The Indie Film Cafe Movie Reviews!

Uh boy here we go again – YES, it is yet an-udder wackadoodle chop-socky/ninja/vampire mash-up from the the one and only Godfrey Ho, and this frisky little gobbler is full of…well, something. Check out the Latest Episode of Indie Film Cafe, in which Moody, the MooCow, and special guest co-host JoLynn try to make sense of this weird, over-the-top hopping-vampire moovie madness! GOOD LUCK!!! :=8O

Soooo…there is this group of young Asian girls who work for…someone, they have some friends, there is this red ninja, a black ninja, a witch who resurrects some hopping vampires, and somewhere along the line these disparate elements cowbine in what can only be construed as some kind of black devil magic brew of a film, in which several separate moovies are ground together to make hash…errr, a Godfrey Ho film. same thing. Down Among the “Z” Movies says it best:

“I’m planning a post with 20-25 more Godfrey Ho films, which are largely interchangeable – he takes two unrelated films and splices them together to make a new, often incomprehensible, one.”

Behold the Godfrey Ho experience. You can always tell his ninja moovies from someone else’s because in the Godfrey Ho world dark shadowy secret invisible assassin ninjas generally run around in broad daylight wearing bright neon costumes, and usually with a headband with the word NINJA sewn on, sort of what you might find in a dime store back in the 80’s.

The ninja/hopping vampire flick is liberally spliced into the girls and the hotel industry flick, making it so that it appears the Red Ninja is trying to stop the black ninja from using his hoard of evil hopping vampires from taking over the Hong Kong hotel industry, because…reasons. Honestly, I would love to go to a Hopping Chinese Vampire hotel – BOOOO Red Ninja, yer spoiling our fun!

Among the madness is one of my favorite chop-socky scenes of all time, when Red Ninja in the form of blonde cutie Deborah Grant is attacked while she suns on her beach blanket from below by a sand-dwelling hopping vampire, you know as you do…so weird!
And if you love the oddball Asian hopping vampire, known as Jiangshi, like we do, well this is one of those moovies that has ’em in spades – and they really seem to be enjoying themselves too!

But the best jaw-dropping scene of them all is when Deborah Grant survives an assassination attempt when someone tries to drop a pig on top of her from a roof, which then turns into a hopping vampire, which sadly hops away after it fails its task. Simply amazing!

Well, the votes are in, and yeahhhhh, this flick is the stuff that 10’s are made from – and both Moody and the MooCow simply had to award 10’s to this ridiculous Godfrey Ho nonsense; JoLynn has a warm spot in here heart for hopping vampires (don’t we all?), and went with a 9.5, giving VRVTNQ Stink Total of 29.5, which is a Stinky Average of 9.8! On the Ladder of Stink this flick is tied with Geteven and Curse of the Mummy Cat, a couple of real stinkers that juuuuust missed Stinky Heaven! Oh so close!

Well, I wish I had a trailer for you, but Godfrey Ho doesn’t really do trailers, they cost money! But someone did upload it to Youtube, so if you wanna check it out for free, there you go. It is floating around Prime too. And it has been saved on the Internet Archive, as it should be. As for physical media, this is one of those very difficult moovies to find – BUT, you can find it through folks like DVD Lady, and you can find the VHS tape on LastDoDo. Udderwise u have to go overseas for places like ZDDVM to find copies, and hope they work on your American machines. There IS a DVD combo that came out that you can find every now and then on EBAY which pairs this moovie along with Dracula The Love Story To Die For – grab it if you can find it! It also pops up on Amazon every now and then too. I also found it on Deep Discount.com and FYE! Sorry, no real schwag for this flick, but it is discussed at B&S About Movies and SoGoodReviews.com.

Hey everybody… Jonathan Moody here for the last time this week. I’m excited to chat about this crazy movie. So it all came about when I asked Leila Toba if she would like to guest host this episode. She had been on a few episodes already so I assumed she would be excited for this one. And she was. She decided she would pick the 1993 Roger Corman-produced Killer Dino flick, “Carnosaur”… and she brought a long two of her friends: Sean and Brandon.

Here is the plot from IMDB: 

A genetically manipulated and very hungry dinosaur escapes from a bioengineering company and wreaks havoc on the local desert town. A security guard and a girl environmentalist try to stop both it and the company’s doomsday bioweapon.

So pretty much that’s the story of Carnosaur. At the time it was made there was another little movie being made about killer dinosaurs… Jurassic Park. But it’s not like anyone has ever heard of that movie, right? Wait… you mean it was a big success and spawned lots of sequels. Well what about Carnosaur? 2 Sequels to it. Okay not bad for a little Dino movie.

As I said earlier it was produced by Roger Corman so you can expect some cheesiness and fun to it. It was also directed by two directors: Adam Simon who directed Brain Dead, Body Chemistry 2, and The American Nightmare, among others; and Darren Patrick Maloney who directed this as well as Andromina: The Pleasure Planet. It was written by Adam Simon and John Brosnan who also wrote Beyond Bedlam and Proteus. 

The movie starred some pretty cool actors. Diane Ladd played Dr. Jane Tiptree. Diane has been in a lot of great movies including Chinatown, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (Playing the infamous Flo), Wild at Heart, among many others. To have Diane in a Roger Corman produced film is fantastic. Raphael Sbarge played Doc . He was in the show Once Upon a Time and in Risky Business, among others. 

There’s also Harrison Page who played Sheriff Fowler. He was in Lionheart (Which we will do on Indie Film Cafe at some point), The TV Series Sledgehammer, Quantum Leap, and many more. And there’s also Jennifer Runyon as Ann “Thrush”… Jennifer was in Ghostbusters (1984), Up The Creek, The In Crowd (1988), and many more. Not to mention this also had Clint Howard and Ned Bellamy in it. Clint is known for working on Corman productions including the 1979 film, “Rock N Roll High School”, which we just did for Patreon Only. 

The only problem with this episode was that it had too many hiccups with zoom. There were times where Leila and her friends could not be heard all the way and sometimes when I even had to ask if they could repeat certain stuff. After a while I just kind of went with it. That’s the issue with zoom and internet issues all the time.

As for the movie to me it was pretty bad. I mean not a stinker, stinker-bad, but pretty damn bad. Especially with a company like Corman’s company: you would think that it could have been a bit better of a movie. The carnosaur looked silly but I guess that’s what’s to be expected in a movie like this. I’m so glad it did well enough where it made sequels tho. I have not seen the sequels. In fact this was the first time I watched this movie even. 

Anyhow that’s pretty much it for this write up… The scores are now in: Since we had 4 people and only 3 people can score sadly Brandon had to sit out. Leila loved it a lot better and didn’t find it as stinky as the rest of us, giving it a 5. I gave it an 8.5, and Sean gave it and 8.5, making the Total Stink Score of 22, which is a Stinky Average of 7.3. This puts it on the Ladder of Stink next to Horror of the Blood Monsters, the only other 22 we have. Interesting.

Well that’s it for now – and that’s the last special guest one we did. From now on it’s just Jonathan or Paul doing the episodes. It was a thoughtful idea but I don’t think it worked as well. 3 episodes a month is clearly enough for us. Anyhoo… The Moo Cow is going to take over and tell you awesome people how you can find this movie and where and all that fun stuff. Take it away… Moo Cow…

Well, you can find the trailer HERE. Its pretty mooch all over the internet at this point, for free including YouTube, the Internet Archive, and its on Prime. For the DVD and VHS (yeah, it’s that old…) hie thee hither to Amazon. Re-sale market includes Alibris and Ebay. Ebay also has the Carnosaur Collection 3DVD box set, but it ain’t cheeeep. Its on Amazon too, but also pricy. But that’s for 3 stinky dino flicks, so that’s where the moolah goes. Cinematerial.com has a poster of the Carnosaur 1 and 2 posters smooshed together, which is a thing; udderwise there ain’t mooch schwag for this film out there. Plenty of dino stuff, but nut an honey for this moovie, or the franchise, I guess its kind of forgotten. Siskel and Ebert reviewed it back in the day, and it appears on Brandon’s Cult Movie Reviews. The Schlock Pit also does a write up worth checking out. JoBlo Horror Originals cowsiders it a Mockbuster, but I dunno about that, I just think its a stinky dino moovie :=8/

Hey everybody and welcome back to the Indie Film Cafe Reviews. Jonathan Moody here to talk about another indie flick we reviewed here on the show – this time the sweet and caring Lenore is back with us. If you remember Lenore came in at Season 2 and stayed for a long while. She was Paul’s roommate and unfortunately she left for school and has only come back when she comes to visit. Well she came to visit Paul again, so we had to snag her for another episode. And I picked a pretty fun one for her. I picked the 1997 action packed martial arts flick, “Drive”.

The story from IMDB:

A prototype enhanced human, on the run from Chinese-hired hit men, hooks up with a dread-locked bystander, and the two of them elude their pursuers narrowly each time.

And that’s sort of the gist of it. There’s a few more things that happen and some actors in the cast you may know and love, so let’s get in to that.

Drive stars Mark Dacascos (Only The Strong, Double Dragon, Boogie Boy, and much much more) as Toby Wong. Wasn’t that a line in Reservoir Dogs… “Toby…Toby Wong. Toby Wong. Fucking Charlie Chan”— never picked that up til I did this review right here. Hmm! Mark gets to use a lot of his really sweet martial arts moves and some of his own stunts from what I’ve read.

The dread locked bystander is Kadeem Hardison (most notably Dwayne Wayne from A Different World) who plays Malik Brody. And Kadeem is not really a martial artist. Though I think he does get to throw a few punches in every now and then.

And along the way they meet Brittany Murphy (Clueless, Cherry Falls, 8 Mile, and many more) who plays Deliverance Bodine. She works at a small town motel that becomes a big part of some action sequences in the flick. I do believe she gets to play with a gun herself. Oh we miss Brittany here on Indie Film Cafe.

The films director is Steve Wang who directed The Guyver, Kung Fu Rascals, which we reviewed for What the F Fridays, as well as some Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight episodes. We love Steve Wang. In my personal opinion (And I bet the Moo Cow would agree) we need more films directed by him.

The writer is Scott Phillips who wrote Stink Of Flesh (Which we also reviewed for What the F Fridays), Gimme Skelter (Which one day we will be reviewing… maybe Season 7, we’ll see), and and a movie on Tubi called, “Crowbar” I’m kind of interested in checking out. Scott is a very fun writer. He knows how to write a genre film. Especially one this silly.

I can’t really say much more than what the podcast would talk about. There are some really fun scenes especially the ones at the motel. Later the last act involves a fight at a club/bar that looks incredible. I would say you should def check this movie out.

We did get to watch it on glorious 4K thanks to MVD Rewind Collection. My only gripe with it is it just came with the 4K so I’d have to buy a blu ray separately but at least I have the movie the best possible way to see it. And that’s the one I’d recommend.

And the Stink Scores are in: Paul gave it a 3.5. I gave it a 3. And Lenore surprised us both by giving it a Stink Score of 1.5, for a total of 8, and a Stinky Average of 2.7, which puts it really low on the Stinkometer. Putting it on the ladder of stink with Arcade, Hey Stop Stabbing Me, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, and A Better Place. That’s a pretty cool group of great films.

Well that’s gonna be a wrap for me on this one. I’ll be back for one more before giving it back to the Moo Cow! Speaking of the Moo Cow he’s gonna tell you all how to find this movie and other fun things that go along with it. Take it away… Moo Cow!

Moo! Well, we gots our trailer right HERE. There is also Steve Wang’s 4k trailer too! And you can watch it for freeby and the bean on the Tube of You as well as Tubi. If u want the DVD you can get it on Amazon, the aforementioned MVD store (where u can get the Blu Ray Director’s cut as well), Best Buy, etc. Grab the Special Collection Blu Ray from Amazon, Grindhouse Videos, and HD Movie Source. Buy it re-sale via Ebay. Cinematerial.com has a ton of digital posters you can download for free, as does themoviedb.com! Ebay also has a blu ray-poster combo! You can buy real glossy, matte, and even laminated posters up to 24 x 36 at MoviePosters2.com! They also have mugs, tote bags, mouse pads, sweatshirts, tee shirts, hoodies, phone cases and udder schwag too, so check them out! The moovie Kill cownt is HERE, and some fun outtakes are HERE. And there is even a FANCUT on Youtube! ReelBlack Podcast did a review of this moovie too.

Hey everybody and welcome back to Indie Film Cafe! Jonathan Moody here to discuss the 2009 Joe Estevez and Robert Z’dar flick, “Meltdown” starring, written, and directed by Christopher J. Martin. In this episode I got poor Paul Presenza and poor Cayt Feinics to discuss it with me on our latest episode. This was not anything that we really expected and you’ll pretty much know why in a second.

This was the storyline put on IMDB by the director himself:

Meltdown is a action/adventure film about a FBI agent who goes deep undercover to bring down a crime syndicate. When his cover is blown the mob and FBI want him dead. His only hope of survival is a female agent who is willing to break the rules to help save his life. Out numbered and out gunned it is a deadly fight to the finish.

Well that doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Ohhhhh boy! This movie was a lot of self indulgence. A lot of grandiosity. And a lot of just really bad film-making. However for a person’s first time film I can’t be too harsh. I mean Christopher J Martin went out and did what he could to make something he probably thought had a really big message. What was that message? I dunno.

The cast as I mentioned before was pretty awesome. It’s always fun to see Joe Estevez and Robert Z’Dar in a movie together. I wish they were the leads. It might have made the movie a bit more fun. The lead himself Christopher is just too new and doesn’t really do a good job at all. He’s kind of boring in this. The female lead Andrea Tice was my favorite part and even she couldn’t help hold the film together.

There were a lot of blunders and a lot of technical issues that a first time film is always going to have so I could never fault some of that. However when you have a scene where a bunch of people are shooting each other in public… ummm where are the cops? Except for the cops that are the main part of this the city cops are nowhere to be found. Maybe they actually did get called when the shootout happened. We’ll probably never know unless they do a blu ray copy of this with commentary. I’d actually buy it for that.

I got this movie on DVD but I did also watch it on Tubi where it’s available. Mainly to help them with a few cents. I always prefer to do that when I can because I know as a filmmaker how hard it is to make a movie and get it distributed. We came to find out that this this movie was actually talked about on a You Tube review show called, “Good bad or bad bad” and Tubi got interested in it and made it available. So thank you, Tubi.

Cayt and Paul enjoyed riffing on the movie a lot, and I was shocked to have found something that I don’t think Paul had even seen. There’s apparently a lot out there even the moo cow hasn’t watched. And most likely those will be on Indie Film Cafe at some point, so get ready!

However we have come to that time where we discuss the scores on the Stinkometer. I gave it a 9.5; Paul gave it a 9; and Cayt found it slightly less stinky than than us and gave it an 8.5.], giving it a total Stink Score of 27, which is a Stinky Average of 9.0. That puts it up there with the likes of Donald Farmer’s Vampire Cop and Brett Kelly’s Raiders of the Lost Shark. Maybe if those two had a baby it would be… Christopher J Martin’s Meltdown!

Anyhoo that’s gonna be it for me this time… I’ll be back for the next two and then it’s Paul’s turn again. We had some crazy movies this season! But until we get to those let Paul tell you how you can find it and what else for Meltdown you might be able to find. Take it away, MooCow….

Welp, there ain’t no trailer for this film, folks, which just about tells you about the production values of this here moovie… :=8/ You CAN, however, find it on the Bad Movie Night video podcast. The full moovie is on Tubi these days, which is good because this flick doesn’t even show up on Uncle Amazon! You can, cowever, find the DVD at Oldies.com, and dat’s about it! Sowwy folks, but if we finds moore stuff out there for this moovie we will update our page and put it out there you you can has it, especially you Joe Estevez and Robert Z’Dar fans out there!
:=8)

I did find a 2009 Bay City Times article on the flock too.

Hey ho, its PUMAMAN!!!
:=8D

R u old enough to remember an incredibly stupid, cheap, and silly tv show from the early 80’s called “Greatest American Hero”? Well…THIS IS EVEN WORSE!!! This moovie is about a geeky, spindly dork in a cheap costume who flies about a rear-projection sound stage, to home-made casio-disco moosic, defeating a leathery-looking Donald Pleasence (“Halloween”, “You Only Live Twice”, “THX 1138”) with his ‘puma powers’, who has stolen a cheap gold foil mask in order to brainwash the world through plastic heads with wires. Well heckers YEAH!!! Check out the latest episode of Indie Film Cafe, where Moody, the MooCow, and special guest Just Jenn (who requested this stink bomb) yap about this weird, stinky cheeser!

Oh dear! Words simply cannot convey the jaw-dropping cheapness and absurd stupidity of this awful Italian import that’s cheesier than a cat covered in parmesan. Walter George Alton (10, Heavenly Bodies) plays Puma Man, easily the worst, lamest, saddest “super-hero” ever filmed. These are his “super powers”: he floats awkwardly through a rear-projection set at around 3 miles an hour via a string tied to his narrow butt; with the aforementioned string, he hops about like some demented, fur-less rabbit; his fingers are claws that can rend aluminum and paper-mache bricks; he can sort of “walk” off the scene (off camera) and appear magically someplace else(somewhere else on-camera again); his awesome “puma vision” allows him to see everything in bright red. The MooCow dares you not to laugh yer fool head off upon viewing any one of these so-called “powers”, especially the oh-so-realistic flight.

But our hero is not alone. Square-headed Vidinho, played by Miguel Angel Fuentes (The Bermuda Triangle, Caveman, Fitzcarraldo), an “Aztec” high priest who cowmoonicates with the gods (space aliens), and tosses people out of windows & demands they try on belts just for kicks, is our would-be hero’s ally/side-kick/teacher. It is he who teaches Puma Man the powerful super secret Puma Man mantra which harnesses the powers of the cosmos for Puma Man: “Every man is a god, every man is free”. He is clearly Pewmaymen!

We also have Sydne Rome (Sundance and the Kid, Sex with a Smile, Just a Gigolo), who plays plays Jane Dobson, a useless blonde twit of a love-interest. Poor Donald Pleasence has to try and act menacing while hiding behind an aluminum foil mask painted gold. All of these cosmic forces collide in “Puma Man”, resulting in easily the feeblest fantasy flick this cow has seen since “Jack Frost”(Mazorko).

Well the scores are in, kids, and this flick isn’t just stinky, its a PHEW-ma!! Just Jenn and the MooCow generously awarded the film 9’s each, while Moody went right for that bag of 10’s and tossed one out like it was nothing. That give our moovie a total Stink Score of 28, and a Stinky Average of 9.3! On the Ladder of Stink that puts Pumaman right in line with a whole bunch of udder stink bombs too many to list. Not quite a 30, surprisingly, but very, very close!

Check out the trailer right HERE. See for free on YouTube; it is, of course, one of the moore beloved MST3K’s ever made, so you can also see that version HERE. The normal version of the film is notoriously difficult to find, BUT if you ge the MST3K version you get the standard version too – and you can git yer hooves on that from Uncle Amazon or Shout Factory. You can also get the MST3K digital HERE. Sadly, the moovie is unreleased on blu ray as of yet, but you can rent the Event Replay of the Pumaman Tribute from Gizmodo, which features new SURGICALLY ENHANCED print, presented in glorious upscaled HD!!! You can get the digital of various forms of the poster HERE; Cinematerial.com has loads of them too. The Finnish poster is for SUPERFLYINGMAN!! :=8D And you can get the original Turkish Poster, the original Lebanese poster, Here too, Puma posters everywhere! Get the Lobby card!
TeePublic has tee shirts, coffee mugs, pins, and all kinds of merch for all of you Puma needs! And, of course, you NEED that amazing theme song and soundtrack! There is even a Pumaman FIGURE to cowllect! There is even Pumaman FANART! AND prints for sale! Everyone loves Pumaman!!!
:=8D