Orcs! (2011) [REVIEW] | 3 Inches Of Snooze

Time to rummage through my B-movies DVD collection and pinch one out, in this case salvaging from one of the huge ass bookcase style holders Orcs!, a 2011 direct to video monster on the loose flick with a fantasy twist of sorts.

This time around it’s not mutated bears, cocained panthers, or landlubbing sharks running amok in a place, it’s the green, Dakka loving green boyz, that threaten to invade modern society starting from a US National Park, so it’s up to the resident Park Ranger, Cal Robertson, and his sidekick, Voluntary Cadet Hobie, to stop them hordes from leaving the park.

Sound like a fun little comedy horror B-movie, the formula it’s more than proven, have monsters invade and have two or more dorkuses left as humanity’s unlikely last stand, the cast being mostly made of people you’ve never heard or seen before it’s an acceptable risk and not damning in itself.

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In The Aftermath (1988) [REVIEW] | Corman’s Angel Egg

As i already mentioned before, my Vita is still in the shop for repairs, meaning one of the planned reviews won’t be ready in time, but it is my birthday, and they announced a 4K remaster of Angel’s Egg supervised by Oshii himself…

So you know what it means? Time to review In The Aftermath (also known as In The Aftermath: Angels Never Sleep), in its Blu-Ray release from Arrow Video, of course i got this release as soon as i knew it existed.

And yes, i started planning this earlier this month only to read some days later of Corman’s passing, so this was not meant to be a tribute…. but it now is because Roger Corman was a true fuckin cinema legend in so many ways it’s unbelievable, either if you were a fan of his B-movies production or knew how he basically kickstarted the career of so many future movie stars like Jack Nicholson and directors like James Cameron, to say the obvious.

Maybe an odd choice of movie to cover as a tribute, but the timing has been so weirdly apt i can’t ignore it, and this is indeed an interesting piece of cinema history, of when Corman indirectly met Mamoru Oshii… but didn’t know what to do with his vision, to put it politely.

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Killjoy (2000) [REVIEW] | Wishmaster In Da Hood

This is a re-write, sorry, but i’m not feeling keen on watching a random horror clown movie… again, i don’t particularly loathe or love clowns per sé, and i’m not feeling like reviewing Killer Klowns From Outer Space… YET, there is actually a proper sequel finally in production, 30 years after, but what the hell, i honestly didn’t expect for the follow up to come out, like ever.

Then again, this ended up being a more involved rewrite then planned, it’s basically redone from scratch (almost entirely, anyway), so i’m gonna borrow a page from the game industry and call this the “Definitive Remastered Edition” of my Killjoy review.

January has been so unbelieveably busy, even more than planned for, so let’s talk (“again”) about the first Killjoy film, since in my homecountry this is also month of “Carnevale/Carnival”.

A series that has seen a couple of new entries in the last decade, as Full Moon Entertaiment has been consistant in pumping these out with some regularity (after the 8 years separating Killjoy 2 and 3, that is), when they can stop themselves giving sequels to Evil Bong and remember most people actually care more about new Puppet Master entries than Demonic Toys ones.

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Pinocchi-O-Rama #10: Pinocchio’s Revenge AKA Bad Pinocchio (1996)

This is one i KNEW would have to be featured on Pinocchiorama from the very start, because it’s both peculiar but also really easy to see why it keeps slipping back into obscurity regardless.

After all, you gotta love the more common name this movie (also known as Bad Pinocchio) goes by, Pinocchio’s Revenge, which really tells you the kind of shit you’re about to see.

It’s that kind of stupid title that already confuses you, as in, who the hell could be Pinocchio be taking revengeance on? The Cat and Fox either get arrested, punished or get actually miserable endings regardless of what version or adaption of the story, Lampwick dies of being worked to death as a donkey, so to whom he has to break the rules of nature?

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Venomous/Venom (2001) [REVIEW] | #snakesofjunetoo

We’re out of Anaconda sequels at the moment (there’s a reboot in the works, confirmed 3 months ago with Tom Gormican, better known for The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent) , so let’s start digging into another barrel o’ snakes by rummaging – as we usually end up doing – through Fred Olen Ray filmography.

Not that i picked up the movie this way, it was another random find on Amazon Prime Video, but there’s no real surprise to see him listed as director… under one of his pseudonyms, Ed Raymond this time, why shouldn’t be his work?

Not to be confused with Silent Venom from 2009, also directed by Fred Olen Ray, in which he realized he could put snakes inside of submarines instead of planes.

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Megalodon Rising (2020) [REVIEW] #sharksncrocs

As we extensively estabilished before, when it comes to shark movies The Asylum doesn’t even bother anymore to wait for a mainstream blockbuster release to mooch off… which i can’t really blame on them as those almost completely went extinct, with almost exclusively low to no budgets shark movies flooding the market every year.

And as usual, this is one of those they just kinda put out with no fanfare, to the point i knew this existed only because i happened to stumble upon its UK DVD release while browsing randomly on Amazon one late night.

I mean, more important stuff happened in 2020, but still, put 5 bucks into marketing!

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Lake Placid 2 (2007) [REVIEW] #sharksncroc

While Anaconda did manage to have its first sequel come out in theathers.. that luck wouldn’t spread to other reptilian based killer animal series, since after the 1999 original, we had to wait 8 years for the first of the many direct-to-video/made for TV sequels to appear, with Lake Placid 2.

All roads lead to strings of TV sequels for SciFi, after all.

And by now you should have a good understanding what that entails: the same basic plot with basically all the same characters but a completely different cast, and often a bugdet slashed in half, if the production it’s extremely lucky. IF.

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Dinoshark (2010) [REVIEW] | #sharksncrocs

More Roger Corman, continuing his b-movie legacy well into the new millennium with the “Roger Corman Presents” line of made for TV or direct-to-video b-movies he produced, this one being a spin-off of sorts of the Dino Croc series. Yes, series.

At the time of writing i haven’t got around to those, not that it matters, as a movie like this was simply bound to be made, and i’m surprised it took this long for the words “dinosaur” and “shark” to be married by the ol’ “b-movie priest”, but i guess 2010 was the year for this kind of trash, as Roger Corman also produced Sharktopus.

The first of the “Sharktopus trilogy” i mean.

Also, apparently this is a remake of 1979’s Up From The Depths, another Jaws rip-off/inspired film.

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Piranhaconda (2012) [REVIEW] | Madsen-baiting #snakesofjune

Ah yes, the classic “go-to” choice when you and fellow shlock film makers have done every possible killer animal b-movie… doing another one by straight up mixing animals like Frankenstein if he was that desperate (and bored out of his skull) to bring something from the dead, regardless if it existed or not.

So pretty much like his incarnation in Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole.

Sadly there’s no Moral Orel cameo to be found here, just good old Jym Wynorski doing what he knows best: making cult creature features for SyFy and/or home video releases.

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Anaconda 3: Offspring (2008) [REVIEW] | Hit That Hoff #snakesofjune

As previously discussed, the Anaconda series did prosper… ok, “continue”, as this third installment was a made for TV movie that originally aired on SciFi, instead of a theathrical release.

And to save some extra buckaroos, you film two shitty TV killer snake movies in some Eastern European country for the price of one, as both Anaconda 3 and the sequel Anaconda: Blood Trail were shot back to back in Romania. I guess Nu Image claimed their “turf” for cheap shooting in Bulgary, so Stage 6 Productions did their business in the other closest country there.

While it’s described as a sequel to The Hunt For The Blood Orchid, the only thing that provides any slim bit of continuity is the name of the pharmaceutical company, Wexel Hall, there’s no returning cast from the second one, heck, not even any returning character. Plot involves an industrialist named Murdoch – played by John Rhys-Davey looking strongly like Pavarotti here – having an anaconda captured from the Amazon River and brought to the company’s Romanian branch to experiment on it a serum made from the Blood Orchid.

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