The Indie Film Cafe Movie Reviews!

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.

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…

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.

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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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!

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.

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…

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.

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?)!

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

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!

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…

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…

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!
;=8)

Welcome IFC fans to the wacky, wonderful, and thoroughly weird world of Strangeville, soon to meet two of the moost ruthless hitmen in the area, so say nothing of the assorted oddball and gender-questionable characters around – and keep your raincoats firmly fastened kids, as the fluids (body and/or udderwise) will be a flyin’! Yes, Indie Film Cafe has finally booked a visit to the fertile world of Kevin Strange ( the mad genius behind Hack Movies), specifically the film Stiff Jobs – check out what Moody, the MooCow, and special guest co-host Rebecca Rinehart have to say about this fun flick in our latest podcast episode! We also checked out some Butt Hash, because why the heck not??

Butt Hash is a short film that…well, exists. In it we are introduced to Strangeville’s moost omnipresent characters, Nixon and Hogan, who proceed to helpfully clue us in on cow to better enjoy the upcowming main feature, Stiff Jobs. Let’s just say you need to take their help with a grain of salt…and perhaps a barf bag. But its a good preview for what is in store! The main moovie Stiff Jobs tells the gaudy, grotesque tale of Wolfram Hart and Windgate McGillicuddy, a pair of work-for-hire hitmen lookin’ to up their profile, and their body cownts, to the detriment of a long list of weird, wonderful sleazeball characters – and perhaps a seriously dangerous and deluded sorcerer as well? There is sex (of a kind), violence, gender cowfusion, cross dressing, man rape, dildo-fu, bat shit tea, body fluid sprays (of all types), and a on-going discussion about fellatio that is locker room humor on huge, lumpy, hairy steroids. In udder words, it’s a film that has everything! :=8D

Story-wise, its a set up for the next Hack Movie offering, Cockhammer – but clearly these two characters needed their own flick, and we’re so thankful that we got it! The moovie stars many folks from Kevin Strange’s group of talented friends who make up the Strangeville universe, including Thadeus Starbuckle (Wolfram and Wolfram’s MOMS), David Wayne Black (Windgate), Joshitsuo Montoya (Cletus Choat), Jonny Jonny (Bum Leader), as well as Devin Wilder (from Rock & Roll Vampire, Redneck Carnage, and the Pizza Delivery Massacre). The Strange Man himself wrote, directed, produced, and shot this bad boy, and he also stars as the insidiously evil Cockhammer, as well as several udder smaller roles. All this AND the best fried potato yams in all of Strangeville!

And the votes are IN! The IFC kids clearly had some fun with this frisky lil gobbler, with the MooCow awarding it a 4, Moody a 5, and guest co-host Rebecca Rinehart a 6.5 – that’s a Stink Total of 15.5, and a Stink Average of 5.2! That’s a pretty good score, especially for this season of IFC, and not too smelly either!

A standard trailer for this film cud not be found, BUT I do has a TEASER for you to check out! Sadly, Hack Movies is no moore, at least as far as the dvd website is cowcerned – COWEVER, if you go to Kevin Strange’s personal website you can purchase yer own physical copy to rub your hot little hooves all over! You can also purchase the udder Hack Movies there too, and get caught up on the Strange Man, and check out all his books, comics, and creative content. There is also a boatload of merch there as well, including that Hack Movies thong that you wanna buy oh so much! ;=8) And if you absolutely must, Kevin was kind enough to include the flick on YouTube as well, but please support the indies if you can and buy direct from Kevin himself, so that Windgate can keep that tranny porn cowllection up to speed!

Ok, Stiff jobs might not be to everyone’s taste, especially for those who can be easily offended or triggered – but its a heck of a fun ride if you are down for it! And keep yer eyes peeled: I have a feeling this isn’t the last trip IFC makes to Strangeville!
;=8)

It’s a mootant! It’s a zombie!! Its a vampire!!! Its…from da Hood! Its all three at once in this weird, mixed-up mash-up of a moovie, cowbining undead flesheaters, undead blood drinkers, semi-undead sex perverts, street gangs, cops, and pretty mooch anything else you can think of. Sh@* be kickin’, yo. Word. And if your mission in life was to hear and see C. Thomas Howell try to speak like a woke streetwise gangsta, mission accomplished! Check out the latest Indie Film Cafe episode to hear what the IFC kids are moaning about this time – special guest stinker reviews include actress Kenzie Philips and make-up artist McKenzie Kelly join original host Jonathan Moody as they discuss this wacky stinker!

So, overnight the world goes kablooey because a solar flare came too close and everyone not underground or in a lead shielded building (like out cops-n-thugs main characters, cowveniently) becomes…well, its never really clear exactly what is going on. Some folks are traditional zombies, some become vampires, some become vampire-zombie hybrids, and some become a sort of half-dead, half-alive breed of sex mootants. Dat was some solar flare! Also cars no longer work (which keeps the budget lower), although tv stations set up in personal homes do , which is odd when you cowsider the opposite would happen during a real solar flare. But we’re not in the world of science and logic here, folks, trust me.

Our unlikely protagonists include the leftovers of a pair of rival drug gangs, one Asian and one African-American, and the one cop (C. Thomas Howell) dumb enough to get himself stuck with them. They pick up a few random characters along the way, though mainly they are red shirt character, there to become zombie munchies and/or rape victims. Its a forced buddy zombithon with the cop and the leaders of each gang. Across town there is a professor (Gregory Allen Williams) who is broadcasting from his home because he knows stuff , and his hot white scientist daughter (Johanna Watts) , who are trying to get people to come to his place because, well, he knows stuff – clearly he hasn’t been watching the Walking Dead to know that in a zombapocalype it isn’t the dead you have to worry about so much as the living. The one group tries to get to the other group, and shenanigans occur. Thunder Levin (“Soulmates”, “American Warships”, “AE: Apocalypse Earth”) directs.

There is a lot of dumb stuff that happens in this film, too many to recownt here, and some pretty crappy acting as well – but some of the special effects were decent, and our reviewer enjoyed both the zombie/creature effects and some of the concepts behind them. The MooCow loves the scene where the leader of the African-American gang ( Tyshawn Bryant) hears his buddy cry out while they’re in the building, and recognizes him by name instantly, but then they have to walk blocks around to find him dying in the gutter. Way to project your voice! Continuity Monkey had his fuzzy paws full in this film!

And the votes are in, and the IFC kids think this moovie is pretty stinky, although not as stinky as it cud have been. Ms. Kenzie gave the film a 9, while Ms. McKenzie gave it a solid 7; Moody split the scores, awarding the flick an 8, giving “Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood” a Stink Total of 24, and a Stink Average of 8 – that’s an odoriferous stinker!

:=8D

We got yer trailerage right HERE. You can buy a dvd copy on Amazon. And you can check it out on Tubi. DVD copies also pop up from time to time on EBAY. Worst comes to worst, you can always pick up a copy at Wally World. If yer a die hard fan, CafePress.com has a tee shirt, a hoodie, and a baseball cap with the logo of this film plastered all over it, to show the world your love of the film. Word.

Well, if you want something at least slightly different from the usual zombie blaxpoitation hood films that are already out there (“Zombies in the Hood”, “Zombie Hood”, “Zombyz”), and yer into some C. Thomas Howell ridiculousness, then “Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood” is the stinker you want to git yer hooves on, most def!

:=8D