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Episode 66: White Wolves: A Cry in the Wild 2 (1993)

A bunch of 20-something teenagers go on a hike; they bicker and argue and are full of standard teen angst. Mr. B. falls down a cliff, and the teens are forced to put their differences aside and work together to get his dumb ass out. Sadly, no one is eaten by a bear. That smokey, putrid smell you detect is the MooCow roasting in hell as he viewed this early 90’s talky teeny melodrama, based on a series of fetid teeny adventure novels the likes of which the MooCow would sooner eat broken glass than read. Indie Film Cafe’s Jonathan Moody is joined by John Ward and Dustin Hubbard on this latest EPISODE, but the MooCow is pretty sure this flick is payback for Actium Maximus
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I know I’m in the title, but don’t expect me to do much in this flick…

Things and stuff kind of happen. These are the whitest ‘teenagers’ on the planet. There is some lovely scenery. Again, no one is eaten by a bear. Mr. B. and the teens actually sing songs about the power of love while they hike, and the MooCow is writhing in agony. Apparently there is a series of these things: this one stars Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Saved By the Bell) as Scott, Amy O’Neill (Honey I shrunk the Kids) as a sweetie named Panda…errr, Pandra, Ami Dolenz (Monkey daughter) as the powerbar-eating Cara, David Moscow (Big) as Adam, and Marc Riffon (Sliders) as Benny, the Surly Teen from the Wrong Side of the Tracks Who is Misudderstood. Mr. B. is sincerely played by Matt McCoy (Police Academy 5&6, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, LA. Confidential). The flick is produced by Julie Corman, stink moovie maven Roger Corman’s wife, and is directed by Catherine Cyran, who wrote and directed a pile of teeny made-for-tv indoor bullstuff. The legendary Corman lack of fundage is apparent throughout, but Director Cyran wisely allows the free scenery to be the real star of the moovie.

Mr. B. fall down, go boom! Well, at least there are no bears to eat him…

Well, it appears that the Indie Film Cafe kids loved this film – they thought it was fun and interesting and had no problem with the lack of plot, conflict, or man-eating bears. Moody, Ward, and Hubbard were unanimous in awarding this moovie 3’s all around, giving White Wolves: A Cry in the Wilderness 2 a total Stink Score of 9, and a Stinky average of 3.0. The MooCow is still crumpled in a fetal position, glad not to vote on this one.

This thing is on Youtube, both the trailer and the full moovie, if you dare. For those of you who want a physical copy, Uncle Amazon has both the dvd and vhs version. And you can get a cheapie dvd at FYE. And if yer a real glutton for punishment you can get the entire 4 film series HERE on dvd! It also comes in a triple dvd set too. A moovie poster can be had HERE for only a few bucks. The Hatchet book series these flicks were inspired by can be found HERE.

Well, it ain’t the MooCow’s cup of tea, fo’ sho’, but if yer looking for a mild, family-friendly teen moovie with some great scenery, and a few 90’s names, then White Wolves: A Cry in the Wilderness 2 just might be packin’ what yer lookin’ for.
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Episode 65: Cat Women of the Moon (1953)

Yumpin’ Yimmony! Its a white-knuckle ride on a rocket to see the Cat Women of the Mooooon!! Come aboard a vintage 50’s-era wild ride with our square-jawed hero Sonny Tufts as he battles these vicious outer space vixens and their cat-like…well, honestly there is nothing about these dancing ladies that is cat-like. Like, at all. They might as well have been called the Darkly Clad Female Interpretive Dancers with Long Nails of the Moon, but with a title like that, while honest, would moost likely keep teenage boys and their allowance dollars at home. Ohhhh, that dancing

But with a title like that you KNOW the Indie Film Cafe kids would be purr-fectly ready, willing, and able to examine this mangy hairball of a film. Joining in the caterwauling on the LATEST EPISODE with the MooCow are the Miller Twins, Lenore and Yolanda, safely tucked in their safe beds back in North Cowrolina while the MooCow cowtinues to prowl the Virginias with his bucket of stinky films, in search of a fresh victim to terrorize! Well, at least mildly amoose. but watch out for SPIDERS!!!
;=8)

It’s my dream…and my nightmare

So yeah, a group of swell American astronauts, cowplete with cigarettes and pistols, take a scientifically-advanced rickety rocket ship to the Moon, where a bunch of giant spider puppets suspended by wires and bevy of ladies in black leotards and too much eye brow make-up awaits them; their sinister plan is to take the ship back to Earth and conquer it by…well, that part is never explained. Possibly by lounging around on sofas. That’s pretty mooch it, folks. B-moovie vet Sonny Tufts “stars”, along with Marie Windsor, Victor Jory, and William Phipps; among the Cat Women are B-moovie cuties Susan Morrow and Carol Brewster. “Robot Monster” alumnus Al Zimbalist produced this pile of kitty litter, while tv veteran editor and director Arthur Hilton directed, sort of. Elmer Bernstein, of all people, did the moosic.

When spider puppets attack!!!

Ooof. Ridiculous and silly, this moovie cud have actually been worse, and while the “science” behind the flick is…strange, at least they got some of their facts cowrrect, and it was at least mildly entertaining. Even so, the stink from this feeble 50’s flick was fairly pungent – the MooCow went with a 9, while the Miller twins gave identical scores (of course) of 8. That gives Cat Women of the Moon a Stink Total of 25, and a Stinky Average of 8.3. On the Ladder of Stink that puts this film tied with Prehistoric Bimbos from Armageddon City and Ankle Biters, a pair of choice stink bombs!

You WILL give us a new scratching post, oh yes, you will…

Trailers trailers everywhere!!! There’s even a colorized one! And since it is a public domain stinker, you can finds the whole feature easy on Youtube. Of course, if you wanna git yer hooves on the physical medium (and who doesn’t?), then head on over to Amazon for both DVD and VHS versions! The DVD is on Ebay too, and so is a print of the kewl red poster. You can also find the ANAGLYPH 3D VERSION of the moovie there too, cowplete with a pair of 3D glasses! An original 1954 title card can be found there too, and for only $400 bucks! For moore kewl schwag, head on over to Teepublic where you can git yer Cat Women mugs, stickers, hoodies, and even phone cases! Posterama.com has some kewl mugs as well! Zazzle has a nifty tee shirt too,, and so does Redbubble! And for those with deep pockets, check out this rare original 1953 yellow poster, still in excellent condition! And this film has been Rifftraxed, because of course it has!

Silly and stinky, nonetheless we feel you’ll enjoy your trip in the wayyyy back machine for this weird 50’s stinky classic, so check it out today!
:=8D

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Episode 64: It Waits (2005)

It waits! And so will you, if your looking for a scary horror moovie. :=8/
Someone had a story about a Native American monster whacking hikers, and then someone else had a box of unnecessary hand wringing melodrama, and they allowed the drama llama to come in and make the flick all about Danny the Female Forest Ranger and Her Two Best Assets whining about things and stuff, and the horror part of the flick got bored and wandered off to find some fry bread. Or sumthin’. Rescued from the trash heap, this story (which had apparently been around since the 70’s waiting to get made, apparently Tobe Hooper was initially involved) got gussied up and made into a touchy-feely drama with some horror stuff later on. Nuthin’ like a horror moovie where the horror part is secondary.

Ranger Danny is played by Cerina Vincent (Not Another Teen Movie, Cabin Fever, Toxic), a ranger haunted by her past and clearly unable to keep her uniform on. A random dude pops in and says some students woke up a 1,000 year old leathery demon thing with wings (clearly a stuntman in latex) in a cave, and now its slicing and dicing everyone because…its a demon, I guess. Eventually she and Hoppy the Parrot have to fight the demon, since it killed her bland boyfriend, but not before we witness her whine and agonize over her past. A lot. In the latest episode Moody is joined by special guests Sarah Adkins from Horror Film Lovers as well as model and actress Tris Marie as they discuss this indie flick from 2005.

Hello, I am the scary part of your moovie – you’ll be waiting for me for a while…

So this flick was shot in British Cowlumbia and directed by Steven R. Monroe (Sasquatch Mountain, Mongolian Death Worm, and the I Spit on Your Grave remake), and was originally written by Richard Christian Matheson, son of the great Richard Matheson who wrote I am Legend, Hell House, Omega Man, and loads of udder famous sci-fi. Lil Matheson is known for writing for televison on such shows as Knight Rider, BJ and the Bear, Hardcastle and McCormick, and The Incredible Hulk, and also for the magazines Amazing Stories and Tales From The Crypt. But then Stephen J. Cannell got the rights and changed the script, turning the male lead into a female one, and added in the love story and floofy stuff, and the demon (part Pumpkinhead, part Jeepers Creepers) got pushed into the background, where he’s still waiting to emerge. I dunno where the weird talking parrot part comes from…

Danny’s Wonderbra is absolutely essential to the development of the plot…

Well, the votes are in, and the according to Indie Film Cafe It Waits is kind of…meh. All three reviewers gave the flick a 5, deciding that it wasn’t too bad, but not very good either, which puts the moovie at a Stink Score of 15, and a Stinky Average of, well…5, tying with Santa’s Slay on the Ladder of Stink. Pretty much everyone agreed that they’d seen both worse and better, and It Waits was pretty much a middle-of-the-road horror-drama. I am pretty sure everyone can agree on one thing: Hoppy the Parrot was the best part of the film! There should have been moore Hoppy. That was the relationship that should have been explored. Danny loves Hoppy, she cares about Hoppy, she worries about Hoppy. Hoppy can talk. Hoppy rocks!

Trailerage can be seen right HERE. You can git yer hooves on the dvd from Amazon, or bid on it at Ebay, or get it from Wally World if it floats yer boat. Or get the blu ray. Its on Prime as well, and you can watch it for free on Tubi, although that isn’t going to pay for poor Hoppy’s seeds. The kewl moovie poster can be found HERE, and the less-kewl poster HERE. Check out the cringey soundtrack HERE. and also HERE.

You prefer Hoppy to me don’t you, DON’T YOU!!???!!

Well, there are genuinely worse horror flicks out there than It Waits, but there are better ones out there too. If you’ve got some time to waste and don’t need to think too much, and you have a fascination with cute parrots, this may be the film for you. The IFC kids say check it out!
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Episode 63: Octaman (1971)

Need a real turkey for Thanksgiving?? Then look no further than Octaman, a hideously poor eco-gobbler with eight, count ’em, eight legs….er, arms…er tentacles. Whatever. Octaman is a laughably stupid film about a group of idiot scientists and greedy cowboys who search a “primitive hispanic community” for a legendary monster, “1/2 man, 1/2 fish”. Of course, octopi are not fish, but that doesn’t seem to matter much to the makers of this film, because they also don’t shamble about on land in a rubber suit with wires and a zipper plainly in view, they don’t live in fresh water, and they don’t have a flock of whining little plastic octo-buddies. Turns out that ol’ Octo is a mootant, created by pollution, or radiation, or some such thing – somecow or another humanity is to blame, yet again. Egads! Come and join your old pal the Moocow, along with Special Guest Co-Hosts Leila and Bobby (back again for some moore IFC shenanigans!) on our latest podcast episode!

“We’re going to regret being in this picture aren’t we?” “You bet your octo-pies…”

So. big Octo doesn’t like the way that the dopey scientists are carving up his fake, rubber, whining little octo-friends, so he shambles about like the grimacing Tabonga in “From Hell It Came”, slapping people with his rubbery arms whenever possible. As if that weren’t enough, Octo then develops an odd sexual fixation on Pier Angeli (“Viva America!”), grabs her, and then ambles about with her in his many arms (Pier died during the filming of this moovie, possibly of acute embarrassment). The scientists try to capture Octo to put him on display by surrounding him in a ring of fire, thereby “eating up all the oxygen around him”. Very clever…but, Octo breaks free, gets back into the water, and is able to wave his rubbery arms menacingly yet again. The end. Co-starring Jeff Morrow (Giant Claw) and Kerwin Mathews (7th Voyage of Sinbad). The Director’s son, David Essex, plays the uncowvincing half-Indian, half-Mexican Davido, the bad wood carver with the weird nose.

Fair warning, Shaved Apes: I have Lord Cthulhu on speed dial!

Rick Baker may win 1,000s of Academy Awards from now ’til Doomsday for his make-up special effects, but he will NEVER live down this shaggy skeleton in his fx closet – although he moost share the ‘credit’ with Doug Bestwick. Poor Octo is one of the moost uncowvincing monsters in film history; his pathetic shamblings evoke moore sighs than actual laughs because Director Harry Essex (who wrote the screenplay for Creature from the Black Lagoon) really thought the sight of a guy in a rubber octopus suit walking about on land would be scary. Ahh, to be that naive again…Armed with eyes that never blink, a mouth that never closes, and arms which are tied suspended together by wire, poor Octo is a slow, silly, classic stinky moovie shambling monster gone horribly, horribly wrong. Well, Rick, we all have to start from somewhere…

Come with me to the Casbahhhhhhh…..

The MooCow’s favorite scene is when Octo surprises the scientists by leaping out of their RV, where he was presumably hiding his zipper and wired arms, and then bitch-slaps the shit out of everyone. Ya know, a lot of low budget/micro budget horror flicks might try to camouflage or hide their shambling critter in shadows, so that the audience can’t really see it, and allow their imagination to paint the picture – not in this film! You cowstantly see the silly octo-suit in all its shambolic glory! But its moore than a stinky suite: poor direction, uncowvincing acting, talky script, and muddled, murky cinematography all help to chop this calamari caper into so much sushi.

Imma slap the taste outta yo mouth, bitch!

And the scores are in! Ok, its been a while for Leila and Bobby to score a moovie for IFC, not since Zombie Cop, so Leila originally gave it a 3 when she really meant a 7. Details, details. Bobby went with a 5, figuring it Middle of the Road. And yer ol pal the Moocow went with a 7.5, which is pretty generous for him. This gives Octaman a Stinky Total of 19.5, and a Stinky Average of 6.5 – not too bad!

Trailerage! We gots it right HERE! And the full moovie is on the Tube of You. But for those of you, like us, who prefer to have our stink in hand (as it were), then you absolutely moost have the physical medium – get the special 40th anniversary dvd at Amazon, and regular dvd versions at Walmart, Monsters in Motion, and Barnes and Noble. Get the oh-so mooovelous blu ray special (with Essex’s the Cremators) also at Amazon and Grindhouse Video! And don’t forget the udderly fantastic Rifftrax version too! For those of you who love stinky moovie swag (and who doesn’t??), here you can find a kewl Octaman throw pillow, Octaman travel mug, and even an Octaman phone case! Git yer hooves on the full color poster from Moviepostershop.com. It will also show up from time to time on Canadian Ebay, eh? Grab an awesome Octaman tee shirt at TeePublic! Also at Redbubble. And cow on earth can you enjoy your coffee without that extra-kewl Octaman coffee mug? Find it at Threadless too, along with a bunch of udder stuff (I mean who doesn’t want an Octaman skateboard?)!

I’m fishin’ for a mission…

We loves this stinky moovie – the MooCow says check it out!
:=8D

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Episode 62: Grizzly Rage (2007)

Grrr! Arrrgg! Is that a monster I hear? No, its a cute, fuzzy marshmallow-eating bear, shot apart from the actors in a way to make him appear to be menacing, in this unbearable “killer bear” / angry critter moovie from our Canadian friends, called Grizzly Rage! Yes, its the rage of the grizzlies. Said title comes from an angry momma bear (played by an actual male bear named Koda who “smiled” in order to be fed marshmallows) that goes on a revenge rampage after a bunch of fake backwards-hat wearing “teenage” bro-dudes run over her cub, then stupidly ruin every possible chance they have to escape it. The red herrings pile up as the marshmallow-eating bear stalks them all (appearing magically wherever they are, like furry, four-legged Jason from Friday the 13th). Fortunately the bear kills them all, the end. The moovie stars Tyler Hoechlin, Graham Kosakoski, Brody Harms, and Kate Todd (the only 4 characters in the entire flick besides the bear); veteran stinky moovie auteur David DeCoteau directs, while the Indie Film Cafe kids howl in their own rage of disbelief – join Moody, the MooCow, and special guest star actress and make-up artist McKenzie Kelly on the latest podcast episode to hear moore!

Don’t rage on me, bro, I’m wearing my best dew-rag!

So where to start? The biggest problem is the terrible, ridiculous script which includes fake Canadian teens, a magical, omnipresent bear, an undeveloped toxic waste plot point, lame off-screen deaths, and a story which demands that the characters do the stupidest possible things in order to make themselves available to be bear-chow. I mean, until one of the bro-dudes runs his own vehicle off a cliff, they cud just drive away, and where’s the fun in that? And why take refuge in the second story or even attic of a house, where the bear can’t get to you, when you can just run around outside with a tire iron where the bear is? Arne Olsen (Cop & A Half , Red Scorpion 2, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers), we’re lookin’ directly at you. And these paper thin characters are so irritating that you will root for the bear to kill them all, quickly. Unfortunately it takes forever, and the viewer is stuck listening to hapless, empty dialogue or watching endless climbing or weird light strobes in the darkness, simulating – lightning? Fireflies?? Radioactive mutant bears??? Even wanna-be wrestlers think this flick is lame

Yeah, no one is going anywhere until I gets me a fat sack of marshmallows…

Ay chihuahua, but this moovie is a mess! Moody and the MooCow pulled no punches, awarding a 7 and an 8.5 respectively; sweet-hearted McKenzie Kelly, while recognizing the film’s many flaws, went with a 6, saying it wasn’t the worst film she’d seen. Stick around, kid, you ain’t seen nuttin’ yet! Grizzly Rage ends up with a Stink Total of 21.5, which breaks down to a 7.2 Stink Average, and which makes for a fairly odoriferous flop of a film. On the Ladder of Stink, Grizzly Rage occupies a rung just under Crater Lake Monster, and just above The Giant Claw.

See the ragin’ official trailer right HERE. Watch the digital copy on the Tube of You HERE. To git yer hooves on a dvd copy, check out Uncle AMAZON. And its on PRIME too. DVD copies are also on Ebay, Walmart, and Alibris. and its cheap AF on FYE. And and it is part of an angry critter multi-pack dvd set, along with Croc, Maneater, Dire Wolf, and Chupacabra vs. The Alamo (oh yea gods!), which you can get HERE. I don’t expect a blu ray version anytime soon. IcePoster.com has two kewl Grizzly Rage posters fer sale, because who wouldn’t want that? And while this is not a Grizzly Rage tee-shirt per se, you can still look kewl with this ragin’ Momma Bear Tee Shirt. And there there’s, ummmm…THIS. and, of course, there is a cute lil’ bear stuffie right HERE because we all need one of these! Love the soundtrack? Then check THIS out, yer welcome! Clearly the gods above have smiled down upon us because someone kindly made a video of one of Kate Todd’s songs with images from Grizzly Rage, and I think it says it all. Then, there’s THIS weird thing…

Sooo…are you ever going to take that stupid hat off?

Ok, it ain’t Grizzly, or Claws, or Bear, or Night of the Grizzly, or Grizzly Maze, or Grizzly Park, or Grizzly Falls, Grizzly Man, or even Gentle Ben – and it sure ain’t the nasty CGI bear from The Reverent that tore the hell outta Leo, BUT if yer lookin’ for some easy, mindless stink which happens to feature a big ol’ fuzzy bear (and the always-cute Kate Todd), then we humbly submit Grizzly Rage as your next selection. Peace out, and make sure you bring a bag of marshmallows on your vehicular tear-ass through the forest, you never know what kind of toxic waste mutant critter is out there!
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