Tagged: v/h/s
The Best of VHS Box Art: Evilspeak!!
I recently checked out an awesome early 80’s flick called ‘Evilspeak’ starring everybody’s favorite awkward actor Clint Howard who’s the younger brother of superstar director Ron Howard. Evilspeak delivers all the goods besides having Clint Howard in the lead it’s got some gruesome fx, a truly unique story and some pretty cool sets. It’s also got a swarm of possessed pigs that are more than willing to carry out the evil deeds of the devil! So track this one down if you get the chance, it’s totally worth it. Now one last thing obviously this one had got going for was the incredible VHS box cover art! One of my faves…
Well I also realized that this artist C. Winston Taylor is responsible for many of my favorite movie posters and box art of the 1970’s and 80’s in fact it turns out that he did the cover art for one of the other blogs I did recently for the movie Mutant Hunt! Also check out the blog post on with more details on his artwork on another cool ass blog I dig: Camera Viscera!!
Best of VHS Box Art: A Company of Wolves!!
Have you noticed the overload of retro style throwback movies that have been coming out over the last ten years or so? You surely seen all those retro style movie posters that seem to to borrow so heavily from those cult flicks of yesteryear. Well here I’m going to start a weekly post where I’m going to give you some of my personal favorite VHS box covers of all time. Most of these are ones as a kid in the 80’s I’d see when visiting the video store, some of those incredible covers will oddly always bring back great memories of being a kid. So for the first installment I picked one of the coolest from a bizarre werewolf movie from 1984 called “A Company of Wolves”. Seeing this one at Bricco’s Video Vault (I think that’s what it was called) back in Neenah Wisconsin back in the 80’s kinda freaked the shit out of me! It makes me wanna revisit this movie as it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. But here it is in all of it’s crazy glory….
Video Tonfa Collected: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly of VHS!
I’m super excited to get this brand spankin’ new collected version of ‘Video Tonfa’ just released by Floating World Comics here in Portland Oregon. I’ve posted here before about indie comic artist, writer & publisher Tim Goodyear’s incredibly inventive & honest movie reviews which can be read regularly in Pork Magazine – But now movie maniacs can get a collected version of over 600 pages worth of them.
Goodyear not only reviews them in his own words but also recreated each movie’s classic and not so classic VHS covers. Any fan of cult, weirdo, horror, action and the like is bound to dig the creativity and time put into this project. Also reviewed are probably a truckload of flicks you’ve never heard of and that alone can lead you to some pretty excellent film finds if you’re willing to take the time to track em’ down for yourself!
Luckily Goodyear has put in the long hours to weed through it all for for you and give you his own take of what’s been overlooked in the vast sea of lost VHS treasures and turds. So yeah, if you’re like me and just can’t seem to get enough of the largely forgotten cinema of yesteryear then this is a book you’ll wanna reference quite often! Check it out here!
VHS Verdict: ‘Thunder Run’ Proves That in the 80’s Old Guys Kick Ass!
I dusted off a VHS copy of ‘Thunder Run’ from 1986 last night and we got to see a hotshot 67 year old action star kickin’ major ass in his souped up semi truck! Yeeehaw! Yep this one was a total blast, if you’re looking for some seriously over the top action and crazy car chase trucker mayhem then you just won the fuckin’ lottery!
Forrest Tucker is the man here, a retired truck driver named Charlie who’s asked by an old friend/ Gov’t operative to drive a load of plutonium across a barren Arizona highway to lure out some psychotic terrorists and take them out once and for all. Sounds like a fool proof plan huh?
Nope this one doesn’t give us Jean Claude Van Damme or a Chuck Norris type kicking ass, instead you get an elderly bad ass geezer who tricks out his rig with a bunch deadly secret weapons he can activate via dashboard flip switches. We’ve got some classic bad guys too, their leader, a poor man’s Michael Ironside look alike with a nasty attitude and of course naturally a nasty facial scar (because we all know evil people sport nasty facial scars) does his best to be the perfect evil 80’s villain. The best part of the flick though is when the actual dangerous drive cross country begins and Charlie discovers his grandson is hiding in the cab and is fully ready for duo tag team terrorist ass whoopin!
So once the action kicks into high gear it really just does not let up. Nope this one has crazy terrorists coming after the big rig from every direction on motorcycles, fake cop cars, weaponized Volkswagon Beetles & rival semi trucks. Charlie and his grandson get down and dirty roasting terrorists with flame throwers that they’ve installed into the sides of the semi, battering rams and some truly outrageous big rig road antics.
This is the type of flick where it don’t take much more than a scratch to blow the fuck out of car with huge amounts of fire shit flying everywhere. It’s nice to actually see real explosions again in a damn movie that’s for sure. One scene in particular where they jump the 18 wheeler (with plutonium in back mind you) over a moving train! Oh and the finale through the ridiculous laser tunnel is a total blast as well. So check this one out if you’re jonesin’ for a different type of action flick and action hero as ‘Thunder Run’ will deliver the goods on all cylinders and then some! This one’s worth hunting down!
VHS Verdict: Shock ‘Em Dead Will Make Your Colon Spastic!
I recently was lucky enough to catch one the best Rock n’ Roll horror flicks of the 90’s: “Shock ‘Em Dead”! To be exact this one came out in 1990 and man was it a good time. This one is the perfect party flick and a good amount of booze is recommended in conjunction to get the ultimate enjoyment out of this giant ball of cheez. Shock ‘Em Dead is one of Traci Lords’ legitimate Hollywood movies and that’s not saying much in this case! To be fair though I think she was the only woman in this movie that actually didn’t get naked! So at least she was really trying to make it a point to distance herself from her well known controversial racy porn career.
However Shock ‘Em Dead is far from a good horror movie per say, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a total riot to watch! We’ve got a movie that’d fit quite nicely next to “Rock & Roll Nightmare” for a double feature. Yep you get it all here folks hot babes, hot dudes, heavy metal & of course Satan!! The story follows Martin, a lone nerd pizza boy / terrible guitarist, who’s sick and tired of being made fun of by everyone in town. Well things get worse for Martin after he decides to try out for the local rising rockstar band “Spastic Colon” as lead guitarist.
After being humiliated for sucking so bad on guitar he’s off to make a deal with the devil with a Miss Cleo look-alike voodoo lady. Soon Martin is transformed into a super over the top glam rock god, who sizzles on a double necked B.C. Rich Warlock guitar and returns to wow Spastic Colon with his hyper doodling chops! But man you’d think if you made a deal with the devil you’d go try and join Iron Maiden or Van Halen instead?!
Anyway Martin, now going by the name Angel Martin decides he wants Spastic Colon’s manager Traci Lords (because I’m thinking he might have seen a few of her previous film work)?! Well now that Martin joined the band and is sporting a totally fucking over the top ridiculous glam rocker style with a full on spazzed out gigantic black wig it seems that indeed Traci is beginning to fall some how for this dipshit!
Not only that but as the band’s popularity seems to skyrocket, some weird deaths begin to occur at their shows all at the hands of the devilishly dark Angel Martin . This flick delivers on all cylinders, giving you a totally laughable plot, incredible late 80’s early 90’s glam rocker style, unbelievable dialog & some totally awesomely idiotic songs like Spastic Colon’s big hit “Virgin” Girl!
Did I mention you’ll also get the insanely flashy guitar noodling of Nitro’s very own Michael Angelo Batio too? Yep they hired him to double as Angel Martin’s hand’s when he’s fucking shredding on the double edge axe guitar.
There are so many awesome things about this movie that will have you laughing your ass off and if you’re ok with some pretty un PC humor this one will seriously get the party started and then if anything else you get to watch Traci Lords for an hour and a half-seek this one out, I saw it on VHS but I think it was released this year on special edition dvd!
VHS Verdict: ‘The Kiss’ is Full of Campy Glamorous 80’s Horror!
I pulled out a pretty sweet VHS the other night called ‘The Kiss’ and it totally delivered the goods! This cool 1988 flick is not exactly what I’d call a great movie by any means but it definitely delivers the just right amount of inventive charming cheez to please any true fan of 80’s horror. I’d say this movie also gives us a genre I’d like to coin here as “glamour horror”. The movie follows a suburban family as they cope with the sudden and mysterious death of their mother. Soon on it’s clear some serious paranormal foul play is afoot as the flick opens with a bizarre scene on a train in the Belgian Congo set back in the 1960’s and involves you guessed it “a kiss” that seems to carry with it some sort of crazy ass occult voodoo charged curse.
Well things get weird after the mom dies her gruesome death and we see her truly odd but totally glamourous cover girl sister burst onto the scene seemingly out of nowhere. The motherless daughter played by total 80’s babe Meredith Salenger, whom you may recognize as the object of affection in “Dream a Little Dream” immediately gets a bad feeling from her new Auntie played by Joanna Pacula (the classic 80’s model-babe), while her father seems to be pretty down right away with her basically moving in and THEN some!
Yeah from that point it become a bit of a erotic thriller for a moment as she seduces the Dad and starts stalking the daughter and her new cool guy boyfriend. This one really could’ve been edited down about 15 minutes to keep the story moving a little quicker but if you hang in there ’til the half way point things really start cookin’.
Yep this one gets pretty damn awesome, jam packed with ridiculous voodoo, a crazy ass demonic cat and some good solid 80’s gore. The third act of the film is where this one really delivers, the final showdown is pretty awesome and action packed. It’s a great suburban family battle against the glamour gal, a over the top ferocious puppet cat and the ridiculously awesome creature behind or should I say “inside” it all.
This is one of those cheezy gems that make me love collecting vhs tapes, the 80’s was a great era for horror and this one seems to have slipped under the radar for many-so seek this out and get ready for some campy fun that was meant to be a serious affair!
VHS Verdict: ‘The Unholy’ Brings Those Pesky 80’s Demons to Church!
Here we have a rather rare VHS I ran across recently while doing some major thrift store shopping up in the north woods of Wisconsin! The Unholy is a pretty neat-o piece of 1980’s demon church cheeze! This is the kind of movie I really enjoy stumbling across.
The Unholy was released in 1988 and tells the story of a Father Michael (Ben Cross) who’s appointed to a church in New Orleans where two priests where murdered two years before. The movie’s pretty dang fun over all, giving you a ton weird ass 80’s goth night club types who perform violent looking mock rituals while the priest investigates the scenes in the New Orleans cult underground. If you’re intrigued by the over the top fashion and nightlife of the 1980’s you’ll dig this.
Of course Father Michael’s going to be ‘tempted’ by some rather ‘unholy’ racy, 80’s style, sexy situations by this demonic force running amuck. Yep this powerful sexy demon goes by the name “Desederious” and spends most of the time trying to seduce Father to the side of the Devil. Too bad Father Michael, despite being a priest doesn’t believe in demons or the Devil!
Ok now this is some scary shit.
Well it doesn’t take long before his mind is changed once weird shit begins occurring around the church! This one does drag a bit during the middle with a bit too much jibber jabber going on that quite honestly I could give two shits about. I mean c’mon let’s get on with this shit and have a demon battle already! Well thankfully the third act of this movie is pretty satisfying as a fan of 80’s monster movies this one gets pretty good once Desederious shows her true form and Father Michael loses his sex drive pretty damn quickly!
Yep we get some pretty fun little pesky mini demon minions running around and Desederious looks pretty ridiculously awesome in her true demon form running around on all fours. I mean if I saw that fucking weird ass thing appear in a dark alley I’d most definitely run for the hills while peeing my pants!
‘The Unholy’ has a pretty decent cast, we even see Ned Beatty show up here, we get some fun as hell classic special effects and sweet 80’s fashion. if you can get through about 25 minutes of rather boring dialogue in the middle the third and final act will surely deliver the goods!! Seek this one out if you can and if you’re a true fan of C-movie 80’s horror!
VHS Verdict: The Further Adventures of Tennessee Buck!
I’m always and I mean ALWAYS down for an Indiana Jones rip off movie! There are a few out there that reared their heads back in the 80’s and this week I had the pleasure to find “The Further Adventures of Tennessee Buck” on vhs and give it a watch. This one’s actually pretty damn entertaining, if you can get past some of it’s non PC-ness that would today surely have people in a wildly frantic uproar. Basically what we have here is a kind of Indiana Jones meets Romancing The Stone meets Crocodile Dundee with less of budget and a far more crude trashy style to it. That being said the flick actually visits some pretty awesome locations and it’s sets are top notch as well, which is always nice for a movie trying to rip off Indy!
This one has a little star power too with David Keith (An Officer and a Gentleman) in the lead swashbuckling role also directed this one and Sydney Lassick (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest). Yeah Tennessee Buck is a crude dude alright, a boozing, womanizing jungle guide who’s hired by a young yuppie couple named (Barbie & Ken) to help them find and hunt a white tiger. The woman just happens to be Kathy Shower, former Playboy playmate of the year, so I knew there was going to be some senseless nudity in this one and boy is there a ton of that here! I also knew that she’d most likely leave her husband for Buck and though I was right the way it played out was like nothing i was expecting!
But the movie actually took some odd twists and turns that in a way shocked me a bit. Tennessee Buck starts out as a comedy but around it’s third act it gets pretty dark suddenly. Characters endure some things that seem quite out of place with the movies otherwise fun loving, wisecracking vibe. I guess it’s what you expect when they become pursued by a crazed band of headhunters with a horny chieftan as it’s leader.
This one kinda played out a bit like “The Last American Virgin” which started out like Porky’s and ended up a bit of perplexing shocker. Buck here is an odd movie that’s most definitely worth a watch if you’re a fan of the jungle adventure style movies, trashy 80’s schlock & weird out of place plot twists!
“Turbo Kid” Trailer Has Arrived!
I blogged about this one a a couple weeks ago and now we have the official trailer for “Turbo Kid”! This look like a ton of fun for any fan of those 80’s Mad Max style flicks. “In a post-apocalyptic future a young solitary scavenger obsessed with comic books must face his fears and become a reluctant hero when he meets a mysterious girl. From horror masterminds Ant Timpson (The ABCs Of Death 1 & 2, Housebound) and Jason Eisener (Hobo With A Shotgun).”
This one looks pretty over the top! Check this shit out!!!
Universal Dork 