Ski School

Hoping to impress some prospective buyers, the manager of a ski resort decides to crack down on some of the resort's less desirable elements. At the top of the list, Dave Marshak and the party animals of ski school's Section 8. As a movie, Ski School is a pretty good amalgamation of the goofier parts of Ski Patrol and the hornier parts of Hot Dog... The Movie. It has its own comedic sensibility, which helps to set it apart from those other films. Much like Ski Patrol, Ski School was shot at a time when the 90s hadn't quite established its own identity yet. And, because of that, the amount of neon clothing in Ski School is staggering.

Rating: 69% (Party!)

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Muppet Christmas Carol

It's the classic Christmas story that you know and love, just with more pigs and frogs than the average adaptation. Michael Caine stars as Ebenezer Scrooge, in a pitch perfect performance. It's the kind of committed performance that elevates the movie overall. The Muppets themselves occaisonally take a back seat to Caine's performance while still fitting perfectly into the story. Kermit the Frog is fantastic as Bob Cratchit. And the choice to have Gonzo and Rizzo the Rat narrate the story really helps with the pacing and makes everything more accessible for the audience. 

Rating: 82%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Toy Tinkers

After seeing him chop down a Christmas tree in the woods, Chip 'n' Dale follow Donald Duck home. When Donald catches Chip 'n' Dale stealing his Christmas treats, a full-on battle breaks out. As for who comes out victorious, it should come as no surprise. Released in the late 1940s, Toy Tinkers is a classic Disney animated short. 

Rating: Toy Guns%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fa La La La Laagghh!

After finding out about a neighborhood lighting display contest, Carl tricks Steve into helping him deck out the Winslow's roof. Meanwhile, Harriette starts to feel the Christmas Blues after Eddie and Laura are too busy to help her decorate the Christmas tree. Thankfully, Estelle is there to teach everyone a valuable lesson about the true meaning of Christmas. Despite being in the opening credits, Richie does not appear in the episode, nor is he mentioned. Similarly, the great Waldo Geraldo Faldo is also, unfortunately, absent from this episode.

 

Rating: Roller Blades%

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

The Great Ak calls the leaders of the Immortals to the Forest of Burzee for a council meeting. His request, bestowing immortality to the mortal known as Santa Claus. To convince the other Immortals, the Great Ak tells them the story of Santa Claus's life and adventures. An adaptation of the book by L. Frank Baum, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus was Rankin/Bass's final Christmas Special done with stop motion animation. Much like Pinocchio's Christmas and The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold, the animation in The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is top notch. The character designs are pretty impressive too, especially the evil Awgwas. The plot of the special is complete nonsense, but I wouldn't have expected anything else from Rankin/Bass. 

Rating: Immortality%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Chill Zone

Lawrence Limburger, an evil alien disguised as a rich industrialist, unleashes a horde of snow sucking robots to steal all of the ice in Chicago. And he might have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those pesky Biker Mice from Mars. Watching this episode of Biker Mice from Mars, I was stuck by two things: (1) the show's theme song sucks. It's just wailing cock rock, there's no cool lyrics about the origins of the Biker Mice. And (2) the writing on Biker Mice from Mars is terrible. It's all alliteration and bad puns. There was even a subtle knock against the Ninja Turtles at one point. But, let's face it, there wouldn't have been a Biker Mice from Mars show without the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Turtles walked so that the Biker Mice from Mars could, I don't know, pop a wheelie or something.

 

Rating: A New Orphanage%

Home Alone 3

While stuck at home with the chicken pox, Alex Pruitt begins to notice some suspicious new people in his neighborhood. Little does he know, at first, that they're actually a group of international thieves who are trying to recover some stolen military tech that had accidentally been picked up by Alex's neighbor, Mrs. Hess. Once the thieves realize that their cover has been blown, they launch an all out assault on Alex's home. You can imagine how that goes. I was sixteen by the time that Home Alone 3 came out, twice the age of the lead character, and the series didn't have the same appeal to me anymore. I might have had more interest in seeing the movie if Macaulay Culkin had been in it but I can't really blame him for turning it down.

Rating: 52%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Haviland Morris, who played Alex's mother, also played Marla Bloodstone in Gremlins 2: The New Batch.

Max Headroom's Giant Christmas Turkey

I'm old enough to remember Max Headroom and yet I'm not sure that I can properly explain Max Headroom. The short version is that he's a talking (stuttering) head inside a TV who alternates between hosting shows and selling New Coke. What's New Coke? You know what, let's not get into that here. This is supposed to be a review for Max Headroom's Giant Christmas Turkey, a deeply strange and cynical Christmas special that aired in 1986. It has everything you'd expect to see in a Christmas special. It has songs and celebrity guests, like Bob Geldof, Robin Williams and Tina Turner. It has choirs and smiling children. It has gay jokes and Cold War politics. And, I don't know if I mentioned this, it's hosted by a stuttering digital torso inside a television.

 

Rating: Golf Clubs%

Home for Christmas

While on Christmas vacation, Zack Morris bumps into Laura Benton at the mall. Zack tries to impress Laura with some of his trademark charm, but Laura seems reluctant to spend time with Zack or tell him anything about herself. It's only after the gang goes to the hospital to visit a man who collapsed at the mall that they learn the truth, the man is Laura's father and they're both homeless. Saved by the Bell, typically a fairly featherlight show, would occasionally take a stab at tackling serious issues, often with mixed results. "Home for Christmas" handles the issue fairly well, both by acknowledging the main characters' privilege and also their ignorance, with Zack really stepping in it in front of Laura when he suggests that some homeless people are just winos or worse. And while things end up fairly well for Laura and her father, those characters are never seen or mentioned again.

 

Rating: A Sport Coat%

Olive, the Other Reindeer

With Blitzen injured, Christmas is on the verge of being cancelled. But Olive, inspired by mishearing something said by Santa, sets off on an adventure to reach the North Pole and save Christmas. Along the way, Olive teaches everyone she meets a little something about the Christmas Spirit. Olive, the Other Reindeer isn't just an old Dad joke, it's also a children's book and a crudely animated TV special. The animation style is somewhere between Reboot and early South Park. It looks like something an ambitious child might have made. The voice cast features Drew Barrymore, Joe Pantoliano and Ed Asner alongside Dan Castellaneta, Tress MacNeille, Billy West, Tim Meadows and Michael Stipe. Yes, that Michael Stipe. 

Rating: Slippers%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Dickens of a Christmas

In an effort to beat the Summer heat, Doc Brown takes his family and Marty McFly to Victorian England to celebrate a Dickensian Christmas. Doc's sons, Jules and Verne, are forced to become pickpockets after the keys to the DeLorean get stolen. Clara Brown gets thrown into prison for spurning the advances of Ebiffnezer Tannen. And, while Doc searches for his sons, Marty gives Ebiffnezer the full Scrooge treatment. The Back to the Future animated series, which more or less takes place after the events of Back to the Future Part III, is a little odd. It's cool that Mary Steenburgen and Thomas F. Wilson reprise their roles as Clara Clayton Brown and the various members of the Tannen family but it's weird that Christopher Lloyd plays Doc Brown in live-action wraparound segments while Dan Castellaneta does the voice for Doc in the animated portions of the show. Also, I'm just going to assume that the educational segments at the end of the episode featuring Bill Nye the Science Guy were necessitated by some sort of broadcasting regulation.

 

Rating: Wind Up Frankenstein%

(Image from Amazon)

Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales

The original A Charlie Brown Christmas was shown on broadcast television annually from 1965 through 2019. Over the years, as the average length of commercial breaks increased, the special had to be edited down to fit into a thirty minute timeslot. A lot of people weren't too happy about that. So, after ABC acquired the rights to broadcast A Charlie Brown Christmas in the early 2000s, Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales was created as a companion piece that could be aired after the original special in a one hour block of programming. Much like It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, there's no overarching story. Christmas Tales is just another series of holiday themed vignettes.

Rating: Dog Sweater%

(Image from Wikipedia)

A Christmas Story

While the Martins are in Capital City shopping for Christmas presents, Lassie pushes a little girl out of the path of an oncoming truck. The girl is saved but Lassie sustains some serious injuries. Dr. Weaver, reluctant to perform the necessary operation himself, suggests that only one man might be able to save Lassie. But the specialist, Dr. Watkins, cannot be reached. With Lassie injured, this particular episode of Lassie focuses mainly on Timmy and the rest of the Martin family. If you're a dog lover or an old softy like me, this episode will definitely tug at the heart strings. But don't worry folks, this isn't Dragnet, Lassie survives.

Rating: Gingerbread Santy Clauses%

Snowboard Academy

Chris and Paul Barry are complete opposites. Chris lives to shred fresh powder and Paul can't stand his brother's carefree snowboarding ways. With their family's ski resort struggling financially, Chris tries to convince his father that setting up a snowboarding school is just what they need to turn things around. But as soon as things start to improve, the insurance company insists on an inspection and Mr. Barry's estranged wife hatches a plan to sabotage the resort. Despite only being 88 minutes long, Snowboard Academy is a slog. The plot limps along with no sense of urgency. Several characters have terrible, unnecessary accents. And Jim Varney's warmed over Ernest shtick doesn't really work here.

Rating: 50%

(Image from Wikipedia)

State of Decay

While searching for a way out of E-Space, K-9 locates a sparsely populated planet. Even though the scanners detect the presence of high technology, the population seem to be living a medieval existence. After making contact with the peasants, their mysterious lords and a small group of rebels, the Doctor begins to suspect that there might be a sinister force working behind the scenes. Matters are further complicated after it's revealed that Adric, from Alzarius, has stowed away on the TARDIS. State of Decay is a fairly decent serial. It doesn't feel particularly original but it's well executed and moves at a brisk pace.

Rating: The TARDIS is feeling a bit queasy%

Payback

Double crossed and left for dead, Porter returns to the city with vengeance on his mind. He's going to get the $70,000 dollars that was stolen from him, regardless of who he has to kill to get it back. Payback is an old school crime thriller set in an ambiguous city at an ambiguous time. There are muscle cars and femme fatales and all of the phones, even the car phones, have rotary dials. If you seek out Payback today, you'll have your choice of two cuts of the film: a theatrical cut and a director's cut. The theatrical cut has more comedic moments, some voice-over narration and a few choice needle drops on the soundtrack. The director's cut makes Porter a little less sympathetic and features a different ending. Mel Gibson leads the ensemble, which also includes Gregg Henry, Maria Bello, Lucy Liu, David Paymer, Bill Duke, John Glover, William Devane, James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson (in the theatrical cut). Critically, the director's cut seems to be the preferred version of the film, but I'm more inclined to recommend the theatrical cut.

Theatrical Cut

Rating: 71%

Director's Cut

Rating: 65%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy

Dr. Chris Cooper invents a powerful new antidepressant, Gleemonex, which is rushed into production before it can be fully tested. The drug becomes massively popular until Dr. Cooper discovers some disturbing side effects. Like many of the sketches on the Kids in the Hall TV show, Brain Candy can be strange and dark at times. It's a movie about depression and corruption made by a sketch troupe that was in the process of breaking up at the time. Executives at Paramount balked at the inclusion of a character called Cancer Boy and, after the group refused to cut Cancer Boy out of the movie, Brain Candy received a limited theatrical release. It has since gone on to find a cult following.

Rating: 65%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Final Terror

It was supposed to be a fun weekend trip in the wilderness. Hiking, rafting, bonfires and a little bit of the old Mary Jane. But, what the campers didn't know is that they weren't alone in those woods. Something was silently stalking them and it knew the terrain a lot better than they did. Produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff, one of the co-founders of American International Pictures, The Final Terror was meant to capitalize on the success of Halloween and Friday the 13th. Unable to find a distributor, the film was shelved until 1983. Finally garnering a release after some of the cast had gone on to find more legitimate success. Said cast includes Daryl Hannah, Adrian Zmed, Mark Metcalf, Rachel Ward and Joe Pantoliano. Though light on kills and gore, The Final Terror has fantastic locations and an effective killer.

Rating: 64%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Last Slumber Party

A violent psychopath escapes from the hospital and heads to his doctor's home, where the doctor's daughter just so happens to be having a slumber party. What began for the girls as a night of booze and boys will end with body bags and blood stains. Poorly shot, poorly acted and poorly edited, The Last Slumber Party is a pretty shoddy direct-to-video slasher flick. It lacks the charm and basic competency of other low-budget and/or independent horror movies. If you're thinking about watching The Last Slumber Party, maybe don't.

Rating: 49%

(Image from IMDB)

Humanoids from the Deep

aka Monster

In Creature from the Black Lagoon, it's implied that the Creature develops an attraction to Kay, the expedition's bathing beauty. If you're Guillermo del Toro, an idea like that might inspire you to make a movie like The Shape of Water, an Oscar winning romantic fantasy film. If you're Roger Corman, it might inspire you to produce a movie like Humanoids from the Deep, a movie where the creatures "kill all the men and rape all the women." Humanoids from the Deep is the kind of trashy movie that lets you know it's a trashy movie right away. The first victims of the creatures are a kid and a bunch of dogs. And then that's followed up by 80 minutes of explosions and gore. Back in the day, Leonard Maltin gave Humanoids a fairly favorable review and yet still referred to the movie as "gutter trash." He wasn't wrong.

Rating: 70%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Psychic

aka Seven Notes in Black

After seeing visions of a murder, Virginia discovers a skeleton hidden inside the walls of her husband's country home. With the help of a parapsychologist, Virignia tries to unpack her premonitions and find the murderer. Stylish, with a great soundtrack, The Psychic is a fairly straightforward giallo. Despite being directed by Lucio Fulci, the movie, surprisingly, has very little gore. Although a sequence early in the film, where a woman's face is repeatedly smashed against the rocks while she falls down a cliff, goes pretty hard.

Rating: 65%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Phenomena

aka Creepers

If you're wondering whether or not you should check out Phenomena, I can help you make your decision with just six words: Donald Pleasance plays a Scottish entomologist. Chances are you're either tracking down a copy of the movie right now or you don't like cool stuff. No, but seriously folks, Phenomena kinda took me by surprise. I'm not an expert on the films of Dario Argento by any means, but I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the cinematography of Phenomena. It's a weird movie about a girl, played by a young Jennifer Connelly, who tries to use her ability to communicate with insects to solve some murders. The movie's soundtrack is all over the place, switching back and forth between Goblin's funky score and random tracks from Iron Maiden and Motorhead. It's an odd film, for sure, but well worth a watch.

Rating: 72%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Asylum

aka House of Crazies

After arriving at an asylum for the incurably insane, the young Dr. Martin is given a test: interview the asylum's patients and identify which one of them is the former head of the facility, Dr. Starr. Each patient tells Dr. Martin a story about how they ended up at the asylum but, can any of them be trusted? Can anyone at the asylum be trusted? Asylum was one of the more successful releases from England's second biggest (?) name in horror, Amicus Productions. Written by Psycho's Robert Bloch, Asylum has serious Tales from the Crypt vibes. Which is fitting, given that Amicus released two films based on classic EC Comics titles around the same time as Asylum. If horror anthologies are your bag, consider giving Asylum a watch.

Rating: 62%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Child in the Night

A nine-year-old boy witnesses his father being murdered by a mysterious man wielding a hook. As the police and a child psychologist work with the traumatized boy, more bodies with hook wounds begin to turn up. Child in the Night has some slasher elements, most notably the fact that the killer looks an awful lot like the killer in I Know What You Did Last Summer, but it's definitely more of a thriller/murder mystery. Elijah Wood, in an early role, plays the young boy. JoBeth Williams plays the child psychologist, Tom Skerritt plays the gruff Detective Bass and Darren McGavin, from Kolchak: The Night Stalker and A Christmas Story, plays the young boy's grandfather.

Rating: 61%

(Image from IMDB)

Bats

The small town of Gallup, Texas is besieged by a colony of genetically mutated bats. It's up to the town Sheriff and a plucky zoologist to find the bat's roost and put a stop to the killer colony before the bats can spread across the country. Bats is a smorgasbord of b-movie characters and concepts. The trio of main characters are basically the same as the main trio from Tremors. The scientist responsible for creating the mutated bats is pretty much exactly like the scientist from Piranha. The movie's plot is almost identical to Gremlins, with just a hint of Aliens at the end. The bats, when in puppet form, look like Ghoulies. And when they hunt, the bats use the Predator's heat vision. Since the movie came out in 1999, there isn't a whole lot of CGI in the film, which I definitely appreciated. Needless to say, Bats isn't particularly original but, at the end of the day, there are worse ways to spend ninety minutes.

Rating: 62%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Seventh Victim

Mary leaves her boarding school and heads to New York City to look for her missing sister Jacqueline. While chasing down clues, Mary begins to suspect that she never really knew her sister at all. And, the closer Mary gets to finding her sister, the more she begins to uncover about the dangerous people her sister was involved with. The Seventh Victim is another stylish and atmospheric horror film from producer Val Lewton. It's a sinister thriller with a curiously nihilistic undertone. And while it's not on par with Lewton's previous films, it certainly seems like elements from The Seventh Victim might have been influential on films like Psycho and Rosemary's Baby. 

Rating: 65%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Little Shop of Horrors

In an effort to keep his job at the flower shop on skid row, Seymour Krelboined brings in a strange plant he's been growing at home. The plant, dubbed Audrey Jr., proves to be a big hit, bringing customers into the shop from all over. There's only one problem, the plant feeds on human blood. The Little Shop of Horrors is a morbid little comedy from Roger Corman. It's probably best known today as the inspiration for an off-off Broadway musical and the film adaptation of that musical, directed by Frank Oz. Corman's original version was filmed quickly and cheaply, naturally, which gives it a theatrical vibe. Jack Nicholson briefly appears in the film as a masochistic dental patient. 

Rating: 60%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Audrey, Seymour's co-worker (not the plant), was played by Jackie Joseph. Not only did Jackie Joseph play Mrs. Futterman in Gremlins and Gremlins 2, she also played Tackleberry's mother in law in Police Academy 2 and 4.

The Terror

A mysterious woman lures a young soldier to the Castle von Leppe. The castle holds many secrets. I'm not sure how else to explain it. The Terror isn't really a plot-heavy movie. Most of the film was shot over a couple of days on the set of The Raven. They didn't have much of a script to work from, so a lot of the movie is just characters walking around the castle. Several directors filmed additional scenes for the movie with Roger Corman tying everything together at the end. Well, I mean, he tried to tie it all together. An attempt was made. We can all agree on that.

Rating: 55%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Sissy

An influencer gets invited to her old childhood friend’s bachelorette party but then it turns out her former bully is there! Things take a violent turn and not everyone walks away with sashes and tiaras. It’s also pretty funny, so I do recommend.

RATING: 73%

House of Frankenstein

Dr. Niemann and his hunchbacked assistant Daniel escape from prison with two goals in mind: carry on the work of Dr. Frankenstein and get revenge on everyone who helped put them in jail. To avoid detection, they murder and assume the identities of some travelling showmen who just so happen to have the skeleton of Dracula in their possession. Niemann revives Dracula long enough to kill one of his many enemies but ditches the Count once the law gets on their tail. Soon enough, Niemann and Daniel find and revive the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's monster. From there, Niemann, despite having made various promises to Daniel and the Wolf Man, chooses to spend all of his time working on Frankenstein's monster, which proves to be his own undoing. House of Frankenstein is an interesting but flawed movie. It has the Spider-Man 3 problem where there are too many characters in the movie, many of whom are given short shrift. Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. are very good in their roles but John Carradine is a little miscast as Dracula. Daniel the hunchback, played by J. Carrol Naish, probably gets the best through line in the movie. 

Rating: 63%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Lamb

A couple farmers deliver a baby from a sheep that turns out to be half human. This is one of those “horror” movies whose purview is mostly just sadness. You’ll feel bad watching it but won’t be scared!

RATING: 67%