Savage Weekend

Savage Weekend Directed By David Paulsen, Starring William Sanderson (1979).

Forget 30° of Kevin Bacon, this trivia question waiting to happen is something on the nerd level of what scuzzy 70’s flick has David Gale from Re-Animator and William Sanderson from Newhart and Fight for Your Life. That's right, this piece of trash.  Right over the credits we hear banjo music and a chainsaw heating up for some action. William “JF Sebastian” Sanderson is the thrift store Leatherface of this feature. This is the kind of movie where you're not sure if you had a nightmare about it or it actually happened but it's been sitting on the burner for at least five years and was gnawing at my subconscious so I just had to review it right now. It's got Caitlin O’ Heaney who I remember as the sexy teacher from Three O' Clock High in Oshkosh baa gosh if that doesn't get your motor running then just turn it off right now! Everything has that smothered in Vaseline light quality and it all just screams underground movie never to be seen for public consumption.

check out this cool maxi-pad from Hot Topic!

There’s this Tab Hunter type guy played by Christopher Allport. This actor was in one of my favorite fucked up movies Brain Wash and also Dead and Buried. His character is very flamboyant and comes on to Bud Light swilling rednecks, I mean he's just asking for trouble. This is supposed to be filmed in the backwoods but everything about it says Canada.

I could totally see Vinegar Syndrome putting this out on Blu-ray, it has that typical cruddy film stock that they love to remaster. There is a Kentucky fried movie level of boom mic prowess, I mean I expect at any minute to lower down and drink a glass of water.

or shave your face!

Sanderson was typecast in a lot of country hillbilly bullshit before he landed the gig in the famous Ridley Scott film. Really though, how do you top a movie as fucked up as Fight For Your Life, you’d think it’d be all downhill after that. Sanderson delved in mainstream fair like Coal Miners Daughter in the mid 70s as well.

Uh Oh I pooped again!

David Gale has one of those Marty Robbins handlebar mustaches and is pretty unlikeable.

I'm surprised I didn't review this sooner, it has a Mansion of the Doomed or Messiah of Evil quality that I dig. It's definitely way more captivating then say Pigs (which is available on Blu-ray).

I'm gonna peel you like a large orange.

The boom mic is shown so much here that it's almost another character. The boom operator must have a limp wrist like Lamar, forcing him to dip below the frame so much that he probably could've used a Revenge of the Nerds style floppy javelin instead of a straight pole to handle the microphone.

artists representation of Boom operator.

Chas Balun mentioned how this was the first movie with the masked Jason type killer. Big deal!

There's a lot of scenes where William Sanderson is just talking to himself right next to an Ed Wood style cardboard gravestone.

This version I watched on Betamax TV seems slightly edited maybe they're trying to cater to the whole summer blockbuster audience that doesn't exist anymore. Even with all the excized bits, I can't imagine enjoying this anymore, especially sober.

William Sanderson puts on the dime store mask and kind of lurks in the corners. The writing is non-existent and I have no idea what’s going on or what the point the film has.

Nobody is going to say that this was the precursor to Friday the 13th or some bullshit like that but I guess it's slightly relevant.

It's definitely kinky in the sex department which is kind of abrupt and I can't say it's a good film. I definitely can't recommend it, but it's an oddity nonetheless. The director also made the way better Schizoid with Klaus Kinski for Cannon, they also later distributed Savage and Paulsen worked primarily in TV on Dallas of all things.

I just discovered while writing this that Kino Lorber actually did put this out restored on Blu-ray with new interviews, excited? Not me! It's also available to stream on the Night Flight app.

TOTAL WASTE OF TIME.

USA UP ALL NIGHT LEFT OVER: FOREVER EVIL

Forever Evil. Directed by Roger Evans (1987).

Review By Mike Hauss

What a not wildly fresh premise this film had. A group of friends go to a cabin in the woods for a weekend to celebrate their last weekend at the cabin, which is slated to be sold. Supernatural forces attack and brutally kill all but Marc Denning, who escapes to a busy road. But as he stands battered and bruised celebrating his narrow escape, he is hit by a car. Marc awakes a week or so later in the hospital, with broken this and fractured that.

The re-animated corpse of Ebenezer Scrooge just in time for Christmas.

This film is not very good, but it does build a bit of suspense here and there, but for a film that technically looks like shit to clock in at a mind-ripping one-hundred and fifty-minutes is a grave mistake. If a capable edit of the film had been made, to shore twenty to thirty minutes off it, the film would have been a tighter affair and the fast-forward button wouldn’t have been so prevalent in my viewing experience. A grizzled old detective named Leo, Marc Denning and a young lady named Reggie, who also survived an attack by these dark forces, all band together to try and defeat the assailants, which includes zombies and creatures that shoot laser beams.

Lovecraft Schmuvcraft!

What the story revolves around is a cult who are making sacrificial murders in the goal of bringing the ancient god Yog Kothag back to earth, from which he was banished eons ago because of his evil. Obviously, the writers involved in this film borrowed a bit from H.P. Lovecraft and his creation Yog-Sothoth, along with Evil Dead in its cabin in the woods, supernatural attack forces. The acting is so bad that its almost hypnotic in its deconstruction of a craft. The first twenty minutes or so are so cheesy stupid, that it makes the viewer take notice and keeps one eyeing the power button to turn this film off at any moment. Like noted above the film does build some suspense here and there, but it does not know how to sustain it or to reach a proper payoff. For a film with this large of a scope to tread forward with bad actors, bad production values and an over inflated runtime really destructs any hope that the film had of being a cult classic, it was obviously aiming for. And what sets this apart from that other noted low-budget cabin in the woods film, Evil Dead... is talent!

WATCH ON YOUTUBE OR DON'T SEE IF I CARE!

USA UP ALL NIGHT WEEK: A Nymphoid Barbarian In Dinosaur Hell!

"A Nymphoid Barbarian In Dinosaur Hell"(1990)

Director: Brett Piper 

Writer: Brett Piper
Stars: Paul Guzzi, Linda Corwin, Alex Pirnie

Review by: "Machine Gun" Kristin

So far, "A Nymphoid Barbarian In Dinosaur Hell!" plays like a fully-clothed porno, meaning, what the hell's the point? I think they may have been way too inspired by the music video, "Walk The Dinosaur" by Was(Not Was). Or Was it? 

and maybe decided to make a full length movie based on the video game for "Primal Rage".

It's Troma, so there's zero respect for sanity of their audience. Their movies are 9 times out of 10 an hour and a half too long. haha. I can't hate Troma too much because yes, they're mostly terrible movies, but they're still important. I guess it's reputable under the guise that anyone (and they mean anyone) can be a filmmaker and that's something to behold for sure. No idea too dumb, no plot too thin, no special effects too not-so-special. The Ray Harryhausen style animated monsters (by Brett Piper and Alex Pirnie) sprinkled throughout here in "Nymphoid" were so adorable! haha. 

Gawd this movie is terrible. I'm going to make a rule for myself never to choose the movie based on extremely long, deceptively interesting title. Reminds of the other movie related rule of thumb of the past; never to rent "big box" horror movies at your local video store. I'm not sure if that was always 100% true, but it's still entertaining to think about. For example, my first thought when it comes to big video boxes is a copy of "2000 Maniacs" which I guess in comparison is actually a "good movie" haha. 

The whole movie's explained in the first 2 minutes but I actually forgot about it by the time I got to the ending. I'm not the only one, the film abandoned the storyline too. Basically, a barbarian girl (Linda Corwin) is one of the last women on earth after a major nuclear war that ended civilization and the remaining animals morphed in those awesome animated monsters I mentioned before. If there was an edit of this movie with nothing but those monsters, that would've been way better! The title is pretty deceiving in that there is yes, a couple of icky attempted rapes (not initiated by our female lead, but the gnarly cavemen wandering about), but nothing that would define a nymphomaniac of any kind. 

The music score kept reminding me of "O Holy Night" so I had this bizarre caveman adventure Christmas theme going on in my head for a bit. hahaha.  Hey, at least this movie's mostly set at the beach (somewhere in New Hampshire apparently), so we can enjoy the scenery. A great way to sum this movie up is the first comment on YouTube where Troma has graciously uploaded this video for all to see. Commenter Douglas Berry says: "I sometimes ask myself, why am I watching this? Is my life so empty I'll watch any moving picture? I guess so......"

I rate this movie 3 creatures 🐲🐲🐲  for the FX

1 pile of poo 💩 for the rest of it

USA UP ALL NIGHT airings of "A Nymphoid Barbarian In Dinosaur Hell!"

Season 3 | Episode 5 (18 January 1991) A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell/Young Nurses in Love

Season 3 | Episode 69 (31 August 1991) Joysticks/A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell 

WATCH HERE (Thanks TROMA!) 

BUY HERE!

There's actually commentary on the DVD by Director/Writer/Creature FX Brett Piper. Would love to hear that! 

USA UP ALL NIGHT WEEK: Night Patrol

Night Patrol (the Unknown Comic movie) Directed By Jackie Kong, Starring Linda Blair. (1984).

You know Murray Langston, the famous unknown comic with the paper bag over his head, this is his big movie. Throw in Linda Blair (who gets topless) and retches when she hears curse words, wacky dubbing, the director of Blood Diner, man this flick has got it all. It's especially funny if you hit up your local dispensary or your favorite beverage / valium combo. Murray plays Melvin White, a mustachioed cop out on the beat, it's all very Naked Gun, Police Academy-ish only a lot more silly and retarded. I guess you could say they were aiming at hitching their rinky dink wagon to the Copsploitation trend but that never really took off. Plus no one really gave a fuck about the Unknown comic besides really geeky people I might be scared of.

Burt Reynolds style centerfold

Billy Barty is the police chief, if only he ended up in an Amir Shervan vehicle as yet another angry grizzled boss yelling at the Samurai Cop or Hollywood Cop. Barty was great in Being Different a mondo freakshow that just showed up on Amazon Prime, check it out before it's gone.

"Ready for that mustache ride!"

Andrew Dice Clay shows up too as a Travolta clone, this was years before he became the misogynistic comedian that we all know.

John Revolta 

Pat Morita gets raped and talks like a girl, I can't make this shit up folks! It's somewhere treading on a sea of stupidity and mediocrity and some bad poetry. I loved it maybe more than King Fart! Many of the actors here went onto do voices for The Rugrats for some odd reason like Pat Paulsen, who plays the officer tagging along with Murray, he also was on The Smothers Brothers as The Jolly Green Giant. Skunkape as a little primate saw this on cable and his parents made him close his eyes during the steamy parts.

Guy with bag on head gets kicked in the nuts.
The scene that inspired a young ape.

Another Unknown Comic now takes the 5th grade talent show by storm!

One of the screenwriters Bill Osco is responsible for one of the most traumatizing flicks I remember Skunkape torturing me with in TV Production school Gross Out. That fuggin monkey even had a home made T-shirt based off the VHS artwork, which I remember seeing at Video Waves, a porn and cult movie store I used to frequent. Osco's biggest claim to fame is handling the production on Flesh Gordon (1974), which is incredible that basically a soft porn parody of a kitschy, camp masterpiece was even noticed by anyone but that was the 70's, everyone was wacked out on something!

"Is that a Twinkie in your lunch bag or you just happy to see me?"

"I like cops, comics, and polish vampires."

live action Dr. Katz

"This is my audition for the role of Bilbo "Bag"gins. HA!

USA UP ALL NIGHT WEEK: Eat And Run

"Eat And Run"(1986)

Director: Christopher Hart 

Writer: Stan Hart, Christopher Hart

Stars: Ron Silver, Sharon Sharth, Pat Ryan

Review by: "Machine Gun" Kristin

"Eat And Run" seems like a somewhat larger budgeted movie from the looks of it, with that glossy New World Pictures logo coming on the screen. At least it seems fancier to me. This movie's pretty gross but it's actually adorably funny in a likable cornball way. It's one of the many New York set films of the 1980s that emphasizes it's Italian community, although it's probably the only one that focuses on the appetizing nature of its people as food versus the food that they create. haha. They generically reference Carvel ice cream cakes which is painfully 80s NY, but surprisingly not Friendly's (even though, they hail from Massachusetts) which seems to be a suburban NY staple. Hell, they even referenced Friendly's in "The Sopranos" haha.

The eating (although, not much running actually) is done by shirt button spitting character actor, Pat Ryan (or sometimes R.L. Ryan). You might recognize him as the sleazy junkyard owner from "Street Trash" which he did around the same time as "Eat..".  Here, he's a humanoid space alien named Murray the Creature that crash landed in New York. A nice Italian man picks him up thinking he's a hitchhiker and inadvertently talks Murray into eating him. This sets a series of murders that goofball detective, Mickey McSorely (Ron Silver) goes on a self-narrating journey to solve.

"I Ordered Fudgey The Fish But They Send Me Fuckin' Cookie Face!" 

I went into this "USA Up All Night" choice of movie thinking it was a horror film, but it's more of a comedy than anything. All the "gore" is done off screen. There are a ton of gags in this, which can sometimes read as trying too hard. Sometimes they kinda bash you over the head with the schtick but it was still charming in a vaudeville kinda way. It was the last movie written by Stan Hart who was head writer of "The Carol Burnett Show" and also had written for Mad Magazine.

I could've done without the icky comedic fully-clothed sex scenes with poofy haired Judge Cheryl (Sharon Schlarth) and McSorely, haha. Some of the dialogue exchanges though were pretty funny like,

Cheryl: "Oh by way, I forgot to ask if you had Herpes?" 

McSorely: "Oh god no, that's one thing I don't have" 

Cheryl: "It's not so bad, it stings from time to time, but it doesn't interfere with my social life" 

Murray eats tunnel-digging Agamemnon from "OZ" 

I think my favorite gag was when the Zeppoles vendor fried his ring, his watch and his ID bracelet.  The least would have to be the weird sex scene with McSorely (he kinda resembles an off-brand Andy Garcia) and Judge Cheryl but she's sound asleep. Yuck. 

This movie is not quite at "Eating Raoul" caliber as far as comedies involving eating people goes,  but it's worth a look. These movies were surprisingly never paired up on "USA Up All Night". 

"Eat And Run" apparently aired 4 times (!!) on "USA Up All Night":

April 8th 1989 Satan's Cheerleaders/Eat and Run 

September 1 1989 Eat and Run/The Kentucky Fried Movie 

November 24 1989 Swim Team/Eat and Run 

November 25 1989 Eat and Run/The Van 

I give this one 2 and half pizzas 🍕🍕

You can watch "Eat And Run" HERE

Find the it for sale HERE

USA UP ALL NIGHT WEEK: Day Of The Dead

Day Of The Dead Directed by George Romero, Starring Howard Sherman (1985).

This is a review that might alienate all of my friends, readers and family members, accept Skunkape who I know shares the same opinion on this film. It’s highly controversial and feels like I’m stepping into a trap of my own design but here we go anyway. Right off the bat, I consider Day of the Dead a classic 2 stars film, it could've been better but it's not the worst of all time. There I got that off my chest!

"High Five, High Five, High Five, High Five High Five"

I even taped this episode during it's run on UP ALL NIGHT where Gilbert Gottfried shit all over the characters and tense situations, defusing whatever ardency Romero aimed for. At first I felt like I was witnessing a crime and going against all that I knew was intriguing about a zombie film. Let’s face it though none of these characters are like able on the military side or the hero side. Sarah (Lori Cardille) is very butch and wooden. Her boyfriend Miguel (Anthony Dileo Jr. ) is a whiny bitch, who looks like a gay Cat Stevens. As a "straight" couple there is zero chemistry, that in lies the first series of hiccups that I've always had with this movie, it's very difficult to identify or emphasize for the characters. The stereotypes are rampant throughout, like the flask slugging Irish Star Trek Bones—ish McDermott (Jarlath Conroy) to the exaggerated Jamaican guy (Terry Alexander).

"I should have been a sailor!

Miguel Salazar's Day Off

"I told you not to touch my pole!"

Savini however makes it all tolerable and wonderful, the effects are brilliant, creative and mind blowing. But everything from the watered down script to the incessant bickering is shocking especially from the politically savy Romero.

Where do I start with Rhodes, one of the worst authoritarian dickwads who rules a team of drooling morons, exuding testosterones. Dr. Frankenstein I’ll deal with because he’s attached to Bub (Howard Sherman) one of the best zombies of all time. Bub was even on an episode of Seinfeld, you may remember him as the guy who got Junior Mints stuck in his organs from Kramer spilling it everywhere.

"We are the 3 Amigos!"

I always remember Bub's instructions on how to pull out the posters in the Fangoria Poster mag, telling us not to let the staples tear out our finger nails for risk that they might temp you to chew your own digits off for their taste value. The usually captivating John Amplas is all neutered and shriveled up by the macho military dumb asses talking over everyone.

"Sorry, I have nothing to donate to Big Brothers, Big Sisters this year."

I love this song by the Cranberries!

Another highlight is when Lori hacks off Miguel’s arm and cauterizes it so he won't be infected by the zombie plague was very creative. There are truly clever and innovative moments within the film, but it all adds up to a very unsatisfying  affair. I hate to say it, but for the sake of Gottfried ripping on it and my own anxieties about being a closet hater of Day I gotta come clean and express these views.

"I need a new chiropractor!"

"You said it Erok, now I gots something to say!!!"

If you made it this far then let me tell ya that you should think of this review as a "Roast". We're celebrating something we love but pointing out every short coming and making fun of every flaw.
This post would certainly be incomplete without mentioning the awkward performance of Ralph Marrero who played Rickles. It's the kind of performance that almost makes you feel embarrassed for the little guy. The foul mouthed character of Steel (Gary Howard Klar) is played nearly to perfection as a menacing goon and Rhodes's right hand man. However, when Steel and Rickles share screen time it's like watching a head strong Uruk-hai next to a drooling incompetent Orc.

Steel and Rickles

"Night of the Living Bread is so Funny!"

Rhodes unfriended me on Facebook. :( 

As much as I hated all the military bozos I 'm actually starting to side with them! Was Dr. Frankenstein really going to pass around the walkman and teach every zombie how to salute? His research was stupid he should have been working on a giant weed wacker or some kind of zombie melting gas!

"Did you call an Uber?"

Track 1-The Dead Walk
Great for doing aerobics!!!

Another thing I have to mention is the musical aspect. John Harrison's score certainly gets the job done but is that what you want? Just to get the job done! After collaborating with Goblin and having them compose that iconic heart pumping score for Dawn, it just seems like Day really could have had more music and better music at that. I do have some of the tracks in a few of my horror playlists but just go listen to "The World Inside your Eyes" right now by Sputzy Sparacino and then just try to argue with me ;) That song is super schmaltzy and there's zero irony to be found, it's almost as bad as the Dr. Felix portion of the Deep Red Simonetti Horror Project remix.

This kid said that he loved the Day of the Dead remake, so we killed him.

Speaking poorly of Romero or Day of the Dead should not be allowed EVER, but maybe now we'll get you to leave a comment! Go for it! Tell us what you think!

"Please don't post this review!"