Rambu, The Intruder [1986]

As another entry into our canon of Indonesian rip-offs, we have The Intruder also known as Rambu. I'm not going to get into the specifics of the plot, mainly because the plot is specifically difficult to follow but trust me when I say its a pretty good one.

Rambu is a guy who didn't finish the police academy and so he mostly goes around beating up bad guys for fun while his girlfriend financially supports him. Then she gets killed (and raped; it's an Indonesian film after all) by some guys Rambu beat up. He quickly ends up in a new romance and she gets kidnapped and he saves her. Throughout the film there is this expectation that Rambu is supposed to get a job with a man called Mr. Andre. We have no idea what he does but it's unsurprising that he is in cohoots with the bad guy drug dealer, Mr. White. The film is set up basically for Rambu to get into fights with guys. 

This movie is pretty solid even though it's incomprehensible. There are a lot of completely random lines, acted poorly, some fighting with a bouncy ball, and overall basically nothing having to do with the Rambo movies it borrows from. Even the more common title, The Intruder, is confusing. Is Rambu the intruder as a white guy in a Pacific island nation? Is Mr. White the bad guy for the same reason but with crime? Who knows? Either way, its worth a watch.

Spoon Rating: 6

New York Ninja [2021; 1984]

In an effort to boost morale, we have had two weeks of solid choices. Last week Kay was not in attendance so there was a rewatch of Neil Breen's Pass Thru. This week is a new one for us and a recently discovered classic overall that has been gaining popularity in bad movie circles. The story behind this film's two release dates is pretty unique. The reels for the film were found even though the film wasn't finished and didn't have any sound. Luckily, the reel told a coherent story and most of the scenes show the actors clearly enough that dubbing wasn't actually difficult so a full film was pieced together in 2021. Initially we were a bit skeptical about how the voice acting might ham up the performances, but they honestly didn't go any further than the actors were already going. The movie also has an amazing surreal vibe to it because it was put together so recently. The film has insanely high definition for something so clearly shot in the 80s, and the music added, while definitely time period appropriate, still put Adam and Kay in the mindset of the soundtrack to Drive and instantly endeared all of us to it even though none of us are specific fans of the 80s.

So what's the plot of this new discovery? The film starts in a pretty standard martial arts film way. The main character (played by the director and writer; another sign of quality) finds out his wife is pregnant and she's immediately killed. In this version of New York, there is a problem with gangs kidnapping women and those gangs get their style tips from Mad Max side characters and A Clockwork Orange (jockstraps). We are briefly introduced to the leader of this crime ring, a man who wears steampunk welder sunglasses and makes excellent facial expressions. The main character decides to get revenge by dressing like a ninja in a pale yellow robe, and occasionally roller skates, and beating up bad guys. At one point he saves a child and adopts him. This is most of the first half of the film with this one notably bizarre scene where Sunglasses opens up a glowing box that seemingly melts his face and hands but he's into it. 

After a "Several Weeks Later" screen, we learn that this man has now been given the name The Plutonium Killer and he apparently can't look into the sun and maybe he needs that radiation to live or something? It's unclear both how he got this way and how his thing works at all. Our main character's character of the New York Ninja has since become a real sensation and people have t-shirts saying "I Love NY Ninja" on them. He can also now defy physics when he fights. Soon a detective lady is kidnapped by the gangs and our main character is on the case. He finds the lair where all the women are being kept and frees them. For reference, we never really learn what the kidnapping was for. We can assume sex slavery or something but we are never told. Ninja has a ridiculous fight with The Killer's driver, a man who somewhat resembles Elijah Wood with a rattail and black tie attire. Then the Killer does some sort of ritual(?) where he is able to take the face of this cameraman he captured to try to convince a reporter to go with him. Either way, he kidnaps the reporter and just drags her around with the Ninja chasing them until the end where the Ninja is able to save the day. Ninja is in the process of getting arrested when a bunch of child fans swarm him and he is able to escape. The film ends with the Ninja hugging the detective lady and breaking the hell out of the fourth wall with a wink and a point.

This film is wild. It's cliché is so many ways, but then it's completely off the wall in others. While the plot mostly makes sense, there are little details that throw you for a loop and are never explained, especially about our main villain. The face acting is over-the-top, the weapons are Party City, and honestly, we can all be grateful this film was saved. Disappointingly, while John Liu, our original director and lead actor, seems to still be alive at 77, I can't seem to find anything about his thoughts on the film. I'd like to think he'd feel his vision was maintained.

Spoon Rating: 8.5

Warp Speed [1981]

After the rather boring film last week, this movie kind of felt like a bit of relief. Was it amazing? No. In fact, the first 20 minutes or so were kind of boring and a bit hard to follow. But once we got into the rhythm of the film a bit more and some of the crazy really started to come out, we ultimately walked away from it with pretty favorable feelings.

The plot is a story within a story. In the outer frame, a psychic has been brought onto an abandoned ship that was supposed to go to Saturn to investigate the disappearance of the crew. The story of the crew is told through a series of flashbacks that are unchronological at first but eventually move back so we can see the plot unfold. The crew consists of Adam West as the captain, a lieutenant who's maybe dating the blonde bimbo but definitely an asshole, said bimbo, the reasonable black lady, the also reasonable but maybe a bit suicidal engineer, the psychiatrist, and the medical doctor who says everything antagonistically and has daddy issues. Everything starts out chill with a lot of card playing, failed flirting, and trips to a simulation machine called the pleasure center. The problem arises when there's an explosion outside and the math proves that they will need to lighten the load just to get home. After stripping the ship, they realize that people need to go too, which is kind of fine since everyone's going nuts. Asshole rapes doctor after she stupidly wagers sex during a poker game, the captain initially considers just going on with the mission even though everyone will surely die and mutiny almost happens, and everyone is mad or sad all the time. First the psychiatrist draws the short straw and when he resists his fate of death, asshole breaks his neck. Then the doctor tries to throw the black lady under the bus and they decide to go after her instead. The doctor slits her own throat in a delusion. The engineer sacrifices himself. The asshole shoots the captain and the black lady and promises the bimbo they will go out together but just kills her instead. At this point we have an absolutely wild turn where asshole acknowledges the psychic who he can apparently see even though they are in different timelines and goes to stab her before the movie cuts out. We literally screamed in frustration.

While completely poorly written from a logic perspective, this movie definitely had a plot to follow which was really appreciated after last week. The acting was often funny and the comedy was heightened by the fact that scenes were intercut with EKGs that Sarah kept assessing as either, "normal" or "dead" when the film was trying to tell us otherwise. Then, of course, there was the lazy first-semester-of-film-school choices like the ending. All in all, not too shabby.

Spoon Rating: 5

Desert Warriors [1988]

Well, they can't all be winners, especially when they are yet another Mad Max ripoff. Anyone with some craft form, a spare hubcap, and a deserted landscape thinks they can make one of these and Desert Warriors is no exception. Trying to explain the plot is pretty difficult since the film adapted the same Mad Max tactic of dropping you into a setting where you have to piece together the situation. Unfortunately, this movie lacks useful dialogue to provide the audience with this information, has such poor cinematography/lighting/editing that you frequently can't tell what's going on, and somehow neglects to tell us the names of characters or places so much that reading the plot description of this movie made us more confused. 

The plot is basically that in a post-apocalypic land there are three primary classes: the metal-clad fighting men with a vague S&M aesthetic, the barbarians who look like cave people, and the "drones" who live in a technologically advanced bunker and wear all white. One day a woman and man leave the bunker and the man is promptly killed while the woman is kidnapped by the S&M party since all their women can't have babies because of some disease. She is saved by Lou Ferrigno with an eyepatch, they have a very forced romance, and around the same time her father goes outside to find her. At some point Lou and the girl go to the bunker together and he learns about how the other side lives. This all culminates in a showdown between the drones and the kinksters which is literally stopped by Ferrigno when he decides to explain to his former boss that the drones have medicine to fix the disease. They hug. Then Ferrigno and the girl hug and walk off into the sunset for an alarmingly long time. The best scene is when Ferrigno goes to the bunker with the girl and a doctor inspects him saying, "Your eye is useless." The man has been wearing an eyepatch the whole film! I think he knows!

Overall, this film was pretty boring. Don't waste your time.

Spoon Rating: 2

The Fighting Preacher [2019]

It's been a bit since we had a bad Christian movie and honestly, it's been a very long time since we dabbled in something specifically Mormon. This particular film dealt with the true story of Willard Bean, the former 1905 middleweight boxing champion of the world, who moves to Palmyra, New York to take care of Joseph Smith's old farm and to try to get the Hill Cumorah property for the church (the location Smith supposedly found the golden plates if you're familiar with the myth). Strangely enough, that short summary really does cover the majority of the film. He and his wife move there, they are refused services for being Mormons, their kids are treated badly, and they endure. After six years, Willard decides to try to curry favor with the town by . . . beating them up in a boxing ring? Yeah, it doesn't work. Then after another stretch of time, they try being actively nice to everyone. This works and they convert a whole bunch of people. The end. 

This movie had some funny moments. There's a scene that was actually meant to be funny and succeeded when Willard's wife mentions something happening in seven months and then we get a "1/2 mile later" title card before Willard turns to her in shock and says, "You're pregnant?!" There are a lot of moments of people being mean that are so over-the-top you have to laugh. Also, Kay had fun giving a running commentary about the accuracy of the costumes because she loves the 1910s and is always mad no one does it right ("That man has a fedora! Did he time travel twenty years into the future?!"). Overall, it's not really worth your time but it wasn't painful either.

Spoon Rating: 3

Who Killed Captain Alex? [2010]

This is a movie that we have had on our list for a while. We maybe actually did try watching it at one point but the quality was so poor that it simply wasn't worth it. Thankfully, you can know just rent it for yourself. This movie, toted as Uganda's first action movie, is kind of a bad movie legend. Overall, it's got a lot of the bad movie staples but what makes it truly unique is the presence of a VJ, a video jockey, who is doing a running commentary throughout. It's very Mystery Science Theater 3000 if the guys commenting were also occasionally acting as hype men for the movie you're already watching (or the country or some other film made there).

The plot of the movie is pretty simple. A military guy named Captain Alex is tasked with bringing down a crime group called Tiger Mafia. The brother of the Tiger Mafia leader gets kidnapped and he flips out. Thankfully for him, he has a spy lady who is fooling around with Captain Alex and can get info about his plans. However, one night when the spy woman left the tent, Captain Alex got killed. No one in Tiger Mafia claimed to do it, but also no one is sure who among the soldiers could be a betrayer. Captain Alex's brother, a martial artist, comes in to find the culprit and ends up becoming friends with the Tiger Mafia leader's wife who he tried to have killed. Somehow the solution to all of this involves bombing Kampala as a distraction. A distraction for what? Who knows? Also, we never find out who killed Captain Alex. Apparently you need to watch the sequel.

This movie is worth your time but only once. It reportedly had a budget of $85 which probably went into buying some cameo shirts, wooden guns, and some blood splatter and helicopter CGI effects. There's a lot of silly in the action and a little bit of silly in the VJ. The best scene was probably when the mafia wife was relating the story of her relationship and said something like, "It started out great" and we got a quick cut to her tied up and getting yelled at by him. Not sure if that was intentional comedy but we laughed a lot.

Spoon Rating: 5.5

REWATCH: The Warrior And The Blind Swordsman [1983]

It may be weird to title this a rewatch since there was never an original post on it, but that's because it was first watched when I was on a trip. The goal was the watch something that wouldn't be too good so I wouldn't miss anything, but they failed. The Warrior And The Blind Swordsman turned out to be so good that it was rewatch worthy. 

The plot kind of revolves around this friendship duo of the blind swordsman and the warrior. During the Dutch colonization of Indonesia, a general sets up a competition that the blind swordsman wins. He fakes the death of the warrior and all is going fine until some sort of evil goddess wants him for her mate and he rejects her. Things get pretty complicated from there with a guy who has a tail and kidnaps some girl child who is important to the swordsman, a bunch of the goddess's scantily clad female warriors, and the occasional involvement of the Dutch army. The plot is a little hard to follow but it doesn't really matter much. What makes this movie so special is the effects. 

Every time you start to have the thought that the movie might be dragging, you will suddenly encounter a special effect so bizarre that you will be howling in laughter. The moment when the guy with the tail first has his tail enter the scene by popping out from under his coat is so startling and unnerving that you can't help but scream. The blind swordman decapitates a man with what amounts to a pipe and the head goes soaring. People occasionally fly but so slowly that running would be more efficient. And then there's the final battle where it seems like everyone is just suddenly combustible. If you throw someone into something, they will explode. It is insanity. The highs are so high that the lows are forgivable. Watch it.

Spoon Rating: 8

Cool Cat Fights Coronavirus [2021] & Lion And The King [Dingo Pictures] & Puss In Boots [Dingo Pictures]

We started our evening with the long anticipated Cool Cat Fights Coronavirus, the latest Cool Cat film from Derek Savage. Regrettably this film is only twenty something minutes long and cost Adam over twenty something dollars. The return there is not great. How was the film overall? It was no Cool Cat Saves The Kids (original edition of course), but it was fun enough. The budget seemed way lower somehow and not just because of the lack of celebrity cameos. The three child actors in the film made the child actors from the original Cool Cat film seem like Oscar winners. Mama Cat simply didn't make an appearance at all, but we did get the official introduction of Cool Cat's rival, Dirty Dog, who mostly just scares a kid and does the same little rap he did at the 420 Awards. There were two new songs in the film that were both raps with decent beats and the absolutely worst lyrics and flow from Derek Savage, who voices both furries. One of the funniest things about the film was actually the credits where it listed Savage's patrons which included such figures as LemonEater5000, Dr. Clee Torres, and Derek I.S. Furry. All in all, watch it if you can get your hands on it, but it's not worth the retail price.

Spoon Rating: 6

Since the film was so short, we followed up with a Dingo Pictures double feature. The first film was Lion And The King, a Lion King ripoff. The plot follows Robin, our Simba stand-in, who meets a young panther whose father has . . . stolen a bunch of diamonds? The plot revolves around diamonds, a thing big cats would have absolutely no use for. It has a lot of the classic Dingo badness, but I wouldn't say it distinguishes itself too much from the usual. Also, there are no bears in Africa. Someone tell the movie makers.

Spoon Rating: 6

Out last film was Puss In Boots, called Puss On Boots on the YouTube video version we watched of it. This was a Dingo Picture worth noting. None of us know the actual story the film is based on but we're pretty certain that Puss doesn't just go around straight up threatening to murder people who don't go along with his plans. The youngest son of three inherits his dad's cat who asks him to spend the last of his money on a pair of boots. Not questioning this in the slightest, the cat is given boots and those boots are made for walking all over the countryside, manipulating everyone until his owner is presumed to be a lord and gets betrothed to the princess. He also outwits a magician in a cauldron, steals stuff, and again, threatens to murder peasants. A true hero. 

Spoon Rating: 7

Mondo Cannibal [2004]

It's been a while since we saw a movie that was specifically going for gross out moments and controversy. Mondo Cannibal, the movie of the week, ended up being pretty divisive for the bad movie crew. I usually explain the plot just to explain it, but here it serves as a warning. This movie had two scenes that were genuinely pretty scaring. The first was the brutal killing of a baby alligator that seemed to be completely unstimulated. The second was a scene of gang rape of a girl. It wasn't real at least, but it was really rough. 

The rest of Mondo Cannibal is about this news crew going into the Amazon to find a cannibalistic tribe to shock people into watching the news channel more. Grace Forsyte is a desperate news presenter who leads the way with her ragtag crew of "guy who cares deeply about the journalism but turns to evil the fastest," girl who never wears a full shirt, and some sadistic crew members. They witness a pregnant woman being stabbed and eaten through her belly and realize what they're in for. After a lot of other messed up things, they very quickly turn to burning down villages for the story and then the aforementioned rape. See, they became the real savages! The film ends with them all dying, except the cameraman I think because he had to stay alive to film the others getting eaten (as a death bed request). 

So why did we even bother with this film in the first place? Well, there were some weird effects with the cannibalizing, lots of bad dubbed dialogue, and a few random other moments that inspired laughter. The problem is that they don't outweigh the two things mentioned above. We easily knocked it down two stars for each of those because of how unwatchable they make the film. It's close to Black Devil Doll From Hell in that sense. If you think you can handle them, imagine the rating higher and go watch it.

Spoon Rating: 3

October Kiss [2015]

The thing about Hallmark movies is that they are never especially bad in the fun way, but they are never bad in the painful way. Hallmark movies are easy viewing: safe but unremarkable. That is definitely true of our film for tonight, October Kiss. While most people seem to want to fall in love at Christmas time specifically, this sole film is there for the surely notable crossover of Hallmark movie watchers and people who are so into Halloween that they really want their love story to center around it. And while we did have some fears, this movie did not shy away from its Halloween setting. We got a decorating scene, a slow dance to "Spooky," and the titular kiss happens when our mains are dressed as a mermaid and knight respectively. 

The plot centers around the hilariously named Poppy Summerall who clearly fell into this film after her summer Hallmark romance grew cold. Poppy is a 30-something who has managed to not nail down anything resembling a career or financial stability because she is incapable of committing to anything. In the opening montage we see her poorly teaching yoga and having an older student cover for her, quitting a job at a pizza place after her manager hits on her, and then walking away from a date two minutes in when the guy observes that she'd fit in his mom's wedding dress. She lives with her sister, the sister's two kids, and the sister's theoretical husband who never appears. Poppy shows herself to be good with the kids so her sister gets her a nanny gig for a "hot" widowed dad with the intention of making it a set-up as well as trying to get her hands on some damn rent money from her sister (in theory). After a rough first day on the job, she makes a deal with hot dad that she will stay at the job until Halloween. Obviously, she slowly wins over the kids with the fact that she acts like a child herself while hot dad goes on dates with a coworker of his who seems genuinely nice. The whole movie we were waiting for the coworker to turn into a bitch to justify hot dad going for Poppy instead, but she never does. Instead it just seems like the coworker is an allegory for hot dad's neglectful workaholic tendencies while Poppy represents quality family time. In the end, hot dad balks on an important business meeting to spend Halloween with his kids and mack on Poppy, the 30-something child. Reasonable coworker takes a job in Tokyo since she realizes he will never love her. We think she should have her own Hallmark movie about finding love in Japan, but there's no way Hallmark would be progressive enough to have an Asian man as a love interest in anything.

Overall, we got a few laughs but most of our amusement came from mockery. There was one scene we all genuinely liked where Poppy has the kids dress in business attire and give a performance review of their dad's fathering when he comes home from work. I'd respect the hell out of my kids if they did that. We also played Hallmark Bingo using this card. We didn't win, but we made our own after combining elements of that one with some of our own thoughts.

Spoon Rating: 3.5

Legend of Zelda: Wand of Gamelon/Faces Of Evil Cutscenes [1993] & Dark Dungeons [2014]

This Monday was a nerdy and kind of unusual evening. We started off with a YouTube video per recommendation of Erik of a supercut of all the scenes from two early 90s Zelda games. Even without context, they were surprisingly funny with their super low budget animation and often tonally strange voice acting.

It was a decent use of 20 minutes.

Spoon Rating: 5

Afterwards we watched a movie that we are honestly having a hard time critiquing because it wasn't bad but also, on some level it was. We just can't parse the level. 

Dark Dungeons is a short film about the evils of role playing games as based on a Jack Chick comic of the same name. Clearly the Chick track was very anti-RPG and supposedly the plot and major points of it are taken directly from the comic, like the fact that a girl commits suicide because her character died. However, the film was made by people who saw the comedy in the comic and played into it intentionally. The campiness (and the heavy sapphic undertones) were very deliberate even if the original comic was meant to be serious. 

Did we laugh? Of course. We laughed a lot. We were especially struck by a scene of the girls asking their DM if they could ascend to the next level to gain more power and asking what the level was. The DM replied epically and maniacally, "LARP!" Oh, also they do real magic and raised up Cthulhu. As you do when you play D&D or whatever.

It would be hard not to recommend it, but we can't really recommend it as a bad movie. We all agreed that we would love to see a version of the movie made by believers who think the Chick comic is accurate and then maybe that would be a true bad movie. For now, if this sounds like fun to you, watch it.

Friend Request [2016]

We decided to watch Friend Request on the recommendation of Kay's friend, Alex. Kay ran the idea past her students and while most of them agreed that it was bad, some thought it was funny bad and some just said it was regular bad. Overall, we were similarly on the fence.

The movie follows a college student who gets a friend request from the weird girl named Marina, who has no Facebook friends at all but posts a lot of gothic art. Marina quickly reveals herself to be a creepy stalker so she gets unfriended and then goes on a posthumous killing spree of all the main girl's friends after she committed suicide. There's a whole folklore tie in about how Marina is some kind of witch who is using a black mirror (the laptop, you get it?) to hide her soul in, which does kind of tie into a witch's scrying mirror but there isn't any actually lore to back up the possession thing. She also controls bees for some reason and uses them to kill. The film ends with Marina possessing the main girl, who now stalks around in a hoodie, looking for people to friend request.

This film had some good laughs in the bad acting, weird lines ("Unfriend that dead bitch!"), and confusing editing, but we aren't sure if we'd recommend it. The strangest things about it were really that it was directed by a Verhoven (no relation to Paul) and that the whole thing had a saturation that made it look kind of cheap. If bad horror sounds like your jam, go for it.

Spoon Rating: 4.5

The 420 Awards [2021] & The Magical Adventures of Quasimodo [1996]

We started the evening with the third annual "420 Awards," Derek Savage's increasingly sad attempt to have an award show. Since the first one was really the best because of the terrible performers he got to attend, every subsequent one has been a real waste because of the pandemic. This year he had two comedians who were both just horrendous and offensive, some tall man he called Ms. Pres, a twenty-something kid with a genuinely good announcer voice, and a guy in a blunt costume. The nominees were seemingly the same as last year because Derek Savage has no idea what's popular or when things are released, but what made this one unusual was that he didn't give himself an award for once. We all released that we should have gotten high for the event, and Sarah lamented being pregnant and therefore unable to get high right now.

It would be easy to claim this was a complete waste of time, but it actually wasn't for one very specific reason. In the middle of the show Derek Savage's latest fursona, Dirty Dog, interrupts the show because he's the bad guy counterpart to Cool Cat. He does some gymnastics to an amazingly terrible song about himself and then drops that you can see more of him in Savage's latest film Cool Cat Fights Coronavirus. Adam stopped the video, googled the film, and immediately added it to cart while solemnly murmuring, "oh no. oh no." So look for a post on that in the future.

Spoon Rating: 2.5

After, we decided to continue our Hunchbackening with a free animated series on Amazon called The Magical Adventures of Quasimodo. This show is inexplicable. The whole time we found ourselves just questioning why this thing was ever made. It obviously doesn't follow the book or even the Disney movie because it's a series. 

In the first episode Quasi meets Esmerelda and her brother (?!), Francois, who is maybe a stand-in for Pierre Gringoire. They end up going to a costume party to try to stop Frollo (who straight up looks like Nosferatu) from KILLING THE KING. What even is the goal here?! To quote Adam, "Unless he's got some Cromwell plan here, I don't think he knows how monarchies work." Frollo even dressed like an executioner. There's also a guy at Notre Dame who isn't the Bishop but is just some guy named Denis who is nice to Quasi. And Frollo has a dog he abuses. And Esmerelda's grandma makes some comment about being a gypsy that implies it's a choice and not a marginalized ethic group. And the animation is terrible, obviously, to the point where we were thinking maybe the reason Quasi is ostracized has more to do with the fact that he's got a pretty normal face compared to most of the characters. And the acting is bad, although admittedly the guy voicing Frollo does sound like the guy from the Disney film. 

All in all, it was a weird experiment but we decided it wasn't worth continuing.

Spoon Rating: 3

Fight To Win [1987]

When Adam found out there's a Leo Fong directed movie staring Cynthia Rothrock, we knew we would have to add it to our list. Fight To Win is honestly a really curious film for a couple reasons. The fact that Rothrock is given such a prominent place in the advertising is weird from the perspective that she doesn't come into the film until something like 30 minutes into an hour and twenty minute movie was definitely the most disappointing part. Interestingly, there's also a cameo from Bill "Superfoot" Wallace, a legendary martial artist who only has one good foot and who once kicked Adam during a seminar (apparently he kicked everyone as part of the seminar and yes, it hurt).

The film starts with some background on a martial arts competition for three statues of Chinese deities. Twenty years later, this really cocky young martial artist is approached by an Australian guy in a parking lot who challenges him to a fighting competition and he accepts for some reason. Minutes later, his instructor has a heart attack and is unable to train him. For a while, our main character just sits by his bedside, not training at all, and he loses the competition. A rematch is planned and his instructor tells him he's going to send him a new instructor to help: Cynthia Rothrock. Cue all the sexist jokes until she kicks him in the face (and even then they don't really stop throughout the whole movie). She trains him. At one point they go out to dinner and we see his deplorable table manners and that he has absolutely no game. They have to fight random guys in parking lots just so there's a reason to see them fight. Finally it's time for the competition but they realize that the Australian (who's also Rothrock's ex) had no interest in playing fair. He just wanted to collect all the statues, so he pulls out guns on them. In the last twenty minutes of the movie, it becomes something of a break-in film with a lot of pretending-to-be-gay to distract, a deus ex machina guy on a motorcycle, and the instructor who had a heart attack showing up out of nowhere. The main character learns nothing, but they win.

This movie is very borderline. There were some great bad line reads, sloppy edits, a guy hired solely to impersonate Eddie Murphy, and more boom mic than you could ever dream of. However, the plot was pretty boring until it gets weird more than halfway through. Overall, we decided that if Leo Fong's direction or Cynthia Rothrock's presence or just bad martial arts movies in general are amusing to you, this is a good one to add. Otherwise, maybe don't bother.

Spoon Rating: 4.5

REWATCH: The Room [2003]

In honor of the nine year anniversary of Bad Movie Night, we decided to rewatch The Room for the first time in about four years. It took us about three hours to watch just because we kept pausing it to have deviating conversations or to explore the artistry. Some highlights include: stopping to tell the story about how Kay's mom called her a homewrecker when she wasn't doing anything, an in depth analysis of each character's utility to the story, Erik and Kay randomly talking about D&D, Sarah making more quesadillas, a passionate defense of Mark's cluelessness when Lisa is hitting on him since we are actually all exactly that stupid ourselves, Adam pointing out which lines specifically have become a fundamental part of his lexicon and his waxing poetic about how much he enjoys the character of Claudette, and many more.

We ended the evening by watching a serious of bad porno openers on YouTube because, honestly, they aren't too dissimilar to The Room.

Spoon Rating: 10

Pagan Invasion Volume 2: Invasion of the Godmen [1991] & Pagan Invasion Volume 3: Meditation, Pathway to Deception [1991]

 We decided to do a double feature of 45 minute episodes of "Pagan Invasion." We had done the first episode as part of an anti-Halloween special and thought that it wasn't especially great, but the comments on these two seemed promising enough for us to give them a chance as well.

Volume 2, in spite of the incredible title, is not about some race of Godmen, but just about various yogis, many of whom started cults or got in trouble with the law for something. Because this is Christian propaganda, they are trying to convince the audience that these few men are 1.) all equally evil and 2.) proof that Hinduism itself is evil. Volume 3 was almost a continuation of the previous idea but with a specific focus on how meditation is actually evil and should be avoided if you want to live a good Christian life. It was an interesting sort of time capsule when you consider that meditation is completely nonreligious and promoted by just about every mental health care professional in the West. Being that Adam has a minor in religion, Sarah is a yoga practitioner, and Kay has at least seen "Wild, Wild Country," we were unconvinced by either of these narratives. 

Both episodes were genuinely interesting, but we didn't really laugh much. The only thing that really got us was when one of the interviews said, "the evils of meditation and stress management" as if either of those things is bad.

Spoon Rating: 2; 2.5

Shocking Dark [1989]

There's a certain joy in seeing low budget movies that are clear homages to other films. A lot of low budget filmmakers, in the absence of creativity, just want to make their version of their favorite science fiction or horror film, and there's a charm to it. It feels honest. Then there's "Shocking Dark." This movie was also released as "Aliens 2" and "Terminator 2" in a very transparent marketing ploy. Although, the titles are not really unwarranted on some level. This movie follows the exact plot of "Aliens" to the point where it's barely worth doing a plot summary. Adam, who remembers "Aliens" well, was losing his mind all night. The only major difference is that it is set in Venice in the not so distant future where they have to go through these underwater tubes set up by the Tubular company to find out what's infecting the water. They basically wander a warehouse in sci-fi suits. So where does the terminator come in? About 3/4 of the way through the movie, it is clear that one of the guys on the task force is a robot very obviously designed around the terminator. Our Ripley and Newt of the movie escape through a time pod. He follows them. They still beat him in the end, and since they're in the past they have time to save Venice before the Tubular company can mess it up.

Overall, this one dragged a little but when it was good, it was really good. The acting was often over-the-top, especially in how everyone screamed like they were being murdered regardless of the context. The characters were completely flat, and there were some little bits of side racism between characters that they never had time to grow out of. And let me not forget the dummies. So many good dummy moments. Ultimately though, I think this one suffered a lot for being a cynical attempt at tricking people into buying the wrong movie. Still worth one watch though.

Spoon Rating: 5

Popstar [2005]

When Erik brought this film to our attention last week, we were a little skeptical. While this Aaron Carter vehicle is not a Disney Channel original movie, its marketing definitely feels like it, and we've had mixed results with DCOMs in the past. Honestly though, because this movie isn't confined by the standards of a DCOM, it had full invitation to be a lot weirder, a little less formulaic, and also slightly horny in an appropriately PG-rated way. Erik also invited his sister Kat who, in spite of being born in 2003, apparently has a lot of feelings about Aaron Carter. Since Adam has always culturally lived under a rock, we started the evening with a viewing of "Aaron's Party (Come Get It)" and a brief Wikipediaing of him to realize that 1.) he is still making music and 2.) he's only 33. Adam, Kay, and Sarah were shook to realize he's our age, but also to realize that he was 18 when he made this movie. Why is that surprising? Partially because he was past his prime at this point but mostly because his costar, seen on the movie cover looking like his mother, is 25 and it's really obvious and distracting. 

As you could probably surmise, the film is about Aaron Carter being a famous popstar who has to go to a normal high school because he's failing his homeschooling. Our geriatric love interest there is the "smart girl" since she got a perfect score on her SATs, but hey, that must be pretty easy when you've been in high school for ten years. I keep emphasizing this point because it was consistently distracting throughout the film. While Aaron Carter may look a little haggard, he still looks like an 18-year-old. Our girl Jane here, is not a young-looking 25 and it is uncomfortable. They also clearly cast the other high school girls with actresses in their 20s to try to make it not so distracting, but even then she still looks incredibly old. Anyway, Aaron, called J.D. in the film, flirts with Jane when he finds out she's smart and then gets calculus tutoring from her. It helps that she's a mega-fan and he has absolutely no problem with her room being covered in pictures of him because he's an egotist. The movie doesn't have much of a plot but instead has a bunch of scenes. Jane gets upset that J.D. won't say they're dating to magazines. The popular girl who always has her entire midriff out tries to blackmail J.D. into going to prom with her (prom never happens in the film by the way). There's a magical janitor played by former pop star Leif Garrett who gets shoehorned into a relationship at the last second with Jane's sister who got left at the alter. A stereotypical nerd keeps asking out popular girls to no success. J.D.'s manager keeps dating young girls but ends up with Jane's mom in the end. J.D. has test anxiety so he takes his calc final alone on a stage. I'm not really putting these events in order, but it also doesn't really matter. The film is more about the vibe.

So how's the vibe? Excellent. The acting is terrible whether it's Aaron Carter's unconvincing reads to the lead actress trying SO hard to seem younger than she is with muffled dialogue and awkward walking. The plot, as you can see, is kind of a mess with too many characters doing too many things and everything wrapped up far too neatly in the last scene. The editing is clearly meant to be creative, but it renders a lot of things ambiguous or incoherent. And I didn't really even get into the vague horniness, particularly of the adult men in the film towards "teen" girls. The early-2000s were a different time. 

This one was definitely worth it. 

Spoon Rating: 7

Druids [2001]

Did you watch Braveheart and think, this is good but what if it was a lot more convoluted? Or did you watch Gladiator and think, I like this time period but what if I got that with far more inept film making? Well, let me introduce you to Druids. This movie came out right in that sweet spot of the beginning of the "swords and sandals" genre revival expect there aren't really sandals since this takes place in Gaul and the costumer also had no idea what they were doing anyway with either the Gallic characters or the Roman ones. This movie maddened everyone at bad movie night in different ways. Kay was maddened by the inaccurate and lazy costuming. Adam was maddened by the absolute lack of war strategy competence. Erik was maddened by how the movie is called Druids but druids only appear in the very first scene and the last and hold absolutely no barring on the plot. And Sarah was maddened by how hard it was to keep track of the plot.

With that in mind, I can only give a broad overview of what happened in this film. A kid-of-some-renowned's father is killed. Druids make a really vague prophecy. The kid grows up to kill his uncle and try to unite the tribes of Gaul. And that's just the first half hour of a two hour movie. Most of the film involves this guy, an actual figure in history named Vercingetorix, trying to unite Gaul, destroying Gaul in order to piss off the Romans, and then fighting against the Romans in a battle that he ultimately lost. It really strongly feels like the French Braveheart in its tone. The French title of the film is actually Vercingétorix: La Légende du druide roi or Vercingetorix, The Legend of the Druid King, which is a much more accurate title but the name probably didn't work in foreign markets. Why not just call it The King of the Gauls? Well, probably because so few people know who the Gauls are anyway. But druids? People know them. Or they think they do since historically speaking we actually know hardly anything about them.

This movie provided us with a few laughs from bad acting and dialogue but most of our fun with this movie came from us being exasperated by the poor choices. On it's own it doesn't hold up without people to make fun of it with.

Spoon Rating: 2.5

Captain of Cosmos [1979]

It's been a while since a post since Kay has been gone for three Mondays due to being on vacation. One film was watched during that time that was apparently a real winner so it will come up again as a rewatch, but for now I'm going to talk about "Captain of Cosmos." Also known as "Johnny Destiny: Space Ninja" and "Space Black Knight", this knockoff of popular anime and Marvel characters has a really hard to follow plot. Basically, some evil queen is kidnapping humans for slave labor and the cosmos knights have to save them. It's simple but somehow incredibly confusing. 

This film is truthfully kind of boring, and the convoluted nature of the plot makes it feel simultaneously very long and very short. We actually stopped it in the middle just to have a long chat with Erik, a recent college grad, about how to find a job and stay sane after college, which was far more interesting than most of the film. There are some laughs to be had in the bad dubbing, especially from our main knight who pronounces things strangely, and there's a bitchin' theme song that plays a lot, but we can't in good faith recommend it.

Spoon Rating: 3

A.P.E. [1976]

Right away from the title, you know that this is going to be a King Kong knock-off. The movie itself wants you to know that it knows it's a King Kong knock-off too. But hanging the lampshade on this very derivative piece doesn't help it. What might have helped is that it was released the same year as a big budget King Kong, the one with Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange, which none of us have seen. While we can't compare it to that one, it was definitely inferior to the 1933 King Kong in terms of special effects, which is absolutely wild considering the four decades between them. Money is everything. But this one does have something that the '33 Kong lacks: unintentional comedy.

The makers of this film decided to completely forgo the first half of the Kong story by starting it on a boat that has already captured the monkey with the goal of bringing him to Disneyland to start his world tour. The monkey somehow escapes the boat, blowing it up entirely, and killing the best character in the movie, a super monotone first mate. We loved him so much we went back and watched the beginning a second time. The monkey also wrestles a shark in the first of what will be many hilarious scenes. The film actually takes place in Korea where a Hollywood actress arrives to film a movie. She has a boring romance with a reporter and as far as we can tell the movie she's filming is just about her getting raped in different parts of the Korean countryside (and we were all subjected to the director's advice to the lead actor of "rape her gently"). Meanwhile, the monkey is terrorizing the countryside where a lot of people don't seem to notice a 35 foot tall monkey until he's right in front of them. We get a lot of scenes of a military guy who doesn't leave his office talking on the phone to a Korean officer about how he doesn't believe the monkey problem exists until the movie needs him to. Occasionally we see the Korean officer at home where his wife amuses their children with a terrifying puppet. Eventually the monkey gets his hands on the actress after she runs right into his open palm. Twice she escapes, but the movie does make sure to note that she's sympathetic towards him. The monkey attacks Seoul, which is just a bunch of cardboard models, and then the military finally springs into action and takes him down. In an attempt at an iconic end line, the reporter dating the actress closes the movie with, "He's just too big for a small world like ours." Whatever that means.

The special effects in this movie are peak. The monkey costume looks very cheap, and they are never able to show the monkey in the same frame as any other actors. This is dealt with through a combination of low angle shots, models (including a toy parachute guy, a toy cow, model towns, and a toy tank), and a giant leg prop and giant hand prop. It is never convincing but it is consistently entertaining. The movie also has this weird quirk of having people throw things directly at the camera, making us wonder if it was a 3D film at some point. The film also has some mediocre, but not horrible, acting and a really poor script. The desire of the scriptwriter to skip any kind of build up just shows how unexciting a movie is when it's just fighting. All in all, a solid watch.

Spoon Rating: 6

REWATCH: Birdemic [2008]

It's been five years since we last watched "Birdemic" so it was about time for a rewatch and that was definitely a good amount of time to wait. We got out our hangers again in preparation, and got ready to hang out with the family (and have ourselves a party). It was enough time that all the weird moments were fun again, and we had managed to forget some of the intricacies of the meandering plot. Tom joined us for this one, which was appropriate given that he is an audio person and an amateur ornithologist and we apparently wanted him to suffer. If you want to actually hear about the movie, here's the original post

Savage Beach [1989]

It's safe to say that Andy Sidaris films are good bad movie night material but not something you should watch with any kind of frequency. Unlike Neil Breen or even Tommy Wiseau's scattered works, Andy Sidaris has a niche that is so specific and so often repeated that any Andy Sidaris film can easily be confused for any other. While we have generally considered Malibu Express to be the worst and Hard Ticket to Hawaii the best, all the others just fall into this general area of "fine." So here is our yearly watch of a Sidaris film: Savage Beach.

As usual, the plot revolves around some government agents, one of whom is played by Dona Spier. They are trying to get some medicine to sick kids on a remote Pacific island when their plan goes down n a deserted island. They eat some coconuts and strip naked to swim in response. Eventually, they encounter a Japanese man in terrible old age makeup who seems bent on protecting them and not causing problems. It turns out he killed non-Dona's grandfather during World War II, and they have the same eyes. While this is going on, the whitest Filipino delegate and some Americans are on a hunt for lost treasure that is somewhere around the island. All three plots come to a head and our eternally braless heroines end up on top, taking a few gold bars on their way to afford the plane repairs. In between all of this you have to imagine a lot of piloting planes, women getting naked to change outfits, a few sex scenes, and a lot of unfunny dialogue. Classic Sidaris.

In spite of how classic it was, we didn't actually win Andy Sidaris Bingo but dang did we come close. The locations were too clear and the dressing sequences kept cutting out before they got excessive:

Spoon Rating: 5

Werewolves On Wheels [1971]

This one has been in the queue for years and with a small group, it made sense to finally knock it off our list. The title is honestly and unfortunately one of the best things about this film. 

The film starts with an extensive scene of motorcycling as our tribe finds itself in some sort of café. One of the characters does a tarot reading for a girl they're with and the result is very bad. After another driving montage, the crew finds themselves in a field near a monastery where a bunch of ominous monks offer focaccia and wine goblets that make them sleep (Adam insisted that the focaccia means they're the good guys because he's an Italian-American stereotype). We got a decently strange sequence of Satanic rituals involving a cat murder (Sarah covered Mara's eyes), chanting, and the girl from before dancing with a snake (Sarah covered her own eyes). In the morning, the crew heads out on the road and we get a bunch of driving scenes interspersed with the occasional disappearance and minor shenanigan as they try to figure out who the werewolf is. Some minor characters die. They light some cars on fire. They wander around sand dunes. Ultimately there were two werewolves. They fight. One of them stops, drops, and rolls through a fire. The end.

It was pretty boring. Could have used more rituals.

Quote: (as part of a eulogy) "She was a good freak"

Spoon Rating: 2

The Underground Doctors [1977] & Welcome To The Streets With Lenny The Lion [1989]

Last Monday was an Occult Demon Cassette double feature. Per Sarah, a medical professional, we started with The Underground Doctors, a Peter Fonda-narrated exploration of various kinds of pseudoscience including dowsing, massage for healing and simulated death, and a bunch of other things. Most memorable, unfortunately was the showing of a human birth within some clearly cult-like group, which Adam needed to look away from. Ultimately, it's a curiosity but not enjoyable.

Spoon Rating: 2

Our second feature, however, was great. We needed something kind of short so we voted on "Welcome to the Streets with Lenny the Lion." This incredibly low budget puppet show is about Lenny moving to the big city where he immediately makes friends with a snake called Snakey and his coke fiend friends, a dog named Ruff and a cat named, amazingly, Cool Cat. We get some really pathetic songs. Snakey tries to get Lenny into crack and then Cool Cat ends up overdosing. Mama Cat gives a tear-filled speech, and we all learn the dangers of drugs. We like to think this was the sequel to Cool Cat Saves The Kids. 

Quote: "Once you die, there's no coming back."

Spoon Rating: 6

Jive Turkey [1974]

A while ago Adam watched all the movies in a 50 pack of Drive-In movies (see: public domain) and decided that there were about three or so errant good ones and four worthy of bad movie night. We have already watched Prisoners of the Lost Universe, Single Room Furnished, and The Guy From Harlem so it was time to finish it up with Jive Turkey a.k.a. Baby Needs A New Pair Of Shoes. Ultimately it might actually be the weakest of the four with Guy From Harlem definitely the best, but Adam explained that after watching that many disappointing films, Jive Turkey looked really good in comparison.

Jive Turkey's premise is established quickly and then the film putters around for an hour and a half. An Italian restaurateur named Tony who deals drugs is trying to get into business with a black guy named Pasha who is a bookie. Pasha's friend, Serene, offs Tony's bodyguard and now they're apparently at war. A lot of vague criminal business happens. There's a very tall, snappy fellow named Sweetman who collects the horse race money from the barber shop, an opium brothel, a pastor who cheats on his wife in the vestry. None of us really know what the point of any of this was. Our favorite characters were this group of five guys who would just randomly appear from an alley and swarm around one of our mains for no reason at all. Eventually we find out that there's a double agent working for Tony and a double agent working for the cops, who care about all of this for some reason that may have to do with a mayoral election? We aren't even sure where this film takes place, by the way, but the license plates all said Ohio. It turns out that Serene, the enthusiastic murderer, was the cop's plant, which we discover after watching her de-drag. Sweetman gets gunned down by Pasha's crew, and we managed to piece together that this was because he was Tony's plant. He was the real jive turkey all along. The film ends there with nothing really resolved.

We got a few laughs from a cameo from a boom mic and from Serene's murdering scenes, but overall this film was too incoherent and didn't have enough camp to really be fun.

Quote: "I've always been arrogant. It's my only fault."

Spoon Rating: 3

The Dalmatians & Nice Cats [1995]

 In the interest of having a surefire good time, we decided to return to the Dingo Pictures well, the super low budget German Disney rip-off factory. While we really wanted to get our hands on "Hercules", with what we had available we decided that a pet-themed double feature would work. Each film was a mere half hour but felt longer.

"The Dalmatians," unlike it's more popular counterpart, only features three Dalmatians, siblings named Toby, Timmy, and Teuful (devil in German). Toby and Timmy get kidnapped by black pitbulls who make them work in a factory "licking and gluing and licking and gluing and licking and gluing..." Their demonic sister teams up with a beagle who gets her in with a gang of dogs who help to look for the missing pups. The gang includes a dog named Tramp who is clearly styled after "Lady And The Tramp," a dog with a weirdly sensual voice, and a bulldog who is completely incomprehensible. An exceedingly annoying bird who acts as our narrator prides herself on not getting involved until she helps free the dogs. Maybe there's a moral there.

Spoon Rating: 6

"Nice Cats" is about some really classist cats going on vacation with their owner. The female kitten ends up walking off on her own and is captured by the cat catcher (a man with a droopy ear, large nose, and "I Love Cats" shirt) and thrown in cat prison where she meets a street cat. In spite of her being an "educated domestic cat" they form a friendship and break out of prison together. The rest of the film involves them trying to get her back home. This film was slightly less amusing than its predecessor because it only had one voice actor who told the plot like a children's story, but it did have the backgrounds from "The Dalmatians," the music from "Alladin," and the Italian and Asian stereotype chefs from "Pocahontas." We are now much more versed in the Dingo Expanded Universe.

Spoon Rating: 5

REWATCH: Death Bed: The Bed That Eats [1977]

Today was a rewatch of the absolutely wonderful "Death Bed: The Bed That Eats." You can read my two previous reviews here and here. And, as is necessary every time we watch it, we have come up with even more sequel titles for another "Death Bed" movie.

• Death Bed: The Grim Sleeper
• Death Bed: Laid Out
• Death Bed: No Pillow Talk
• Death Bed: Not Full Yet
• Death Bed: Sleep Like The Dead
• Death Bed: Slumber Room
• Death Bed 2: The Twin

Spoon Rating: 7.5

Karla Faye Tucker: Forevermore [2004]

Again in the absence of a couple of Bad Movie Night people, we decided to take a gamble with Occult Demon Cassette's most recent movie night upload: "Karla Faye Tucker: Forevermore." This film is based on the real life story of Texas death row inmate Karla Faye Tucker. It's an uncommon combination of a Christian movie with a prominent romance and a hefty dose of tragedy porn. The film is also clearly a passion project of the writer, director, and producer Helen Gibson and in a unique casting situation the roles of Tucker and her eventual husband Dana Brown are seemingly played by a married couple.

Considering the fact that this movie is a full two hours long, it's kind of surprising how little plot there is. The first half of the movie is more or less about the love story of Karla and Dana. Dana is a preacher who dresses like Adam (black t-shirt, black jeans, black belt) who goes to meet Karla and they fall in love and have a prison marriage. Karla herself is a pickaxe murderer and former drug addict and prostitute who has found Jesus. The cast of characters is rounded out by a prison chaplain who wears silly hats to amuse Karla and a prison guard, possibly played by Helen Gibson, who is not so charmed by Karla that she doesn't think she deserves to die and also threatens to tear up the inmate vegetable garden so you know she's mean. Both the prison guard and a cigarette-smoking judge who has a few scenes are campy evil and also love to accessorize with Texas-shaped things. The second half of the movie is a lot of random scenes of Karla reading or writing letters in her cell, full length song sequences that look like low budget music videos, and discussions about trying to get her sentence thrown out. There is no success there and the last half hour is a lot of moving her to her execution, the execution itself, and a little bit of aftermath. Somewhat surprisingly, the movie ends on a very clear anti-death penalty stance and also uses the real life footage of George W. Bush denying a commuting of her sentence. For a Christian movie in 2004, this is actually a pretty hot take.

This movie is definitely on the fence. Were it only 90 minutes, we would probably be more comfortable recommending it, but the length of the film really causes it to drag. Of the positives, there's the fact that no one in the movie can show anger or meanness without being completely over-the-top, excessive use of the adjective "God-sized" (I thought he was infinite and formless?), and some absolutely choice images and editing. At one point a character is talking about Karla and says he saw the face of God and the film cuts to a close up of a boy dressed like a grim reaper eating a hot dog. On two different occasions we have Karla t-posing like Christ, once right before her husband macs on her in front of the disapproving guard and then, of course, on the execution table made to look even more like a cross than it already does. So much of the film is constructed in this very specific way that feels a little fetishistic in the way romantic comedies are but through a sad, Jesus lens. Basically, if this sounds like your jam, go for it. None of us regret watching it, and it was kind of interesting from a true crime perspective, but we can't really recommend it.

Spoon Rating: 4.5

Princess Warrior [1989]

Initially we were going to do a Dingo Pictures double or triple feature but since both Erik and Tom didn't come, we decided to go with something less likely to be a winner and we returned to our old favorite, Occult Demon Cassette. This time instead of watching one of their shorter features, we turned to one of their movie night suggestions, Princess Warrior. It was between that and Alien Warrior, but Princess Warrior seemed more unique and came with an NSFW tag.

A lot of bad movies end up feeling a lot longer than they are, but this one somehow felt shorter and it's already short at an hour and 23 minutes. Almost nothing happens, but it's not exhausting in the way you would think because there's just enough shiny to distract. The alien queen of a matriarchical society where men are slaves passes her crown to her good younger daughter and her evil older daughter is jealous. The princess goes to earth, meets some Philip J. Fry character who she falls in love with in one night, and then rides around on his motorcycle trying to escape her evil sister and her two droogs, Eczema and Bulimia. That's the whole plot. Throw in two trigger happy cops chasing everyone around, two Italian-American stereotypes, and a wet t-shirt contest that goes on for way too long, and you have the entire film. It's borderline sexploitation with the amount of shoehorned-in nudity but didn't really commit enough. Really, we were most upset that the very defined gender politics ultimately weren't a driving force at all. We were expecting the princess to be more commanding or for one of the women to be absolutely shocked by being objectified on earth or for the aliens to be confused by a man in a position of power but no. This film doesn't care about culture.

Overall, it's worth your time but only once. It's not painful and we got a few good laughs.

Spoon Rating: 5

Blood Street [1988]

Our first pandemic movie was Low Blow, which introduced us to Leo Fong. We guessed, rightly, that he would be a good source to return to and so our film for last Monday was Blood Street, a movie he directed, wrote, and starred in.

The film attempts to be a neo-noir except without any of the clever writing. Mostly you get a lot of dick jokes in reference to our main character's occupation as a private eye. Our film starts with an insanely long text scroll that is trying to explain the entire backstory of our plot: we're in a slightly more gang-ridden San Francisco and there are two bad guys named Aldo MacDonald and some Australian who are in a drug war. Fong, who's name in the film is Joe Wong, is approached by a very skinny lady who wants him to find her husband and seemingly offers sex in payment. Trying to explain the plot from here is actually really difficult. The film would cut to a scene, and we would get no information about where we are or who anyone is. It took us forever to identify MacDonald as a man who is always getting a massage. At one point, the film stops for a flashback about Wong's dead daughter. Unsurprisingly, MacDonald is the woman's husband and it turns out she was looking for him in order to kill him. She also has a safety deposit box full of money that Wong, uh, steals, because it's stolen money. Somehow he knows this. There are a lot of random scenes of violence and one very long scene of the Australian guy making out with a girl in a hot tub, but the plot was honestly really hard to follow even for Sarah, the Plot Follower.

Overall, this movie was a pretty solid watch. We got a lot of laughs out of the randomness, the rapid scene changes, the bad noir writing, and the bad acting. We even got a boom mic! The place where this movie falls apart somewhat is that scenes have a tendency to be so drawn out that you can easily space out for a minute and tune back in without really missing anything. Still definitely worth one watch though.

Spoon Rating: 6.5

REWATCH: The Roller Blade Seven [1991]

For this Monday's movie we decided to return to the Zen Road Warrior: The Roller Blade Seven. It seemed appropriate for a rewatch since Erik couldn't come because of college student things and Tom was actually able to come in person for the first time because of spring break (so, teacher things). 

I've already written tons about this movie so if you want to read my previous posts the original is here and the last time we rewatched it is here.

Afterwards, we went down a little spiral of watching shorts which lead us to the YouTube channel where we found DoomBox, Scales Advertising. We watched all the little bits of advertising they had made with one of them (for lead wipes) actually funny enough to watch again.

Km: A Medical Review ("An Idea Whose Time Has Come" [1990])

Here is the full review on Km, the miracle product from "An Idea Whose Time Has Come" as penned by Sarah, our physician on staff.

Adam found this lovely elixir on Amazon and ordered it for us to try on Bad Movie Night after watching the delightful video of exposition describing all of its wonderful properties while never telling you what the “product” is.  When we received the bottle we found P65 Warnings for CA stating this product could cause cancer and reproductive harm.  Being the nerdy Nurse Practitioner that I am, I opened up my handy dandy drug book guide for natural products: The Review of Natural Products: The Most Complete Source of Natural Product Information (2014). This book reads like any pharmaceutical reference book might, with indications, side effects, dosing, counter indications, as well as listing any scientific research done and the quality of that research. So, with that in mind I have listed below the ingredients of this magic Elixir and their reported uses (doesn’t mean it does what it is used for) and common side effects. I hope you enjoy as much as we did.

In order listed on the bottle:

TLDR: Many ingredients supposedly help you pee more, decrease inflammation, lowers blood pressure and blood sugar. A few can give you a heart attack, several can cause abortion or are just listed as “dangerous during pregnancy”. 1 can cause cancer. And lets not forget that several cause nausea and vomiting, the most common side effect of anything ever.

·       Chamomile:

              Uses: used topically and in mucous membranes for inflammation, can be used in irrigated for anogenital inflammation, used internally for intestinal spasms and inflammation

              Side Effects: Can cause severe allergic reaction and mild skin allergic reaction.

              Safety in Pregnancy: Unreferenced adverse reactions have been reported                            

·       Sarsaparilla:

       Uses: has been used to treat syphilis, leprosy, psoriasis and other ailments

       Side Effects: No major side effects have been reported but unusually high dose could possibly be harmful.

       Safety in Pregnancy: Information regarding safety in pregnancy is lacking

·       Dandelion:

       Uses: has been used for its nutritional value as well increase urniation, regulation of blood sugar, liver and gall bladder disorders, appetite stimulation, abdominal complaints.

       Side Effects: Mild allergic skin rash, stomach discomfort.

       Safety in Pregnancy: Generally recognized as safe or used as food.

·       Horehound:

       Uses:used as flavoring, expectorant (loosens mucus), vasodilator (lowers blood pressure), sweating, increased urination and treatment for intestinal parasites, lowers blood sugar.         

       Side Effects: Large doses may cause cardiac irregularities (this is bad)

       Safety in Pregnancy: information is lacking, but should avoid use but is known to cause increased menstrual bleeding and abortion

·       Licorice:

       Uses: used historically for stomach issues, primarily used as a flavoring. It has been investigated in use as a cancer treatment and antiviral drug.

       Side Effects: At low doses or normal consumption few side effects have been reported. Excessive doses can cause high blood pressure and low potassium.

       Safety in Pregnancy: Should be avoid. Increases estrogen activity and can cause abortion

·       Seneca snake root:

       Uses: stimulates stomach secretions and smooth muscle contractions, can promote appetite and tone digestive organs. In large dose can increase blood flow, sweating, and increased urination

       Side Effects: can affect the kidneys and irritate the intestines

       Safety in Pregnancy: particularly dangerous to women who are pregnant (no specifics listed)

·       Passion Flower:

       Uses:multiple traditional uses such as anxiety, dietary fiber, lowering blood sugar, decreasing blood pressure.

       Side Effects: Nausea, vomiting, drowsiness, prolongation of the QT interval (can result in heart attack), Ventricular tachycardia ( second to last step before your hear stops) occupational asthma

       Safety in Pregnancy: causes stimulation of the uterus

·       Thyme:

       Uses: primarily culinary uses, has been used in cough mixtures and mouthwashes and treating fungal skin infections

       Side Effects: mild to severe allergic reactions

       Safety in Pregnancy: information is lacking

·       Genetian:

       Uses: to stimulate appetite, improve digestion, treat stomach complaints, stimulates increase menstrual flow, treat wounds, sore throat, arthritis and jaundice (caused by liver failure)

       Side Effects: Can cause Cancer, headaches, nausea and vomiting

       Safety in Pregnancy: documented adverse effects, avoid use (exact effects not listed)

·       Saw Palmetto:

       Uses: has been used to treat enlarged prostrate, erectile dysfunction, treat prostrate cancer

       Side Effects:generally well tolerated with occasional reports of stomach upset and headache

       Safety in Pregnancy: should be avoided as it affects androgen and estrogen metabolism

·       Alfalfa:

       Uses: to lower cholesterol, treating menopausal symptoms, lowering blood sugar, decrease inflammation.

       Side Effects: can be contaminated with salmonella and E.coli and cause high potassium

       Safety in Pregnancy: documented adverse effects such as stimulation of the uterus.

·       Dong Quai:

       Uses: pain control for arthritis, allergy suppressant,, treatment of menstrual disorders, treat asthma, blood thinner.

       Side Effects: fever, growth of breast tissue in men, increased bleeding when used with pharmaceutical blood thinners, increase risk of sunburn

       Safety in Pregnancy: stimulates the uterus, cause abortion, affects the menstrual cycle

·       Celery:

       Uses: increase urination, treat arthritis, sedating, nervousness, hysteria, lowers blood pressure.

       Side Effects: skin rash if cultivating or processing the plant. Certain compounds in diseased or damaged plants can be cancerous, large dose cause depression of the central nervous system

       Safety in Pregnancy: generally recognized as safe

Reference:

Beutler, J. A. (2014). The Review of Natural Products: The Most Complete Source of Natural Product Information (A. DerMarderosian, Ed.; 8th Edition). Clinical Drug Information, LLC.