The cheesy B-Movie thread

[RidingPie]

1 hour ago, DavidM said:

Who won ?

Kind of beat each other after the AI in mechashark glitched and he went bad, then they attached a torpedo to the side of mechashark and when megashark bit it (we don’t know how they knew he’d bite there but we don’t want to look too closely at a story where a giant megladon appears suddenly in the middle of the Mediterranean) they both blew up. 

 

Thoroughly entertaining cheese. 

[Futtocks]

Hobo with a Shotgun (2011)

Hobo with a Shotgun, I know
I know, it's not serious
Hobo with a Shotgun, I know
I know, it's really not very serious

Another film, like 'Machete', spun off from the fake trailers that were part of the Tarantino/Rodriguez 'Grindhouse' double feature. Everything's pretty stylised in a way that could easily become tiresome (and occasionally does). All the images are very vivid, grainy and saturated, so the blood looks extra-gushy-red.

The titular hobo is played by the legendary Rutger Hauer, who always brings something uniquely his to even the cruddiest movie. This is a knowing, self-referential homage to/parody of exploitation flicks, and it is all the better for Hauer's involvement. 

The Hobo rolls into town, looking to buy a lawnmower. Really! He actually has a business plan. But he finds the town run by a family of cheap hoods who have the police in their pocket. One of the gimmicks is that the bad guys like to film their actions for broadcast, like a reality TV show. The Hobo tries to stand up for someone and gets a good simultaneous going-over from both the hoods and the cops for his efforts.

He is rescued by a prostitute with the standard-issue heart of gold. He loses confidence, but finds his courage in a pawn shop when he grabs a shotgun and foils a robbery. After that, it is just a rampage, punctuated with newspaper headlines. The Hobo develops a following of fellow vigilantes.

The hoods strike back, including a scene where a school bus gets flame-throwered to the soundtrack of 'Disco Inferno', and an ice skate/toaster combo attack. Everything's cartoonish and ultra-violent from the action to the acting. And everybody seems to be having a ton o'fun.

Eventually, the hoods have to call in the Lone Biker of the Apocalypse archetypes for the penultimate fight. You know; the fight where the hero gets beaten up, before the one where the Big Boss gets his come-uppance.

Sleazy, violent, trashy and a little too knowing at times. Car nerds may enjoy spotting the appearances of the Bricklin SV-1, an unsuccessful attempt at a safety-oriented sports car from the mid-Seventies.

[Futtocks]

Breaking news! Tommy Wiseau has uploaded his epic car-crash of a movie, The Room, to YouTube!

 

[Futtocks]

Sod all I want to watch on TV this evening, so it's a double bill of YouTube's finest'n'stinkiest dairy product.

1. Sinbad of the Seven Seas. Lou 'Hulk' Ferrigno is the titular hero, and boy does he sport some titulars! This was an abandoned Italian swords'n'sandals movie that was passed on to the rarely coherent Luigi Cozzi to complete. Having lost all audio, the dialogue was very approximately dubbed, possibly by people who had been drinking with both hands before starting work. The plot, allegedly based on an Edgar Allan Poe story, has been butchered in a way that the people behind the 'Saw' franchise could only dream of. Oh, and one of the characters is called Poochie. Simpsons fans will know that that is the direst of harbingers. 
That the audio on the YouTube upload (and, for all I know, the original) drifts a few seconds out of sync towards the end actually improves this legendary Thanksgiving bird of a movie. 
The bad guy, in a shocking twist, is the Grand Vizier. With splinters of scenery between his teeth in every scene, he's very much the best thing about this. Sinbad's companions include Poochie, plus a rather wet prince as the romantic lead, an oriental soldier of fortune who does the cod-Chinese "Confucius say..." line, a viking and a cook. 
Entertainingly useless and lots of fun. At one point, Lou escapes from a pit by tying snakes together to make a rope.

2. Rat Pfink a Boo Boo. A Sixties rock'n'roll musical about vigilante justice. But it's directed by Ray Dennis Steckler, so that's no surprise. He was the man behind The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? after all. More after I've finished watching it. The movie was supposed to be called Rat Pfink and Boo Boo, but Steckler couldn't afford to get the typo in the credits corrected.
Sample dialogue: Rat Pfink: Remember, Boo Boo, we only have one weakness. 
Boo Boo: What's that, Rat Pfink? 
Rat Pfink: Bullets! 

Edited October 23, 2018 by Futtocks

[Futtocks]

On 10/23/2018 at 9:34 PM, Futtocks said:

Rat Pfink a Boo Boo

This is an odd one. For about 40 minutes, it is a straight abduction drama. Then the director, while shooting, decided to abruptly change direction and the remainder of the plot is played out as a 'Batman' parody. Still, pretty enjoyable.

[Futtocks]

Rubber (2010)

This an odd one, and occasionally somewhat irritating. Despite the title, this isn't a fetish flick. Instead, the protagonist in this road movie is a killer car tyre, who is followed by a group of spectators as it travels the roads, first crushing scorpions and plastic bottles then, when it meets larger obstacles, making them explode with, er, magic powers or something.

A weaselly little guy, who appears to be taking orders from a shadowy overlord, then feeds poisoned turkey to the spectators, who all die except one. He, played by B Movie iron horse Wings Hauser, didn't eat the turkey. This means that when the sheriff tells everyone else to stop acting, claiming it was all make-believe and they'd finished the plot, the cast have to carry on with the story because they are still being watched, even though they don't know what's supposed to happen next.

The tyre happens upon a dump where thousands of other tyres are being burned, so it goes on a killing spree, exploding lots and lots of heads. It has also developed something of a crush on a character played by Roxane Mesquida (understandable), so the sheriff tries to use her to trap and destroy the tyre while it is holed up in a motel watching NASCAR. Meanwhile, weaselly guy tries to tempt Wings with more food, but ends up absent-mindedly munching on an eclair himself and dying noisily.

Eventually, the sheriff decides the story is getting too long, and simply offs the raging radial with a shotgun. Wings Hauser complains that the scene was unsatisfactory, and that the tyre has now been reincarnated as a child's tricycle. Sure enough, a tricycle rolls out of the motel doorway, explodes Wings and his wheelchair (this movie does give good splatter) and sets off for Hollywood, picking up more vengeful tyres along the way as its disciples.

All just a bit too 'meta' for the talents involved to carry off as well as it could have been done. On the other hand, it is an interesting and sometimes entertaining peculiarity. 

[Futtocks]

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

In a reality where Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger et al. are real-life celebrities, a student film crew makes a reality TV show about Leslie Vernon. He's a slightly gauche, but very enthusiastic young man who wants to be the next superstar slasher legend. He studies his technical details hard, works out (for all those chase scenes) and is mentored by an old couple who have kills to their name, but see Leslie as a next-level achiever.

Leslie shows the film crew a bunch of college students and categorises them by slasher movie type, before showing them the "final girl" he actually intends to attack (and possibly let escape, as he respects the conventions). He gets petulant when he's not being taken seriously or when the crew threatens to break the conventions, while also often making light of the situation himself. His charm and enthusiasm helps him persuade the film crew into participating in the initial scares that he uses as the beginning of his schedule of terror against the victim.

Sometimes the crew go along with the idea, and sometimes they balk, but Leslie Vernon keeps things moving 'til they can't turn back or stay away. Sometimes they show doubts, but Leslie charms them back on track.

Robert (Freddie Krueger) Englund shows up as Dr Halloran, the man trying to stop the maniac. His first intervention leaves Leslie ecstatic, as Englund shoots at him and it is all captured on tape. Finally, he has an "Ahab"; the obsessive antithesis of Vernon'surderous character and all part of the plot arc that he needs to be a real star.

This movie was made for peanuts, but it is solid quality, cleverly written and played really well by the principal actors. Nathan Baesel plays Leslie as a genuine fanboy for the whole idea of being a serial killer, who is both clever and nerdish enough to prepare a detailed plan for all his kills, as well as the "final girl" fightback. At one point, he details all the potential exits from the death house, how practical each could be, and how he has sabotaged each in different ways. The movie is punctuated by flash-forwards to the actual assault.

The student reporter is also a great performance by Angela Goethals. There are cameos from Zelda Rubinstein (Poltergeist) and Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th).

But Leslie says he really wants his target to escape, however many others die, because he cannot bring himself to disobey the holy tropes of the slasher flick. Final Girl has to remain virginal, dodge early threats and eventually emerge victorious but damaged, because them's the rules. So it plays with the official rules like "Scream", but in a very different way. 

And then the twists start coming.

Definitely recommended.

[Futtocks]

House II: The Second Story (1987)

"Featuring zombie cowboys, pterodactyls, a cameo from Bill Maher and Cliff from Cheers sword-fighting virgin-sacrificing Mayans, it's easily one of the greatest terrible horror movies of the 1980s and yes, you do need to see it."

I'd write a review myself, but this pretty much says what needs to be said: http://internetisinamerica.blogspot.com/2016/09/b-movie-review-ii-second-story-1987.html

Admittedly it has a bit of a slow start, but is tons of very silly fun overall. 

[Futtocks]

The new season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 arrived on Netflix today and I am watching the hell out of it. Here are the movies given the treatment:

1. Mac and Me (1988): an E.T. rip-off that raised the bar for shameless product placement. Also features a young boy in a wheelchair rolling off a cliff, which is always heartwarming. Better or worse than 'Nukie'? Hard to tell...

2. Atlantic Rim (2013): an Asylum 'mockbuster' that rips off 'Pacific Rim' with zero charm. I am not a huge fan of this genre of deliberately cheap-looking cash-ins, but the riffing helped it along.

3. Lords of the Deep (1989): a cash-in on James Cameron's 'The Abyss'. Shambolic, barely-acted and the budget shows. Produced by the legend Roger Corman.

4. The Day Time ended (1979): a family is abducted by aliens, but that's about as much sense as anything makes. The final entry in cowboy movie stalwart Jim Davis' IMDB filmography.

5. Killer Fish (1979): a creature feature. Just a hint; it was made after 'Piranha' became a surprise hit. Still, the cast includes Lee Majors, Karen Black and Margot Hemingway.

6. Ator the fighting Eagle (1982): the prequel to MST3K fan favourite 'Cave Dwellers'. Ator (Miles O'Keefe) battles the spider god to win the chance of marrying his sister, or something. MST3K alumni RiffTrax have already done this bit of Eurotrash, so it'll be interesting to compare.

[chuffer]

Loll..."macc and me" remember watching that at the cinema when i was a kid...thought it was terrible even then....the alien communicated by whistling and was addicted to coca cola

[Futtocks]

1 hour ago, chuffer said:

Loll..."macc and me" remember watching that at the cinema when i was a kid...thought it was terrible even then....the alien communicated by whistling and was addicted to coca cola

That's the one - the other E.T. rip-off of the time that really stank was 'Nukie'. But even that wasn't as blatantly product-led.

[Futtocks]

Devil's Express (1976)
aka Death Express, aka Gang Wars

It starts off in ancient China, with some artefact being buried. Then everyone involved kills themselves.

Cut to: New York in the Seventies, and plenty of waka-chika-waka-chika music. Our hero, complete with porn-star/Derek Griffiths moustache and majestic afro, is conducting a martial arts class, and we are suddenly in Blaxploitation territory. It helps, at this point, if you can speak fluent jive.

Hero travels East with his weaselly sidekick, to do the mystic training thing. Cue montages. Weasel stumbles upon then steals the artefact from scene one, and awakens a POV shaky-cam monster.

Back in New York, the plot continues its leaden pace as a ship docks. One of the crew members is possessed by the demon, and disembarks. He seems a little clumsy, but that's because they painted the demon eyes on the actor's eyelids, so he's doing the scenes mostly blind. And doing a decent job too - quite a creepy performance.

Now we're in Da Streetz, as racially-delineated gangs square up to each other to take over the territory. Then a scene that establishes that Hero isn't involved, because he's busy being a lover of the lovely ladies, beloved by all the little kids, and probably walks on water too, I dunno. Long establishing shots of him being greeted by over-complex handshakes etc., you know the drill.

Weasel asks Hero to intervene in the gang war, but he does the "why can't we all be friends" speech. Then we are suddenly in one of those "everybody knows Kung Fu" sequences. Weasel, at this point, is wearing the artefact as a medallion (the Seventies, okay?) and the demon is drawn to it. 

Back in the daylight, we have a set-piece battle between the Black gang and the Chinese gang. The whooshing and impact noises are awesome in this movie, by the way.

A mangled body is found on the Subway, and the cops are baffled. More bodies turn up, and eventually the cop on the case is forced to call on our Hero, for no apparent reason. You know the rest, probably. The demon can't go into sunlight, so we have a Final Third Reel Confrontation in the subway.

The hero's preferred combat gear is a Megaforce-style gold lamé jumpsuit, only with flares. And it is so tight, you can see his state of mind. And he's called War Hawk Tanzania. No, not the character; that's how the actor is credited, so his real name's probably Barry Shufflebottom or something.

What we're looking at here, folks, is "Kung Fu C.H.U.D. in Harlem" And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. The gore is pure Heinz Cream of Tomato, and the dialogue is as bad as you'd ever want.

Marvellous!

 

Edited December 1, 2018 by Futtocks

[Futtocks]

Santa's Summer House (2012) Watched with the RiffTrax commentary track.

You're a shoestring budget director who has managed to get Hong Kong martial arts movie legend Cynthia Rothrock and also the somewhat less illustrious high-kicking talents of Daniel Bernhardt (Future War) and Gary Daniels (City Hunter, Fist of the North Star and - oops - Pocket Ninjas) to appear in your latest masterpiece. So we are talking a proper action flick with lots of flying kicks, judo chops and general gnarly nunchuck nastiness, right?

Nope, this is a bit of an oddity, because it is all about relationships. Relationships and croquet. So much croquet. And, seeing as this was directed by David DeCoteau, a remarkable lack of muscular young men dressed only in their underpants.

Filmed in the same house as DeCoteau's A Talking Cat!?!, this is a lovably incompetent piece of cheapskate filming, but everyone really seems to be trying to make it work. Rothrock is the best thing about the whole mess, bringing genuine charm to the garbled story as Mrs Santa Claus. Santa himself is played by Robert Mitchum's son Chris, who goes for the clean-shaven, Hawaiian shirt-wearing interpretation of Father Christmas.

To be honest, I sort of enjoyed it on its own terms, but Mike, Kevin & Bill of RiffTrax were also on top form with the funny commentary.

Edited December 22, 2018 by Futtocks

[Futtocks]

Creating Rem Lezar (1989)

The decade style forgot? Yes, an old chestnut, but this bizarre film adds to the evidence against that era.

Who or which or why or what is Rem Lazar? Thanks for asking... you didn't? Screw you, I persevere regardless. This is a story about two irritating kids who both believe in the same imaginary friend, who is the titular character. 

Rem Lezar's a big old lunk in superhero spandex, with a blue mullet and a mournful honk of a voice. He is played by Jack Mulcahy, who was also in Porky's, Cadillac Man, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Fisher King and Billy Bathgate. Creating Rem Lezar is probably one of those titles that he 'forgets' to include on his CV.

Rem and the kids join up in a really creepy relationship, as they seek to defeat the bad guy, who is a floating head who makes Zardoz look cool. They defeat him by saying "why can't we be friends?", to which the giant head agrees immediately.

Oh, I forgot to say that this is a musical. Everyone gets to bring their groundbreaking microtonal vocals to a series of terrible songs. The whole thing is pretty rum, to be honest. And there's the Twin Towers, which makes me suspect this Lezar character was involved.

This is really... something. Watch it, why don't you?

 

[Futtocks]

I haven't posted in this thread for a while, but I just heard that an anniversary edition of 'Hawk Jones' has been released.

 

[Futtocks]

Another long gap, but there was naff all on TV that I fancied watching tonight, so I had a trash movie mini-binge.
The Human Tornado (1976)
Soon to be played by Eddie Murphy in a sort of remake/biopic/thing, Rudy Ray Moore reprises his role as Dolemite, but this is considerably raunchier than the first film. There's just more of everything - Rudy's stand-up show, speeded up kung faux and crass nudity. There's one scene where a disguised Dolemite shows the gangster's wife a painting of a white woman with a black man that leads to her having a fantasy where she's lying on a bed and muscular gentlemen emerge from a toy-box, sliding towards her while demanding to know where the hostages are. Rudy's considerably less-toned glutes are also on display more than once. The bad guys also have a nunchuk expert who is the spitting image of Laurie Kynaston.

The Ice Pirates (1984)
A Star Wars cash-in, but played deliberately for goofy laughs. Robert Urich, Anjelica Huston, Ron Perlman, Bruce Vilanch and John Carradine are among the cast who do everything but wink at the camera. There's a dashing pirate, a princess, a really big strong bloke, an expert sword-fighter, comedy robots, a ship infected with space herpes, bounty hunters, you know the score. Luckily, the pace is decent and the laughs and action, while not the greatest, come along regularly enough to make the whole thing an undemanding laugh.

Blood Freak (1972)
A hunky biker gives a lift to a nice God-fearin' girl, meets her sister's stoner friends and gets hooked on the evil reefer (and hooked up with the sister). He also gets a job at the girls' father's turkey farm, where he eats meat that has been part of an experiment. One day, he wakes up with a turkey's head and his girlfriend tells him she's worried what their kids will look like. Now, instead of being addicted to the weed, he has a craving for drug addicts' blood.
Then he wakes up, and the murderous turkey-head thing was just a drug hallucination. The nice girl from the start of the movie looks after him at a rehab centre where the Power of Prayer helps him back onto the straight and narrow. The director pops up now and again to deliver some solemn narration in this turgid cautionary tale. While wagging his finger at the naughty drugs, he smokes cigarettes throughout, and breaks into a coughing fit at one point. He could have done another take, being the director and that, but this was the Seventies, when fags were good for you, after all.
Still, more gore than most morality movies, which makes this a curiosity at least.
 

[Futtocks]

Felidae (1994)
An animated movie about cats, aww so cute, right? Let's just say that if the mild violence in Watership Down messed you up, this will not be the cartoon for you. Despite the Disney-style animal designs, this is heading somewhere darker.

Evisceration, swearing, homophobia, rough sex, apocalyptic religious hysteria and nightmarish visions of a blood-drenched hell makes this a fun watch for all the family. Humans are referred to as "can-openers" and the dark underbelly of suburbia is revealed as a haunt of faceless torturers and perverted science.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Futtocks

[Futtocks]

Dolemite is my Name (2019) on Netflix
Dir: Craig Brewer

I heard about this a few months ago, and wondered/worried about whether it would be good, bad or Norbit. Now I know, and I enjoyed it very much!

Rudy Ray Moore was a comedian, singer, movie-maker and hustler, two of whose movies you can find reviewed on this thread. In this slightly loose biopic, he is played by Eddie Murphy, who looks and acts like he's found a project to give a damn about for the first time in years.

Yes, some of the factual content is a little tweaked, and the narrative follows a familiar path, but it is easy to get behind Rudy's DIY ambitions. He goes from working in a record store and introducing acts at a nightclub, to headlining the nightclub, selling his own comedy LPs that the shops didn't dare stock and finally taking the bold step of making his own Blaxploitation flick, despite not knowing the first thing about how to do it. What he does know is that a movie with titties, explosions and kung fu will work.

This is fun and has a sense of heart about it, despite the crude humour. Cameo appearances from Chris Rock and Snoop Dogg are dialled back enough that they actually fit as characters from the story, rather than "hey look, here's someone famous for the sake of it!" And while, like too many movies and TV shows these days, it could have been edited down to a less indulgent length, it is worth a watch.

You never completely lose Eddie Murphy's persona in the role, but it doesn't matter, as his own stand-up background no doubt helps him inhabit the role of a notoriously rambunctious and profane performer who almost certainly influenced Murphy's style. The supporting cast is large and really bring a lot to the story, especially Craig Robinson and the wonderfully-named Da'Vine Joy Randolph. Wesley Snipes also turns in a good performance without hogging the limelight.

Welcome back, Eddie. Now don't spaff your career up the wall again, okay?

[Futtocks]

The Visitor (1979)

It must be Euro-ripoff o'clock, as producer Ovidio G.Assonitis and director/professional bodybuilder Giulio Paradisi's The Visitor clumsily welds together vaguely-understood notions from The Omen, Close Encounters of the third Kind, The Exorcist II, The Birds, Rosemary's Baby and whatever else they could think of. The score goes from over-dramatic and repetitive to weirdly inappropriate.

The cast includes a befuddled-looking John Huston, Shelley Winters, Glenn Ford, Lance Henriksen, Franco Nero (as Blond Jesus) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (who gets blown up for trying to score the winning points against Henriksen's basketball team), plus a rare credited acting appearance by Sam Peckinpah. The juvenile lead (Paige Connor) only did a few acting jobs, but is actually pretty good, given the crazed meanderings of the plot. There seems to have been a reasonable budget, as the action doesn't look like it was done on a shoestring.

Seemingly edited with a blender by a frenziedly-masturbating chimpanzee, this lurches from scene to scene with an heroic disregard for sense or sanity. It is about a little girl possessed by a demonic alien, that much I figured out. Huston's alien Obi-Wan character has the job of ridding the universe of this menace.  But first they face off in an intense game of 'Pong'. Then a lot of folks get killed before the final confrontation, when Henriksen gets offed by what appears to be a pigeon with a flick-knife and the evil little girl gets killed... or not... I think.

Seen as a RiffTrax presentation, and they couldn't figure it out either. 

Edited October 27, 2019 by Futtocks

[Futtocks]

The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984)
David Carradine (pre-deathwank) plays a character called Kain. So far, so 'Kung Fu'. But this is a sword'n'sorcery'n'boobies version of 'Yojimbo', so nothing to do with his TV series at all.

Yes, Roger Corman was involved. So when I say boobies, I mean plenty of 'em. One of the women has four, for God's sake! Carradine looks a little less asleep than in some of his other late work. Otherwise, this is by the book. Seen worse.

[JohnM]

I'll watch anything on Talking Pictures TV

Edited November 14, 2019 by JohnM

[Futtocks]

Space Ninjas (2019)

Well, apart from the brief and hammy appearances by Dirk Benedict (The A Team, Battlestar Galactica), there's nobody recognisable in this mash-up of The Breakfast Club, Aliens and any shoddy martial arts movie you care to name.

I suspect the whole thing was a bet to see if the sentence "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead" could be shoehorned into an alien slasher high school flick. And to see how big a sword can be without actually obscuring the entire screen.

Still, the two main characters are likeable and if the pace and dialogue plods a bit and is too knowing, it still isn't the worst thing I've seen. That would be Rollergator.

Edited November 14, 2019 by Futtocks

[Futtocks]

Transylvania 6-5000 (1985)

Two bickering journalists are sent to Transylvania because their editor thinks that Frankenstein's Monster is real and that he can be found there. A dumb premise, executed badly.

You can see why this flopped so hard. The pace is leaden and the stars don't look like they are enjoying themselves much. Jeff Goldblum seems particularly subdued. Ed Begley's gurning wouldn't be out of place in one of those bone-idle "Scary/Epic/Whatever Movie" knock-offs. You keep expecting at least a dozen Wayans brothers to leap from the undergrowth, mugging to camera in the way they seem to think is so amusing.

So many potentially funny scenes fall flat, and everything is dragged further down by Michael Richards' clumsy slapstick and inane prop comedy, every scene of which seems to go on too long. In fact, the whole movie may be ahead of its time, as far as cinematic bloat goes. Length over content really is all the rage these days in the cinema and on TV, if you value awards over entertaining the audience. Did Roger Corman teach us nothing?

Okay, Geena Davis looks rather fabulous in "that" outfit, but her part is as weakly written as everyone else's. 

A serious movie that's awful can be hilarious. A comedy that isn't funny - that's just painful. This is not a serious movie. The essentials of this tale could have been turned into something very entertaining, but we got "Transylviania 6-5000" instead.

Still, Geena...

[Futtocks]

The Lair of the White Worm (1988)

Watched on Amazon Prime

Even by the lactose standards of this thread, this is one deliriously kinky Casu Marzu. A Ken Russell spin on the Lambton Worm legend, this has a smorgasbord of tasteless fun and slumming stars of the future.

Peter Capaldi (looking about eighteen years old) digs up a mysterious lizard skull, while harbouring the hots for Sammi Davis. Meanwhile, Sammi's sister is falling for the charms of a young Hugh Grant, who seems to be having a lot of fun with his incredibly fruity aristo role.

Enter Amanda Donohoe, as an immortal snake goddess, who wants to use the magic powers of the skull supplant the impostor religion of Christianity. She's naked or nearly naked a lot of the time, but you expect that from a combination of her and Ken Russell, really. Early on, she bites a boy scout on his, ahem, woggle, so we can be reassured that good taste is right out of the window.

Chuck in flashbacks to the crucifixion, with added naked nuns and Donohoe in blue body-paint, fellating a scrimshaw dildo, and we are under way. The bagpipe v vampire battle is a classic of the genre and much fun is had by all.

How does the mythical beastie get deaded in the end? Well, a true Scotsman always has something useful in his sporran. But will the future of Christianity be spunked up the wall by an NHS blunder?

[Futtocks]

Hell comes to Frogtown (1988)

Currently on Amazon Prime Movies. Just a recommendation. A very strong one.

Pro Wrestler and occasional thespian Roddy Piper, Sandahl Bergman (from "Conan the Barbarian") and the always-underrated Cec Verrell take on mutant frog people in a goofy post-apocalyptic knockabout adventure.

Piper (star of "They Live") is Sam Hell, one of the few men left who isn't sterile, so Bergman's hilariously uptight government agent sets off with him to liberate some fertile women who have been captured by the frog people. Unfortunately, the women belong to a cult of extreme passive acceptance, which makes things tricky.

Riding shotgun (and surely a prototype of Jenette Goldstein's character in "Aliens") is Cec Verrell, an actress who jobbed around mostly in TV shows for years without making it big, but who always has a strong screen presence.

When a frog-man sporting a chainsaw and an eyepatch tells you you're one weird dude, you know the going has got tough. When that trouble involves an exploding codpiece, you need Rowdy Roddy.