Three Weeks of B-Fest: CatBusRuss & ThePoeticCritic & "There's Nothing Out There"

I Dig Crazy Flicks with @CatBusRuss

Episode 205: B-Fest 2025: #Beepfest with ThePoeticCritic

CatBusRuss⁠ and ⁠ThePoeticCritic⁠ discuss ⁠B-Fest 2025⁠. This is perhaps the best B-Fest line up CatBus has seen, and from the sound of it, the best his big sister has attended. And ⁠A&O Productions ⁠earned these accolades because the line up did not make it out to the public until at least an hour and a half before this 24-hour movie marathon kicked off. ⁠I Dig Crazy Flicks⁠ was able to be the last minute sponsor of B-Fest Traditions, "⁠Plan 9 from Outer Space⁠" and "⁠The Wizard of Speed and Time⁠", but with that being the case, our host had low expectations for the kids at Northwestern to high jump over. He did not know that they were going to bring a pole vault.

If a movie was bad like "⁠Truth or Dare? Critical Madness⁠", it was so bonkers that you could not help but enjoy it with the crowd. If a film was morally corrupt like the gory Christian-exploitation flick, "⁠If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?⁠", the audience bonded together with the insults and riffs that all fascists deserve. And B-Fest did not miss when it came to nostalgia movies to amuse the audience. We're talking about the animated, "⁠The Transformers: The Movie⁠", JCVD and Dennis Rodman teaming up to stop Mickey Rourke in "⁠Double Team⁠", and two movies featured devious characters portrayed by B-Movie royalty, ⁠Mary Woronov⁠.

It was a comedy of errors. A fire alarm went off as ⁠Pam Grier⁠ was smoldering. Sponsors were failing to show up when scheduled resulting in constant reshuffling of the line up. One of the DVDs refused to let the crew skip 20-minutes of no-budget movie trailers, resulting in them turning to YouTube to projecting it with pop-up ads. Honestly, when you are celebrating the best of the worst films ever made, this all seems quite appropriate.

Episode 207 - There's Nothing Out There...Except Nix Eclips

The primary audience for horror movies has been told to laugh at itself once ⁠Kevin Williamson⁠ penned "Scream" in 1996. But as ⁠L7⁠ wrote four years prior, "The Masses are Asses". Horror nerds were being treated to this message since the founding of ⁠Troma Films⁠, but never so directly as in the ⁠Rolfe Kanefsky⁠ horror comedy, "⁠There's Nothing Out There⁠".

Nix Eclips from the "Cinema Shitshow" podcast⁠ suggested that ⁠CatBusRuss⁠ give the 1991 film a watch. He felt it had that vibe of "Scream". Our host would disagree with that since the film's hero is essentially the Jamie Kennedy character from the Wes Craven feature. It is more along the lines of "Final Girls" or "Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon". We have a lead who knows this is a horror movie, but will anyone else believe him. The boom mic "Gymkata" suggests they should, but the feature needs a body count.

Aside from splitting hairs in regards to what "There's Nothing Out There" is trying to be, this episode is a first time meeting of two podcasters. We find out about Nix's experience in entertainment and his surprise on how wrestling and podcasting has taken ⁠CatBusRuss⁠ on a tour as far west as Rolla, MO, as far north as Milwaukee, WI, as far east as Jacksonville, FL, and as far south as New Orleans, LA. Give it a listen if you want to hear about similar trauma caused by PG Eddie Murphy cinema. There will be tangents, so prepare yourself.

 

Follow me on Twitter @catbusruss. If you want to be on the show, contact me on Twitter or send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com. All we need is a theme, movie, director, or actor and a focus on sub 100-minute material. As long as the credits start before the 1:39:59 mark on the runtime bar, the movie qualifies.

Robo Vampire: Hopping Taoist Vampire Monks and Some Thai Movie on the Side

 

With a premise like that, I should not feel like there is a need to rush writing this review before this hotel shift ends. How can you forget that? If anything, Amazon should contact me in regards to writing their Prime Video movie descriptions. After all, Walmart let me do their groceries for two years.

I am getting ready for a killer week. Close the retailer, open the retailer. Evening shift at the hotel, open the retailer (an hour earlier). Evening shift at the hotel, open the retailer. Tuesday will be wrestling video games and completing "American Gods." I am working Wednesday and Thursday, and then heading up to catch my first AAW show of the year on Friday. Then I gotta make it back in time to open the retailer the next day. Just try to will the idea that there will not be an eight o'clock meeting Saturday morning on top of all this.

So, I now realize that the next blog will have to be a review of the wrestling. It is not right to let something that hot simmer. Then again, publishing this movie review instead will extend the life of AAW's Never Say Die.

It can be fun planning for the future, at least one that you have under control. The rest is just ignorant customers and loud and incompetent guests. I could romanticize it with the battle of loved ones and personal passion, but things would be simpler with lousy Halloween costumes portraying robots and gorilla masks portraying vampires...so you would think.

 

Robo Vampire

It looks like the U.S. is at least making strides against the drug trade in Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle. Their patrols are so effective that the top exporter has turned to a Taoist priest to resurrect an army of vampires to counter them. After the priest makes a pact with the ghost of his premier vampire beast's lover, he seems unstoppable. Unbeknownst to them, the Americans have their own methods of resurrection.

Death will not keep top agent Tom Wilde down. With some simple welding, he is revived as the Robo Warrior, something that does not play by the rules of Chinese black magic. Perhaps this is why the main supplier has kidnapped Sophie, an American agent whose cover has just been blown.

Stretched thin, the Yanks have assigned the rescue to Thai mercenaries. Hopefully that gamble will pay off. Otherwise, all of the secrets of the Robo Warrior will be exposed.

The last three sentences of my "Robo Vampire" plot synopsis required more thought than any placed in the production of this film. This 1988 release was a quick turnaround rip off of "Robocop" but without the class that Italian directors provide. When the quality of the film stock immediately reminds you of a Rifftrax or MST3K short, you know you should not watch this without a fifth of whiskey and robot friends. Sadly, my Tom Servo tattoo remained silent through this presentation.

Maybe I am selling my screenplay for "Main Event of the Dead" at too high a level. I may have to call it a Q-Movie instead of a B-Movie Zom Com. Ask for a treatment by emailing russthebus07@gmail.com.

 

The last statement comes from Godfrey Ho's film being called a Z-Movie. There is such a discrepancy in quality, I better pick a different letter. This film makes the idea of filming in portrait seem okay. To try and ensure that someone will enjoy this, Ho more than likely only shot 45 minutes of robot and vampire stuff and attached a Thai Commando movie to pad out the runtime. This causes the film to quit being good bad and just be all bad as you are pulled away from the premise that you clicked on to watch something that would only be interesting if it was exploitative foreign cinema. No abuse of women or graphic violence, no value to a scum aficionado like me.

It is sad that Ho decided to take this route because the cheap effects that feature no concept about how any weapon works is constantly hilarious. The Robo Warrior story already tries to be something for everybody. You have the gore of vampires ripping out a throat or too. You have the "lady ghost" fighting in completely sheer white "robes". The vampires can only hop as conveyance, so no one will be scared from the theater. You have a slapstick scene when you realize that vampires can get hyped up on sugar, so you better keep them neck deep in heroin for storage purposes.

When you use firecrackers and bottle rockets instead of scribs, you cannot change it up for half the film with Cannon like action. You have not earned it and by the first cut to the Thai movie, the audience knows they do not want it. We were too busy enjoying the nonsensical cuts, why would we want this feature to suddenly make any sense?

"Robo Vampire" could have been and enjoyable mess, but chose to be a monotonous chore. There is no Wikipedia page for this film, but after enough Google searches, I had found there to be two "sequels". As a lover of the concept of "so bad it is good", I am considering tracking them down in hope that Godfrey Ho could nail this down once. With that said, leave it to me because you should not object yourself to watch a Break.com video that will more than likely become a train accident.

If your blissful ignorance can be stolen by "Robo Vampire", how can you trust Ho to not go after your soul with his other works? His techniques are the only vampires of his that makes sense.

https://makeagif.com/gif/robo-vampire-YcpVlw?ref=yo3Yhg

90-Minute Netflix: Once Upon a Time in Venice...Bruno Was Way More Chilled

It is a rare night. I am actually considering calling for delivery. Sadly, all my favorite take out is wrestler hair greasy. Being a hotel front desk agent frowns on my clothes looking like I had just headlocked Bret Hart.

Roman ruined everything. His apparent admiration of Hart lead me to question Bret's style in the 90's. If anything, that should be taken as a good prognosis in his current cancer bout. If televised wrestling could not thrive with him, neither shall leukemia.

Hair and hunger do not mix. That seems like a great way to transition to a Bruce Willis straight-to-DVD feature, "Once Upon a Time in Venice" (beach).

Steve Ford (Willis) is a disgraced cop turned private investigator who is trying to make ends meet taking on any ridiculous job. His range of work spans from making his protege John (Thomas Middleditch) survey an ashamed sex addict to tracking down an aspiring, obscene Banksy enthusiast that has been tagging a crooked real estate agent's property. He seems to also lack maturity since he is considers nude skateboarding an acceptable escape method, but makes up for that by taking care of the down and out Dave (John Goodman) and his sister's family as her husband is off somewhere trying to find himself. As long as he can watch his niece's dog during the day, everything is fine.

Needless to say, when his sister's place is ransacked by a couple of addicts who fence the gains and dog to their dealer Spider (Jason Mamoa), Steve's life will go out of control. Spider seems cool, perhaps too cool because his girlfriend had the nerve to decide to run off with the dog and a case of his cocaine. It appears everybody needs to get their lives in order and it is up to Steve to do it. This is the only way to get the pooch back and leave Venice a place with some sensibility.

"Once Upon a Time in Venice" is amusing until you stop and think about it. The story ends up working out, but is a mess until the third act. You are impressed that all the loose events resolve rather smoothly, but aside from some fun performances, you spend the first two acts getting fed up with the wacky scenarios that are constantly introduced and yearn for a cohesive story.

The movie starts with misdirecting you into thinking that Middleditch will be your lead. Having been given nothing to do, he is virtually replaced by Goodman. Willis is fun, but it is John McClane as the cocky hero the entire film who is unaffected by any situation's levity. As for the rest of the performances, you may get a good scene from an actor, but the ridiculous set up for what are primarily cameos is migraine inducing.

Mark Cullen's directing ability is not any more adequate than his and his brothers writing. He seems to think that Kevin Smith's method of filming comedy can apply to action, hence there is none. You are surprised that they even took the time to allow for gun play because it cannot be framed by this talent.

I could not find out the budget of this film, but I am thinking that it all went to get Bruce Willis since these are also the writers of "Cop Out." That film left us with a Willis and Kevin Smith Feud. "Cop Out" only has one subplot. You are telling me that Willis wanted his character to be drawn and quartered across that film, and that is the he hated filming that was because Smith said no.

"Once Upon a Time in Venice" is funny but it is not a movie. It is a series of "Saturday Night Live" sketches at best. The problem with that is the Cullen Brothers fail to realize that show requires all new characters for each sketch. Venice Beach is not "Dante's Inferno," and if Willis is not required to show more emotion than he offered in "The Expendables" you have dog poo without any poo jokes.

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NinetyForChill: The #Podcast: Buckaroo Banzai vs. ThePoeticCritic

 NinetyForChill.com: The #Podcast

Episode 106: Buckaroo Banzai vs. ThePoeticCritic.

Buckaroo Banzai vs. ThePoeticCritic

Jeff Goldblum maybe NinetyForChill's "In case of fire, break glass" metaphor. It is an easy means to bring ThePoeticCritic back on the show to discuss a classic sci-fi feature. (With Jim Carrey's rubberface, we would be consider that to be syfy.) The guy who was the blue alien may draw TPC out, but Peter Weller seems to have an ability to capture CatBusRuss's attention. Throw in some Clancy Brown, and he will be there. Needless to say, our host has the Shout! Factory's Steelbook of 1984's "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension", an underappreciated blueprint of how all comic book movies should operate.

Allow me to get out of third-person. Happy Prof. Shurtleff of Illinois Central College? I (CM Darth) will try not to make so much light of violent death in this summation. This is my declaration of changing perspective.

It was a nice change of pace to have some consecutive days off during the week. Yes, this blog is being posted about 18 hours after I uploaded the podcast, but optimizing my PlayStation 5 seemed more worthwhile. Here is to hoping that I do not use the remainder of my Xfinity internet data. All the games I am downloading to make sure Sony cannot take them away from me will have a price. At least that is not the conglomerate who is going to benefit financially.

There is not really a lot of pressure on me right now. This podcast was recorded an hour after "The Lost Boys with @CouchManBakes", so there was no urgency to binge movies. I guess the shame is that the podcast has not done much with new-to-me movies.

But why worry about the new stuff when you have classics that require recognition. The best comic book movies follow the groundwork laid by "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension".

If you call yourself a fan of the eighties, this feature offers everything fun about the decade to the audience. New wave music. Robocop. The Kurgan. Jeff Goldblum's first exposition dump. Crazy John Lithgow. The actual birth of Christopher Lloyd's villainous performances.

The ensemble cast inspired a trip to "Ally's Accessories Shop on Etsy's Trash Feature Revue". With the letter C, Ally actually supplied me with a disc. We have different taste, so those are greater gambles than when I try to feel in the void. But, as it turns out, I have yet to see a bad sub 100-minute film starting with that letter (at least when it comes to Ally's trash).

"Columbus Circle" is a fun ensemble piece about a shut-in heiress who is paranoid of everyone. Of course, just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you. Selma Blair, Beau Bridges, Kevin Pollak, Jason Lee, the weakest name in the cast is Amy Smart, but I do not find that to be an insult. Give Pollak an "everything is not what it seems" story, and it may be guaranteed gold.

Follow me on Twitter @catbusruss. If you want to be on the show, contact me on Twitter or send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com. All we need is a theme, movie, director, or actor and a focus on sub 100-minute material. As long as the credits start before the 1:39:59 mark on the runtime bar, the movie qualifies.

 

Top #Movie Discoveries from 2021 for NinetyForChill: Justice to Rabid

 *This blog post was started on December 8, 2021.

Why is it that Blueberry Red Bull is the only flavored version that I can find anytime of the year? Why is it pomegranate for this years holidays? I have never seen pomegranate sauce at the feast. How would they sell that anyway? This "What's the deal with" bit is going to result in me Googling all of these questions, and I will just end up falling behind again.

Right now, I am in a state of restlessness, and with the "Ready or Not" podcast to record tonight Red Bull is a necessity. Will I miss my nephews birthday because of the lack of sleep? The kid is still in grade school, so I might just make it in time tomorrow. But if I do just that bit of rushing, will I have the energy to venture into Downtown Peoria? Is that going to be forbidden since I am driving my older sister up to C2E2? Dad may want to get out of the house, but irresponsibility should not lead to a chauffeur.

But he is a Duran Duran fan. Sing, Blue Silver.

With my busy schedule and sudden Tinder popularity, I guess we can blame the flirtations instead of my computer issues for my set backs. There has not been too much time to think outside of my podcast. Even with C2E2, my podcast setup must be ready. My big sister was not a fan of dragging the boom mic and other accessories while I parked the car when were at Wizard World.

It could be a great editing experience. Why not use my Zoom P4 and my laptop if I can talk someone into record?

As for the blogs, 2021 still needs to be wrapped up, and the podcast has made it so there are twice as many movies to cover. With that said, lets continue my work on this years best of list.

2021 Discoveries for NinetyForChill.com:
"Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths" to "Rabid"

Honorable Mention: Pumpkinhead

I hate to remove Lance Henriksen from contention to advance to the best 20 from the breakdown thus far, but "Pumpkinhead" is more of a effects man trying to prove their worth. Henriksen makes that feature because no one else is worth remembering except him. It is a pretty straight forward mystical revenge narrative. The monster, Pumpkinhead, is effective is scaring us, but without traditional slasher victims, it is not really allowed to do much.

 

Winston's offers up an ideal ninety minute movie, but it is not the best feature I saw this year by any stretch of the imagination. It is easy to argue that it is better than "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" or "Laid to Rest", but they are far more outlandish and rewatchable, one for the comedy, the other for the ridiculous violence.

 

I guess it just comes down to ranking the final 10.

GKids - Nocturna

The Top 10 Discoveries of 2021 Ranked (Kaboom to Rabid)

1. Nocturna (2007) dir. Adria Garcia and Victor Maldonado
2. Lady Snowblood (1973) dir. Toshiya Fujita
3. Nighthawks (1981) dir. Bruce Malmuth (Gary Nelson: Uncredited)
4. Kaboom (2011) dir. Gregg Araki
5. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) dir. George Miller
   
6. London Town (2016) dir. Derrick Borte
7. Meatballs (1979) dir. Ivan Reitman
8. Rabid (2019) dir. Jen and Sylvia Soska
9. Laid to Rest (2009) dir. Robert Hall
10. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988) dir. Stephen Chiodo 

Prepping the #Podcast for #October: Don't Go in the House

 *Blog post was started on September 29, 2021.

I am doing my best to enjoy these slow times at the bank. With Republicans threatening to let this country default on its debts me technically being a government contractor, it is more important than ever to enjoy every moment. 

That is definitely tricky when your mom has to be COVID-free to head to London this weekend. It is bad enough that I have not heard any news on what the bank will do about the unvaccinated who surround me for nine hours a day. My visit this past weekend had hopes of checking out the Peoria bar scene, but that kind of exposure could ruin my mom's next three weeks. I would never here the end of that.

Which is why I need help from my readers and friends. "NinetyForChill.com - The Podcast" needs guests and I need something to keep me inside. For October, the natural thing to do is to focus on horror movies and I will acknowledge, my experience with many of the slasher franchises is lacking. Almost all the franchises have at least one feature that clocks in between 74 and 99 minutes. If you want to be my expert, send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com and we can set up a time for a Zoom meeting. Each episode needs to be recorded by Sunday before the Tuesday that it is to be released. Thanks.

If you cannot be a guest, I am still in need of suggestions for horror features to watch. Which Jason and Freddy flicks are worth the time. Are there any good "Halloween" sequels beyond "2", "H2O" and "2018"? Are "Child's Play" and "Seed of Chucky" all I need to know where the cool doll-based gore is because last night, I went for a "Video Nasty". Unfortunately, it sure felt like the UK cut of "Don't Go in the House".

Don't Go in the House (1979)

Donny has an obsession with fire. This stems from his father abandoning the family when he was five. Deeming that man as evil, thus anyone spawned from him must be the same, Donny's mother was determined to burn the evil out of her son, literally. The fear instilled into Donny has lead to him never having the nerve to leave her, so he has essentially been her live-in nurse his entire life. His only relief is being mesmerized by the flames at the incinerator he works at.

One night, he returns from work to find that his mother has died. When he is about to call the authorities, voices manifest telling him to celebrate the new found freedom instead. Unfortunately for Donny, these are not the only voices that he hears. His mother is still demanding that he be an obedient and good child. The new found friends suggest that the answer is purifying his mother's corpse with flames.

Pinterest @cultmem

Of course, when your only relationship with any women is your mom, you may rationalize that all women are the same as her. With a flamethrower and his newly installed steel-walled room, he will bring purity to this world, one woman at a time.

"Don't Go in the House" lays some great groundwork for eventually banned by Great Britain films like "Maniac" when it comes to the story. Unfortunately, it is all suggestions of imagery instead of actually delivering the brutality. Just because it had been associated with the video nasties, I was kind of disappointed that there is only one scene of genuine terror and no spectacular gore.

The overbearing mother trope obviously dates back to "Psycho", but late 70s' early 80s' horror elevated the psychopathic notions. I think there are well written scenes in this feature that explore how a nutcase would handle living around corpses with a need for interactions. Much of the time, this film comes across as a one-man show. Dan Grimaldi does not quite have the charisma or chops to carry those scenes. Without people to interact with, his performance appears lost.

The lack of an outstanding performance without a large amount of gore results in a lot of real-time research temptations. There are great odes to Italian horror movies with some sequences of the charred corpses coming to life, but it just reminds you that this is not a messed up giallo film. I liked the ending proving that Proud Boys are not hard to make, but it is not enough a reward for the time that has passed.

"Don't Go in the House" has a strong enough script for an interesting movie, but the lack of actual horror holds this feature back. It is not a waste of time because it lays out a nice prototype for what the genre was to become, but this lacks the bells and whistles to be regarded as ready to be released to the public. If you want to see the history that leads up to over the top mayhem, you may get something from this feature. Otherwise, just skip to "Maniac's" uber misogyny.