Category: Horror Movies

Kingdom of the Vampire (1991)

So! after a gentle breaking in to the career of J.R Bookwalter with “Robot Ninja” and “The Dead Next Door” we now finally begin our trail down the “SOV Six Pack” a box set that, in all honesty I had zero intention of buying because I didnt know it existed until a rather helpful soul on a VERY small discord I hang out in threw a link to Makeflix while also pointing out the six pack as being a pretty decent deal for the cost (it was part of the black friday sales for that year, retailing at $50 + shipping) given that the cost of this set was usually closer to $80 at the time. I figured I’d literally blind buy this thing just to see what the crack was with it (because black friday brings out the excessive side in all of us) so! I ordered it expecting a flimsy case containing 6 Blurays with a feature and a couple of extras on each disc, and what I got instead was an ASTOUNDING piece of value for money.

this is going to sound like an advert (and I assure you I did pay for my copy. no freebies) but the design of the six pack box was nicely handled. with a clean signature from J.R himself on the back of the packing, each bluray comes with some gorgeous new cover art (As seen on each of the thumbnails in these reviews) and they’re all just…BRIMMING with extras, multiple commentary tracks, multiple making of’s trailers, marketing materials. and to top it all off this set came with full scores as CD’s AND posters of some of the new art work which, as soon as I move to a bigger property WILL get framed! (because who doesnt want a chick boxer poster on their wall!?)

Anyway! this set is a phenominal job not just on packaging and contents but on presentation as well…barring Chick boxer (which really didnt get a particularly smooth ride from an archive standpoint) all these films have been totally from the ground up remastered. they look ace. im genuinely really impressed with the work that’s gone into this set. and if it wasnt sold out i’d be telling you to go and grab it right now!

What I CAN say is that apparently single releases for all 6 films are looking likely to come out either at the end of 2021 or the start of 2022 so do keep your eyes peeled because these are films you dont want to miss!

And kicking things off is “Kingdom of the Vampire.” a film that wasnt particularly my cup of tea. But, I can at least appreciate the craftsmanship that went into producing it. this is a film where the film makers are learning to shoot SOV and it’s great to see how quickly those skills get honed.

New Cover art vs Old Cover art? the new cover art wins (despite it having ZERO relevence to the plot)
by tytdreviews

Robot Ninja (1989)

Continuing our journey through the life and times of J.R Bookwalter, we’re following up 1989’s “The Dead Next Door” with “Robot Ninja”, quite possibly my all time favourite Bookwalter film. I just, REALLY enjoyed this one. it feels big, daft and aggressive and it just gives off this tone that I find quite honestly wonderful to sit through.

And, as I mention in the below review, I am just…Captivated by the restoration work done on this thing. having jumped from a VHS transfer to the new widescreen fully remastered version, it’s crazy to me at just HOW much attention to detail and love has gone into bringing this “Direct to video” campy action horror film into the realm of full HD. Theres an extra feature on the Bluray release of this that goes into detail around the work involved in restoring this and Its astounding honestly. J.R often says this is a film he wishes he never made (I mean…he says that about almost all of his films…) but honestly? I think the world is a better place WITH Robot Ninja in it

You can find copies of Robot Ninja here, but hurry! supplies are limited and I guarentee you wont want to miss this!

This poster/bluray artwork is newly commissioned and I love it so very much!
by tytdreviews

The Dead Next Door (1989)

Well! We’re back and what a summer it was! filled with highs, lows and sipping lemonade by the calms of a gentle stream!…Okay not a lot of that happened, But it’s nice to dream! Basically; even though I said I was going to use the time to have a bit of a vacation the majority of the summer was spent prepping this new season. Writing for our first script “The Dead next door” began on the 20th of March 2021, with the earliest draft completed late night on the 21st of March. and; since then, this seasons pretty much been my life. over the summer I pretty much ironed out our October and November schedules with a 2 week vacation from work in August acting as a way for me to catch up on all the household odd jobs i’d been putting off for months while also giving me a ton of time to write my December episodes.

At the time of writing I have 20 scripts of a proposed 22 episode run for this series complete with 19 of 22 reviews fully edited and ready to go. Im not gonna lie. im in a pretty decent place right now! and the comedy dining experience continues to grow from strength to strength as we’ve just capped off our November and early december episodes (which still need editing!…I must remember to get around to that!)

Anyway! the dead next door! the opening review of an 8 part series looking into the career of producer, director, editor and seemingly all round swell guy J.R Bookwalter. I’ve been planning to do this series since at LEAST November last year. ever since I Invested in Makeflix’s quite brilliant “SOV Six Pack” boxset. and, to act as a kind of pallet cleanser before we dive in to 6 reviews of SOV madness It made sense to me to have a brief stop off to look at Bookwalters first two feature length productions.

While “The Dead Next Door” isnt going to fundamentally rock anyones world. what I’ve found here is that we have a good, solid zombie movie that, to me at least. sets the minimum standard i’d expect for a good zombie movie. this was a laugh, a real good time and I highly recommend picking it up if you can.

I personally prefer the original poster for this one. But I Cant deny that this poster looks epic!
by tytdreviews

Finishing the Complete Ninth Season (2021)

Season 9 was one of those seasons that feels “Right” to me. I mean that very much in a spiritual sense. theres no real metric that can be used to measure whether something is objectively “good” or “bad” but what I mean is that to me, it feels like all the pieces fit together perfectly, it feels like each review contrasts or compliments the other. with every season I do I often feel like there’ll be at least 1 or 2 episodes out of the two(ish) dozen I make where I either dont feel I got a grip on exactly HOW I wanted to present the review, or I’ll feel like technically I was a bit off the mark.

But this season, every review I feel like I got exactly what I wanted out of it, we had some stinkers, we had some hidden gems. but, to me, it feels like the work I’ve put in to slowly reshaping the series somewhat (Work that first began waaaaay back in Season six) has finally matured into a format that, for now at least, im pretty happy with. I feel a lot more confident about this run of reviews than I have with any other previous run, and I feel a lot happier with my work load management and attitude towards how I run the process. genuinely, the last 12 months worth of writing and releases have been some of the most enjoyable I’ve done in the 4 and a bit years of working on the channel.

Personal highlights of this season for me were “Nutbag” a film that genuinely caught me off guard for just how amazingly bad it was. this is one of the few times where BBFC suggested edits have actually massively enhanced what would otherwise be a fairly drab affair, Deathrow Gameshow a film that totally surpassed my expectations, and I feel utter remorse that I didnt crack this one open much MUCH sooner as it’d been sat on my “To Watch” pile for WAY too long. My special video essay on a recent Bootleg Video Nasty haul was a definite highlight for the year and got quite a few people talking about their own experiences with Nasty’s which was nice. and the opportunity to collaborate with old friends like Raymond and new faces like G.G Graham were frankly an absolute delight.

This season for me will probably be fondly remembered as a time capsule of a 6-8 month period where things, while still rather grim beyond the walls of my house, were alright. and I hope that comes across in these reviews.

by tytdreviews

I Drink Your Blood (1970)

Well! a little bit later than i’d have liked, but! i’m finally getting round to updating the site in line for the launch of the new series in a little over a weeks time! to say things have been a little bit chaotic over here while tried to get everything prepped ready for a reasonable launch date would be a bit of an understatement. honestly, its amazing i’ve managed to do it. BUT! we’re here!

Over the last couple of weeks i’ve been vine swinging from writing, to recording, to editing to uploading and all the other fun stuff that goes into making the channel fly as it does! AND! as is customary (Well…I mean, this is the 2nd one we’ve ever done. but hey! traditions have gotta start somewhere!) we’re back with another summer special to help quench your thirst during the drought that is my summer break! and this time joining me to talk through the frankly astounding exploitation grindhouse classic “I Drink Your Blood” is Miss G.G Graham!

I had an absolute blast working with G.G and when it comes to exploitation cinema she really knows her onions! seriously, she totally blew my mind with just how much she knew about David Durston and the context with which this film was formed. a true professional in ever sense of the word. I really hope I get to work with her again in future as working on this was a blast!

So! grab yourself a tall beverage of your choice and enjoy this bumper edition of “The Red Triangle” we tried to be as thorough as possible and at the time of writing this is the longest single film review i’ve done to date!

If you enjoyed listening to G.G here you can find more of her work (and I highly encourage you to go check her out as she’s simply fab!) at the below links here:

https://midnightmoviemonster.com/
https://twitter.com/msmidnightmovie
http://driveinasylum.com/
https://cultsploitation.com/all-reviews/

And we’ll see you guys VERY shortly for the launch of the new season on August 31st at 4pm BST (11am EST)

The poster may not be all that relevent to the film. but MY GOD it sells it!
by tytdreviews

The Ice Cream Man (1995) Comedy Dining Experience

This week! we have a visitor joining us on the comedy dining experience in the form of George from “The Best Little Horror House in Philly!” and the journey this episode took to get from recording to screen is frankly amazing. we recorded this episode alongside our commentaries for “On her Majesty’s Secret Service” and “Nutbag” this was the 3rd film in that block which rounded off the night…the night of November the 14th 2020! yes. this commentary is almost 8 months old before it even saw the light of day! Why did this end up happening? Unfortunately it all fell down to Scheduling. y’see, we try to do a Bond film every other month and I also try to not do two films of the same genre back to back one after another. which; unfortunately due to some last minute rearranging meant this absolutely fantastic cast ended up being pushed back and back in order to get it out at the best possible time.

So! with sincere apologies to George for taking SO damn long to get this out (And I highly recommend you head over to his cast and give him some love. he does a damn fine job with his show and is always guarenteed to raise a laugh!) Grab yourself a tub of your favourite flavour of ice cream. shave your head back to an uncomfortably receeding hairline and make sure you’ve got the right amount of change! Because “The Ice Cream Man” …is an experience.

by tytdreviews

Living Nightmare (Echoes) (1982)

Finally! the middle classes answer to “Driller Killer” in all it’s mundane dullness. I feel like such a stooge in hindsight after releasing this review. A little context (And a mild spoiler about whats coming up on this channel in future months.) I hadnt seen “Driller Killer” before reviewing this movie. and, for all intents and purposes I hadnt really planned to watch it for a while because the majority of people i’d spoken to about it told me that Driller killer was a bit boring and the kind of movie that you’d only watch once and move on.

Anyway; decided for the upcoming 10th season of my reviews that I was going to watch “Driller Killer” to get it over and done with. and apart from the fact that I really enjoyed it WAY more than the people who told me it was rubbish made out. I was mortified to discover that “Driller Killer” appears to more or less be the groundwork for this movie. as in; the themes, narrative and a decent chunk of the plot seem to more or less be copy/pasted from “Driller Killer” into “Living nightmare” the only significant difference is whereas “Living Nightmare” follows a bunch of middle class yuppies as they deal with the day to day issues of owning an apartment the size of a bowling ally. “Driller Killer” aims more to cover people in poverty and on skid row.

In fact; the only significant difference other than the class in this film and Driller is that in this film the madness is put more down to ghosts/the paranormal, whereas in driller killer the madness is based on the circumstancial rot that poverty induces. other than that they follow eerily similar beats, and I really wish i’d known that going into this one.

As it stands I wrote this review back in Jan/Feb of 2021 and then didnt see Driller killer until June 2021 at least a week or two after this review dropped, it took me till about 50 minutes into Driller to very quickly realise i’d totally missed a trick with this review.

So. to clarify, not only is this film generally rubbish and not worth watching, it’s also a little bit theivey and you should go and watch “Driller Killer” if you want a similar experience thats actually much much better than this film.

The official poster art for this (under the title “Echoes”) is rubbish. while the VHS art lies to you, at least it lies to fein looking interesting.
by tytdreviews

Demon Cop (1990)

So I really do have to give serious thanks to “Channel 83” for sending this film my way. It was one that was vaguely on my radar for a number of years. But i’d never put much effort into actively checking it out. and BOY was I annoyed at myself for not looking into this one sooner.

This really is a bizzare yet entertainingly awful picture. One that somehow manages to engage the part of my brain that loves “So bad it’s good” cinema while simultaineously really irritating other parts of my brain to the point of wanting to throw it as far away from me as possible. This film really truely is the Carvel ice cream cake covered in ants at the picnic. and in many way’s I dont see that as being an entirely bad thing.

Its a movie that I do really hope gets a re-release at some point, preferably sooner rather than later because i’d love to be able to take this movie over to a friends house to sink a few beers and watch the chaos unfurl.

It still blows my mind that this film came out in the UK on the same label as “Bad Taste”…blows my mind…Still that poster is still pretty awesome!

by tytdreviews

The Beast in Heat (SS Hellcamp) (1977)

This movie sucks. and since getting involved in the whole “Video Nasty” scene this was one of the movies i’d wanted to see the most out of all the entries on that section 1 and 2 list. it just seemed on paper to be a fun and weird, nasty little horror movie. in my minds eye I was envisioning something super bleak but played as if it had been directed by Ken Russell. and BOY was I in for a dissapointment.

I remember clear as day the first chance I got to watch this via Full moons streaming service last year sometime over the summer and within about 30 minutes I realised i’d been fully cheated on the premise and that in fact this was just going to more or less be a pretty generic war movie with a few very poorly shot and directed shock moments thrown in for good measure. I didnt come away from this movie on the first watch sad, I came away angry that I’d waited literaly years to see this film, only to be bitterly dissapointed by just how underwhelming it is as a work. I jumped into a group chat with some friends to vent my frustration and got a mixture of “Oh Wow that bad eh?” and “yeh it’s awful” which didnt really soothe me much either.

As times gone by i’ve been able to be a bit more critical about all of this and i’ve kind of ended up in a place where I feel that this is a film that; if you can get it for cheap or ideally free I’d say it was worth keeping. but I certainly wouldnt say it was any good and I DEFINITELY wouldnt say it was worth any more than $5.

It’s a good job I caught this film on streaming as I was seriously planning to spend upwards of $35-$48 to import a copy of the US Severin release of this movie at one point. the official line is that the BBFC dont have a problem with this film and that if it was submitted for classification today it’d be passed uncut for release. the problem is the films SO shit that UK distributors wont go near the thing. Leading to a bizarre situation whereby the film IS available to import from international sources. but because dealers know it’s so shite they wont license it for a UK release. despite it being perfectly okay to do so. Which leaves people like me who, before seeing it on streaming couldnt find a copy anywhere else, to have to do drastic things like pay upwards of $48 in costs and shipping to find out just how unwatchable and WHAT a money pit it truely is.

Totally rubbish, worth owning for reference and maybe as a filler feature for a pretty lively party. NOT something you’d just stick on because you want to enjoy your evening. this films so bad…

The Poster is literally the coolest part of this movie. GOD this film was SO LAME!!!
by tytdreviews

The Nutbag (2000) Comedy Dining Experience

I…I just had to show it to Ben. I just had to. we were in between films, it was 64 minutes long. I just had to. he hates it. he’s watched it 3 times now and he hates it. i’ve seen it 5 times and I hate it too. im planning to watch it again soon.

this was recorded back in November 2020 as part of a triple feature when lockdown restrictions eased very briefly in the UK. This was the middle film between “On her Majesty’s secret service” and another commentary that hasnt yet been released. we look forward to bringing you that commentary in June. for now. Nutbag…I gotta watch this one again…

by tytdreviews