Maneater (2022) [REVIEW] | #sharkapalooza

Some “fresh” meat from…. 3 years ago. Yum.

Another one i randomly bought new for cheap on DVD via Amazon, sight unseen, because my hunger for shark movies it’s apparently endless.

Written and directed by Justin Lee, Maneater’s plot is pretty much the usual affair when talking modern shark movies: a group of friends go on vacation, board a boat that brings them to a remote deserted island where to get their party on, shark happens and it’s one that developed a knack (leave Mark Cerny alone) for human flesh.

This time we don’t have teens, but people in the 30s that have been married or just concluded a long education path, which is something different, i guess, especially since the movie doesn’t have the asshole that fucks everything that moves, or cheating bullshit to pad out the human drama parts, with a subplot involving an old fisherman that harbours vengeance as great white sharks took not only his wife but also recently his daughter.

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Popeye’s Revenge (2025) [REVIEW] | Hamburger Friday The 13th

Surprise!

As i said prefacing the review for Popeye The Slayer Man, i’m not gonna change the schedule for these films, but since i also don’t want to have these hanging off the “to do” list like dingleberries, we’re doing overtime.. well, I am doing overtime, let’s cover these now and hope i won’t have to do another round of Popeye-xploitation in the fall.

And yes, i guess i should have done this before Popeye The Slayer Man, since it came out earlier and it’s actually the first one to capitalize on Popeye’s character falling into public domain (the other free idea bucket alongside mythology), and surprising no one it’s by one of the production companies behind the Winnie Pooh Blood And Honey movies (though it’s not part of their Twisted Childhood Universe), heck, it’s written by Harry Boxley (Dinosaur Hotel 3, Jurassic Triangle, Tsunami Sharks, and of course a couple of the Steamboat Willy-xploitation flicks, Mouseboat Massacre and Mouse Of Horrors), and directed by William Stead, curiously not his feature lenght debut, as directed something called “Children Of The Night” back in 2023.

The plot is that in a UK coastal town, a boy with abnormal arms and a pronounced chin is born, his appereance leading to him getting relentelessly getting bullied at school (where he often dons his sailor outfit), until one day he snaps and fights back, killing one of his bullies.

His parents hide him in the basement for his own good, but the townspeople form an angry mob and they torch down Popeye’s family home, with his parents dying in the fire and apparently him drowning in a nearby lake.

Years later some douchy young adults inherit the house, unaware of his dark history, but as they try to settle in more and more of them keep disappearing off…

You know what this sounds like?

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Titanic II (2010) [REVIEW] | A Mockbuster To Remember

Given it’s the “most romantic time of the year” (according to advertising agencies and florists), you know what that means, talking about one of the most beloved romance movies of all time.

Or instead, talk about it’s “sequel”, because i can’t think of a more fit/unfit timing to scratch one more from my “sub-bucket list” of reviews.

Because even before the current state of the company, The Asylum was never one to back away from any semblance of shame, to tackle things that to others were mere jokes, snark meant to mock but never actually manifest itself as an actual thing.

There was (nor there is) no joke or niche the company wouldn’t dig into the ground, so unbound by moral burdens like shame and shit, they actually made Titanic 2.

As most of you already could guess, yep, this is a mockbuster, meaning the title is a lie.. or is it?

How much of a lie to legally avoid charges and how much actually fitting?

Hold on to your Minecraft raft, things are about to get even more disasterrific, cheaper and bullshittier, with The Asylum’s daring to make “boat 9/11” all over again, which is still less offensive and egregious than the Italian Titanic animated movies (and Tentacolino), i’d argue.

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember #43: Dinosaur Hotel 2 (2022)

To say i didn’t like the first Dinosaur Hotel is being nice, but that won’t change the fact it had some of the worst CG i’ve seen in a while, even for modern cheap low budget dinosaur flicks the effects were plainly pathetic, the premise old and already done better years before.

But since this is a modern low budget dino flick from the UK (it’s another Jagged Edge Production thingie, the same company backing the Winnie The Pooh slasher films, BTW), a sequel was bound to happen… and at least it happened fast, i guess, since only 1 year later, Dinosaur Hotel 2 hit the internet and general VOD services in some regions, and this year they dropped another sequel with Dinosaur Hotel 3. At least they keep the titling consistent and simple.

Curiously, if a movie like this would have been released in the 90s, it would have done the usual “sequel in name only” shuffle we’ve discussed countless times before, but in this case we’re doing actual sequels, for best or worst, even if it doesn’t quite matter, as we’re still doing the same idea, again, with people doing a survival game in a place full of dinosaurs, with the jackpot for the lone survivor being ONE MIL-oh, wait 10 MILLION DOLLARS, gotta outbid Dr. Evil.

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Elves (1989) [REVIEW] | Nazicest Gobbo-Grizzly Conspiracy

This is a quasi-well known one, it has a certain reputation, but i’m willing to cover it anyway because it’s still one of the strangest fuckin horror film i’ve ever seen, it’s still unique, as in “who the hell comes up with this stuff” kind of unique, sure as shit there’s nothing quite as absurd, even with the plenty batshit delirium that comes with vintage holiday horror films, Christmas related or not.

It’s just not everyday you get a movie about Christmas elves that’s also about Nazis, has a demonic conspiracy to breed the Aryan “Master Race” which involves incest and blood rituals, and just calling it “Elves” it’s a great Trojan-horsing manouver, how the fuck can one expect this level of obscene and absurd with such a simple, direct title?

It’s a deranged mish mash in many ways than you both and would not assume, because you’d expect a creature feature movie following in the vein of Gremlins, like Critters, Ghoulies, Munchies… and to an extend that is correct, as we’ll see later.

Strap in, because we’re in for quite the ride, one that Dan Haggerty (of The Life and Times Of Grizzly Adams’ fame) wasn’t happy to partake in one bit, despite being the protagonist, as sometimes you can almost see his genuine stunned yet unamused, baffled reaction to the dialogues he’s forced to hear coming from the other actors’ mouths.

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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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