Isle of the Damned (DVD) – An independent spoof on the eye-talian cannibal movies or ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ to be exact from the talented film group Dire Wit Films who I just love their work as this 2008 effort is worthy to seek out people! Private Investigator Jack Steele is a man with principle as he tries to fight through the crew he is sailing with looking for the Marco Polo treasure and also trying to bang his young son Billy. This treasure is believed to be on the “Island of Cannibals” where no one goes. Once there Jack Steele encounters baby eating, horny dick munching savages where he must save potential victims of the cannibals there. Problem is with all that being said Steele meets a curious stranger in Alexis Kincaid who has lived on the island for years and knows the cannibals very well. In all this chaos of cannibals Kincaid refuses to leave with Jack and his son when they leave the island in this wild and super gross Indie spoof that proves Dire Wit Films shouldn’t be forgotten but celebrated in the independent community as I give this project 3 ½ out of 4 stars.

Destroyer (DVD) – This quickly out of print gem gets lost in the shuffle of Prison, Shocker, and The Horror Show from the late 80s and really didn’t have much of a presence on late night cable. This is what I wrote in 2015 about it: With this unknown 1988 flick (at least unknown to me anyway) I seen the box art late last year and knew I needed to see this horror flick. It is an 80s wet dream of a horror movie: Lyle Alzado as the killer or undead killer, Deborah Foreman as the cute stunt girl, Anthony Perkins as the director of the woman-in-prison flick, and Clayton Rohner who was the guy in “April Fool’s Day” that seem to be banging his girlfriend the whole film. Ivan Moser (Lyle Alzado) is on death row for murdering two dozen people and is going to be electrocuted. When it happens, power goes out, riot begins, and Moser’s body is never recovered. 18 months later a film production of a women’s prison movie is ongoing in the former prison that held Moser and people are starting to show up dead. All Moser wants is to be alone with Malone (Foreman’s character). Even though most deaths happen off screen there is one hell of a death scene with Moser killing someone with a jackhammer that is somewhat featured on the cover of the movie! When I talked about it on our Bloodbaths and Boomsticks podcast I gave it 3 stars but I got to amp it up a little and give it 3 ½ stars just because it has everything you look for in an 80s slasher flick. I do not remember anything about this flick even with “Shocker”, “The Horror Show”, and even “Prison” getting a lot of press at the time of this film. But glad I found it to enjoy its Lyle Alzado greatness! Now the reason I bring this feature up is the out of print DVD I found is from (Cheezy Films) which before Shout Factory acquired the rights and these are still floating out there by the way, but why did that supposedly HD transfer on Blu-ray from Shout Factory go out of print so quickly? And why hasn’t this title found a place to land other the Tubi streaming service? Most horror people who have seen it, love it so why hasn’t Terror Vision, VS, or Synapse got their paws on it…? Because the DVD I found was barely an upgrade.

Mutants (Blu-ray) – A film with a cool title and Michael Ironside above the title sounds fucking terrific but Mr. Ironside is only in it for a hot minute to clean up shit at the end. So saying that let’s get into this as a scientist experimenting with food additives somehow turn people or test subjects into mutants! Big food business is cool with the experiments as long as it gets the results besides having infected sugar leech into the drinking water. Government gets wind of it and decides to send Michael Ironside and his team in to wipe the area clean of the test subjects, mad scientist, and the infected sugar. I should have went with my Spidey-sense on this one when I seen the cover as I knew it was too good to be true as usual or ‘crap with a name’ as I give it 1 star.

51 (DVD)  – This is a 2011 project that was part After Dark Original and part SyFy Channel presents which somehow I missed when first released. This of course deals with the government or more specific Air Force opening the doors of Area 51 to give reporters a tour to see there is nothing there mysterious or what not? Gain the trust of the public again. Things are going fine or just okay as reporters confront said Air Force colonel about things they are not seeing until “patient zero” who by the way is able to morph into anyone it touches decides to escape after 25 years of sitting still. But this alien is not alone as it unlocks the other cells of captured aliens to cause chaos in the top secret military location. Now it’s time for survival for military personal along with reporters as they must make their way above ground before they are slaughtered. This project has a couple of the usual SyFy Channel casting choices, some cool creatures/aliens that make for a fun cheapie monster film wroth rediscovering again as I give it 2 ½ stars.

Murder Rock (DVD) – So a Fulci film I have never seen and barely heard about is a hilarious 80s treat. The movie might be known to some as ‘Murder Rock Dancing Death’ and even some other fans would know it as ‘Slashdance’ but whatever you know this film by, get ready for a horror film about a cut throat dance class. At the “Arts of the Living Center” dancers just don’t go there to train but to be the best of the best. But it’s a little different in 1983 as a whole class of dancers have accidentally found out they are vying for three positions in a high profile show and none of them will stop at nothing to get an edge. While the dancers are occupied with what they could be… a lunatic has taken upon themselves to use a hairpin to pierce the heart of their naked victims to murder them. As the dancers die and the top detective gets frustrated and creepier with the pace of the film one thing that Fulci made sure was the viewer has many suspects to pick from in this murder mystery. Once you wade through all the dancing, early 80s music, and everyone blaming each other to be the killer, Fulci gives one of his more interesting endings to a film as I give this an entertaining 3 stars.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror (Blu-ray) – Thought it was time revisit this so-called “Best Worst Movie of all time.” Did yinz all forget about ‘Troll 2’? Or am I not supposed to bring that up? More on that later… Anyhow this special edition has two commentaries, deleted scenes, and a couple featurettes. If you haven’t caught on I am not a big fan either way but anyway this love story is about Rod and Nathalie who hit off quickly. After some choppy acting between the two, Rod explaining he has a Hybrid Mustang (dude, it didn’t exist), Nathalie talking it over with mum, 47 minutes in the two bump uglies at a random hotel and the fake birds begin to attack. The lovers try to plan their escape with a couple others at the hotel where they literally drive around a beat up Ford Aerostar shooting fake birds out of the windows! The big reveal is the bird flu has caused the chaos in the movie not on the internet. I give this project 1 ½ stars so let’s get back to this being “Best Worst Movie of all time”. Because shit if you wanna go old school what happened to ‘Attack of the Killer Tomatoes’ or was this just the majority of people online decided before there was the Tik Tok or a ‘Sharknado’ they wanted to declare this to be cool? And if I am even close on that idea sorry folks I got one word for you ‘SPOOKIES!’ Also there is at least a dozen titles I could name that deserve the “Best Worst Movie of all time” title. I believe this might have been the first independent film those internet kids watched if you want me to take a guess but whatever as I still say this was meh. It was meh when released it is still meh now.

Meat Market (DVD) – Talk about revisiting an old friend as I haven’t watched this since shortly after it was released as this title along with the sequel are long out of print especially since its quick Blu-ray release that no one knew about has me questioning why hasn’t this gotten the special treatment by a bigger company? In 2000 this independent Canadian zombie film made an impact in the Indy scene as it open the flood gates for everyone again to make a zombie film. This SOV zombie flick with lots of cheap gore effects is about two former security officers who are fighting the undead as hordes of zombies begin to feast on cities. The two believe their best chance of survival is trying to escape the city as along the way they team up with a trio of vamps, a Mexican wrestler, and all just hoping they can even find a survivor or two. They all must become scavengers in order to survive this bloody chaotic ordeal. The zombie film has its flaws and rough edges as they went for it all with locations, gore everything! Is it J.R. Bookwalter’s ‘The Dead Next Door’ or Todd Sheets’ ‘Zombie Bloodbath’ not really but just like those two independent films Brian Clement dreamt big and I believe sparked interest again in the early 2000s showing independent filmmakers a zombie film can be made with a little heart and passion behind it. If you are able to find one of these long out of print DVDs there is a commentary with Brian Clement which could be fun for the Indy zombie fanatic as I give this 3 out of 4 stars. Oh by the way kids pay attention as this was the year 2000 and this zombie film isn’t cause by contamination but Nano tech…! A very interesting premise for that time…?

Meat Market 2 (DVD) – The sequel picks up a year later as Brian Clement has learned from his first experience to make this film project a leaner, meaner, and much smoother viewing experience that the first film. There are only three survivors from the first story but they talk of meeting others in their travels. With the cities dead and food scarce it has become apparent the zombies are evolving because of the Nano technology that caused this extinction. The survivors get caught and placed in a military stronghold that is more of a cult organization that is hiding things from their members such as experiments and what they actually feed people. If you are considered desirable you are allowed to be a part of the cult if not you are mistreated and experimented on for hope of the new world order. Brian Clement and friends go for broke with even more gore, more disgusting weirdness, a lot of dick chomping, and if you really wanna get into the subtext or bored a little kink (but that is for a different conversation) as I give this project 3 ½ out of 4 stars. Again if able to find this out of print gem it does sport two commentaries on the DVD too.

The Slumber Party Massacre Collection (DVD) – After all three films were originally released to DVD for the first time and it was just great to have them even though they looked like VHS rips a decade or so passed and they released this upgraded transfer of the three films to this 2-disc set. What made this set so special is it had been 30 years or so since the release of the original and this sported an hour long documentary that covered all three films and their impact on the horror genre. Now I don’t if this documentary has popped up on any other releases since then but it does make this set worthy tracking down for the price and for that I give it 4 stars or 4 drills.

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