The Indie Film Cafe Movie Reviews!

Hey everyone… Jonathan Moody here back again! And this time it’s gonna be a bit shorter than normal, mainly because I really don’t want to talk about this but we do one of these every time soooo anyway here it goes! We recorded this episode a while back in November 2022 and then it got released in March 2023, and boy did it stir up a lot of controversy – which I will get in to a bit. I asked Paul my co-host and special guest Jason Cooke to come on. It was Jason’s first episode on our show and hopefully won’t be the last. We got more to get him in on. But this so far has been the only one for Indie Film Cafe he has done.  

The movie in question is… Joel D. Wynkoop’s Lost Faith, which I got directly from Joel himself. Maybe he was suspecting a more glowing review or maybe he was not expecting some of the things we said because a lot of people love it to death. Hell, I enjoyed it for the campiness of it.

Here is a bit of a disclaimer…. We love bad movies. We love watching them. We love reviewing them. They are fun. The lower the budget, the even more fun. And when we review these movies we are generally talking about our love for them (whether they are good, bad, or ugly it doesn’t matter to us cause we had a blast doing it)… if a movie bores us or we just weren’t in to it we wouldn’t review it. 

With that being said this movie was fun to me. I love it. I’m glad I own it. However it’s still not a great movie. Like, it has problems. It goes off the rail a lot. Like, there is NO purpose to some of the scenes except either for padding or for ridiculousness. And the ridiculousness is fine but some of the rest of the movie doesn’t hold up to that and so the film to me is kind of uneven. Which is normal for a Low Budget film. There are some really fun scenes and Joel shows off his karate skills like you wouldn’t believe! 

However in the end we said what we said, and this is one of the first times on our actual podcast that the director felt differently than we did and was a little upset. All I can say is I will stand by my review because what I said and what others said were what we felt at the time. We didn’t even give it a 30 which is the highest stink rating you can give. I just want to once again clarify that when I say a movie is bad it means I probably enjoyed it for what it was. Whether people agree or disagree is none of my business and none of my concern. That’s all up to interpretation. 

And the scores are in….  I gave it a 9; Paul gave it a 10; and Jason gave it a 9.5 bringing the stink total to 28.5, or a Stinky Average of 9.5. Which puts it up there with A LOT OF MOVIES… including: Alien Prophecy, Birdemic: Shock and Terror, Midget Zombie Takeover, Blood Predator, Hard Rock Zombies, and The Creeping Terror. 

Well that’s it for me… even a little longer than I was planning to talk. If you wanna know what we are talking about Paul will put up the link to the episode. Speaking of Paul… the Moo Cow is gonna take over and show you guys where you can get this and maybe he’ll add his own thoughts on the whole show… take it away Paul…

Check out the SLAM-BANG TRAILER on Youtube! SLAM!! BANG!! This is the so-called HYPER trailer! And here is a message about the film from the man himself, Joel D. Wynkoop! And check out this tv cowmmercial spot for the flick!

Pick up the Vinegar Syndrom Blu Ray release, including the special slip cover release, HERE. The standard Blu Ray is also on Amazon. The DVD is tough to find these days, but it does pop up on Ebay from time to time. I wish I cud offer you some places for the poster, a tee shirt, a mug, or udder merch, but at this time there doesn’t seem to be anything beyond the Blu Ray – but if that changes we will update the page! We all need some extra Wyncoopage!

In the meantime, here is the Bad Movie review, and also So Bad Its Good. Here is the man himself talking moore in depth about his moovie, and the Bad Movie Night interview. This flick also appears on Schlocaholics, and on Grindbin! Joel has his own Youtube channel too, check it out!

Hey everyone… Jonathan Moody back here. Sorry its been a while. Things have been off the hook crazy with everything IFC and the network has been doing. So I finally got the chance to just sit down here and write up this episode. Which was a bit of a fun one. Back last year Paul and myself went out to Scarefest in Lexington KY and met Uncle Lloyd Kaufman of Tromaville. Lloyd was gracious enough to do an interview with us which you can find on our site. Anyhoo, we also got to meet in person Jessa Flux who was our guest host for a few episodes and will most likely be returning for Season 7. And we decided to do SGT. Kabukiman, NYPD since she had never seen it and it has been by far my favorite Lloyd Kaufman directed Troma movies.

Now don’t get me wrong… I love me some Toxic Avenger, Tromeo and Juliet, and even Class of Nuke Em High. Paul is very partial to Poultrygeist which I am sure will come on this show as well but I am 100 percent a fan of Kabukiman, It is so ridiculous and off the wall but honestly has. A great heart to it which I feel lacks a lot of the Troma movies that got put out. I think a lot of that has to do with multiple directions it took. This is a hard R movie but has some PG-13 style qualities to it. Mainly since the Japanese investors originally wanted to market it toward kids and Lloyd really had no interest in doing that. So Lloyd made this weird ass flick instead. Even though it is co directed by Michael Herz you know a lot of it is the brain child of Lloyd.

The story is about a streetwise New York Police Officer who transforms in to the world’s most unusual superhero… KABUKIMAN. He starts taking down the thugs and bad people in New York while also trying to do his regular job as a Sergeant in the NYPD. There’s a lot of gore and a lot of wackiness that ensues in this flick. Also very offensive and very politically incorrect. Not surprising for all of this considering that pretty much describes Troma to a tee.

Troma back in the early 90s were really starting to hit their stride. They were becoming more and more popular. Mainly due USA playing, “Toxic Avenger” all the time right next to Revenge of the Nerds (oh man another movie you could not really make these days) and because of the early 90’s cartoon, “The Toxic Crusaders” which I use to see as a kid on the Morning cartoons. I never liked it because I found it too weird when I was a kid. That was because I was in to shows like GI Joe, Thundercats, The Real Ghostbusters, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Which is what the Japanese investors wanted SGT. Kabukiman to end up being.

The Japanese investors were more interested in (In the words of Mel Brooks…) “Moichendizing”… they wanted Kabukiman dolls, lunch boxes, back packs, and whatever other merchandise they could sell to little 9 year old kids like me at the time. However like I said earlier that just wasn’t Troma. Troma had no interest in making basically a commercial product for kids. They were an adult studio. They wanted to market to late teens and adults that were interested In guts, gore, nudity and all that. And boy did they do that. I’m pretty sure the investors were not pleased.

As a 40 year old adult I’m pleased as punch though. This is exactly the type of superhero movie I feel like the world needs. I know Jessa really enjoyed it for her first time watching it and Paul well he loves the wackiness of Troma and on the show he was a plethora of knowledge about that time period. And if you are looking for more information on SGT. Kabukiman I’d say to check out the book, “Everything I know About FILMMAKING I learned from The Toxic Avenger” by Lloyd Kaufman. They have a whole chapter devoted to the making of SGT. Kabukiman, and it is worth the read.

And the scores are in… And of course I had to give it the lowest score on here cause yes it is my favorite. I gave it a 2 on the Stinkometer. If this is your first time reading this a 2 is low on the stink: I really enjoyed it and loved its wackiness. Paul gave it a 4.5 which I’m still a bit surprised about – I mean that’s low, but not as low as I expected from him. And Jessa gave it a 4, which for her first time watching this flick she really did enjoy it. Obviously there were problems but I overlooked a lot of them because, well, Troma is one of the companies that just makes things silly. That makes the total of 10.5 which puts it between For Y’ur Height Only, Lunatics a Love Story, and Tromeo and Juliet… and a Stinky average of 3.5. Wow… two Troma movies tied by the same score. That’s incredibly awesome.

Well that’s it for this write up! I’ll be doing the next two as well and they should be out soon. I know we have been slacking but a lot of that just has to do with fitting it in to the schedule. Anyway… more to come… but until then listen to Paul tell you how to find the film and how to buy the Merch for it…. Take it away The Moo-Cow Avenger….

Well cats and kitties, here is your TRAILER – I think it pretty mooch says it all… ;=8) You can find it for free on Youtube, and also Tubi, but we should all try to support indie companies like Troma, so try to buy yerselves a copy! Uncle Amazon has the DVD, Blu Ray, AND VHS version of this film, so there is no excuse! And its on PRIME too. You can also find it at Wallyworld, BreastBuys, Barnes & Nobles, Oldies.com, and Grindhouse Video, but the best way is to go through TROMA DIRECT itself so that Uncle Lloyd gets all the cashola! You can also get it used through the resale market in places like Ebay and DeCluttr.

Redbubble has a kewl Kabukiman poster for sale, and Cinematerial.com has the traditional poster in digital form; original posters come up for sale now and then on Ebay and Posteritati. There are a butt-load of places to get the Tee-shirt, including TeePublic, Redbubble, Chief T-shirt.com, Artistshot, Printerval.com, and AliExpress, although Twisted Merch might have the best one, IMO. Get the coffee mug at TeePublic, GoMugYourself, and The Sticker Space. ETSY has a kewl Kabukiman patch too! AND you can pick up the blue vinyl soundtrack there as well. Ebay also has enamel pins and udder stuff too, so check it out! And if yer votin’ for Kabukiman for president, and who isn’t, then you need this Vote for Kabukiman Button!

DVDTalk has a pretty good discussion about the film and its origins, and, of course, it is on the Tromaville WIKI. AND, if that isn’t all, will there be a Kabukiman return???

Hay everyone, its yer old pal the MooCow here, and ummm….holy cow, what the heck do we have here?? Somecow the Indie Film Cafe kids have stumbled onto (and you can blame the MooCow, of course) one of the weirdest, moost grotesque, way the F out baffling bit of moovie weirdness yer ever gonna see – and its none udder than Damon Packard‘s Reflections of Evil! And boy howdy does we has a straaange cowversation about this little splash of cinema weirdness on the latest episode of Indie Film Cafe, with Moody, the MooCow, and poor Ri Maku, who had NO IDEA what she was in store for!
:=8o

Yeah, good luck trying to figure out the narrative in this one. This very large, very angry homeless person wearing no less than 75 pairs of headphone wanders around a nightmare version of L.A. trying to sell watches, eat copious amounts of snacks, and find his sister Julie, who was swallowed up by Stephen Spielberg during a trip to Universal studios in the 70’s, only to discover that both of them are dead and he is in hell – which we kind of figured out already. The ghastly over-saturated colors, the incredibly abrupt and seemingly random cuts, constant violence and extreme cursing, and the disjointed voices, mixed with the loud, jarring squelches and slurps and slorp sounds, makes for what can only be politely described as a caustically nightmarish cinematic experience for the uninitiated. Well, at least its a fun one, right?? Welllllll…..

Ok, udderneath all of this stuff there is actually an interesting story here, wrapped up in some pretty interesting editing technique IMO, BUT you do have to suffer – and the MooCow does mean SUFFER!!! – through a long-ass weird disturbing story to finally get to put things together, and I am willing to bet that moost viewers are not gonna have the patience to sit through all of dis. Epic in scope and length, nightmarish in execution, the moovie cud have dialed both back a bit and still made its points.

The moovie stars Damon Packard himself, and he is also the writer and director; and while udder folks do pop in now and then as minor characters, and a few famous folks (like Tony Curtis) who show up and bits and pieces edited in to make it seem like they’re really there, this moovie really is a one-man show – kind of like a Neil Breen flick, if Neil Breen were on all of the drugs. I mean ALL of them.

This flick ranges from the subversive to the downright inscrutable, with healthy helpings of blasphemy, grotesquery, buffoonery, and huge swirling indigestible chunks of nothingness. This isn’t a moovie so mooch as a fight for your sanity, and Damon Packard isn’t playing – he WILL drive you bat shit insane, if you allow him. Its an attack on society, film conventions, Hollywood and Hollywood’s moost beloved members (especially Stephen Spielberg, who clearly peed in Packard’s Cheerios at some point), and pretty mooch everything else. Packard, who also works as an editor, has made udder weird short and full-length flicks before (especially the MooCow’s favorite Foxfur, hopefully covered next season on Indie Film Cafe!), but nothing comes off quite like this film, and if you are a serious film nerd then you really need to check this ambitious but punishing film out!

Well, the votes are in, and ummm…yeah, Ri Maku was not shy about scoring this one all the way up to a solid 10. Moody went with a 9.5, while the MooCow, generously, score the film an 8.5, giving a total Stink Score of 28.0 for Reflections of Evil, and that’s a Stinky Average of 9.3! On the Ladder of Stink, this moovie ranks pretty high up there, along with the likes of Barn of the Blood Llama, Fungicide, Thankskilling, and Curse of Bigfoot! Huzzah!!!

HERE is the trailer, check it out! And there is a NEW ONE for the blu ray release! And someone made a blu ray trailer with Belinda Carlisle, as you do! Woohoo!!! Check out Damon Packard’s personal Youtube page for moore videos and wacky stuff! Be warned, there are at least 4 different versions of this flick floating around; on Youtube you get a compressed version, but the original uncut director’s version is HERE on Amazon, but it ain’t cheap. TrashCult.com has it too for a bit less. DVDParty.com has the Damon Packard authorized full length original version on 2 DVDs! You can find the DVD on Ebay as well, but who the heck knows what version yer getting?? You can stream it for cheap at PivotShare.com, and its on Prime.

The good news is that both DVDParty.com and Pit of Infinite Shadow BOTH have the 20th anniversary Blu Ray version, so rush out and git her hooves on a copy soon! MoviePosterdb.com has the digital version of the poster that you can download for FREE! Bleeding Skull, Pop Matters, and 366 Weird Movies.com all have reviews, as does Underground Film Journal and Unboxed Watched and Reviewed has a video review – check ’em out! Also Film Threat Livecast did an interesting video interview with Damon Packard you should check out as well, the MooCow would LOOOVE to git him on our Indie Film Cafe Spotlight one day!

Hey everyone… Jonathan Moody here. Back again for another review of a movie that I did not pick. Yes that is right. Once again we had a special guest host who got to pick the movie. That guest was Dustin Hubbard. Dustin had been on the show a few times. First season was Season 3 when we were able to get guests from all over I had asked to come on and talk, “Arcade” with me. Since then I believe (I could be wrong) he’s been on every season since then. I thought who better to get on the show as a guest with Dustin than our own buddy Cameron Scott. Cameron had also been on a few episodes he was not a stranger to this podcast. Dustin wanted to show us a film I had never seen but was a bit interested in checking out… The 1988 paranormal flick, “GhostHouse”! Check out the latest Indie Film Cafe episode to check it out!

What was this movie about you may ask… well I will tell you that it does involve ghosts (well demons really) and a house. So the title was pretty appropriate. Aside from that though here’s what IMDB has to say about it:

A father who works in a funeral house has a nasty habit of stealing things of the dead and he gifts his daughter a stolen doll which turns out to be demonic and one night both father and mother are brutally murdered by an unseen entity while the daughter is locked in the basement along with the creepy doll. After this incident, the story moves twenty years ahead and a radio operator picks up a signal of people screaming. The operator somehow manages to track down the location where these screaming occurred and travels there with his girlfriend and the young couple arrive to the place where the screaming took place, which is the same house where the killings took place because of the demonic doll.

That’s pretty much the gist of the movie. Honestly it’s not the most complicated movie in the world or anything. The two characters meet three characters who are at the house. There was something to do with them actually hearing the screams before they happen. I tell ya those radios can be very dangerous. Thank God this is an internet radio or we could have been in some serious troubles with demons.

The film was directed by the great Umberto Lenzi. Some of his films included Cannibal Ferox, Nightmare City, and Eaten Alive. Its on a great double feature set with Witchery from Scream Factory; Paul will tell you how to get it later. The Writers are: Sheila Goldberg, who wrote Choke Canyon, Body Count, and Zombie 5: Killing Birds; Cynthia McGavin, who only did Ghosthouse; and Umberto Lenzi.

The actors include Lara Wendel , who was in Little Girl In Blue Velvet, Ring of Darkness, and Tenebrae; Greg Rhodes, who was in Final Exam, Deadly Manor, and Almost Hollywood; Mary Sellers, who was in Stagefright, The Crawlers, and The Room Next Door; and Donald O’Brien, who was in 2020 Texas Gladiators, The Panther Squad, and Frankenstein 2000.

The film looked pretty well done. I mean it is Lenzi’s movie. But the overacting was a bit too much for my tastes. It’s an Italian horror film but I think of all the Italian horror films I’ve seen this one was sort of more on the stinky side of it all. The Special FX and the music were really great. The music score by Piero Montanari was pretty impressive. I just think the film itself with the acting left a lot to be desired.

However all in all it was a movie that I think anyone should have the opportunity to check out. Whether you buy it on Blu Ray or watch it on a streaming site. You should definitely give it a try and see what you think. I’m just getting in to an Italian horror so I don’t know what’s great and what’s not just yet. All I can base everything on is my own taste.

With all that being said, here are the scores. Now I will tell you I was the harshest of them all, basing mostly on the acting, as I explained: so I gave it an 8 on the Stinkometer. If I could I would probably change that at some point. Cameron was the special guest and he gave it a 4. And Dustin who picked the movie and hosted the show obviously picked it because he loved the movie and gave it a 2.5. Making it a total Stink Score of 14.5, that’s a Stinky Average of 4.8. That puts it up on the Ladder of Stink with… Fire City: End of Days and Savage Beach. Actually, that’s not too bad a group of movies to be connected with.

Well that’s it for my end of the blog here. I’ll be back in a week or so (Maybe less) to talk what’s next for March’s podcasts. Paul will be up next to tell you where you all can see this movie or be able to buy it. Take it away Moo-Cow….

Here is the O-fficial trailer! You can check it out for free on Youtube (although it might be abridged). You can git yer hooves on the double feature with Firehouse from Amazon on either DVD, Blu ray, or VHS, or Oldies.com for the DVD. It is also on Prime. Or get the Ghousthouse and Witchery double feature Blu ray from Shout Factory. You can find the flick by itself, or double up with an-udder flick, on Ebay. Ebay also has an original poster too, and you can order it from Movie Poster Shop.com. The Italian poster (La Casa) can be gotten from Ebay as well. And if you want the Japanese poster, well you can get that too! Cult Collectibles has the Ghosthouse tee shirt, and also a nifty mug. of course, since Rifftrax covered Ghosthouse you can get their funny comments from them as well. And if you dug the moosic in the film, HERE is the full soundtrack!

Welcome back to Indie Film Cafe, everyone, and now its time for a classic 80’s exploitation cheeser from 1988 called Cemetery High, written and directed by Gorman Bechard, and starring the snuggly Debi Thibeault, Ruth Collins, and Frank Stewart. On the latest episode catch Moody, the MooCow, and VERY special guest co-host Tina Krause as they chatter and chitter about this fun flick – and strap yerself in, this one is a LOOOONG one!

So this is basically a cheap, chick revenge flick, like Ms .45 with an even smaller budget, in which all the innocent high school girls who have been done wrong by slimy, stinky MEN in their lives get their revenge by blasting them with shotguns, chopping them up with chainsaws, and various udder not-fun ways, although moostly off-camera. Basically its a chance to check out a bunch of hot chicks with weapons – and who doesn’t want to see that?? It was also known as Assault of the Killer Bimbos, which kind of says it all, right? It was cheap, silly, and made for late night TV, and when something ‘naughty’ was going to happen the film makers thoughtfully warned us with the regrettable “Hooter Honk” and “Gore Gong” to warn you to get young eyes away from the television! But the joke’s on you, ’cause there is neither to be had. LAME!!! :=8o

Yeah, there’s just not a whole lot to say about this one, the title says it all. Gorman Bechard is a B-moovie veteran, havign helmed such 80’s fare as Galactic Gigolo, Psychos in Love, Disconnected, and then later mooved on to writing, rpoducing, and directing short films, documentaries, and udder media – including Who is Lydia Loveless and Pizza: A Love Story! His latest offering was Old Friends, a Dogumentary, about what happens to old dogs when their owners no longer want them. Yeah, bring back the hot chicks with weapons, I say… :=8(

Debi Thibeault had herself a mooment in the 80’s when she was in a few of these cheesy, sleazy-wanna be stinkers, including the aforementioned Psychos in Love, Galactic Gigolo, and Death Collector – and funnily enough, she also starred in another flick called Assault of the Killer Bimbos, this one directed by Anita Rosenberg, also in 1988 – when great minds think alike! That one is mooch more well-known, and also stars Elizabeth Kaitan and Nick Cassavettes, so its safe to see why Director Bechard chose to re-name this one. Snuggly B-Queen Ruth Collins from Doom Asylum, Blood Sisters, Party Girls, and Witch Academy is also on hand to sex the film up. We get fake cowmmercials, the characters break the 4th wall sometimes just…because, and there are a lot of bad jokes, all of which adds to the stinky bouquet.

Well the votes are in, and yeahhh, Cemetery High definitely has an odoriferous stench cowming off of it – Moody went with a 6, the MooCow a 9, and our favorite Scream Queen Tina Krause also went with a 9, even though she has NO idea the stinky depths to which the MooCow can sink with these flicks! That is a Stink Total of 24, and a Stinky Average of 8.0, tying with a whole lotta crappy moovies on the Ladder of Stink, including the likes of Snow Shark, the Sinister Urge, Robot VS the Aztec Mummy, etc!

We gots us a trailer right HERE. There is an-udder on VIMEO. Check it out for free on Tubi! Buy the DVD or the VHS from Amazon! You can also grab a new copy from Barnes & Noble , FYE, Best Buy, and Walmart. Also Full Moon Features. if yer lookin’ re-sale, check out Ebay! 3 kinds of digital posters can be downloaded from CineMaterial.com. Debi Thibeault pops up on CultCelebrities.com, so check that out too. Weird Wild Realm does a fun review of this moovie you should check out as well!