Uncategorized – Page 3 – The Indie Film Cafe Movie Reviews!

Episode 166: Amongst Friends (1993)

January 17, 2025 The MooCow

Jonathan Moody back again after a long hiatus from doing these. I just want to make sure everyone knows I never signed up to write these things. This part was all Paul to begin with but since Paul usually hasn’t seen the flicks that I do with other people he doesn’t generally want to put up the write ups for them and that’s fair. He did the last one for Brett Kelly’s film “The Feral Man” cause I honestly got so busy I just kept forgetting or putting it off. Well now I’ve come back to talk about the episode for this flick…. Amongst Friends. Where Paul, Myself, and special guest Tina Krause chatted about.

Here is the story (from Wikipedia)

“Amongst Friends” is a 1993 Crime drama written and directed by Rob Weiss. The film centers on three childhood friends from an affluent Long Island community- Andy, Trevor, and Billy- Who become entangled in the crime underworld out of boredom and a desire for excitement.

What can be said about Amongst Friends? I first discovered this flick when I was reading about indie films in a book called, “Mike Spike, Slackers, and Dykes”. It had interviews with Kevin Smith and Jon Pierson. There was a whole chapter devoted to “Amongst Friends” sadly it was not the friendliest chapter. They went in to things that I was a bit shocked was talked about. Buy the book if you can to find the whole sordid details. However director Rob Weiss made an indie gangster movie. He got Mira Sorvino in it too – and it was a hit at Sundance.

I know Rob Weiss mainly from the TV Series, “Entourage” but the fact that he got a bunch of people together to make something so low budget and indie and still looked really good made me wish he had stuck to doing that too. Made more indie flicks. He still could if he wanted to. It was neat to see Paul and Tina’s reaction as well because they were not familiar with Weiss or this movie. But the Moo Cow loves Mira Sorvino. And it was awesome to hear terms like “Five Towns” which is a series in the world of “Entourage”. Also the first movie Vince is in, “Queen’s Boulevard” I kind of feel is an homage to “Amongst Friends”.

The three actors who play the childhood friends: Steve Parlavecchio (Andy), Patrick McGaw (Trevor), and Joseph Granda (Billy) are all pretty damn good in the roles. Mira Sorvino (who plays Laura) is probably the most famous of all the actors in it. The characters in this make some really stupid mistakes. But hey what’s the fun of a plot if you can’t make the characters do stupid stuff that gets them in more trouble. I mean boredom can get you in a lot of trouble. Especially when it comes to dealing with the mob.

I honestly hope that one day a boutique blu ray label like Synapse or Kino or someone of that caliber will be able to get their hands on this movie and put it out. Kino did release Laws of Gravity another low budget flick that will be coming to Indie Film Cafe in the near future. So I wouldn’t be surprised if this gets a better treatment. It is available to watch streaming so that’s better than disappearing in to oblivion.

Speaking of disappearing it’s time to wrap this up. So we here at IFC have a Stinkometer score, a 1-10 stink score: 1 being very good, 10 being very stinky. And I had a feeling when I picked this flick that it was not going to be in the stinky category and I was correct. I gave it a 3. Tina gave it a 3. And Paul well he found a few flaws in it and I think expected it to be a bit better than it was. Though Mira herself should have been reason enough for him to go even lower (but I guess she coudn’t even save it) and he gave it a 5.5. Making it a total stink score of 11.5, and a Stinky Average of 3.8. That puts it up there by itself, the first 11.5 on the Ladder of Stink.

Well that about does it for me. I wanna say thanks to Paul for doing the last one. I will try and get the next one done soon too. We wanna be on to Season 7 fast enough. It’s times like this that I regret telling Paul we need to do more movies. At least next season we are back to 3 movies a month. But before then Paul will take it away and tell ya how to find these movies or merch on them. Take it away, MooCow….

Well, we has our trailer right HERE. They gotst one on Daily Motion too. It is on Amazon Prime if you wanna stream it, and you can pay to watch it via Youtube/MGM. If you want the DVD you can find it on Amazon or via the re-sale market at Ebay, but that seems to be about it. No blu ray release as of yet, and no merch or schwag. But if you dug the soundtrack, which was pretty good, you can listen to it on Spotify. The soundtrack CD is on Amazon too. You can read the 1993 Rolling Stone review HERE. Dennis Schwartz does a review as well. If a blu ray release ever comes out we will update the page to make sure everyone knows!
:=8)

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Episode 165: The Feral Man (2002)

January 13, 2025 The MooCow

Ya know cow in astrophysics we know about the presence of a black hole in space, not because we can actually see one, but because of the effects it has on udder stars and planets, how it sucks energy and matter and stuff away and towards the hole? That’s kind of this moovie: its a critter moovie that doesn’t actually show a critter, just the effects it has one everyone. In particular, one poor schlub named Danny, played by nun udder than writer/director/producer Brett Kelly (My Dead Girlfriend, Prey for the Beast, Pirates Quest for Snake Island, Jurassic Shark, et al), who ain’t having a nice day, and it gets even worse when…something sorta does something to him at his dad’s funeral. And Danny gets a lil…nutso. He’s becoming a werewolf! Well, only if your definition of ‘werewolf’ involves not actually changing into anything, and just wandering around a yapping a lot. That sort of ‘werewolf’. Naturally, Moody, along with special guest co-hosts Ana Xaden and Mark D. Valenti, had to check it out and yap about it on the newest edition of Indie Film Cafe!

Ummmm, yeah, we needed a lot moore of that!

Now we here at Indie Film Cafe loves us some Brett Kelly moovies, and Canuxploitation in general, but this moovie…there just ain’t much to it. It was only Kelly’s like second moovie, so we can cut him some slack, and the idea might could have been pulled off as a short film – the moovie is kind of short to begin with, and just feels mercilessly padded out – but as a full length…not so much. The acting isn’t so bad, nor even the direction is a real problem, and yes it is a microbudget production, even by Canadian standards (it prolly cost moore to fill up at Timmy Ho’s that day), its just the screenplay doesn’t do nearly enough to keep the audience’s attention. Just need a whole lotta moore!

Oooooh yeah, bath full of blood, never a good sign!

The moovie definitely has a sort of camcorder feel to it, and the FX are fairly cheesy, and one cannot help but thank Kelly that he didn’t try to show a critter ’cause that would have made things even worse – decent critter suits are expensive! The acting is earnest enough and and there is definitely some nice eye candy to look at, one just can’t help but want a hole lot moore claw-claw and blood splatter. Is ok, Director Kelly will be on to bigger and better things down the road; for a young filmmaker’s early attempts you cud do a lot worse than this. Some good, some bad, some meh, not too much of anything.

Well the votes are in, and the Indie Film kids gave the Feral Man a total Stink Score of 15 – that’s 4 from Jonathan Moody, a 6 from Ana Xaden, and a 5 from Mark D. Valenti – that’s a Stinky Average of 5.0, which seems to the MooCow to be cow spot on. That score puts it right in the middle of the Ladder of Stink, along with It Waits, Don’s Plum, and a bunch of udders.

You can find the trailer for this flick right HERE. You can find it on Youtube, but only the 49 minute version. The full version is streaming on Prime, and you can pick up the DVD pretty cheaply from Amazon as well as SRS Cinema – the DVD comes with loads of extras, so for you Brett Kelly fans having the physical media is a must-have! It is also streaming on Google Play. It is also out in the re-sale market, especially Ebay. This flick also appears on a double feature special cowllection called Night Creatures which is notoriously difficult to find, but every now and then pops up on Amazon. That one is on Ebay as well. Sorry, there does not seem to be any schwag out there for this moovie, not even a poster, and it is out of print in moost places apart from SRS so go gets yer hooves on a copy from them and check it out!

Please…only you can keep independent moovies alive…unlike me

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Episode 164: Monsturd (2003)

September 13, 2024September 13, 2024 The MooCow

Holy S*it, its a giant POO! No, really, its a giant monster poo, a MONSTURD, if you will, and its headed right for us!!!
:=8O
I dunno if this was the pitch those who made this wackadoodle moovie made for whoever bravely produced this moovie, but thank goodness it seemed to work, because the kids at IFC get to chat about this …ummm…production, at length in the latest episode of Indie Film Cafe, including Moody, the MooCow, and our poo/fart/butt-loving pal actress Jackey Hall. Ugh boy, you don’t wanna miss this one!

Honestly, I’m not sure what what I loved moost about this flick, the gargantuan poo running around killing folks, or the pathetic lil hippie drug puppet that inexplicably pops up out of nowhere in the police station. He deserved his own moovie!
Instead we gots…well, a giant killer poo. There really isn’t moooch to say beyond this, I mean what else needs to be said? Yeah, yeah, there is this whole narrative-things about a serial killer who mutates through chemicals inside a sewer and so becomes a giant monster poo, but is anyone really paying attention to plot here? Heckers NO, we just wanna watch a giant poo bitch-slappin’ mofos like its going out of style – and it pretty mooch is because this is probably the only, and last, film that features this (not cownting Japan). And we gots some wacky-ass cops too.

So, Monsturd is written and directed by a pair of gentlemen, Rick Popko and Dan West; Popko is moostly an actor (he plays Deputy Rick here) from such udder films as The God Complex, Retardead, and one of our previous entries here at Indie Film Cafe, Rectuma. He also directed Retardead, which I can assure you will pop up on our show in the near future too! Dan West helped Popko write and direct this and Retardead; he plays Deputy Dan in this, and also shows up in all the aforementioned films – think of them as a poo version of Martin and Lewis.

In fact, pretty mooch everyone involved in this film was involved in the udder mentioned flicks in one way or an-udder – for example, Lisa Rein (who plays Rachel) also acts in Retardead, and she sings lead vocals on the theme songs Monsturd and Retardead. Timm Carney plays Timmy in Monsturd, and also a character named Timmy in Retardead. getting the picture? Its like Orson Wells and The Mercury Theatre…only for low budget poo and zombie flicks. Which is flapping awesome! :=8)
In the end the monsTURD get et by a bunch of poorly animated fake flies, so there’s that.

And the moovie – is it weird?? Oh yeah. Is it gross and icky? Heckers, yeah! Is it funny? Well…sometimes; it drags in spots (or scootches), and there are long parts where not mooch happens that cud have used less yap and moore…splat. Is it scary? Of course not, you’d have to be someone of very low cowstitution to be scared of such an extremely obvious poo suit. This is not what you might cowsider a particularly realistic film, and verisimilitude is not its strength. Is it entertaining? Well, check out the following Stink Scores and you shall see!

Oh yeah, baby, the scores are in, and it turns out Monsturd is some fairly smelly offal indeed, but not nearly as offensive as what we usually find left in our bowl. Moody gave the film a solid 7, while the MooCow followed with a 7.5, while Ms. Jackey Hall went with an 8, giving our fetid flick a solid 22.5 on the Stinkometer, which is a 7.5 Stinky Average. That puts Monsturd up there with the likes of Crater Lake Monster, Won Ton Ton, and Cornman on our Ladder of Stink. Very good company indeed!

Catch the trailerage HERE. You can check out the moovie for free on Youtube, and also on Tubi. It is also streaming over on Prime. You can still get yer hooves onna copy of the DVD at Amazon, but it ain’t cheap. Udderwise DVDPlanetStore.com is yer best bet, unless you want the re-sale market, in which case check out Ebay , Walmart, and/or Alibris. You can get the digital copy of the film poster at MoviePosterDB.com, Cinematerial.com, and MoviePosters2.com, which also has a physical copy for purchase. Go to IcePoster.com to get the poster on a tee shirt. A really kew original designed tee can be found at DePop, and if yer a fan of this moovie then you most def want this. TeePublic.com has the moovie on shirts, stickers, mugs, and hoodies, for your hard core Monsturd fan!

Emer Prevost does an amoosing Reaction & Review video, and the film shows up on the ABC’s of Horror Challenge; there are video reviews from Diamanda Hagan, Ramboraph4life, and UglyKatsuki. There are cowventional reviews at Silveremulsion.com, Attack of the Couch Potato, Dread Central, and Jay Hates Movies.

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Episode 163: Bloodmarsh Krackoon (2014)

September 10, 2024 The MooCow

Ok, with a title like Bloodmarch Krackoon you know when a moovie promises glory and greatness, and if you insanely love weird, wacky, violent puppets then this moovie delivers with a Bronx Cheer! Because, yes, this film does indeed have insane, drug-addled killer raccoons running around the Big City (fuggetabout them rats!), killing and devouring anyone dumb enough to come near them. And just what would the IFC kids have to say about this – well check out the latest episode of Indie Film Cafe, in which Moody, the MooCow, and special guest co-host the one and only Tina Krause, actress, director, and scream queen extraordinaire, check out this silly flick!

Ga-head, call me Trash Panda, I’ll bite yer face off!

Well, it seems that Locust Point in the Bronx has itself a little problem – is it crime, drugs, The Yankees, Leona Helmsley back from the dead? Oh no, moooch worse: toxic waste! Moore specifically, them critters what been ettin’ up the said toxic waste, which are getting dead, deformed, and blood thirsty, and not necessarily in that order. Peter Rabbit (!!!) the Deputy Mayor of the town, sees this as an opportunity to win himself some fame and glory, and he gets his cousins to figure out what’s going on and out a stop to them “raccoons strung out on crack”. But there is moore than one, and they ain’t playin’! Things and stuff ensue, and the evil stuffies have come for munchies! WHO WILL SURVIVE??? :=8O

“Put you fangs on my shouuuuuuuuuulder…..”

Awlright, this is a low budget/microbudget monster picture that is all new York attitude, and very little by way of horror, thrills, or genuine scares – cowever, if you are tickled pink by the sight of deformed evil critter puppets attacking and eating mofos, very mooch like the MooCow is, then yer in for a real treat! Sadly, that did not seem to be the same cup of tea for either Moody or Tina Krause, as we shall come to see – but don’t worry Bloodmarsh Krackoon, da MooCow gets you, and gets you good!
The moovie was written and directed by Jerry Landi (Bronx Bigfoot, Silent Deafening, Bill Huckstabelle Serial Rapist), and was embiggened from a short he made in 2010 called simply Krackoon – years ahead, I might add, before the wave of critters eating drugs flicks like Cocaine Bear and Meth Shark were around! Our old pal Jerry already had the vision, and he was able to bring it to toothy, stuffed furry life. Sal Amore and Scott Barile head the cast, moost of which are veteran B moovie actors who have worked with Landi previously; there are also some udder veteran actors in the cast such as Anthony Bisciello (The Making of the Mob), Cindy Guyer (Jack’s Back, the Mirror Has Two Faces), and Bob Connolley (Satan’s Whip, Those People) to round out the cast. Marc J. Makowski (Slime City Massacre, Killer Rack, Snow Shark) was the producer.

“Are you going to steal my lunch money?” “Something like that…”

It’s a silly moovie; it’s weird, it’s ridiculous, it’s cheap and kind of tawdry, but in the right mooood yer gonna have a fun time with this fetid lil flick! There are even some decent blood and gore effects, although the CGI are, well, special, in the short bus kind of way. And honestly sometimes the lighting and sound are problematic. But the actors are all invested and give it their all, the pacing is decent, the stuffies are amoosing as hell, AND you get to have the original short as an added bonus! WOOHOO!!!!

Dum dee dum…yep, just a lil green, malformed, psychopathic krackoon, out for an evening constitutional…as you do…

And the scores are in! Ok, not gonna lie, Ms. Krause was NOT amoosed! Maybe its because she’s a neighborhood girl, but she gave this furry feature a full 10 on the Stinkometer, while Moody awarded a 9.5, and the MooCow went with 8.5, giving Bloodmarsh Krackoon a total Stink Score of 28, which is a Stinky Average of 9.3, and putting this film on the Ladder of Stink right there along with the likes of Reflections of Evil, Fungicide, I am Here…Now, and a pile of udder ridiculous stinkers. High praise indeed!

Yo, we gots yer trailer right HERE. You can stream this on Prime, GooglePlay, and Mubi. You can buy the DvD from Uncle Amazon, or you have to get it re-sale through such sites as Ebay . It needs to be available elsewhere, damn it! Film Affinity.com has the digital poster, as does Gawby.com and MoviePosterDB.com, but that’s about it for schwag, I’m afraid.

There are a number of on-line reviews, including: You and Your Horror Movies, Nye’s Bizarre Cinema, RockShockPop.com, HorrorDNA.com, and Mondo Digital.com. There are also a number of nifty extras floating around, including a world premier video, a News 12 DVD Release, a Bronx Times article, a Search My Trash.com Interview with Jerry Landi, a HUGE Behind the Scenes video, and a Buffalo Dreams Q&A video!

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Episode 162: Soul of the Demon (1991)

September 4, 2024 The MooCow

Hey everyone… Jonathan is back again to give you my write up on the next Indie Film Cafe movie. And this time this movie was without Paul A Presenza; Paul I guess was busy or just wasn’t really in the mood to do an episode so I had to ask two people I know I can usually count on… John Ward and Madeline Deering. Two people who if you remember the last time they were on IFC together Madeline and myself loved the movie and John was not a fan. That was Knights of the City. Let’s see more about this latest episode of Indie Film Cafe… Soul Of The Demon.

Story From IMDB:
As a lark before a party on Halloween, two teenagers dig up a gargoyle statue. However, they unleash a murderous demon.

Well that pretty much sums this shot on video 1991 filmed-with-friends movie. Shot On Video is one of Madeline’s favorite type of horror flick so I knew she’d enjoy it a lot more than us. And she did. She enjoyed it the most. However John and I were both pleasantly surprised as well. We were going in to this film completely blind not sure what to expect.

Written, Produced, directed by Charles T. Lang. Who directed this and High Desert, two films you can see on Pendulum Picture’s 6 pack of horror movies put out by Brain Damage Films. This was his first feature, and for a first feature it wasn’t that bad. Sure some of the lighting didn’t look great but the majority of it did. And for an indie shot on video film to do something like that was truly amazing.

The acting was pretty damn good. You could tell Charles pretty much cast his friends or people he knew around the area and usually for those kind of movies the acting is very subpar or sometimes flat out terrible. But the acting in this was pretty damn good. Except for two… Mark Jacobs who had been in the film Blood Hook, Goodfellas, and Biloxi Blues. And Peter “Tazz” Senerchia who is also a big time wrestler. Cool to see some names were happy to be involved.

The special fx for a low budget demon flick were pretty great too. Shocking to see so much effort given in for a film that sadly didn’t get the best release. No offense to Brain Damage but I wish someone else had picked the movie up for distribution maybe more people would have heard of it. I hadn’t until I saw the title on my Pendulum Pack and was like this sounds cool, let’s do this. I hadn’t even seen it before we reviewed it.

With that being said now comes the fun part where I let you know what we all rated the film and where it stacks up on the Ladder of Stink. I was shocked to look back and see I gave it the highest stink score rating: I gave it a 4. Which isn’t really that bad but a bit surprising since I really did enjoy it and found it to be not that bad. Next up was John with a 3, and then Madeline with a 2. Giving it a total Stink Score of 9.5., which is a Stinky Average of 3.2, which so far only is tied with Rectuma. Not a bad movie to be double billed with. Though don’t expect any walking butts in this movie…

Well another day, another review done. I was happy this season we got to chat about SOV films. I hope to do more in the future. Maybe Charles’ next film sometime down the line. Next up Paul is going to review two more of his films. But before he does that… The Moo Cow is going to tell you how you can get your hooves on any kind of mooichandise or movie stuff from this flick… Take it away Moo Cow…

Sowwy, aint got no trailerage for all of you. BUT I gotst loads of places you can find this flick for freebies, including Youtube, and the Internet Archive. If u want to buy the DVD you pretty mooch have to get it with the Pendulum Pictures 6 pack, which you can get at Amazon and Ebay or from Frightmare Collectibles. Uh, yeah, there aint no blu ray of this coming out any time soon. BUT you can get the poster from Ice Poster.com

That’s about it for schwag, but there are a number of reviews and discussions about this film to check out, including: SOV Horror.com, the Schlock Pit, B&S About Movies, the Fright Bounce podcast, the Pit of the Pendulum, No-Budget Nightmares, and Damien Ruins Horror Movies.