Dirty Blondes From Beyond (Review)

Dirty Blondes From Beyond


2012
Written by Dean McKendrick
Directed by Fred Olen Ray (as Nicholas Medina)

How to sum Dirty Blondes From Beyond up in one picture

With a lot more special effects than I thought they’d bring, Dirty Blondes from Beyond rockets the Bikini films closer to epic space opera status while still providing plenty of softcore situations. 2012 is also a banner year for the bikini flicks because some of the old school crew has returned, Evan Stone and Voodoo! And there is plenty of new talent on display, plenty of goofy, scifi, sexy adventures, and plenty of heavy breathing.

Bikinistar Galactica!

Dirty Blondes from Beyond follows the tradition of taking a genre film plot and turning it into a softcore erotic parody. Featuring two alien girls on the run, they wind up on planet Earth, where strange creatures called tripods exist. As there are no men on their planet, you can guess what the tripods they constantly refer to are. There are several other jokes that are pretty good, including secret government agents named Smith and Jones (along with their own name running gag!) There is no connection to Dirty Blondes or Dirty Blondes 2 despite the similar name (because this is a completely different production company!), so any hope of seeing that franchise in space is dashed. Not that we need more installments of those borefests. Dirty Blondes From Beyond does a great job of blowing them out of the water.

Who set up this candelabra so it would drip wax all over the shelf??

As usual, let’s get this Cinemax Skinemax event bagged and tagged! On with the Roll Call…

Stand by for our rap song about Dirty Blondes From Beyond!

Princess Farra (Brandin Rackley) – The good Princess of Byfrexia, whose planet is invaded in a diabolical plot to turn the Princess into a sex slave. She flees in order to save her people.
Empress Krell (Christine Nguyen) – Empress of the Vulvians, who orchestrates the mysterious storms on and subsequent invasion of Byfrexia just to get a hold of the Princess for her own pleasures. Is very spoiled, and refuses to take no for an answer.
Vema (Jazy Berlin) – Loyal bodyguard of the Princess, who manufactures her escape and gets her to Earth. Also protects the Princess from the native tripods, at least until the Princess decides she wants to do her own inspection.
Commander Tharis (Erika Jordan) – Loyal servant of Empress Krell, and her lover. Is jealous of the attention and obsession the Empress has for the Princess, but will follow her orders. Has a pet haliganon.
Agent Jones (Jenna Presley) – Government agent sent to investigate the UFO report. Is partnered with Agent Smith. A no nonsense type of woman, unless she’s affected by sexy radiation!
Agent Smith (Voodoo as Alex Boisvert) – Government Agent sent to investigate the UFO report. Has the hots for his partner, Agent Jones. Believes drunk rednecks more than he should, but ends up being proved right. Voodoo is back and now going as Alex Boisvert instead of Alexandre. Sadly, this is the first time I’ve seen him in one of these films in years and he’s acting all stiff. Though that’s due to his character here, I bet he’s 100% back in the other films shot at the same time.
Jock (Evan Stone) – Evan Stone returns as well, doing a redneck character who lives in the middle of nowhere that the two spacegirls land at. He teaches them all about being a tripod, but is often immobilized by the girls.
Will (Eric Masterson) – A UFO nut who gets involved in the mess. With his skills, he should be hired by Agent Smith and Jones’ boss immediately.
Mark Grabowsky (Michael Gaglio) – The lovable drunk guy that is the witness to the UFO. His perpetually broken car is named Bessie.
The iconic visual poetry of Dirty Blondes From Beyond!

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The Extra-Terrestrial Cat In Boots (Review)

The Extra-terrestrial Cat In Boots

aka O Gato de Botas Extraterrestre

1990
Directed by Wilson Rodrigues
Written by Rubens Francisco Luchetti

O Gato de Botas Extraterrestre
Ladies and Gentlemen, TarsTarkas.NET was served. We were served by Todd at Die, Danger, Die, Die, Kill, in his review of the Mexican Puss in Boots, and he danced a deadly dance of death while everyone hooted an hollered and yelled “Damn” at the backflips and foreflips and flips that were made up of tiny flips with cream filling and cherries on top. When the dust was settled and TarsTarkas.NET was critically wounded by the serving, there was but one choice. Never backing down, TarsTarkas.NET is going to serve back! The gauntlet is thrown…and by gauntlet, I mean the boot! The boot-let, if you will. Yes, we’re serving FourDK with our own live action Puss in Boots! And this time…there’s spaceships!
O Gato de Botas Extraterrestre
Yes, it’s true, The Extra-Terrestrial Cat In Boots (O Gato de Botas Extraterrestre) features a spaceship. And a robot. And other weirdo things. But most of all, it features a guy in a cat suit running around doing things. That’s weird enough by itself. The Extra-Terrestrial Cat In Boots largely follows the plot of the original Puss in Boots story by Charles Perrault (though the film erroneously credits it to the Brothers Grimm!), except for the few random goofy things that make this Puss in Boots freaking crazy. The last time we went to Brazil, TarsTarkas.NET was tortured by Os Trapalhões’ Brazilian Star Wars (Os Trapalhões na Guerra dos Planetas). We haven’t been back since, despite an ever-growing pile of Os Trapalhões and Xuxa films preparing to destroy my body and mind. But I’m back, and this time, there is a case of cat litter and a laser light acting as backup. So, Puss, get your boots…it’s dance-off time!

WR-Filmes brings us this Brazilian take, and the credits are primed to tell us that Burman Studios created the cat makeup, while Dr. D. Wes Wheadon did the visual effects of the cat’s eyes. This cat is complicated! And yet, it still looks creepy as hell.
O Gato de Botas Extraterrestre
To add more weirdness to things, director/writer/actor Wilson Rodrigues is well known for directing a bunch of softcore Brazilian productions in the early 1980s. He even brings along a pack of the stars of those films, including Puss himself, Heitor Gaiotti! This was Wilson Rodrigues’s last film.
O Gato de Botas Extraterrestre

Puss in Boots (Heitor Gaiotti) – Puss spends much of his timerunning and cheering and “whoo-hoo”ing This Puss in Boots. Puss looks like a refuge from that 1980s Beauty and the Beast tv series that starred Linda Hamilton Heitor Gaiotti is known for the softcore films Anarquia Sexual, O Guarani, and A Vida Quis Assim.
Guy (Maurício Mattar) – The third son who gets nothing from an inheritance except a cat. Because he’s a lazy bum, he does nothing while his poor cat does all the work to make him rich and famous. The lazy bum is passed off as the Marquis de Carabas, and he even scores the hand of the princess in marriage.
Princess Belina (Flávia Monteiro) – The young princess of the royal family of the land who is conned into thinking the youngest son has tons of money, so of course she falls in love with him. Flávia Monteiro is a Brazilian actress who originally gained fame being naked at age 14 in A Menina do Lado. She is also an author and had done a lot of television work.
Coffin Joe (José Mojica Marins) – Holy crapaholy! It’s Coffin Joe! For no reason! This is the greatest movie ever. We’ll give a Coffin Joe bio when we get around to a Coffin Joe flick.
The Wizard (???) – Instead of an ogre, we have a crazy wizard who looks like a homeless man cosplaying Harry Potter! Meets the same fate as the ogre in the tale.
Darth Vader (???) – Darth Vader here is the man who built Puss in Boots and returns to change his creation’s batteries. He has a gun. This is the second Brazilian film I’ve seen with a dimestore Darth Vader.

O Gato de Botas Extraterrestre
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Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (Review)

Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla

aka Gojira VS Supesugojira

1994

Directed by Kensho Yamashita
Written by Kanji Kashiwa and Hiroshi Kashiwabara


Nothing is ever spelled right in a Godzilla film.

Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla was the twenty-first Godzilla film and the second to last Heisei picture. It received mixed to bad criticisms upon its release in Japan and later the US, and now is almost universally scorned. There are some good points, and some nice nods to continuity of the Heisei series. SpaceGodzilla is an old concept from the 1970s (along with Godzilla vs. the Devil, which could have only been born in the 1970s) that got yanked out for modern day after TriStar failed in their quest to make an American Godzilla film. Upon release of the actual American Godzilla film a few years later, one wishes they instead yanked Godzilla vs. the Devil out of the dustbin instead!

The design for SpaceGodzilla stems from an old Nintendo game Super Godzilla, during the game Godzilla could become Super Godzilla, and the sprite design was almost identical for SpaceGodzilla. They, in fact, took the sprites, slightly altered them, and then called is SpaceGodzilla. SpaceGodzilla has never returned to the silver screen, but he returned for several episodes of Godzilla Island, where it was revealed there is a second SpaceGodzilla who is killed in that series. SpaceGodzilla also shows up in video games (fitting due to his design origin): First he appeared in Godzilla: Giant Monster March. He also showed up in Godzilla: Save the Earth, replacing Orga as the final opponent in hard mode. In his biggest role, SpaceGodzilla is the final boss in Godzilla: Unleashed, the game where Godzilla battles against Animal Control for the right to have his pit bulls run free in the streets.

MOGUERA shows up instead of Mechagodzilla because Mechagodzilla was too powerful in the previous film, and having Godzilla and his robot brother fight the space spawn would be too one-sided, even though it could be advertised as Godzilla^3! So they drag out Toho’s other robot creation (no, not Mechakong) MOGUERA! Back when he was Moguera, he was in 1957’s The Mysterians and showed up as an alien agent on a carnage run smashing through cities until he was killed when a bridge fell out from under him (the same fate as James T. Kirk!) A second Moguera then appeared later in the film only to also die by being crushed. Now MOGUERA is built by the UN from the wreckage of Mechagodzilla to fight Godzilla, and is an acronym for Mobile Operation Godzilla Universal Expert Robot Aero-Type. MOGUERA can split into two vehicles, Land Moguera and Star Falcon, because every monster in the Heisei universe has multiple forms, even freaking robots!

Babygodzilla has grown up some and is now Littlegodzilla, who is now Minya-sized and more annoying. I still hate him, but even worse, there was a possibility that he would have gotten his own TV shows spun off of this film. Thankfully, that never came to pass. So instead I will complain about the US DVD release. I can ignore the dubbing, the lack of credits, who cares. The problem is they chop off a good portion of the film in multiple scenes! It is supposed to be anamorphic widescreen, but it is obvious that parts are sourced from a fullscreen print that is chopped off at the top and bottom for widescreen! This is most apparent in the title shot, where most of the word “Gojira” is chopped off. Multiple scenes in the film have characters missing the tops of their heads. I am not going to watch my VHS copy of the film to see if it is filled with chopped off foreheads, I am just going to assume it doesn’t. So “BOOO!” to whoever authored the DVD, you did a terrible job and I hope you die by being crushed by DVDs.


Xillian raiders forced us to wear these horrible clothes! Help us!

One thing the movie never harps on is that is SpaceGodzilla was created from Godzilla cells, then he is Godzilla’s offspring (in a round-about way!) We have a cool subplot about fatherly responsibilities, daddy issues, what if you have a son who is genetically defective, all sorts of things that are completely ignored! The human plot could have benefited greatly from a little less of the psychic crap and a little more family turmoil. Maybe Miki has a friend whose father hates her because she is psychic, and thus she begins to act out and be bad. Then dad learns he must love his daughter and take care of her even if she is different, because otherwise she could become a horrible space monster obsessed with crystals! And then…Dad is crushed by a crystal, but her psychic/telekinetic powers save him! Then the whole thing airs on ABC Family.

Speaking of crystals…crystals? Who thought crystals was a good idea? Every time I watch this I think of those New Age wackos who use crystals to get energy and all that other freaky stuff. That’s a little loopy even for a Godzilla film. What is next, WitchGodzilla (excuse me…WiccanGodzilla?) In conclusion, crystals are dumb.

Miki Saegusa (Megumi Odaka) – Psychic girl Miki Saegusa becomes Telekinetic girl Miki Saegusa due to her new telekinetic abilities. She’s still psychic, and also has magic earrings that keep her in contact with The Cosmos, who warn her of the danger of SpaceGodzilla (something Miki doesn’t bother to let anyone else know about, but they learn soon enough!)
Lt. Koji Shinjo (Jun Hashizume) – Member of G-Force who goes to track down Godzilla for the Project T, then ends up co-piloting MOGUERA. Has sort of a thing with Miki.
Lt. Kiyoshi Sato (Zenkichi Yoneyama) – Shinjo’s friend and care-free dancer, Sato is the yang to Shinjo’s yin and parties it up while the two search for Godzilla. Also becomes one of the MOGUERA operators after their Godzilla/Project T mission.
Major Akira Yuki (Akira Emoto) – Best friend of Goro Gondo from Godzilla vs. Biollante, ever since his friend’s death he has obsessed with hunting Godzilla down. Eventually learns to give up his quest after Godzilla saves the world by killing SpaceGodzilla. And he also finds love. Isn’t that sweet? It is, you chump!
Professor Chinatsu Gondo (Towako Yoshikawa) – The sister to Goro Gondo is a respected scientist and works for the G-Force Science council. She helps design Project T, helps determine the origin of SpaceGodzilla, and convinces Akira Yuki to give up his obsessed ways and learn to love.
Professor Susumu Okubo (Yosuke Saito) – This guy is all about controlling Godzilla and then secretly selling that technology to the Yakuza! Has crazy eyes, crazy chin, and crazy goggles. Yes, he is crazy. Like all mad scientists, he dies. To bad one of those lecturing scientists from Godzilla vs. Biollante weren’t around to bore this guy to death with their speeches.
Minister Takayuki Segawa (Kenji Sahara) – Even politicians get into the Godzilla-fighting fun! Recurring from the past two films, Minister Takayuki Segawa makes his final appearance in the Heisei series. Kenji Sahara has been in scores of kaiju movies and tv shows, including such fare as Ultra Q, Godzilla vs. Mothra, Godzilla’s Revenge, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II.
Commander Takaki Aso (Akira Nakao) – This gruff commander of military forces will head all action against Godzilla for the last three Heisei films. He looks the part perfectly. Akira Nakao returns as Prime Minister Hayato Igarashi in Godzilla X Mechagodzilla and Tokyo SOS.
The Cosmos (Keiko Imamura and Sayaka Osawa) – Those tiny Japanese girls are back, as tiny as ever! Now they are in red Kool-aid-tinted Astral Projection form! They warn Miki of the danger of SpaceGodzilla. They thank Miki when it is all over. That’s about all they do, but at least it is the same girls playing the part.
Godzilla (Kenpachiro Satsuma) – Godzilla was just minding his business one day when this space freak comes to Earth, throws his kid in a crystal cage, blasts Godzilla up, and then goes all “I’m conquering the Earth!” We know Godzilla ain’t gonna stand for that crap, so soon he is kicking butt and blasting names and chewing bubblegum. I messed up the quote but you get the idea.
SpaceGodzilla (Ryo Hariya) – SpaceGodzilla comes from space, hence the name. He is also totally into crystals. He believes in Crystal Lite because they believe in him! SpaceGodzilla can’t go ten minutes without explaining all sorts of crystal nonsense to you, and also mentioning how he wants to conquer the galaxy. I guess the crystals told him to do it.
MOGUERA (Wataru Fukuda) – Mobile Operation Godzilla Universal Expert Robot Aero-Type is now MOGUERA and was built by G-Force from the ruins of Mechagodzilla. The original Mogueras were tools of alien invaders in The Mysterians. Can split into Land Moguera and Star Falcon.
Littlegodzilla (???) – Jerk. Gets stuffed in a crystal cage for being a jerk.
Fairy Mothra (Puppet) – Miki is off tripping balls so she sees tiny Mothras flying around. Miki is insane.

M&M escalates the War on Skittles. Taste this rainbow, bitch!

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Planet Raptor: Raptor Island 2 (Review)

Planet Raptor: Raptor Island 2

aka Raptor Island 2

2008
Directed by Gary Jones
Written by Steve Latshaw


Remember that SciFi Channel movie Raptor Island and how it was one of the worst SciFi Channel movies ever, the raptors just stood there and got shoot, and the whole thing was a complete mess? Well, it got a sequel! Don’t you feel your harsh criticisms of the original are now unjustified? Of course not, there is no reason for this sequel to exist. And yet it does. And it is set in space.

Yes, OUTER SPACE!

Well, Critters, Friday the 13th, and Leprechaun did it, so why not Raptor Island? That also gives you the excuse to rip off Aliens wholesale with the excuse it is in the future, thus it is a homage or something. So IN THE FUTURE Raptor will still be eating people, because that is what they do. And SciFi Channel will be airing Shark Attack 46: Megalodon in Space.

Director Gary Jones worked with Sam Raimi on two of the Evil Dead films, and has since become a genre director of his own right. Writer Steve Latshaw has been around for years, previously encounter here in The Curse of the Komodo. Neither of them have much to work with due to the limited budget, and are forced to resort to stock footage and abandoned towns. The film reeks of a small budget, it even has problems with the American flags on the uniforms. Sometimes the American flag has forty stars, and sometimes only 35! It looks like in the future America lost a few states, or they are in a state of quantum flux, probably due to more raptors. Schrödinger’s states.

Captain Mace Carter (Steven Bauer) – tough talking captain of a squad of marines sent to investigate a mysterious SOS on a planet. Steven Bauer played the evil foreign terrorist Azir in the previous film, who died, so this must be his great-great grandson who is now an American. Cultural assimilation for raptor destruction, in space. You have to admire a character named for Mace Windu and John Carter of Mars.
Dr. Anna Rogers (Vanessa Angel) – Her parents were killed in a war, so she became a scientist as well. Makes sense. Probably a distant descendant of the offspring of Mike and Linda Olsen from Raging Sharks, because I believe all SciFi Channel films take place in the same universe. A very terrifying universe.
Sgt. Jacqueline ‘Jack’ Moore (Musetta Vander) – The tough woman marine character you need in all Aliens ripoffs. You know she’s tough because she has a boy’s name. Musetta Vander was in such great films as Mansquito, Wild Wild West, and Mortal Kombat 2.
Dr. Tygon (Ted Raimi) – The leader of the creepy government scientists. You know he is evil because he is named after a hybrid animal, but the opposite of the one bred for their skills in magic. Ted Raimi is Sam Raimi’s brother and is in all of his films, but sometimes you got to pay for that new house, so here we are.
Sgt. Pappy Mathis (Peter Jason) – The old man marine who is tough and old and cool. He’s the most likeable character, so you might as well paint a target on his back. He gets raptor chomped, and then goes all suicide bomber on those space dinos. Peter Jason was also in the original Raptor Island, and used the accolades he got from these two movies to get a role in Transformers 2. He is also seen here in They Live.
Jose (???) – A bald trooper with one eyebrow and lots of old food. I don’t know who played him because the credits didn’t bother to tell anyone. Bad credits!
Alien Dude (Puppet) – He is an alien who looks like a mantis, and his race had the brilliant plan to use raptors as slaves and pets. This was after they had the idea to build and orphanage on a volcano and crash a meteor into their capital building to kill some termites. Not the brightest thinkers, and now all dead. Take that, space bugs!
Puppet Raptors (Puppet) – The Space Raptors come in two breeds – Puppet and CGI. Guess which one doesn’t look terrible? All the shots of the Puppet Raptor are pretty scary, but then he jumps out as a CGI mess and you wonder what they were thinking. Next time, go 100% puppet raptor with a marionette. It will still look better than…
CGI Raptors (CGI) – CGI Raptors look pretty terrible. Half of the time they are purple, but at least they aren’t as brain dead as the previous movie’s raptors, who stood still while being shot and just dropped dead. Now they drop dead whil walking forward. That is how Space Raptors are so spacey. Maybe if you are coked out of your brain to the point where you think you are in space, these effects will look good. Give me the Puppet Raptors!!
Commander Bakewell (Serban Celea) – Captain of the ship USS Santee, he spends most of the film hanging with Science Chief Romanov (Bart Sidles) trying to get in contact with the ground team, only to try to kill them when he does. Makes sense. As expected, Commander Bakewell makes the best brownies ever, but is a mortal enemy of Poppin Fresh!.


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Jason X (Review)

Jason X


2000
Starring
Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees/Uber-Jason
Lexa Doig as Rowan
Chuck Campbell as Tsunaron
Lisa Ryder as Kay-Em 14
Peter Mensah as Sgt. Brodski

Jason Voorhees returns for the tenth go around, this time, in space! Yes, in the grand tradition of Critters 4, Leprechaun 4, That one Hellraiser movie, Pigs in Space, and Dracula 3000, this horror franchise has to cut it’s teeth on the depths of space as well. And what lovely teeth they are. Teeth, that just look amazingly like Aliens. Heck, the screenwriter even named a character after a character from Alien, Dallas, who he played in this movie. Basically, we got Jason taking the place of facehuggers and tongue-stabbers. We get some neat bloody kills, some future technology jokes, a film that doesn’t take itself too seriously, a body count bigger than all the other films (I’m guessing the space station had a lot of people on it), a hot lead, Uber-Jason, lame puns, naked babes, and hot machete action. Let’s dive in!

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Leprechaun 4: In Space (Review)

Leprechaun 4: In Space


1996
Starring
Warwick Davis as the Leprechaun
Brent Jasmer as Brooks Malloy
Guy Siner as Dr. Mittenhand
Jessica Collins as Dr. Tina Reeves
Rebekah Carlton as Princess Zarina
Miguel A. Núñez Jr. as Sticks

The Leprechaun series reaches new heights as we venture into the final frontier. Star Warwick Davis is no stranger to being in a galaxy far, far away, and soon makes the rest of the cast regret their decision to ever cross a leprechaun and his gold. One of the first of the horror series to have a sequel set in space in the far future, this one is tongue and cheek over the top, completely borrows from several movies, throws in almost every sci-fi cliche imaginable, and yet somehow manages to be an enjoyable movie. How this was accomplished is a mystery to me. The fact that it was pulled off is one of the miracles of modern times, or maybe it was just the luck of the Irish. Why is the Leprechaun in space in the first place, you may ask? The answer is a closely guarded secret. Because it doesn’t exist.

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