"Fear no Evil"(1980)d/Frank LaLoggia

Tonight we look at an indie horror flick made in Rochester, NY by then 26 year old writer/director Frank LaLoggia, who also financed and found distribution for the film on his own, shooting in and around the ruins of Boldt Castle on the St. Lawrence River with a cast comprised mostly of unknowns and local amateurs.Originally titled Lucifer, this was his first full-length effort, after completing three short films while in his teens, and it is an ambitious one, to say the least.The scenic locations allow for some atmospheric cinematography, with at least one dolly that'd do Orson Wells proud.The soundtrack contains essential punk and new wave tracks by The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, The Boomtown Rats, Talking Heads, Richard Hell, and Patti Smith, while the original score, also written in part by LaLoggia, wouldn't sound out of place in an ABC Afterschool Special.The script is peppered with some appropriately long-winded pietistic dialogue(some more professionally trained actors might have handled it better) , I'm just thinking the movie's vision of the dark lord and master falls a little short of what most people would imagine an all-powerful evil entity would look like.A sissified, gangly Satan with mouse shoulders?C'monnn.

Mrs. Williams(Alice Sachs) enjoying the fringe benefits of being Satan's mom.
After a pre-credit battle between Father Damon(who's really archangel Rafael in human form)and Lucifer, where Ol' Scratch gets mounted to a tree by a holy staff, we see the reincarnation of the horned one in the Williams' baby boy, Andrew.When his parents try to baptise him, he makes everyone in the church spout blood.Fast forward eighteen years.Andrew(Stefan Arngrim) is now an effeminate high school senior, a straight A student, and, of course, Lucifer himself.His mother makes him a birthday cake that accidentally hits the floor, spurring on some mutual domestic abuse between his parents that climaxes with his mother braining herself with the iron, leaving her a mute, chainsmoking, invalid covered in cobwebs.At school(which looks like a factory from the outside) he takes classes with a gaggle of twenty-something jocks who listen to punk on the "two hundred dollar sound system" in the convertible of apex meathead, Tony(Daniel Eden), a poor man's caricature of John Travolta, who smokes pot in the parking lot, slaps his satin jacket-wearing girlfriend a lot, and torments Andrew.At one point he decides to make out with him while they're both naked in the showers, not standard bully protocol by anybody's standards(Hey! Look at that faggot!I'm gonna kiss him while we're both naked and wet!).With Tony preoccupied with all the explaining he's gotta do to his buddies, Andrew does things like appear in Julie's(Kathleen Rowe McAllen) dreams and put scratches on her back.The next day in gym class(where severely retarded kids take gym with the regular students),Julie's beau is murdered against the bleachers with a Devil-driven dodgeball(!!) when Andrew gets pissed off over doing pushups.Not a typo.

" 'My Son's the Devil' ain't on this jukebox?!! I gotta hear that song, dammit!!"
Elsewhere, an elderly lady named Margaret(Elizabeth Hoffman), who happens to be the archangel Mikhail, who's spent most of her time trying to get the reluctant local clergyman to take her back, searches for Gabriel in human form.Meanwhile, Andrew seems to be coming to grips with his true identity, drinking chalicefuls of dog blood and raising small armies of zombies from their unmarked graves just outside the castle, and getting acceptance letters from Yale and Harvard.If that's all it takes to get into an Ivy League school these days...The priest with the laissez-faire approach to defeating evil is putting on his annual passion play in view of the castle ruins, leading Andy(who's now draped himself in a sheer black Satanic moo moo) to cause the actor portraying JC on the crucifix to experience real stigmata, and several of those in attendance to suddenly bleed from the scalp and/or be struck by lightning.While most of the local populace runs for the hills, screaming and doused in red stuff, Tony and his battered squeeze decide to take a group of their friends by boat to Boldt Castle to party, where they're set upon by zombies and an unappreciative Tony grows a decent set of golden bozos(!!!) and stabs himself to death.Margaret and Julie arrive on the island with the holy staff Damon used to skewer Lucifer in the opening, and chase Andrew all over the castle, until they end up in the exact same place that the dark lord bought it some ninety minutes earlier.Instead of shafting him outright, Margaret forces Andrew to recite the Lord's Prayer which buys her a snapped neck.The spirits of Raphael and Mikhail unite to give Gabriel the power necessary to shower Lucifer with some beautiful animated beams until a flash of lightning explodes Andrew and his castle in a flurry of colors.Somehow,I think this devil probably would have wanted it this way...

Tony(Daniel Eden) grows a pair of B cup bobblers.Oh, that Satan!
After this feature, LaLoggia helmed Lady in White(1988) and Mother(1996).Arngrim went on to appear in the cult hit, Class of 1984, and in just about every television series you could possibly imagine, from TJ Hooker and Millenium to Battlestar Galactica and V, as well as a turn as one of Cap'n Blake's men in the craptastic Fog remake.Hoffman also did an assload of tv, and appeared in the direct-to-video Silent Night, Deadly Night III:You Better Watch Out!.Rowe McAllen found work in soap operas like As The World Turns and All My Children.Overall, this one's got nearly as much originality as it does fog machines, and makes for a decent viewing or two.I'm a little disappointed LaLoggia didn't make more movies over the years, he seems to have had a pretty unique vision.On the scale it merits two biggies.Worth a look.

This Lucifer(Stefan Arngrim)just wants to take you fabric shopping.He's more like Bruce-ifer.

"Disco Godfather"(1979)d/J. Robert Wagoner

Alright you no business, born insecure, junkyard rat soup eatin' muthafuckas, it's been a while since we've taken five on the black hand side of cult films, and really, who better to examine than Rudy Ray Moore, the late King of Party Records?If you've never seen one of his movies, you're in for a Rudy awakening.Tonight we'll examine what I consider to be his funniest(unintentionally in some scenes, as always), most outrageous vehicles in his ghetto oeuvre of low budget action comedies.In his flicks, you can always count on Moore to sport some atrociously dated threads, tacky enough to make a 70's pimp blush, horribly amateurish delivery of outrageous dialogue, visibly obvious stunt doubles, and enough hammy lens-mugging to send the portly William Shatner lumbering for his attorney.In other words, a helluva good time to be had by all!
Tonight's review is a cautionary tale concerning the dangers of smoking PCP-dipped sherms, which according to director Wagoner, will cause users to somehow experience the same hallucinations(I've done angel dust a couple of times in my formative years, and not once was I shot multiple times by black dudes in basketball uniforms or machete-slashed by an interpretive dancer in witch makeup...maybe it's a black thing,huh).Added to the cast of Moore usuals this time around is a hasty cameo by Carol Speed of "Abby" fame, who flubs most of her lines like a trooper here.Let's get to it, fellas.Put yo' weight on it!

Tucker(Rudy Ray Moore) puts his WEEEEIIIIGHT on it.
After Tucker Williams(Rudy Ray Moore) retires from the police force, he takes up residence at the Blueberry Hill discotheque as the "Disco Godfather"(logical next career move), where he mixes n' matches old rejected Star Trek costumes with gaudy jewelry and silver platform loafers and screams for local boogiers to put their weight on it, until his nephew Bucky gets caught up with a devastating new drug on the streets...angel dust.The young man stumbles into the disco,disrupting those getting down and hallucinating that he's playing basketball until his uncle gets wind of it and dramatically asks him,"BUCKY!What has you HAD!"The next morning, Tucker visits the local PCP unit, where a doctor(Jerry Jones) shows him the permanent damage smoking wack-dipped sherms has on a brother's brain, man.One woman served her four month old baby to her family on a silver platter, claiming her ham was crying and messing up her party(!).They visit Bucky in the hospital, while he's imagining a witchy woman lopping off his forearm with a machete, and the mother(Lady Reed) of one dusted girl is told they'll be introducing electroshock therapy as treatment."Oh no! Ain't nobody shockin' mah baby!"Tucker then pays the police a visit and tells the suckup detectives of his plans to rid the streets of the killer drug.Tucker's assistant, Noel(Carol Speed), then tells a reporter, "As you can see, to be a member of the disco squad of the Godfather's, you have to get funky and get down.(!)"Tucker then shows up and turns the interview to the subject of angel dust, which leaves her vowing to post the scoop on the front page.Imagine that, a nightclub owner that's anti-PCP.He's then jumped in his office by henchmen of Stinger Ray(James H. Hawthorne), the despicable afro-headed son of a bitch that's behind the wack attack.Cue the embarrassingly dated roller disco sequence at the club.

"Names! NAMES! I want names, you stupid son of a bitch!"
At a public "Attack the Wack" rally organized by Angels against Dust, Noel tells the crowd, "we wanna wack the attack!".Eh, close enough, honey.Undercover detectives foil an attempt on Tucker's life at the disco by Stinger's thugs, and afterwards the Godfather crashes a player's ball at Meat's pad, dumping an lp cover worth of nose candy on the floor to emphasize his seriousness.Then someone interrupts Tucker's lovemaking session with a dead, gutted cat nailed to his front door.After a raid turns up zero shermans, a pow wow with Lt. Hayes(Frank Finn) reveals a leak on the force.Bucky's homeboy, a street level sherm dealer, spills to Tucker that Stinger paid him five bills to turn the aspiring young disco dancer/basketball star on to angel dust.Detective Killroy(!) turns out to be the leak, and he dices himself up with a butcher knife in the bathtub to the horror of his white girlfriend.Not satisfied to wait for the arrest warrant, Tucker infiltrates the PCP factory his doggone self(in a green and yellow jogging suit,stocking cap, and canvas hi-top Converse sneakers, naturally), and with the help of a passing martial arts expert/jogger(!!)(Howard Jackson), he dispatches the sons of bitches guarding the operation.While Bucky and the cops are rushing to the rescue and Stinger Ray is destroying evidence, Tucker finds himself hogtied with a gas mask full o' wack on his grill.Whacked out on dust, he breaks lose, hallucinating the same damned things everyone else who's messed with the drug has.He stumbles upon Stinger making a hasty retreat, and in the throes of a mind-blowing trip(dig the crazy ambitious black light-ish animation here, kids!), he chokes the criminal out as the cops make the scene.The lawmen try to subdue the Godfather, who's having trouble discerning reality from his hallucinations, as he screams us right into the end credits.

Boy, coke parties are a lot different in the ghetto...
Moore would enjoy a career rebirth in the nineties, doing voice work for video games, cameos in rap videos, and successful convention appearances right until his death at age 81 in 2008.He would follow Godfather with a small cameo in Jamaa Fanaka's Penitentiary II in 1982.The doe-eyed Speed who made a name for herself in blaxploitation classics like Black Samson(1974),The Mack(1973), and the aforementioned Girdler ethno-exorcist clone, Abby(1974), would sadly drop off the radar completely after this role.Also notable is an uncredited cameo by Keith David, of The Thing(1982) and They Live(1988),as a disco patron.Though his movies are laughably inept from a technical standpoint, you can't help but think that Moore had a lot of love for his people and community, as is evident here, and that's something all of us should be cool with.Godfather puts its weight on the rating scale, and scores itself a solid two wops.The disc is available through Xenon Video, so dig it, man!

"Angel duss factory?Well let's kick ass then!" "I can dig it!"

"Kung Fu Zombie"(1981)d/Hwa I Hung

Kung fu horror-comedies were pretty popular at the box office back in the glorious eighties, with titles like Mr. Vampire and Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind making lucrative bank in their theatrical runs.Eternal Films took their own shot at it with Hwa I Hung's Wu long tian shi zhao ji gui(say that five times fast with a mouth fulla beans, I dare ya), known internationally as Kung Fu Zombie, a briskly-paced supernatural mix of Asian blood-spitting magic, vengeful ghosts, supercharged Buddhist vampires, plenty of the martial stuff in-between, and a goodly portion of "Holy FUCK!" throughout.Normally, I'm not real big on mixing my genres.When I want horror, I watch horror.If I'm feeling like martial arts, then I throw one in.The one obvious exception to that rule would be this movie.Played mostly for laughs of a moronic nature and anchored firmly with a micro-budget, Zombie ended up being something of a hit in Hong Kong, earning HK$ 2,237,587, due to the highly enjoyable straightjacket insanity transpiring within.

Pang(Billy Chong) just wants his due.Got that? His...due.
Lu Dai(Jeng Kei Ying) is a petty criminal with a debt of vengeance to repay to a wise-assed young martial expert named Pang(Billy Chong), who meddled in his affairs and got him locked up for it.Aiding Dai in his quarrel are a merry band of blundering jagoffs that includes a Taoist priest(Chan Lau) who dabbles in the black arts.Their scheme is nothing if not fucking ridiculous: Lure Pang to the cemetery for a duel, then use magic to reanimate some cadavers to push him into an open grave with a coffin lined with daggers in it.Of course, it fails miserably, with Dai ending up poked full of holes and dead in the box...and struck by lightning of the hand-scratched film variety.His ghost, hysterical at the sight of his own mutilated corpse, demands that the fumbling priest find him a new body forthwith.During the body-shopping process, Dai uses his ectoplasmic invisibility to frame the priest in a busy restaurant, using ghost hands to feel up a prostitute, who turns and slaps six shades of spinning shit outta the innocent priest, who tumbles into an incoming Chinese heiffer's fat booze-umms, which he bounces off of repeatedly for optimum comic effect before she falls on top of him the way fat people often do in kung fu comedies.The priest's body-switching ceremonies don't go so well either, when he tries to insert Dai's spirit into a body at the morgue, it turns out the guy just happened to be a martial expert(Kwan Yung Moon) sleeping in a coffin for the fuck of it, until his big vengeance duel with the same young hothead Dai is after.Pang's father(Chiang Tao)trains him to endure fights that last two hours or more to be ready for Lung, who Pang cockily sends back to the morgue with precious little fanfare.The priest tries to insert Dai into the fighter's body a second time, but only succeeds in turning the murderous bastard into a full-fledged vampire!

Lu Dai(Jeng Kei Ying), put your old body away.It stinks.
To further complicate matters, Pang's father eats heart-seizing death while getting loaded and playing with the reward money for Lung's body, providing Dai with his final opportunity for a new body(you only get three chances,apparently)and revenge against Pang.The priest only manages to make half-good on his promise, causing Dai, now in Pang's dad's body, to hunt all his brothers-in-crime, who safeguard against him in a number of ways: one gets arrested(ghosts can't cross the law), one becomes a piss-poor excuse for a monk(he's kicked out after frying up a puppy!), and the priest, well, he just wears a leaf hat(!), that makes him invisible to Dai, and ridiculous to everybody else.Meanwhile Lung is rewriting vampire folklore, attacking people during the day, and kicking the heads off of peasants and leaning over the geysering neck stumps like a kid at a high school water fountain, to hungrily gulp down the red stuff(!!).Of course, this all leads up to the final confrontation between Pang and Lung, with the remaining members of Dai's gang trying to pull his spirit out of Pang's father's body in the process.During their supernatual rowdydow, Lung's fists and foot suddenly catch fire as his head starts to smoulder(!!!), with the vampire using them to strike at Pang.Somewhere out of left field, a monk appears and drapes Buddhist prayer beads around Pang's neck, slapping protective holy yellow post-its all over his torso, before pushing him back out into the battle zone.Huh?!!!The vampire's flaming extremities burn away most of Pang's protection, but in the nick of time, the young hero remembers to wrap the prayer beads around the vampire's neck, jump effortlessly into the branch of a tree some twenty-five feet up, strangling the blood drinker while breaking off a piece of branch stump and ramming it repeatedly into the top of the vampire's head, killing him.Whaaaa??!!??Insert four exclamation points here.

"I'm having dramatic slo-mo chest pains!Where's my Chinese Life Alert?"
Despite some sped up action and chase scenes(for Benny Hill-style comedy hijinks,methinks),Billy Chong is high-kickingly amazing as always, especially when squared off with Kwan Yung Moon, an equally impressive fighter.I should also mention at this point that Cheng Hong Yip played the character of "Hamster"(that's right).You should be able to snag a copy of this one for next to nothing at your local video clearance outlet or FYE, if you can't locate one on Amazon.A restored, remastered special edition is just crying to be released some day soon.It deserves no less.On the scale, the highest possible rating for nearly immeasurable laughs and martial arts entertainment.The right way to mix kung fu, horror, and comedy.

Let's see Van Helsing jump effortlessly 25 feet up a tree, strangling a vampire with buddhist prayer beads, before ramming a tree branch into the top of his head repeatedly.