Movie Review: Cinema Paradiso (1988)

Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

Salvatore Di Vita, or "Toto" lives with his mother in his small Sicilian fishing village. His father mysteriously absent, Toto looks to the kindly, grandfather-like figure of Alfredo (Philippe Noiret) for a male role model. The town’s film projectionist for the town’s sole movie theater, the titular Cinema Paradiso, Alfredo instills a love of movies in the young boy. The theater plays a vitally important role in the local community. Cutting across political and religious beliefs, the townspeople treat the theater as an important gathering place where they can all get down to the very serious business of watching movies. The small but humble theater has its vocal detractors: As some of the less tolerant villagers point out, motion pictures forms a gateway desire to life beyond their regional way of life, but this attitude fails to turn them against purchasing tickets. There is a price to pay for all this artifice, as a fire tears through the theater and leaves Alfredo blind. Toto remains at Alfredo’s side as an avid helpmate, until he is counseled by Alfredo as a young man on the way to college to pursue his dreams away from the village. Later in life as a successful filmmaker, Toto returns to the cinema, now in ruins, to unearth a hidden reel of film that is almost too heart-breakingly poignant to watch ...

Movie Review: Double Exposure (1983)

Directed by William Byron Hillman

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

“You want me to stick my head in a fucking trash bag?”

Adrian (Michael Callan) is a nudie photographer whose exciting lifestyle hides lots and lots of personal problems. Plagued by nightmares where he brutally murders his models, he is led to believe that he may be performing them unconsciously during blackouts when some of his subjects start turning up dead. Seeking help from a psychiatrist, Adrian express his concerns to Dr. Frank Curtis (Seymour Cassel) in a starkly appointed office dominated by a naked muscleman statue. In the meantime, two very unconvincing undercover police officers Fontain (Pamela Hensley) and Buckhold (David Young) try to make sense of all the bodies piling up. Adrian has a fling with flirty blonde Mindy (Joanna Pettet). In one incomprehensible scene, Adrian is seen drowning a model in a swimming pool after she refuses to let go of the swimming pool net he’s wielding to push her under the water. Could Adrian’s former stuntman brother and real-life double amputee James Stacy be involved somehow? Growing ever more disjointed and choppy, the film grinds to a most unconvincing twist ending.

Movie Review: Deathrow Gameshow (1987)

I have a long history with Deathrow Gameshow. You may be too young to remember, but in the late 1980s there were these anomalies called 'video stores.' Within these treasure troves of schlock, one could rent what was called a 'VHS' tape. On these tapes were movies. Wonderful movies. Sick movies. Deranged movies. Horrible movies. Sometimes all of these were the same movie... as is the case with Deathrow Gameshow. 1988, I'm 17 and looking for something new. I roll in and see that Bloodsucking Freaks had already been rented, so my goto sick film wasn't an option if the boxes didn't call out to me. Scanning the rows I notice Deathrow Gameshow. I pick it up and see MARK PIRRO on the box. I knew that name. How did I know that name? Prior to the internet, we had to remember things and, in a flash, it hit me... A Polish Vampire in Burbank! Oh, oh and Curse of the Queerwolf! My underground film education started early and I had been thoroughly entertained by the director's first two films... this was a no-brainer, in more ways than one. Of course, that is a wonderful thing.

BUY IT HERE!

Movie Review: The Mutilator (1984, Blu-ray)

Now that the busy season of the hubby’s business is over and October has wrapped up, I can get back to my reviews. And I’m excited to jump back in with a film from the most tubular of decades - the 80s!

The Mutilator (original title Fall Break) begins with the most unfortunate of events. Little Ed Jr. decides that the best birthday present he can give his father is to clean all his dad’s guns. We’ve all been there. Checking down the sight of a rifle and pulling the trigger to make sure everything’s clean and accidentally killing our moms, amirite?

Needless to say, Ed Sr.’s cheese slides a little off his cracker when he comes home to find his wife dead and his spawn responsible. 

Years later, Ed is in college and the relationship with his father is basically nonexistent. Until now. He wants Ed to close up the beach condo for the winter. And how convenient because Ed and his friends are on fall break (ahhh…now the original title makes more sense!) and have nothing to do. So why not help close up the place while enjoying time at the beach?

Because Ed’s dad is a fucking nut job and wants them all dead!! Particularly Junior, of whom he dreams about killing all the time.

Cinema Head Cheese: The Podcast! #141 - Dudley Has To Take His Shirt Off

Inebriated duo Kevin and Jeff get together to talk about their favorite sitcoms of the 1980s.

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Movie Review: When the Wind Blows (1986)

Directed by Jimmy Murakami

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

As author David J Moore states in his authoritative book on Apocalyptic cinema, “World Gone Wild,” “This is no bag of candy for the kiddies, friends.” Indeed.

Jim (voiced by Sir John Mills) and Hilda Bloggs (voiced by Dame Peggy Ashcroft) is an elderly couple who live on their storybook farm outside of London. The talk, bicker and remember the good old days when they learn about the possibility of nuclear war in three days’ time. Jim busies himself by following official government pamphlets by painting all the windows white and constructing a shelter of three doors lying on their side in a hallway. The unspeakable happens, their home and farm is reduced to rubble. The Bloggs continue on talking, bickering, and remembering the good old days … until they eventually crawl into paper bags to await their deaths from radiation poisoning.

Cartoonist Raymond Briggs decided to let the world have it with both barrels after the winsome yuletide fantasy The Snowman in 1982. Taking his all-round circular figures and overly pleasing pastel colors, Briggs took on the Ronald Reagan Cold War era for an altogether bleak and despairing vision. When the Wind Blows runs neck and neck with Grave of the Fireflies as the most despairing animated feature film EVER.

Movie Review: Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)

by Jeff Dolniak




Directed by: Frank De Fellita


Distributor: VCI Entertainment


Buy Dark Night of the Scarecrow on DVD


The "Scarecrow" horror sub-genre has always appealed to my diverse tastes. There's really nothing more frightening than being alone in a giant pitch-black cornfield with a creepy raggedy man, made of straw holding a pitchfork. Some of the better examples in my viewing experiences of scarecrow horror have been William Wesley's splattery Scarecrows, and surprisingly, an entry in the second season of Friday the 13th: The Series, called (You guessed it!) Scarecrow. In 1995, Jeff Burr (Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre Three) also helmed the moderately entertaining Night of the Scarecrow, starring Bruce Glover. All three, solid efforts, but still not as unforgettable as the film I'm covering in this review; VCI's new re-mastered special-edition release of the made-for-TV film of, Frank De Felitta's, Dark Night Of The Scarecrow. Dark Night of the Scarecrow has always seemed to be as mysterious as a scarecrow itself. Often bootlegged with God-awful image and sound quality by collectors (Mainly from the long out-of-print Key Video release), it became a seriously elusive item...until now.

Movie Review: Three Ripening Cherries (1979) and Sensual Fire (1982)

Directed by Carlos Tobalina

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

Desperately plain girls buried under makeup. Ugly wallpaper, sheets and tablecloths. Nonexistent stories about sex in San Francisco. We are back on director Carlos Tobalina’s turf, friends.

Three Ripening Cherries finds Mom (Kitty Shayne) talking to four girls at the kitchen table about sex. Mom admits that her first time was not pleasurable. A bearded friend of the family sought to be the one take away her troublesome cherry, and in a flashback, aforementioned creep forces himself on her to her cries of pain and distress. Mom sought to make amends by sleeping with every high school greaser in the process in order to get her groove back.

Movie Review: Under Fire (1983)

Directed by Roger Spottiswoode

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell


Nicaragua, 1979: The populace is under the iron-fisted rule of President Anastasio Somoza. Photographer Russell Price (Nick Nolte) is on the scene to capture scenes of the burgeoning civil war for the American mainstream media. It’s not all work and no play. Price has his eye on the gorgeous journalist Claire (Joanna Cassidy) who’s in the process of breaking up with the egotistical Alex Grazier (Gene Hackman), indifferent to the death and upheaval around him as he plots his career as a news anchor. The trio is pulled into the conflict when it becomes obvious that they can’t remain neutral to the fascistic forces of Somoza and the Sandinista rebels. Throwing their purported, professional objectivity into bold relief are the actions of cheerfully amoral mercenary soldier Oates (George Romero discovery Ed Harris), who guns down unarmed civilians for quick cash. Using his photographic skills to prolong the rebel’s efforts, Price and his friends face an even bigger quandary: Are they merely unseating the old boss, who in the words of The Who, “is same as the old boss?”

Movie Review: New Year's Evil (1980)

The concept is cool. A maniacal killer plans on killing someone in a different time zone from California to New York at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. Unfortunately, the concept is all New Year’s Evil has going for it. Except for the unintentional comedy, that is. Come with me, dear reader, and travel across this fine country of ours from the hypodermic needle-laden beaches of the Pacific Ocean all the way to the condom-infested shores of the Atlantic Ocean. We will see the country, the heartland, the major cities and the small towns… or maybe not. The whole while we will listen to Pinky Tuscadero’s punk rock New Year’s Slamdancing Eve Show and party to the sounds of mis-cast victims. Sing with me! May old acquaintance be forgot and hopefully this film, too!

Buy New Years Evil on VHS or the New Year`s Evil Folded Movie Poster!

Movie Review: Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)

Day 9 of the David Hayes 12 Days of Christmas Crap Review-a-Palooza and the weather outside is frightful… somewhere else. I’m in Arizona. Ha! Wow, this Palooza thing isn’t good for my mental health. Officially add ‘spiteful’ alongside ‘bitter’ on my chart, doctor.

On the ninth day of Christmas, the Head Cheese gave to me… a sucky sequel to a classic movie.

Good or bad, the intention of a sequel, at least in the horror genre, is supposed to expand on the themes and storyline of the original film. We’ve seen it done well, like Aliens and we’ve seen it done poorly, like Alien 3. Regardless, each of these films took the original idea and brought it to a different world on a grander scale. Look at the original Leprechaun, for example. Five films later and we’re in space. Not good, but bigger. That is the entire point. This is how sequels have worked ever since the concept was invented (with 1933’s The Son of Kong). This doesn’t apply, apparently, to Christmas slasher films. I love the original Silent Night, Deadly Night from 1984. It’s cheesy and dopey but the film had guts. A lot of other people liked it, too. Some of them, like Lee Harry, liked it so much he took a bunch of footage from the original, cut out the gore, added the brother of the original killer in a ‘grown up’ psychiatric interview and released it as Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2. It’s like the Dradel Song, second verse same as the first

Movie Review: The Legend of Billie Jean (Blu-ray)

Reviewed By: Jimmy D.

The Legend of Billie Jean holds a special place in my heart. I am proud to admit I was at the theater when this Tri-Star film opened in 85. Matthew Robbins, many will say killed Mark Hamill’s career with Corvette Summer or tried to cash in on the Cocoon craze with Batteries not Included. Many will forget the little gem that is this film. Starring Supergirl herself Helen Slater, Pump up the Volume’s Christian Slater and one of my favorite directors ever Keith Gordon. This film centers on this nobody who just one day gets to be a huge somebody.

People will compare this film to Turk 182 which came out around the same time with another rebel played by Timothy Hutton who really does not have to do that much to win over the people’s love and adulation. The film tells the story of Billy Jean Davy who looks like she was auditioning for either Square Pegs or Flashdance, who lives in a trailer in Texas. She is an innocent beautiful blonde who seems to attract the wrong kind of attention. She gets bullies to chase her and her younger brother played by Christian Slater. When the bullies cause around 600.00 dollars to damage to Binx’s motorcycle, she goes to the father of the kid who started it and demands the money. Well the father tries to get a little too fresh and Billie Jean knees him till Binx stumbles onto a gun he fires it and turning him and his sister Billie Jean into outlaws.

Movie Review: Raw Force (1982)

Directed by Edward D. Murphy

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

A cruise ship full of swinging singles and martial artists piloted by Captain Harry Dodds (Cameron Mitchell) and managed by loudmouthed harridan Hazel Buck (Hope Holiday) run afoul of jade smuggler Thomas Speer (Ralph Lombardi) who resembles Hitler in an ice cream suit. Speer sends his goons to sink the boat, and the survivors land their life raft on an island inhabited by cannibal monks (one of whom is played by perpetual Filipino trash film star Vic Diaz) who have the power to raise disgraced kung-fu killers from the grave …

In short, listing the exploitive elements that this Filipino feature DOESN'T have would make for a much shorter and more manageable list.

It’s not possible to dislike a film featuring cannibalistic monks and hordes of reanimated zombie martial artists. Such is the case with Raw Force. Add tons of tits and ass, gore that wouldn’t convince a pre-schooler and lots of slapstick and you simply can’t miss! This is exploitation cinema as it will never be again: no irony, no cross-referencing other films, a nonsense logic that only applies to the particular universe in which it is set … and the result is Movie Magic. Quentin Tarantino could bang on a typewriter for an eternity and never reach the joyous energy found on display here.

Movie Review: Resurrected (1989, Twilight Time)

Directed by Paul Greengrass

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

The time in which we welcome home soldiers from victorious battles, they say, is extremely brief. Case in point: Private Kevin Deakin (David Thewlis), presumed dead in the 1982 Falklands was after the Battle of Mount Tumbledown is given a regal and dignified military funeral in his English village. His friends and family, while devastated, accept the fact that Deakin died a hero in the service of his country. The problem: A disheveled Private Deakin, shell-shocked and filthy stumbles on a Falklands sheep ranch seven weeks after the war has been declared over. Claiming to have survived by eating worms while thinking that the war was still ongoing, Deakin is sent home to Britain – to a very unenthusiastic public. Having already accepted him dead and war hero, his parents (Rita Tushingham and Tom Bell) must now accept the fact that their son is alive – and as the British gutter press makes him out to be, possibly a deserter.

Deakin's life is effectively over before it's begun. Haunted by flashbacks and shunned by his girlfriend and townspeople, Deakin returns to his military regiment. Treated coldly by everyone, who brand him as a coward, fellow soldier Slaven (Christopher Fulford) leads a brutal “kangaroo court” against Deakin – and justice is meted out in an especially brutal fashion.

Movie Review: Radio Days (1987, Twilight Time)

Reviewed By: Hal Astell

Woody Allen pretty much always wrote stories about himself, though he tweaked the truth so none are actually autobiographies. This one is about him as a young Jewish kid in Rockaway when the radio was on all day every day and all he ever wanted was a Masked Avenger ring with a secret compartment. He's played by someone you wouldn't expect on the face of it to be believable as a young Woody Allen, here called Joe, let alone appear in a Woody Allen film, but Seth Green does a solid job. He's really young here, long before Buffy the Vampire Slayer let alone Robot Chicken, but he looks exactly like a really young Seth Green.

The script is really nothing but a dramatized collection of reminiscences, and as you'd expect from such a setup some are better than others. The biggest challenge of all is to make it hold together as a single entity. It works best as a box of treats to dip into whenever we feel like it, so unlike most films, catching five minutes here and there while channel surfing roughly equates to watching it in an 85 minute stretch. You could probably even watch it backwards, scene by scene, and it would still make about as much sense.

The first reminiscence is a peach and sets the stage very nicely for all the rest. It has two crooks breaking into a house when the phone rings. They answer it to avoid waking everyone up and end up winning the grand prize on a game show called Guess That Tune. Mr and Mrs Needleman arrive home the next morning to find their home robbed but no end of goodies arriving in the place of their own stuff. It's hilarious but ludicrous at the same time, and quite a few of the other reminiscences fit the same bill. There's a sports story show that involves a baseball pitcher with heart, even though he loses a leg, an arm and his sight. There's even a radio ventriloquist.

Movie Review: Runaway Nightmare (Blu-ray, 1982)

It seems these days more than ever one of the prime go-to companies for exploitation, sexploitation and other assorted off-the-wall film oddities from the past is Vinegar Syndrome. Recently, Vinegar Syndrome has decided to handle some of their more obscure titles differently than much of their library with doing a very limited run of just 1000 total discs to be had for anyone quick enough to get their mitts on what could be a trashy collectible. Mike Cartel’s Runaway Nightmare is the most recent in the limited edition runs and I must say it really defies an explanation… but I will try my best.

A couple of dopey denim-wearing worm farmers named Ralph and Jason (Mike Cartel and Al Valletta ) witness a young woman being buried in the middle of the desert. Naturally, the two gentleman decide to jump to her aid. They dig her up and carry her back to their manor house on the worm farm where she eventually comes back into consciousness. What the fellas don’t know is that she has some friends waiting. This gaggle of sexy gals have a plan to take Ralph and Jason captive and make them their slaves.

Movie Review: Sleepaway Camp (1983, Blu-ray)

There have been numerous slashers based in summer camps produced over the years since Friday the 13th brought the horrors of Camp Crystal Lake to the forefront of horror lovers everywhere. Robert Hiltzik’s Sleepaway Camp is one of those unique body-count films that transcends what so many of the post-Friday the 13th slice’n’dicers tried to achieve with a story that doesn’t quite play by the rules like other films of its ilk. This classic in the slasher genre has just been released to Blu-ray thanks to the folks at Scream Factory and Shout Factory with some new surprises and a brand-spanking new transfer that blows away Anchor Bay’s original box set from several years ago.

The plot follows a seemingly innocent young girl named Angela (Felissa Rose, Satan’s Playground, and Slaughter Party) who at the urging of her very quirky Aunt is going to summer camp with her cousin, Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten). Camp Arawak is the destination for these two – it’s full of fun in the sun, marshmallow roasting and also the unfortunate bullying and attempted molestation of Angela. Ricky is there though, to protect her from some of it, but things get progressively worse when people start dying in some creative and at times gruesome ways. Did one of the counselors go crazy? Is it the creeper cook? What about one the bullies? Sleepaway Camp has its share of red herrings sprinkled throughout the story so you’re never quite sure until its shocking climax.

Movie Review: Death Spa (Blu-ray,1987)

Anyone hitting the video stores regularly in the 80’s and early 90’s should be familiar with the horror movie sub-label of MPI video called Gorgon Video. The days of VHS are long-gone for the most part and so it seemed for Gorgon…until now! Whenever the Gorgon banner adorned the giant clamshell of titles like the Faces of Death series and Mario Bava’s splattery giallo, you knew what you were in for – something very bloody and often shocking. The label’s comeback starts this summer with the release of Michael Fischa’s Death Spa (aka Witch Bitch)  on DVD and Blu-ray. As a longtime horror fan and someone who watched the grisly trailer over and over when it popped up on the VHS release of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer until I finally saw it on a shitty quality DVD from the UK, I couldn’t be happier.

When Catherine (Shari Shattuck) decides to kill herself after the sudden loss of her child her soul doesn’t quite rest – it becomes a jealous vengeful spirit. She doesn’t haunt a house, or a church or some hotel, she haunts a high-tech workout facility run by computers that’s owned by her handsome husband Michael (William Bumiller). Michael is a ladies’ man and Catherine’s none too keen on him having anyone but her. If it means blowing up heads or tearing gym patrons apart via the workout machines, she'll make it happen!

Movie Review: Class Of Nuke 'Em High (Blu-Ray)

In the 1980's, toxic waste was as common as cocaine and Tab soda. Oh, you don't know what Tab soda is? Imagine liquid carbonated ear-wax. Ok, back on the topic at hand - you really couldn't flip on the news without seeing a piece devoted to the negative effects of toxic waste. I for one, think that toxic waste has made a very positive contribution to the narrative of a few classic cult films of note, The Toxic Avenger and today's Cinema Head Cheese Blu-Ray review, The Class of Nuke 'Em High. Troma has just gotten into the Blu-Ray production realm - with the other more recent Blu-Ray efforts being Troma favorites, Poultreygeist: Night Of The Chicken Dead and Tromeo and Juliet. Poultreygeist turned out to be a hell of a package so I was anxious to dive in, head first, into the bubbling barrel of toxic goo known as Class of Nuke 'Em High.

Buy Class of Nuke 'Em High on Blu-Ray!

Movie Review: The Crippled Masters 2: Two Crippled Heroes (1980)

During my 34 year existence I've seen many films. There are a handful of movies that I like to call my "I'm going to hell" films. My friends, these are movies I love that are so morally reprehensible and just plain wrong to most viewers . They're that bad, and may just put me in Hades with a seat next to Michael Jackson. A few examples that come to mind are T.F Mou's Men Behind the Sun, Addio Zio Uncle Tom, Pasolini's Salo: 120 Days of Sodom and the recent atrocity, A Serbian Film. The film I'm reviewing for you today, Crippled Heroes, is in that dubious category. Apprehensive Films have not-so apprehensively unleashed the two sequels spawned from the cult hit, Crippled Masters - Fighting Life and Crippled Heroes.

Buy The Crippled Masters 2: Two Crippled Heroes on DVD!