Month: Jul 2022

Valerie and her Week of Wonders (1970)

This is…unfortunately, one of those few situations where I honestly dont have a lot to say about the behind the scenes of this weeks episode. I know it’s always a bit of a downer when all I can really say is “Watch my review for the full story!” But sometimes it just be like that tho m8.

What I CAN say, and its totally off topic, but hey. your reading this, you’ve got time. is that at the time I was working on this review I was in a quite stressful and unpleasent place. in fact a decent chunk of this year has been rather stressful and genuinely unplesent at times. I quite recently got a promotion at work where i’ve basically been assigned to *fix* a VERY broken aspect of their business. I like fixing things, im ALL for improvement projects and optimisation. It’s my jam…but this thing…this fucking thing…holy shit. it’s BROKE.

As a result I spent the first 3-4 months being basically dragged by the project face first into the dirt. it was sprawling, awkward FULL of weird variations and bylaws that made NO sense. I likened the experience of coming into work as “Stepping on Landmines” because the problems were seemingly invisible till stepped on, at which point you’d be launched into 2-3 weeks of absolute shrapnel induced carnage only recovering long enough to accidentally drag yourself onto another one. it’s been a shit time honestly. it was painful and i’d regularly find myself working WAY overtime and burning myself out over the weekends trying to catch back up with myself only to repeat it all again the next week!

But! in the last 4-8 weeks i’ve finally stopped being blown up quite so frequently, i’ve managed to slim out some of the worst aspects of the system and introduce better, more robust procedures that have not only given me back more time during the day to actually work on larger improvements to save me even MORE time. But have actually (more often than not) given me my evenings back as well. Im still a few weeks off saying im “comfortable” again…but for now at least…I dont feel quite so distressed by it all and im kind of getting back to being happy with my lot again…and if thats the direction im heading in, I can live with that!

Anyway; yeh…kind of…went off on a tangent there. ENJOY!

I love this poster, its so striking, yet so simple.
by tytdreviews

Phantom of the Ritz (1988)

This was actually a pretty rare opportunity for me, I often cover obscure and somewhat forgotten movies, but it’s VERY rare that I cover a film thats been forgotten so much so that it has an almost non existent online presence. I could find almost NOTHING on this movie in terms of interesting facts or trivia. I couldnt even honestly prove that this thing ever played in theaters.

The only thing I could confirm is that it got a US and UK vhs release and then after that it literally fell through the cracks of history and dissapeared seemingly forever. it currently has 78 ratings on IMDB. I think the only film i’ve ever covered with lower scores than that is “Riverbend” and even that now has risen to 118 ratings since I first covered it. I guess…what im trying to say is, this film is LONG forgotten and VERY unlikely to get a re-release. and I think thats kind of a shame, this isnt a fundamentally bad movie…it IS bad…but WAY worse have managed a dvd AND bluray release…so…if any distribution labels are reading this, maybe take a look at “Phantom of the Ritz” it’s a kinda sorta, not so bad movie thats pretty rubbish.

I love this poster work too….I mean, it says NOTHING about the actual film…but it does it with such a level of STYLE!
by tytdreviews

Tough and Deadly (1995)

So, as part of our 5th Anniversairy celebrations i’d made the decision well in advance that I wanted to try and steep a more than decent chunk of this season in references and call backs to things i’d mentioned in the past. is it self indulgent? absolutely. But given im very unlikely to make 10 years on this platform under the current format, I have to take what moments I can as and when they appear!

I knew I wanted to cover some of the usuals, an “American Ninja Movie”, my continued slog through “Best of the Best”. I absolutely wanted to revisit “The Dragon Lives Again” but I’d always remembered that in the past I’d sworn i’d cover “Tough and Deadly” and given that was nearly 5 years ago and that it still hadnt happened. I absolutely thought this had to be righted.

In many ways; I wasnt entirely won over by this one, despite what good it does do. frustratingly the experience of covering this one was somewhat tarnished by events that happened around the time of publication; Y’see, I owned this movie on a ‘double feature’ set with another Billy Blanks movie “Talons of the Eagle” and literally the same week that this movie review went live, “Talons of the Eagle” got announced as having a frankly Stunning Bluray release by Vinegar Syndrome…Which did somewhat take the wind out of my sails for this one on release day.

Still! it’s a fun movie! and while I dont think i’d be exactly ecstatic to recommend it, i’d say it’s worth checking out at least once!

That poster says LITERALLY nothing about the film. LITERALLY nothing.
by tytdreviews

Cannibal Girls (1973)

So I’d been talking to Seth from “The Hellbound Horror Show” for a number of months on the possibility of collaborating on something in the near future. Seths been a champion of the channel now for quite some time and I really love what he does too, but it was finding JUST the right kind of flick that overlapped our styles just about right, and eventually we settled on a Cannibal double feature! We would do “Cannibal Girls” over on my channel and “Cannibal Women in the Avacado Jungle of Death” over on his channel at some point (TBA)

I had an absolute blast doing this with Seth and I really hope we can get it all together again in future! While the death of Ivan Reitman was incredibly unexpected and unfortunately well AFTER we’d already shot and recorded everything for this episode, I still tried to at least pay something of a tribute to the man himself with the opening memorial card.

Cannibal Girls is a great movie and I highly recommend you check it out. But dont just take my word for it here, let both me and seth talk you though this absolute slice of insanity!

(Seths youtube channel is available here)

Could you FIND a more perfect example of 70’s splatter horror and gimmicksploitation in one poster. No. no you cant. I rest my case.
by tytdreviews