Tag: 80s

Whoops Apocalypse (1986)

Its not often that I find a film that contains so many faces im familliar with yet at the same time has absolutely failed to bring itself to my attention. And yet Whoops Apocalypse is one of those movies. I literally didnt know it existed until I actively started to look for VHS tapes on Ebay. it was while I was on there that I saw someone was selling a Big box ex-rental of this movie having seen it starred Peter Cook I quite wrongly assumed it was some kind of rare find. I bid nearly £15 for that time and im kind of glad I got outbit because I was able to pick up the DVD copy of this film for about a fiver.

Its a bit of a hodge podge of a movie, about a third of it works really bloody well, about a third of it is okay and about a third of its bloody awful. But the good bits hit quite nicely and while I’ll be the first to say it wont be a film i’ll be revisiting for a while, it does have enough good moments in it that if you’ve never seen it before and you have access to it I’d say check it out.

Its a bit of a strange movie and a real oddity to me. I dont think I’ve seen anything quite like it really. Peter Cook and Rik Mayall are the definite highlights of this picture and are worth the price of admission on there own.

(Of all the promotional materials I’ve seen the VHS carton boxart (Above) is my favourite…what on earth is happening there!)
by tytdreviews

The Independent (2000)

I have to be honest; im totally in the dark as to why this film is as unknown as it is. This is a genuinely funny movie. Hardly a comedy classic mind; we arnt talking a “Clerks” or “Spinal tap” but I’d argue its most definately in the same class as the likes of “Best on show” or “A Mighty Wind”. this is a mockumentary following a schlock movie director planning one last big movie and Stiller absolutley OWNS this movie. he’s one of the funniest parts of this.

It may be forgotten but it’s quality shines through…it may be a bit muddled as to whether it wants to be a straight comedy movie or a mockumentary but I love it all the same. A totally underrated classic that I found for 50p in a charity shop. I do not regret this decision. when you look at forgotten and obscure media you’re more often than not in for a bad time I find. but every so often you’ll land on a cult classic in the making like this and it makes all the “Phantom from space” style movies more than worth it.

(My favourite parody film in this is probably “Christ for the Defense”)
by tytdreviews

American Ninja 2: The Confrontation (1987)

American Ninja 2 (Often released with the subtitle “The Confrontation”) was a sequal to the original American ninja movie which came out in 1985. This is one of the few times I’ve spoken about a films sequel before I’ve delt with the original and there are a few reasons for that that were fairly tedious but basically boiled down to “When I started this channel I was only going to talk about Janky B-movies and experimental/erotic films” and the first American ninja movie is actually pretty good. its a bit slow in places but its fun enough…this film was a bit more unusual and weird and I thought at the time it would fit my channels tone a bit better. It may have also been down to the fact that i’d watched the first one only a week or 2 before I decided to start my channel in the first place and I really didnt feel up to rewatching a film like this so soon after i’d watched it for the first time. This was also the first episode I recorded for the second ever group of episodes I made 🙂

(I’ll be honest; im a sucker for a ninja film that features genetically modified super ninjas)

EDIT [22/01/21]:

So At some point around 18 months ago, for reasons youtube cant fully explain to me, a glitch happened on my youtube channel scrubbing approximately 8 minutes of footage from the Above American Ninja review. I worked with them over a couple of days to try and retrieve it. But as far as they were concerned it has sadly been lost. So! I decided to try and put this right. In part because I plan to cover more American Ninja films on my channel in future, and in part because I actually kind of like this review. Im not massively fond of my early work (As most youtubers will atest after a certain period your ‘early works’ come with a healthy dose of cringe at what you could have done better/differently.

So I decided to rebuild the review! I luckily keep the original isolated vocals of every review I make and, while doing some frame matching for the review itself I sourced better quality copies of the footage, I worked on the layout, processed the audio and generally tidied the whole thing up to make it look and feel a lot more in line with my current reviews. I wouldnt say it was a ground up remake. more that this is a 2.5D reimagining of a 2D review. it’s just a bit more polished. AND it brings the review back from near obscurity! So I hope you enjoy this; it didnt take a particularly long time to put together, but I felt it needed doing! 🙂

by tytdreviews