents alike. George Lucas is reported as saying that if he had a hammer and enough time he would smash every copy of this film. George, you can have mine ...

If you must watch this crap, do yourselves a favor and get the Rifftrax commentary.

Labels: Crap, sci-fi

Aliens come to earth via some meteors. They, in a Wells-ian fashion, land in the middle of a farmyard and scientists come to investigate. Of course, those are no meteorites they're mind controlling aliens bent on taking over the world's population.

Okay, I love the British as much as the next guy. Perhaps I love them even more than the next guy since I have my fair share of English heritage. The British gave us many wonderful things from the Steam Engine to standardized time. One thing they never quite got the knack of was film making, as this film attests to.

The film is absolute rubbish. Honestly, it is worse than The Deadly Bees and The Projected Man combined. It's good to see that the British film industry never matured into a force to compete with Hollywood. Much more of this junk and no one would want to ever go to the cinema again.

On the brighter side of things, the film is shown on DVD with the original Elvira's Movie Macabre bumpers. Cassandra Peterson was at her prime here and looks great and the corny jokes make it even better. Sure it's a ripoff of Vampira but no one can do it like Elvira could.

Labels: 31 days of film, Crap, sci-fi

Moral preaching against gambling dens and boxing stock footage. What more could you want? How about a movie worth watching. You won't

Gambling with Souls is an exploitation film that hides behind the guise of being an anti-gambling film. Still, it's hard for a film to claim that showing a curvaceous woman in her bra and panties spread out over a couch is for teaching impressionable film-goers a lesson.

The film is about Mae Miller, a young woman who is put down by her friends for wearing the same dress again. Mae's friend Molly introduces her to a gambling den where Mae wins like crazy. Of course her winning streak is anything but on the level and she soon finds herself losing more and more money until she is $10,000 in the red. Of course as often happens in films like this Mae is lead further astray until she is a full blown prostitute.

Remember folks, wanting nice dresses leads to gambling with leads to nightclub life which leads to prostitution, bankruptcy, scandal and jail. One of us is going to jail and it's not going to be me! *Ahem* Yeah, avoid this movie. It's such a shame that this film still exists and all but a handful of Theda Bara's films are gone forever.

In short, a waste of your time and mine.

This film was part of a collection I partially reviewed a while back.

Labels: 31 days of film, Bad Movies, Crap

1939 is almost universally heralded by critics as the greatest year in Hollywood History. Gone with the Wind, Beau Geste, The Wizard of Oz and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington were just a few of some of the film classics released that year. It was also the year that this little film came out, to much less fanfare of course.

Mad Youth is one of those exploitation films released under the guise of being a moral play. The filmmakers try to claim they are out to show what can happen to you if they live a moral lifestyle but instead it seems to be more or less an excuse to show women in their "granny panties." Perhaps this was sexy in 1939 but personally I think it's a bit off putting.

The film centers around a mother and daughter who both live wild lifestyles. Mother brings home paid escorts who are much younger than her while daughter hangs with a wild gang of kids. Of course, as all movies like this, it all ends up in a house of ill repute and an adult male delivers a moralistic lecture that would even make Mike Brady blush.

Clocking it at barely over an hour this film is rather short on plot. Much of the film is either jitterbug dancing and musical numbers. Perhaps they felt that people would fall asleep or just leave the theater if there wasn't some entertainment in the film.

If that drunken bachelor at the bridge party who sings of old Broadway looks familiar it was Monte Collins. Monte was a character actor who appeared in many shorts and cheap films in the 1930s and 40s. Three Stooges fans will recognize him as Mr. Zero from the first Three Stooges short, Woman Haters.

So yeah, this film generally stinks. It's not horrible and neither is it as funny as

Just a random note but after watching this film and typing "Mad Youth" over and over has somehow made me want to put on the old Tears for Fears song, "Mad World," preferably the Gary Jules cover.

This film was part of a collection I partially reviewed a while back.

Labels: 31 days of film, Crap, Cult Films

Good gravy, do the bad films ever end? Upon request of my brother to watch something "with a hot girl in it" we decided on this incredibly awful Z rate film.

This was essentially made as Drive-In filler so that necking teenagers would have an excuse to stay out later it fails to do anything but put you to sleep. Is it any wonder that Ed Wood was a consultant on this film and that the director Ronnie Ashcroft was a friend of Wood? It sure stinks of Eddie Wood, that's for sure.

What's interesting is that the She-Monster, credited as Shirley Kilpatrick, is believed (at least according to imdb) to be a much younger and much thinner Shirley Stoler who would later gain fame in The Honeymoon Killers and then as Mrs. Steve on Pee Wee's Playhouse. Now that's scary!

Labels: 31 days of film, Crap, Horror, sci-fi

The 1950's were, in many ways, the "Golden Era" of monster movies. Dinosaurs like "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" and Godzilla made their appearances along with other animals like the giant octopus of "It Came From Beneath the Sea." Eventually the people in Hollywood would to run out of things to use as giant monsters.

The Monolith Monsters is about some rocks that grow big and turn people to stone. Yes, you read that right. This film is about monster rocks. You have to wonder who came up with that brilliant idea and how the boardroom reacted to his idea about "monster rocks."

The plot is basically about some rocks which fall to the earth as meteorites. When they are exposed to water they grow rapidly absorbing the silicon from every source: wood, trees and even people. As you may expect this causes panic and scientists have to figure out how to stop it.

I'd like to describe the film in more detail but there really isn't anything else to say. Quite frankly, the film was dull and pointless. There were too many scenes of pasty white people jabbering about nonsense. These scenes usually don't kill a monster movie as you really only care about the beasts themselves and yet, it's hard to get excited over paper mache crystals moving slowly towards a city.

Skip this one.

To read the rest of the reviews of the films on this disc, check out my partial earlier review as well as my review of The Incredible Shrinking Man, earlier this week.

Labels: 31 days of film, Bad Movies, Crap, sci-fi

You know a movie is trash when you can barely stay awake watching it. From 1949 with a budget of $10 is this cheap piece of crap known as Omoo Omoo the Shark God.

This film was made before things like plot were deemed necessary. Much of the film is just stock footage of animals along with white people pretending to be ethnic look on from shots cut away.

Okay, so there is a plot. A sea captain steals some black pearls from an idol in Tahiti and he and his crew are cursed. That curse is so strong that it goes straight through the TV to us the unfortunate viewers. Really it plays out like a bad episode of Ramar of the Jungle.

Skip it; I wish I had. If you want a watchable bad movie that takes place in the jungle watch Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla.

By the way, this was part of a collection I partially reviewed a while back.

Labels: 31 days of film, Bad Movies, Crap

Yesterday I decided that after watching a great film by a legendary and celebrated director I decided it might be a good idea to go to the proverbial opposite end of the film spectrum. I wanted to see a movie that was so well known for being terrible that it has achieved almost cult-like status. Yet even after sitting though Child Brides, Manos: Hands of Fate and Titanic even I was still unprepared for the horrors I was about to face in the Ed Wood classic, Glen or Glenda.

Glen or Glenda started out as a cheap film made to cash in on the sex change of George/Christine Jorgensen. Director Ed Wood, himself a transvestite, decided to take the film in a completely different direction to talk about transvestism. He even played the main character of Glen(da) under the pseudonym of Daniel Davis. He even hired one of his heroes Bela Lugosi (now down on his luck and heavily addicted to morphine) to play a scientist. Lyle Talbot makes an appearance leading me to think that he either loved working or had no pride in what films he made.

This film is, in many ways the true testament of the talents of Mr. Edward D. Wood Jr. He should have kept those talents to himself as this film is almost totally incoherent. The film is told in a series of flashbacks by a doctor to a police inspector who wants to know what would lead a local transvestite to commit suicide. We are told of the story of Glen who, after being neglected by his father and mother, decides to become a girl. After this tale is over the story of Alan/Ann is told and the real Jorgensen exploitation begins.

Wood's "talents" as a director are further showcased by his refusal to use any symbolism that makes sense to anyone who hasn't been sniffing glue. Many surrealistic and symbolic images appear at totally inappropriate times (e.g Satan being at Glen's wedding) that it feels as though Ed just opened a textbook of film techniques and just decided to use whichever one he found whether they made sense to use or not.*

Several points in the film are interrupted by Lugosi rambling on about "puppy dog tales and big ugly snails" or simply with inappropriate lightning or stock footage if, for nothing else, just to extend the length of the film. One particularly awful scene is when a serious conversation is cut short by stock footage of a buffalo stampede!

Glen or Glenda certainly is an enigma. On the one hand the film is so terrible that no one would ever watch it as a serious movie. Many parts of the film left me openly disturbed, creeped out and just feeling rather uncomfortable. Yet I have not laughed as hard and and long at a film in ages.

If laughter is the best medicine, I truly hope that it means that the therapy required after watching this film will be lessened.

Do not watch this movie unless you have a twisted sense of humor or you are extremely curious. If you do decide to watch it, be sure to watch it with friends. The pain is less when shared with others.

* Ironically this is the same technique that Quentin Tarrantino uses. ^

Labels: 31 days of film, Bad Movies, Bela Lugosi, Crap

Wow, I have seen some disturbing things in my day but this one takes the cake.

Pinocchio like many other fairy tales is known to most modern audiences not by their original work but instead by their Disney interpretation. Therefore when we are presented with something a bit more true to the book we may tend to prefer the Disney sterilized version and shun those more true to the book.

This film is actually an Italian production and appears to have been dubbed by the same people who did Gamera vs. Zigra, that is to say the dubbing is rather putrid and the film is a strain on the ears. It, like the original book, is incredibly depressing as the social commentary is quite clear. It also is a bit weird as I never really expected to see Pinocchio lynched Spaghetti Western style.

If you want to watch something downright weird or want to try your hands at your own MSTing then by all means, spend a dollar on this. Just don't buy it for your kids.

Labels: Animation, Bad Movies, Crap

Melty Lancer - Vol. 1: Alpha

I'm really not even sure where to start with a title like Melty Lancer. It's almost a stereotype in itself. We have a show where several hot girls are formed into a counter-terrorism group. No, this isn't Burn-Up! as that would be giving it way too much credit. Instead it's a steaming pile of waste based on a Playstation Game.

I find myself losing patience with the younger breed of anime fans. I had a coworker about 2 years ago who loved the latest and greatest shows and I remember him declaring once that GONZO made the best anime. Well, here we have a GONZO show that left me not only bored but had me wondering if this was the kind of show that appeals to the new otakus on the block. Hopefully I'm wrong and this is just a turkey.

Skip this.

Labels: Action, Anime, Crap, Japanese

Scruff: What Will We Do With This Dog? Every once in a while I find something really good in the dollar bin. Most of the time I find mediocre rubbish. When I picked up Scruff, I found something far worse, I found total suckitude.

Scruff is about a dog who gets lost and is found by some new people and he learns about animals ... or something. In all honesty, I gave up after about 15 minutes.

The animation was terrible. The characters looked as if they were drawn in Paint and they lacked any fluidity to their movements. Sadly their mouths had a hard time lining up with the voices which was ok as it distracted me from the putrid voice acting.

Digiview has been releasing several titles from the BKN Kids line. Unfortunately while this one sits on shelves, Pocket Dragon Adventures is still awaiting a second volume and I, for one, can not wait for more Roswell Conspiracies.

$1 of boredom is a dollar not well spent. I am skipping this and Volume 2. Both are officially purged from the backlog. So now I am left to wonder if this is worse than Princess Gwenevere & the Jewel Riders.

Labels: Cartoons, Crap, Dollar DVD

Vermilion Pleasure Night - Vol. 2: Vox Stimuli: Two more episodes of the avant-garde late night Japanese TV show are presented here with more of the same from Volume 1. What's sad is while the last disc was somewhat entertaining, I found myself reaching for the skip button more and more.

As I watched the show I realized it reminded me in many ways of Robot Chicken, which is not a good thing for me. Still, for those who like that sort of thing, it should be right up your alley.

Vox Stimuli? Vox Humbug.

Labels: Crap, Japanese

Protégé de la Rose Noire: Ever see a film so inept and so stupid that you can hardly stand it? Despite hearing numerous poor reviews and knowing how the central actors, Ekin Cheng and Twins Gil and Charlene, being particularly poor actors. Perhaps I am still giving them all credit for Twins Effect or perhaps the brutal sting of My Wife is 18 has not yet wore off. Either way, I dropped the cash on this piece of junk.

I guess I should comment on the good before I totally trash it. Some of the singing was amusing and the Drunken Master parody made me smirk a bit. I suppose that Ekin Cheng dressed ike Robin (from Batman) was supposed to be funny but it was more weird and bizarre than entertaining. However I found myself fast forwarding through most of it which is not something you really should ever do with a movie.

Labels: Bad Movies, Crap, Hong Kong