B Movie Nation

Foundational Cinema

Month: May 2015

The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock (1959)

Women were standing tall in the late 1950’s, at least two of them that is. There was Allison Hayes’ vindictive 50′ woman, and now there’s the put-upon dumbbell Dorothy Provine, who at 30′ decides that no man other than Lou…

Revenge of the Virgins (1959)

At a glance, this film looks like another one of the many low-budget westerns cranked out in the thirties and forties, even though it was made sometime later. It “borrows” its basic idea from THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE, i.e….

Nude on the Moon (1961)

Doris Wishman belongs to that category of film directors that include Russ Meyer, John Waters, Herschell Gordon Lewis and Ed Wood. These are film-makers who make movies that are simply uncategorizable. Either you get it or you don’t. In “Nude…

Good Bye Hollywood….Hello Movies

In the 1930s, eighty million people went to the movies every week, with weekly attendance peaking at ninety million in 1930′;s and again in the mid-1940s. Now at best about thirty million people go to the movies every year. This…

Space Raiders (1983)

Ten-year-old boy Peter (a solid and likable performance by David Mendenhall) stows away on a spaceship that’s hijacked by a motley band of intergalactic pirates led by hard-nosed ex-soldier Col. C.W. “Hawk” Hawkins (neatly essayed with gruff’n’growly aplomb by Vince…

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983)

Back when I was 12, renting this movie was like popping in the end-all be-all of science fiction, especially since I didn’t get to see it at the theater! The credits were funky, the heroic Elmer Bernstein score was sweeping,…

Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983)

The 1983 3-D Charles Band production “Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn” is pretty damn forgettable and obviously quite low budget but, like many other movies of its kind, it’s not without its cheesy charms. One is simply going to have…

Megaforce (1982)

In all honesty, this was a movie with some real great potential. It could had actually really been a decent movie, if it had only an actual script to work with. This movie is totally lame and silly but almost…

Exterminators of the Year 3000 (1983)

Comparing this with “Mad Max 2” in terms of quality is akin to a cage match between a donkey and a grizzly bear; the outcome is a foregone conclusion. If however, you were to compare this with “New Barbarians”, or…

Battle of the Amazons (1973)

“Amazzoni – Donne D’Amore E Di Guerra” aka. “Battle Of The Amazons”, is a poorly produced film with bad actors, of course, but nevertheless, I find it enjoyable. The fun aspect of this movie, a film of a genre that…

The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak (1984)

This film has grown into a real cult classic and one of the reasons is the difficulty finding a copy to view. Story is about a young and beautiful damsel in distress named Gwendoline (Tawny Kitaen) who along with her…

Battletruck (1982)

“Warlords of the 21st Century”, a.k.a. “Battletruck”, is fun stuff, if overly reminiscent of the more famous “Mad Max” series (although, truth be told, this was actually filmed *before* “The Road Warrior”). It’s competently directed (by Harley Cokeliss), nicely shot…

Pinocchio’s Revenge (1996)

Struggling with a murder case, lawyer Jennifer Garrick, (Rosalind Allen) is unable to stop her charge from being executed. When her babysitter Sophia, (Candace McKenzie) tells her about a series of nightmares her daughter Zoe, (Brittany Alyse Smith) is experiencing,…

Endangered Species (2003)

Endangered Species starts as a city lives in fear, a city in fear of a serial killer who has claimed dozens of victims already. Lieutenant Mike ‘Sully’ Sullivan (Eric Roberts) & Lieutenant Wyznowski (John Rhys-Davies) are on the case but…

Thunder and Lightning (1977)

Contrived good ol’ boy, yahoo nonsense that is taken into overdrive. There really is no need to talk about the story since it is very derivative and just an excuse to put in a lot of smash up car chases….

Deathsport (1978)

Holy Mozzarella! I can not believe this was *not* made by Italians. It’s about as bonkers as Castellari’s THE NEW BARBARIANS. And it’s definitely far more warped. David Carradine plays some kind of futuristic hippie-warrior (they call them Range Guides,…

Silver Bullet (1985)

The difference between this and the standard, cookie-cutter, grade-B monster/werewolf/e-mail-spammer horror flick could be a tutorial for playwrights, screenwriters and cinematographers. Instead of the tired horror-flick plot – monster terrorizes small town after killing some folks (usually with heavy-handed special-effects…

Graveyard Shift (1990)

This might be the craziest Stephen King adaptation ever made (and yes, I am aware of “The Lawnmower Man”). It’s so f**king intense from start to finish that it makes Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” look like a Hallmark movie. The…

Eyeborgs (2009)

In a near-future USA its citizens are under perpetual surveillance from Eyeborgs, mobile robotic cameras, used by the police to stop crime happening and to convict any criminals they see. A big hairy ranting paranoid man is arrested when tries…

Moscow Heat (2004)

Roger Chambers (York) is a dashing former diplomat who loves fencing. His friend Rudy (Madrid) convinces him to take the trip to Moscow to try and track down the evil Nikolai Klimov (Tyson), who is responsible for the death of…