Ted Bunny, Dee Wallace Headlines Slasher Epic

Okay, epic is a bit of a strong word. Still, the kill count will be astronomical. It is hard to believe Ted Bundy was in his heyday a half century ago...then finally executed in January of 1989 in north Florida. Before his death, he was interviewed and told all...or did he?  Most likely he merely manipulated the interviewers. Unlike the Amityville murders, Ted Bundy did not become a horror franchise.  Well, maybe that will start today.  Our first 2026 release, this one starring Dee Wallace, is "Ted Bunny," directed by Michael Fredianelli.

In 1975 Ted Bundy was raping and murdering sorority girls. Sad. We all know the story. Hence Catherine (Dee Wallace, but the 1975 Catherine is played by Rosanna Wyant). She was supposed to be a victim and after Ted (Bryan Palacios) raped her in front of a bunny rabbit, she escaped. Pregnant with Ted Bundy's baby, she botched an abortion and now the offspring, Theodore (Trent Avvenire) lives in her basement...a secret from the rest of the world. Enter a documentary film crew headed by Sasha (Diana Roman) and her crew.  She wants the story of Catherine's ordeal 50 years ago.  Her crew...they'll die horribly in a few moments. Sasha believes Catherine though she comes across as a crazy old loon. During a break, the sound guy and camera guy sneak into the basement and find a girl captive and then are cut up by Theodore.  Theodore wears a bunny mask.  Now only Sasha remains of the crew and she escapes. 

Catherine cleans up the mess and when the cops come by, no sign of any carnage. Now Sasha is considered the loon by the cops except for Dante (Brad Satterwhite), a hunk deputy. Together he and Sasha try to find Theodore, who is now on the loose. Theodore finds campers, murders them in graphic fashion, and then another dozen or so, and murders them in gory fashion. Dante and Sasha need help and call Sasha's stupid friends...you can guess their fate. Catherine? Well, you'll see...but it won't be easy to watch. Dante wants to murder Theodore...but Sasha kind of feels sorry for him.  See where this is going? Theodore murders everyone he comes across, and Sasha and Dante follow the carnage and close in.

Will Dante and Sasha find and kill the homicidal bunny-man?  Does Catherine have any more surprises now that Theodore is free from his basement captivity? Will Sasha's pity for Theodore manifest in an ungodly ending?  The strength of this slasher film is Dee Wallace, who is an amazing actress.  Like many slasher films, we find ourselves rooting for the killer rabbit guy.  For a vicious slasher film that will remind you of the horror that befell college girls back in the 1970s, see "Ted Bunny."

The Flame Barrier, Babe in the Jungle with Brutes, Savages, and a Monster

The babe we speak of is Miss New Jersey 1949...Kathleen Crowley. She's a doll.  In this one she will sweat a lot, be in peril from snakes, lizards, more snakes, and insects. She sweats well, and as you will see...she will also kiss well. We have a neat scifi/monster film from the late 50s that looks ahead to space exploration before we even got up there. Our feature today, set in the Yucatan jungle, and also featuring a chimpanzee, is 1958's "The Flame Barrier," directed by Paul Landres.

A space satellite is rocketed up into orbit. When it gets 200 miles up it collides with the flame barrier and blows up...or does it? Dr. Howard Dahlmann (Dan Gachman) believes it fell back to Earth and landed in the Mexican jungle. He sets off to find it and goes missing. Now his sultry wife, Carol (Crowley), comes to Mexico and hires Dave (Arthur Franz) and his drunk brother Matt (Robert Brown) to guide her into the dangerous jungle to find Howard. They both tell her that he could not have survived in that jungle, but Carol is insistent. Does she love her hubby? She doesn't know, which to me sounds like "NO!" The hunks bring her in and enlist local Indians. They carry the heavy stuff and get scared at weird phenomena that occurs. Carol is steadfast and Matt and Dave continue the trek with her.

Dave saves Carol form poisonous snakes and yells at her a lot.  She yells back.  The two sweat a lot and finally lock lips, swap spit, and grind themselves against the other. Passion ensues and Matt becomes the third wheel. There is a mission and Carol and the boys plough deeper into the jungle and find skeletons and Indians who have been attacked by some acid monster.  The poor souls burn alive. Then they find a chimp...in Mexico!  See, there was a chimp aboard the satellite which tells them the craft did land back on Earth and was not destroyed in space.  Then they find...well, its ungodly. It is also a threat to the very existence of this planet.  No...not aerosol products but something slimy and pulsating.

Will Dave and Carol forget that she is married and give each other passion like neither one of them has ever experienced?  What of Howard, and is he dead?  What is this thing secreted in the jungle that poses such a threat to all mankind?  Kathleen Crowley turns in a steamy performance and has some gratuitous scenes...at least for 1958.  She came in sixth in the Miss America Pageant when the babes in that contest were indeed babes.  Begs the question, who were, and where are the top five dames in that pageant?  See "The Flame Barrier" and enjoy a sweaty dame in mortal peril film.   

Blood Rush, Bikini Babes Fall Prey to Masked Killer

Okay, ignore it! Yep, those snobs saw fit to give this film a rating of 1.6 out of 10. IMDB is just a modern day Leonard Maltin. In what is a modern retelling of Guy De Maupassant's 1883 masterpiece "Lilies in the Rain," Jamie Grefe gives us a horror film that captures the ethos of Idaho...potatoes and bikini babes. Yep, we have one with four sultry bikini babe sorority sisters who always yell "I LOVE YOU!" and use the word "like" in like every sentence...just as de Maupassant did in the 19th century. Alas, Mr. Grefe left out the potatoes. Our film today is the 2025 slasher film "Blood Rush."

Okay, here's a hint of what is included in this film. The four actresses who star and jiggle in it are Annabel Storm, Tessa Raine, India Darling, and Maggie Peril! No, not performers at the Hangar Club but serious actresses who look marvelous in bikinis. The types of babes who could make the IMDB snobs and the Leonard Maltins' of the world uncomfortable. Alas, Guy de Maupassant was very comfortable with babes like these, hence his early demise at 43 years old. Okay, the babes lounge in and out of the pool and look fabulous. One wonders if their dialogue was ad libbed, or is it a slightly embellished version of de Maupassant's playscript. The blonde with teased hair has an internship at the police department and is fascinated by serial killers.  She finds out a serial killer is loose in Idaho and on cue all four babes confess to the same dream. In it, all are killed violently by the fiend (Grefe).

All the girls had the same nightmare and try to convince themselves this is no big deal. They keep yelling "I LOVE YOU!" and "LIKE!"  This film is gritty reality at its best. The sorority girls embody the duality of human nature that de Maupassant created in his plays.  They also embody great big...smiles, and jiggle and wriggle well.  When Bryan enters the sorority house, they will also scream, act helpless and vulnerable, and juggle some more. Their seeming fate mirrors de Maupassant's vision of the fate of us all as our human nature turns dark...though these babes add a certain jiggle to that duality. More pool scenes.  More wriggle and jiggle scenes, and some very ominous kills await the discerning movie goer.

If Guy de Maupassant had stayed away from loose, scantily clad women, would he have lived longer?  Is Bryan, our serial killer, in reality the dark side of the bubbly and flirtatious ditzes in bikinis?  If four sultry babes in bikinis were in the plot of "The English Patient," would more people have seen that film?  Very loyal to the 19th century play, "Blood Rush" is a spectacular effort by Mr. Grefe and his four nubile and jiggling actresses.  

Battle Beyond Mars, The Red Planet Under Attack

I don't know if the Polonia Brothers used AI, or what, but they have some gratuitous exotic dancing scenes with some very nice talent.  Sure, the plot line of our movie today is not advanced by this elongated scene, but the gals are nice to see...and they seem so happy.  The thrusting.  The gyrations.  The smiles.  Okay, enough on the dancers, I must say the other f/x are first class, as well.  Mars looks like Mars.  The alien landscape looks legit...and the space-spider infestation, looks like a real space-spider infestation, or what we would imagine a space-spider infestation would look like. Our feature today is "Battle Beyond Mars," directed by Mark Polonia.

As our film begins, Commander Gordon (Tim Hatch) and men are battling a space-spider infestation at a nearby base. The critters got into and nested inside a base that helps ward off alien invasions of Earth.  It is the year 2227 and Mars has been set up with bases to repel any alien invasion headed to earth.  The spiders are all killed and Gordon heads back to the main Martian base where Professor Benson (Jeff Kirkendall) is ticked at him for destroying alien lifeforms. Vann (Polonia) is happy to see Gordon back as word comes that an alien planetoid, that is really an attack mothership, is headed toward Mars. When the armed orb fires upon Mars and the bases, Gordon and Vann jump into a shuttle and head to the orb to take the fight to the aliens.

Did I mention the dancers?  Okay, the scene is gratuitous and too long, but for some reason, we don't mind. Back to the plot.  Benson joins the warriors and the trio land on the orb.  A mini-orb comes out to meet them and a firefight breaks out. Now the trio find an entrance into the orb and there they figure on meeting the aliens. The aliens!  The exact aliens Whitley Strieber warned us about in his book Communion.  Grouchy things that desire to kill all humans and take over our planet.  Okay, Streiber's aliens were quite a bit more boring, but these are bloodthirsty and ugly. what follows will be a battle in which the fate of humanity will be decided. 

Will the exotic dancers ever have contact with the aliens, and if they do, will the aliens see fit to do experiments on reproduction?  Do Gordon, Vann, and Benson have what it takes to repel an invasion from another world? Would Gordon, who is also grouchy, be better humored if he brought along the exotic dancers instead of Vann and Benson?  This is a fun one and fans of Polonia Brother films, like me, will love it.  For some neat Martian f/x and babe dancers, see "Battle Beyond Mars."

Anthropophagus II, Cannibalism and Sultry Coeds

10 years ago I reviewed "Anthropophagus" on this blog. The Italian film, shot in Greece, may have been one of the most disgusting movies ever made, rivaling "A Serbian Film." But wait!, today we look at the 2022 sequel to that 1980 film.  A film, 42 years in the making.  And yes...the fiend will take a new born baby from its mother and eat it. I must say, our film today was difficult to watch as so many sultry college girls have so many awful and disgusting things done to them. You will turn your head from the screen every few minutes. My feature today is "Anthropophagus II," directed by Dario Germani.

Nora (Monica Carpanese), a pretty professor, leads her eight sultry students into the Italian mountains. They are heading to a nuclear bunker, long decommissioned, so the beauties can live in it for the weekend. Why? You know colleges...probably a project about Global Warming...Yawn! The bickering babes are not likable, except for the nerdy Angela (Giuditta Niccoli), who underneath her big glasses, is sultry. Isabel is pure b***h, and yes, she will be the first to get taken apart by the fiend (Alberto Buccolini), who lives in the cavernous bunker.  As the door to the bunker is locked behind them, sealing them in for the weekend, the gals begin stripping to their undies and bickering. The fiend has just finished eating a pregnant woman and her baby, prematurely induced, and her boyfriend. Now he smells college girls.

One by one the gals are abducted by the creep.  When he has them he takes them apart while still alive and eats them piece by piece.  These are hard scenes to watch.  Isabel, the blonde may have deserved her fate...actually, all of them...well, never mind. They are sultry, but all cranky. The fiend is crankier and he has machetes, spikes, sickles, pick-axes, hunting tools, etc. A veritable slaughter ensues and then Giulia (Jessica Pizzi), the brunette with the biggest b**bs asserts herself as the alpha-babe. Her goal is to survive and to do so, she will have to become as bad a monster as the fiend that is eating them. Unfortunately for the babes, they do not realize Giulia is just as dangerous as the monster guy.

Will Giulia eat anyone...I mean literally?  Will any of the girls figure out what is going on and be able to save themselves?  Will our favorite nerd, Angela, the only one of the babes who is likable, turn that charm into a Rambo-like desire to murder, and survive?  This is the goriest film I've seen lately, and if you have not seen the 1980 "Anthropophagus," do yourself a favor and don't watch that one and this one in the same night. It will play havoc with your senses. See "Anthropophagus II" and be able to say you endured the goriest film of the 21st century.

Confessions of a Psycho Cat, The Most Dangerous Game at an Orgy

1932's "The Most Dangerous Game," starring Fay Wray, was a brilliant thriller about a big game hunter hunting castaways on his private island. This film has been remade a trillion times and many times the remakes have some interesting variations.  None as interesting as setting the film at an orgy in which naked babes frolic and demand deviant sex.  Hey...why not?  Today we look at 1968's "Confessions of a Psycho Cat," directed by Herbert S. Altman and Robert Worms.

We meet the 'Psycho Cat' immediately. A wealthy socialite with too much time on her hands,  Virginia (Eileen Lord) lives in a posh Manhattan apartment and loves to hunt big game. She is definitely a psycho as enough of her backstory is hit upon in this film for you to see this. Bored with animals, she decides to hunt humans...of course.  She selects three men, all have killed or been responsible for someone's death. The deal is...the schmuck is given a check for $100K dated tomorrow.  If they stay alive until tomorrow...they can cash the check.  All three accept...and now Virginia, armed with a crossbow, traipses through Manhattan, hunting these idiots.

Oh yeah, a steamy orgy is occurring and is the backdrop of the entire story.  Buddy (Frank Geraci) is throwing the orgy and he is also a supplier of drugs to his guests.  He figures, he'll hide out at the orgy. Another schmuck is Jake LaMotta (yes, that Jake LaMotta)...he's a wrestler who accidentally killed an opponent in the ring. The final schmuck is Charles (Dick Lord), an actor who once killed his girlfriend's jealous husband.  The three seem hardly equipped for survival and we sense they should never have agreed to Virginia's terms.  More orgy...more naked babes...more deviant sex.  Two thirds of this film is at the orgy, and the talent is first-class cheese.  Virginia is a maniac with issues...and she hunts the trio. She is also smart and knows how to lure them out into the open.  It appears Buddy has what it takes to win...but when the drugs run out at his orgy...well, he makes a stupid mistake.

Will any of the three schmucks survive Virginia's wrath? Will any of the naked and nubile meet Virginia and her crossbow at the aforementioned orgy?  Is the orgy and the crossbow as plot devices a pertinent metaphor for America's increasingly perilous geo-political woes especially as it stands in Europe? Naked babes...an orgy...crossbow carnage...and a maniacal babe who hates men...see "Confessions of a Psycho Cat" today. 

The Devil Commands, Boris Karloff as a Mad Scientist

Who better to play a mad scientist than Boris Karloff? You gotta love those old mad scientists in film. They did not have government grants.  They didn't waste tax payer money. They were brainiacs and worried about things like curing death or making human beings super-human. Today we have mad scientists who you pay for. They work in the CDC, NIH, in public health fields, and pharmaceutical companies. They don't try to cure death, they cause it...and get paid a lot to do just that. Our feature today is 1941's "The Devil Commands," directed by Edward Dmytryk.

He's done it! Dr. Julian Blair (Karloff) invites five scientists to see his new discovery. Blair has found a way to read someone's brain...their exact thoughts, and have it all spelled out on a graph. Today mad scientists at pharmaceutical companies invent fraudulent medications for Alzheimer's. I ask you, just who is the mad scientist? Okay, Blair is ecstatic and his beloved wife Helen (Shirley Warde) drives him home from the university. Car crash...she dies. Blair is distraught and reclusive, and when he puts his machine back on, his wife's brain starts messaging him. Now he's obsessed. He wants to communicate with the dead...and he has a lead. Enter medium Mrs. Blanche Winters (Anne Revere). Blair proves her a fraud, kind of.  He also proves that she is indeed a medium and her brain can communicate with the dead. Yep, he hooks her up to the thing and guess what...it works.

Leaving a lot out, Anne Blair (Amanda Duff), is worried about her dad. She tries to see him, but he spends all day and night at the lab doing experiments with Mrs. Winters. Winters and him leave town and the university, and get a big house on the Maine coast. There, the townspeople get upset when bodies are robbed from their graves. They assume, correctly, Blair is stealing the corpses but don't know why. In his lab, he has dead people connected to his machine and the medium Mrs. Walters is also connected. Now Anne races to the mansion to find her dad and save him from madness. 

Just what does Blair hope to conjure up in his latest experiments?  What is Mrs. Winters' deal, and how did she get from fraudster to Blair's assistant? Will the townsfolk storm Blair's mansion with torches and pitchforks? This is a terrific mad scientist film with an eerie ending and an important message to the scientific community of today which is guided by madness and cruelty. See "The Devil Commands," and enjoy a little known Karloff film.