Weekend of Trash XXIX

This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting up with my friends and fellow Blueprint: Review writers Justin Richards, Andrew Skeates and Bill Old. As usual, we spent the weekend shut off from reality, chain-watching ‘trashy’ movies. And, as usual, I’m going to share my thoughts on what we watched.

It was our 29th (recorded) weekend of horror, action, sleaze and cheese, and we made our way through 11 titles over a couple of days and nights. For those new to Blueprint: Review’s Weekend of Trash tradition, previous write-ups can be found in the category archive.

As usual, I’ve done some brief reviews of all the movies watched and I’ve included clips and trailers when possible too.

Friday

Merchants of War

Director: Peter Mackenzie
Screenplay: Asher Brauner, Eric Weston, Peter Mackenzie
Starring: Asher Brauner, Jesse Vint, John Barrett, Robin Smith
Year: 1989
Country: USA, South Africa

Wannabe-big-action-hero Asher Brauner stars in Merchants of War as Nick Drennen, a tough former commando who’s called back by the CIA to do one last mission. Unfortunately, it goes sour and he’s captured. His old commando buddies head over to save him, but he manages to escape before they get the chance and most of them end up dead. This sets Drennen on a quest for revenge against the terrorists that have made his life a misery.

This has decent production values for an exploding hut film and a fair amount of violence, which is what we were looking for. I also enjoyed the amusingly overbaked performances. Clunky writing and occasionally shoddy editing (perhaps from the British VHS censors) let it down a bit though.

Trailer:

A Virgin Among the Living Dead

Directors: Jesús Franco, Pierre Quérut, Jean Rollin
Screenplay: Jesús Franco
Starring: Christina von Blanc, Carmen Yazalde, Anne Libert, Rosa Palomar, Howard Vernon, Jesús Franco
Year: 1973
Country: Belgium, France, Italy, Liechtenstein

The synopsis of A Virgin Among the Living Dead is nicely summarised by IMDB – “Following the death of her father, a young girl visits her estranged family at their sinister castle in the countryside, and comes to realise her eccentric and morbid relatives are not quite alive.”

I found this dreamlike horror film from Jess Franco (with a few sequences reportedly directed by Pierre Quérut and Jean Rollin) to be slow, repetitive, uneventful and a little pretentious. That said, it’s suitably atmospheric and loaded with weekend-of-trash-friendly nudity. I just felt it needed more oomph, maybe due to being watched at the end of the night when I was struggling to stay awake.

Trailer:

Hellhounds

Director: Robert Conway
Screenplay: Robert Conway
Starring: Nathaniel Burns, Eva Hamilton, Cameron Kotecki, Dana Kippel, Daniel Link
Year: 2024
Country: USA

Hellhounds sees a bounty hunter named Mia (Dana Kippel) join forces with a biker named Alias (Nathaniel Burns) for help in catching a sadistic killer named Dave (Daniel Link). Meanwhile, we follow the trials of Kevin (Cameron Kotecki), who has been turned into a werewolf by Lucella (Eva Hamilton). We later discover that they might not be the only werewolves in town.

This has quite a few characters and narrative threads to juggle initially, though it does come together quite effectively as it goes on. It’s too talk-heavy though and there’s not enough werewolf action and violence to keep the momentum going. It also takes itself a bit too seriously for a film with such a silly concept (biker werewolves), it can be clumsy in places and the ending is a bit of a damp squib. I found it relatively engaging though, despite its flaws. Oh and the werewolf transformation effects and makeup were woeful for a film from 2024.

Trailer:

Pumpkinhead

Director: Stan Winston
Screenplay: Mark Patrick Carducci, Stan Winston, Gary Gerani, Richard Weinman
Based on a Poem by: Ed Justin
Starring: Lance Henriksen, Jeff East, John D’Aquino, Kimberly Ross, Joel Hoffman, Cynthia Bain
Year: 1988
Country: USA

Pumpkinhead was the directorial debut of the legendary special fx artist Stan Winston, and he only directed one more feature following this. This is a great shame as I loved Pumpkinhead.

The film sees Lance Henriksen play Ed Harley, a single parent living out in the sticks. One day, his beloved son is killed in a biking accident caused by an irresponsible young man. Blinded by rage and sadness, Ed goes to a local witch and asks her to summon Pumpkinhead, an undead demon who is supposed to enact vengeance on those who have done wrong.

This is a highly effective blend of southern gothic, monster movie and slasher. It has emotional heft too and awesome creature FX. It’s a film I’ve been interested in watching for a while and I’m annoyed I put it off so long as I thought it was pitch-perfect. Lance Henriksen gets a meaty roll to chew on too, which is great to see.

Trailer:

Tammy and the T-Rex

Director: Stewart Raffill
Screenplay: Stewart Raffill, Gary Brockette
Starring: Denise Richards, Theo Forsett, Paul Walker, Ellen Dubin, Terry Kiser
Year: 1994
Country: USA

Tammy and the T-Rex is a bizarre comedy from the mid-90s that sees a young Denise Richards play Tammy, a teenager who’s in love with Michael, played by a young Paul Walker. The problem is, Tammy’s ex-boyfriend Billy (George Pilgrim) is a psychopath who won’t leave her alone and, one night, beats up Michael and leaves him in the middle of a safari park to get mauled by a lion.

Michael is put in a coma, which attracts the interest of a mad scientist called Dr. Wachenstein (Terry Kiser). He’s after a living brain for his new experiment, so takes Michael’s and puts it into the body of a life-size animatronic T-rex!

From then on, Michael tries to convince his friends he’s now a dinosaur whilst also getting revenge on those who have wronged him.

We watched the director’s preferred ‘gore cut’ rather than the watered down PG-13 version originally released in the US. This was heaps of goofy, insane fun. I’ve always had a soft spot for everything-but-the-kitchen-sink films from the 80s and 90s and this is one of the wildest. It’s bonkers and never takes itself seriously. Plenty of OTT violence sweetens the deal, so I’d say the ‘gore cut’ is definitely the way to go. There are a couple of off-colour homophobic gags in there but otherwise this is jaw-dropping, zany comedy gold.

Trailer:

Calamity of Snakes

Director: Chi Chang
Screenplay: Chi Chang, Kang-Nien Li, Kuo Jung Tsai
Starring: Yun-Peng Hsiang, Kao Yuen, Ping-Ou Wei, Lui Cheung, Chung-Lien Chou
Year: 1982
Country: Taiwan, Hong Kong

Calamity of Snakes opens with a wealthy developer seeing the building of his latest apartment block grind to a halt when a huge nest of snakes is found where they plan to lay the foundations. Not wanting to delay work, as he’s rushing things to save money, the developer orders his team to simply kill all the snakes and carry on with their jobs.

This act has repercussions though. Once the building work is done and they start to open the block up to renters, the snakes (or relatives of the snakes?) take revenge.

The snake master the developer hires was enjoyably OTT and the finale is suitably bonkers but there’s waaaaay too much real animal cruelty in the uncut version we watched to recommend this film to anyone. It’s also pretty baggy, with several sequences dragging on forever, often the ones featuring horrific real-life snake massacres. Writer/director Chi Chang clearly has some sort of thing against snakes.

Trailer:

Comin’ at Ya!

Director: Ferdinando Baldi
Screenplay: Wolfe Lowenthal, Lloyd Battista, Gene Quintano, Tony Anthony
Starring: Tony Anthony, Gene Quintano, Victoria Abril, Ricardo Palacios, Lewis Gordon
Year: 1981
Country: Italy, Spain, USA

Comin’ at Ya! is a 3D spaghetti western (marking our first actual 3D viewing at a Weekend of Trash), starring Tony Anthony as H.H. Hart, a man out to find his wife (Victoria Abril) who was kidnapped at their wedding. It turns out she’s been taken by a pair of sadistic brothers (played by Gene Quintano and Ricardo Palacios), who sell kidnapped women to brothels.

Hart uses his powerful shotgun to attempt to take down the brothers and their whole operation.

This is a very basic rescue/revenge western at heart, but it’s wonderfully stylish, violent and rides on its 3D gimmick. Indeed, rarely a minute goes by without something being poked in your face or thrown at you. It’s all part of the fun though and the general depth of scenes is impressive. I loved the use of black and white and colour too, occasionally using the former with splashes of the latter within. The technique was used a bit randomly in places, but it helps make the film stand out (pun intended).

Trailer:

Graveyard Disturbance

Director: Lamberto Bava
Screenplay: Lamberto Bava, Dardano Sacchetti
Starring: Gregory Lech Thaddeus, Lea Martino, Beatrice Ring, Gianmarco Tognazzi, Karl Zinny
Year: 1987
Country: Italy

Graveyard Disturbance (a.k.a. Una notte nel cimitero) is a curious horror film from Lamberto Bava that sees five young thieves break down after attempting to evade the cops. They head over to some old catacombs to stay the night and find a mysterious bar there. In the bar, they’re told about a challenge they can take to win a huge fortune by staying in the underground crypt for a whole night. Of course, they take the challenge, but might live to regret it.

This begins quite well, is slickly shot, atmospheric throughout and has a certain charm. However, it’s all a little lightweight with little threat, so it feels underwhelming by the end.

Trailer:

Shark Attack 2

Director: David Worth
Screenplay: Scott Devine, William Hooke
Starring: Thorsten Kaye, Nikita Ager, Dan Metcalfe, Caroline Bruins, Danny Keogh, Rob van Vuuren
Year: 2000
Country: USA, South Africa

We were pleasantly surprised by Shark Attack at our last get together so figured we should give its follow-up a try.

Shark Attack 2 sees Samantha Peterson (Nikita Ager)​​ head out on a mission to kill the shark that ate her sister. She teams up with marine biologist Dr. Nick Harris (Thorsten Kaye) who is clashing with his boss at the aquarium, after the money-hungry manager makes the foolish decision to have a great white shark as an attraction.

Much swimmer-chomping ensues, as you might have guessed.

This is another solid shark movie that doesn’t do anything special but moves at a fair clip and has decent shark attack sequences, considering the age and presumed low budget of the film. One of the actors has the worst Australian accent I’ve ever heard though.

Trailer:

Sunday

Ghost Chase

Director: Roland Emmerich
Screenplay: Roland Emmerich, Thomas Kubisch, Oliver Eberle
Starring: Jason Lively, Tim McDaniel, Jill Whitlow, Leonard Lansink, Paul Gleason, Ian MacNaughton
Year: 1987
Country: West Germany

This wacky film from Roland Emmerich centers around a pair of young, hapless low-budget filmmakers, Warren (Jason Lively) and Fred (Tim McDaniel). They’re struggling to keep talent on board, particularly actress Laurie Sanders (Jill Whitlow), who Warren has the hots for.

Their luck seems to be picking up though, when a letter arrives saying Warren has been invited to attend the reading of his grandfather’s will. Rather than a great fortune though, he’s given a pawn ticket to collect a suitcase full of what appears to be junk.

However, in the suitcase is a clock that, after midnight, lets loose the ghost of Warren’s grandfather’s butler (who looks like E.T. for some reason). This apparition, who manages to infiltrate the body of an animatronic avatar of himself, tells the filmmaking buddies the truth about Warren’s grandfather and where he hid his great fortune.

So, Warren and Fred head out to find the money, but out to stop them is film executive Stan Gordon (Paul Gleason) and his clumsy goon Karl (Leonard Lansink).

I’ve got a soft spot for goofy high concept comedies like this, so I had fun with Ghost Chase. It could have used a little more excitement perhaps, but I enjoyed the low-budget movie making aspects of the story and charming tone.

Trailer:

Vampire Hunters

Director: Wellson Chin
Screenplay: Tsui Hark
Starring: Ken Chang, Michael Man-Kin Chow, Suet Lam, Danny Kwok-Kwan Chan, Anya, Rongguang Yu
Year: 2003
Country: Hong Kong, Japan, The Netherlands

In 19th century China, four vampire hunters and their master (Chunhua Ji) are trying to find and kill the evil Vampire King. They almost catch him early on but a methane gas explosion sets him loose.

Three months later, the four younger hunters have been separated from their master and are working undercover at the Jiang estate, where they believe some vampires might be hiding. A wedding is taking place at the time, between young master Jiang (Wang Zhen Lin) and Sasa (Anya). However, the groom is found dead the next morning.

The vampire hunters wish to leave at this point as the atmosphere is tense and there don’t appear to be any vampires on the estate. However, they end up being pressured to stay, largely due to one of their members, Thunder/Hei (Ken Chang), being in love with the young widow.

It’s a good job they did decide to stay though, as vampires do indeed appear and the interference of Sasa’s brother Dragon Tang (Horace Lee Wai Shing), who wants his hands on the Jiang fortune, causes no end of problems.

Though directed by Wellson Chin, this was produced and written by Tsui Hark and has his fingerprints all over it. Stylish and full of slick hopping vampire wuxia action, this was a good film to end the weekend with. It’s fairly gory too. I did find the complex story a little hard to follow in places though, not helped by the brainfog I was experiencing after watching 11 films practically back-to-back. I believe the version we watched was slightly edited too, so perhaps the longer Hong Kong cut is more coherent.

Trailer: