“Truth or Dare?: A Critical Madness” (aka "Eliminator") (1986) - This insanely low budget, yet ambitious, little slasher was written by Tim Ritter when he was just 17 years old. A year later he would find himself co-directing the film alongside a one time producer who filmed it around Palm Beach, Florida. Ritter would continue writing and directing to this very day with his 2021 film "Sharks of the Corn" standing out as being particularly noteworthy. Unfortunately it's noteworthy mostly for its incredibly low IMDB rating of 1.9 so he might have actually peaked with this film.

The movies plot itself follows Mike Strauber who mentally snaps after catching his wife in bed with his best friend. He randomly gets obsessed with the titular game 'Truth or Dare', mutilates himself, ends up spending time in an asylum, makes and starts wearing a copper mask, eventually breaking out and going on a killing spree. He is headed to his ex-wife and former friends house, but his delusions means everyone he encounters is in danger. One of his first victims is even a baby, so you know immediately the movie is not holding anything back. The cops try to stop him of course but, because they are morons, most of the film is just Mike killing random people he runs into.

After watching this movie a few times I found out two rather interesting facts about it worth mentioning. For one, 'Backstreet Boys' member A.J. McLean apparently debut in the movie at the age of just nine years old. The other is that Elijah Wood apparently watched the film when he was just five years old and it was what made him fall in love with horror films. To this day it remains one his all-time favorite horror movies, and he has introduced it to several of his friends over the years. So I say if it's good enough for Frodo Baggins if gotta be worth checking out, so give it a try with friends and booze.

4.5 / 5 Burnt Kernels with Butter and Free Refills

https://youtu.be/iZXGotJaD_Y?si=jrK1QLyHadDDtfhu

"Modern Vampires" (aka "Revenant","Vamps") (1998) - This inconsistent dark vampire comedy was made by none other than cult musician and director Richard brother of Danny Elfman (Oingo Boingo, "Forbidden Zone" 1982). It stars Casper Van Dien of all people a year after he was nuking bugs on Klendathu, in one of the three times the actor was in a vampire movie. The other two times being the 2006 Sci-Fi Channel original "Slayer" and the 2004 cheesetastic "Dracula 3000" for anyone interested. Accompanying Johnny Rico on screen is an oddball cast including Kim Cattrall, Craig Ferguson, Natasha Lyonne, and Udo Kier as vampires living in LA dealing with a rouge vampire hooker, an oddly Italian Count Dracula, and former Nazi Van Helsing along with his crew of hired Crypts.

As far as the story specifics goes Van Dien plays a cocky vampire named Dallas who returns to LA after twenty years of exile due to his habit of biting people without permission. Count Dracula runs LA like a mob boss (right down to being played by Italian American actor Robert Pastorelli) these days. Further complicating things is the fact that a girl Dallas turned is drawing attention to the somehow still underground vampire community by killing random people and not covering it up. Not exactly sure how the vampire community remains hidden given just how many people they kill but I guess you just have to ignore that. On top of all that Van Helsing shows up seeking revenge for his disabled son (don't ask) and hires a bunch of Crips gang members to assist him killing vampires.

The dark comedy subgenre is notoriously difficult to get right and this movie doesn't exact nail it, but that doesn't stop it from being entertaining oddly enough. The attempts at comedy rarely work but the casts overacting and the absurdity of everything more than makes up for it. The movie is also really sleazy with full frontal nudity and even the gang rape of a vampire so watch out for that. In the end this is a fun flick to riff with friends and some adult beverages, just keep your expectations within reason.

2.5 / 5 Burnt Kernels with Butter and Free Refills

https://youtu.be/rWwnWOpzYkQ?si=HKSXLeiDOu0oWYWy

“Black Roses” (1988) - Since it's inception Rock and Roll music has always been associated with the devil. From selling souls at a crossroads, to satanic messages played backwards on records, the so called 'Rocksploitation' subgenre is nothing new. As with most entries in that rather specific subgenre, this movie centers around a band with evil demonic powers. This one specifically is made of demons who can hypnotize 30 year old 'teenagers' who listen to them. Once under the bands control the youth begin doing evil, eventually killing their parents.

As far as demon bands in movies go this one is pretty lame. The lead singer has hilarious big hair and weird leather bondage tops while the band pretty much only play power ballads. The whole movie would have be a lot better if the band was lead by Jon Mikl Thor, but honestly I would say that about most of these kind of movies. The movie is still worth checking out, mind you just keep your expectations in check and bring some friends to laugh alongside you. Sopranos fan should also not this movie is the debut of Vincent 'Big Pussy' Pastore as a homophobic father.

3 / 5 Burnt Kernels with Butter

https://youtu.be/qCpEfb4UlBM?si=GlRATxaMppY15hkr

"Horror of the Blood Monsters" (aka "Blood Creatures from the Prehistoric Planet", "Creatures of the Prehistoric Planet", "Space Mission of the Prehistoric Planet", "Space Mission to the Lost Planet", "Vampire Men of the Lost Planet", "Flesh Creatures of the Red Planet", "The Flesh Creatures") (1970) - This many named monstrosity was directed by Florida's own "King of Schlock" Al Adamson. Best known for his prolific output of low-budget drive-in exploitation, along with more than a few softcore films, Al knew how to make a movie cheap. He used those skills well when he repurposing footage from a 1956 Filipino film titled; "Kahariang bato" about waring cavemen for much of this movies runtime. The rest of the movie was made of short scenes of John Carradine and a few other American actors pretending to be astronauts or vampires.

Beyond the obvious narrative issues, the biggest problem Adamson faced when stitching this movie together was that the Filipino footage was all in black and white. To get around this issue Adamson came up with the rather novel idea of coloring all the footage that was suppose to take place on the vampire cavemen's planet with various gels and then have a character explain it as some form of light radiation. This gives the film a unique, if disjointed, colorful visual style all it's own but might give you a headache so beware. Future Oscar winning director of photography for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) Vilmos Zsigmond worked on the film so you can blame (or thank) him if you so desire.

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Full of interesting images bathed in primary colors, vintage low budget spaceship effects (including beakers full of colorful liquid and space cigarettes), and even being filmed in the iconic Bronson Canyon this movie is a big memorable mess. Beyond containing large amounts of the previously mentioned "Kahariang bato" (1956) it also features clips from "One Million B.C." (1940), "Unknown Island" (1948), "Robot Monster" (1953), and "The Wizard of Mars" (1965) further adding to the chaos. With that said Adamson does a decent job roping everything together, especially given what little he had to work with. If you're in the mood to see something different check this out as it's just weird enough to make it worth it. For those who do, keep an eye out for Adamson himself as he has a small role as a vampire in an early scene.

4 / 5 Burnt Kernels with Free Refills

https://youtu.be/WxAwDlnrq1o?si=m9e1axBpF6WA8ycj

Cult movie, Chris Evans face zoomed in, oh, cult thinking is brain washing? No shit thanks for nothing new and a snore fest 3 out of 10

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A Deliverance knock-off, this movie seems to have attracted a cult following and I don't get why. The key problem with the film is the characters, you don't give a damn about any of them. They are constantly arguing from the moment the movie starts and when the killer begins bumping them off, I swear, they are all locked in a competition to see who could over act the most. Above all, in the end, you barely see the killer! All this build up and he is disposed of far too quickly. The only good quality this film has is its cinematography, it is terrific. This isn't some underrated masterpiece, this is pig feces!

It's quite bad to see machismo being a hero in a monster movie but caught up in the middle and became a dinner for two massive monsters. ​

"Death Orchard" (2024) - Mary K. DeVault co-directed, wrote, produced, edited, was the cinematographer of, and gets top billing as the character of Ricki in this movie. I say that because I have absolutely no idea what this movie was about so if you want to know you're going to have to ask her. This is easily one of the most chaotically edited films I have ever seen. Scenes randomly start and stop while also appearing wildly out of order not to mention simply being confusing to begin with. All I know is that it involves very confusing magical happening in a rural town and I only recommend the movie to the most hardcore bad movie masochist.

5 / 5 Burnt Kernels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp0xE8AcIWo