The Cyclops (1957)

This is one of those movies you would see on in the middle of the night, or hosted by a horror host back in the day.  I don't think your average person would go around seeking this out, but I have some fond memories of seeing this movie in the middle of the night, and that's when you should be watching it.  With all the bad but kind of great effects this has, it really is a joy to watch.

A woman named Susan hires a crew of guys to help her find her missing fiance who crashed three years ago in a remote area in Mexico.  She travels with Russ, a friend of her boyfriend Bruce.  She also travels with Lee, a pilot, and Marty, a guy looking for uranium to sell.  They travel in a four person plane, so just in case they find Bruce, they won't have room to take him back.  He crashed in restricted air space so Susan attempts to get a permit from the local governor so she can go freely there.  I know, exciting adventure movie right?  Anyway he says no and wants to send a security guard with to make sure they fly back.  So they start up the plane, Marty punches the dude in the face, and they take off without him.

They finally get to their destination and right away Marty is getting readings on his science device thingy... I forgot what it was called because I really don't care, informing him there is uranium around.  Russ sees a giant lizard but assumes his eyes are playing tricks on him.  Marty decides he wants to go back and stake their claim on the uranium, but Susan isn't willing since she hasn't been looking for Bruce for more than five minutes and everyone agrees to camp out in this dangerous radiation filled desert.  Russ confesses his love for Susan and shortly after, they see a dog sized rat get killed by a twelve foot bird.  Unfazed by this, Susan refuses to believe that her husband would have died in this harsh environment.  So they go camping since it is kind of late.  Shortly into that they hear growling from a distance.  Lee wants to go get some meat to eat, but Russ informs them of what he and Susan saw earlier.

Lee, Russ, and Susan go to see what that is and Marty stays behind.  What they discover is a giant tarantula that mostly just walks away, and two giant lizards fighting so they run away.  Everyone wants to stay except Marty who is saying they are crazy, and rightly so.  Russ goes out later and gets some lizard tissue from the lizard that lost, but isn't dead apparently.  He looks at it and discovers that the animals are getting big because of radiation and they will likely never stop growing.  He also mentions that staying here for another couple days will affect them due to radiation.  So everyone agrees to leaving... except Susan.

So in the morning Susan goes off on her own and finds the wing of Bruce's plane.  But she also discovers the titular character of the film.  She screams as the cyclops caries her off.  The men go after her and find her in a cave, hysterical, and surrounded by Bruce's belongings as well as plane bits.  The Cyclops traps them in the cave with a big boulder, and he peaks over the boulder, yelling at them.  After discussing the futility of their situation, Marty tries to leave so Russ punches him in the face and Marty stops.  The Cyclops then comes back and peaks over the boulder to growl some more.  Susan is elected to talk to the Cyclops due to her feminine voice being more soothing and it seems to help, until Marty grabs a rifle and shoots the Cyclops.  The Cyclops gets angry and attacks Marty who we then assume is dead because they say so, but you don't really see it.  

The Cyclops then grabs Susan and the rest of the frame in the movie and takes them away to out of the cave where he tries to talk to her until a giant snake attacks him.  The snake is actually kind of cute.  So the Cyclops gently places the snake off screen with a thud sound effect in order to defeat it.  In the struggle, the rest of the crew tries to get away.

There's more,  about ten or fifteen minutes more in fact, but I don't want to give away the "Big Reveal".  However, if you can't tell where this movie is going or what the ending is going to be about twenty minutes in, you should probably worry about yourself.  The story is insanely obvious.  That doesn't stop it from being fun though.  It isn't the kind of movie made for deep thought provoking messages or even heavy critique, which makes this and pretty much every review of it somewhat obsolete from the start.  When you see the poster, and possibly a few stills from this movie, you are going to know whether or not it is for you.

I enjoy this type of thing.  It would be a cool late night viewing type of movie, if you like cheap 1950's atomic Sci-Fi or Horror stuff.  There are some effects that are kind of fun and a bunch of not so great stuff.  The movie is predictable but not in an unlikable way.  With that being said, I'd like to show a quick visual of the sort of effects I am talking about and let you decide for yourself.  It is also from the end of the movie, but it is likely you don't care about spoilers for a movie this old right?  The movie is also just over an hour long so it really isn't painful or anything.  I say give it a watch.

Dolemite: The Total Experience. Part 3, Petey Wheatstraw The Devil's Son-In-Law

I bet you thought I wouldn't be back so soon.  Well you thought WRONG!  I am a man on a mission, and I'm here to give you the info you need on Petey Wheatstraw The Devil's Son-In-Law.  This movie is pretty strange compared to the original Dolemite film, but probably on par with The Human Tornado in both comedy and weird factor.  So let's not delay.

In the first scene Rudy informs us that this time around he is Petey Wheatstraw, and he was born during an infamous Miami Hurricane.  The Sheriff from The Human Tornado is a doctor who deliver the titular character during the storm in a dilapidated shack.  During birth the first thing that comes out is a watermelon.  Yep, a watermelon.  Then of course Petey is pulled out.  He is a young boy already, possibly 7 and starts beating up the doctor, and then his dad for waking him up every night.  I assume with romantic interludes with Petey's mamma.

We are then treated to a funky theme about Petey and we see teen-ish Petey being picked on and beaten up in the streets.  An old man named Bantu offers to teach him martial arts and we get a montage filled with things like Petey breaking bricks or slicing up a watermelon with a katana.  That's two watermelons in ten minutes.  Well it turns out that young Petey wants to save the world from misery with the power of stand up comedy so Bantu gives him his blessing.

Shortly after we see a very brief scene of adult Wheatstraw doing Rudy's regular comedy of being vulgar and insulting people.  Then two overweight comedians named Leroy and Skillet are borrowing money to open a swingin' club from a mafia guy named Mr. White who is a bad guy and threatens them even before they get the money.  But they should be fine as no events are scheduled around the time the club will open... or so they think.  It turns out that the infamous Petey Wheatstraw is doing a show in a place called Steve's Den on their opening night.

Petey travels to Steve's Den and hangs out with his business partners for a bit as well as the owner.  When he leaves, some guys are trying to steal parts of his car, so Petey Kung Fus them and forces them to put it all back together after a slapstick chase segment.  One of Petey's business associates, Sheila wants to bang him and he agrees after cautioning her about his moral issue of mixing business with pleasure.  Then the phone rings and it is Leroy who attempts to convince Petey to move the show's date.  Petey says no, so the logical step is for Leroy and Skillet to send cronies led by a dude called Scarface Willie to intimidate Petey's friend and business partner Ted.  Things go awry and they kill Ted's brother Larry which seems a bit over the top until you see what happens next.

So at Larry's funeral at a Baptist church Willie and the crew pull out a tommy gun and wipe out everyone there, including all of Larry's family and Petey Wheatstraw himself.  But suddenly a man named Lucifer wakes up Petey and offers to bring everyone (except Larry) back to life as well as Petey so he can get revenge and do his stand up.  In return the Devil wants Petey to marry his hideous daughter and give her a child.  Petey reluctantly agrees because he doesn't want to spend eternity in a red room for developing film but with a few couches and a mini bar in it.

Immediately after coming back, Petey tells this story to his friends including Ted who goes out to get revenge for his brother.  Petey follows and when Ted gets in over his head, Petey makes an appearance and scares the bad guys.  So Petey goes back to hang out with Sheila.  Before they can bang, the Devil calls and tells him he needs to go get Lucifer's cane from a graveyard where it resides hidden under a tire and some yard waste.  But first he needs to Kung Fu the bad guys that showed up to kill him.

With his new found powers, Petey goes to the club the next day.  The cane leads him to the restroom where he discovers a bomb has been planted.  After a short slapsticky game of hot potato during a bad audition at the club, Petey manages to take it outside and throw it in the back of a truck full of watermelons which explode all over the place.  Man I really want some watermelon now.

So Leroy and Skillet open their club and Petey sneaks in with the help of a flamboyant costume and a vague accent.  I guess Leroy and Skillet were successful at getting Petey to move the date.  Anyway Petey messes with the performance with the help of his newfound demonic powers and starts blowing up the place.  Ted chases after Willie Scarface who decides to stab himself during the scuffle to rob Ted of the satisfaction of revenge.

Then Petey abuses his powers of Satan to help the neighborhood by doing things like turning a cheating husband into a puppy at the request of his wife who was about to murder him, or saving a kid from an oncoming car.  Lucifer informs Petey that his wedding is tomorrow and he should give the cane back.  Well, Petey still needs to use it so he says he will later.  He also convinces Lucifer that he will be meditating just before the wedding so he won't be responsive.  This is so he can go out and kidnap a homeless drunk on the street, drug him up, and put a Petey Wheatstraw mask on him so they can't tell the difference until Petey has driven across the US to escape.  The mask looks good when it's on because of the power of cutting to footage of Rudy on the couch.

So the day of the wedding arrives and Lucifer comes a bit early to give his Son-In-Law a present.  He takes him to a hidden bachelor pad in a condemned building and summons a bunch of devil women for him to bang ON HIS WEDDING DAY!  After banging them to unconsciousness Petey does his switcheroo and shortly after the homeless guy gets in the car, he wakes up and is discovered for a fraud.

Lucifer and his daughter use their powers to create an earthquake which Petey fights back with the cane.  So Lucifer sends some devils after them, but Petey makes them go away again with the cane.  Maybe Lucifer should've taken that cane.  Petey and company attempt to make an escape but it comes down to a rooftop battle with Petey and the Devil.  Petey stops him with the cane, lights the Devil on fire, throws him off the building, and breaks the cane.  However Lucifer can't be killed so he forces Petey Wheatstraw to marry his daughter anyway.

Man this is a weird movie.  If you like The Human Tornado, you will probably like this.  It is essentially, comedy, Kung Fu, and clubs.  The Satan angle makes it unique and thank god because otherwise I would have been bored having just watched a Dolemite movie two days ago.  I would say, if the things I described sound great to you and you don't mind low budget black comedies, this is for you.  Otherwise it really wouldn't work well for you.  I like bad Kung Fu, funky tunes, and Satan so it works well for me.  I think I'll get myself a watermelon now.

Dolemite: The Total Experience. Part 2, The Human Tornado

That's right, I thought I'd get to this sooner, but I've been pretty busy lately.  That is not gonna stop me however from giving you the lowdown on these Rudy Ray Moore Classics.  Especially since you can go and pick up a Blu Ray of the original Dolemite and The Human Tornado now.  Anyway, The Human Tornado is a crowning achievement in cinema.  No other movie in the history of ever has been as bad ass or entertaining.  So let's talk about it real quick.

This film opens exactly the way it needs to, with Dolemite doing a Kung Fu demonstration during the opening credits while a theme song for The Human Tornado himself plays.  Then we are quickly transported to the world of stand up.  Dolemite does his normal thing, being as offensive as possible and making fun of his audience.  One joke in particular is very confusing during this.  I will have to paraphrase because in our modern SJW community, I would probably be considered racist for doing something as simple as quoting The Great Man that is Dolemite himself, but here is the joke. This guy interrupts him, and Rudy mentions this guy has to be the center of attention all the time.  Then he states that he is the kind of guy that farts in the bathtub, then turns around and bites the bubbles.  What does that mean exactly?  I mean what kind of person is that supposed to be indicative of?

Well that's not important, because the movie starts up now.  Dolemite is apparently pimping himself out now and a woman comes to him to get services during an event at Dolemite's Florida estate.  Dolemite is a good guy who gives to the community and is donating his place to make a boy's home of some sort that sadly didn't raise enough funds to be built.  Dolemite announces this and then goes back to give the woman some Tornado.

Some racist rednecks see the party and tell Sheriff Beatty who does a raid on Dolemite's place because he is also racist.  During the raid the Sheriff finds his wife sleeping with Dolemite and orders his friend to shoot them.  His friend starts with Beatty's wife and kills her with a shotgun.  Dolemite retaliates with a handgun and kills the guy, then jumps of a nearby cliff and down a hill.  The Bad Dolemite (bad meaning awesome) jumps naked too, and just to make sure you know he really did it, we get some instant replay action.  We then get a funky car chase with some of the Sheriff's men, and it ends with Dolemite blowing up both his and their cars with a shotgun.  Dolemite and his friends are left without transportation so they hijack a gay guy's car and take him with to California.  This gay guy is kind of offensive and annoying so I will assume he is also insane and that is why.  But Dolemite is pretty nice to him and not only takes him with but gives him money for his troubles and the dude really is excited to go to California too.

Dolemite is going there to meet up with his partner in the sex trafficking business Queen Bee.  A rival escort service owner named Joe Cavaletti is angry about losing business to Queenie so he kidnaps two of Dolemite's girls and forces Queen Bee to start working for him.  So Dolemite must get his empire back... again, but first he must bang his lady friend Hurricane Annie.  She tells Dolemite he is out of shape so they work out naked, but he gets bored and they get down to business.

Sheriff Beatty blames his wife's death on Dolemite so some other white cop dude hires Detective Pete Blakeley, the very best there is in Florida to take on the case.  He happens to be black and the Sheriff doesn't like that much but doesn't really have a choice.  This Detective wants to capture Cavaletti anyway so off they go.  Meanwhile Cavaletti is busy killing guys in the street for no reason and bossing Queenie around.

Dolemite gathers some intel about a torture den that Cavaletti has from some druggie guy, and finds out that Cavaletti has a woman who would know where it is and she lives in Cavaletti's house.  So Dolemite seduces her with some art of a white woman in a passionate embrace with a black man and she is transported to a dreamworld where a bunch of strong black men come out of a toy box to please her and go down a slide with her.  Yes this really happens.  Meanwhile in the real world Dolemite is "pumping" the info out of her.  We learn why he is called The Human Tornado.  He is so good at sex that he literally brings the room down around them.

What follows in the finale is Dolemite's men infiltrating a party Cavaletti is throwing with the help of Queenie's girls, and Dolemite sneaks into the torture den where he saves the girls with the power of his killer kung fu.  You would have to see it to understand why it's so hilarious so just look it up.  The fight scenes are sped up and Dolemite makes the most amazing kung fu noises ever recorded.  There is a little bit more, but I'll just say that evil is mostly punished and Dolemite lives on.

The Human Tornado succeeds at surpassing the original film in every possible way.  The acting, the music, and the action is all better.  It is also more focused and much more funny.  This movie is so ridiculously watchable.  It really is the best Rudy Ray Moore has to offer.  The only issue is that it makes a bit more sense if you've seen the original so you can't introduce people with this unless you brief them a little on the history of the character.  It also seems like some of the story was cut out but that is okay because the movie really seems like an appropriate length.  Seriously though, this is the movie that made Dolemite a legend for me.  Go see it, the movie has it all and Dolemite once again proves he is the baddest there ever was or ever will be.

Terror of Mechagodzilla

I was very into Godzilla movies as a kid.  I tried my best to see them whenever they were on TV no matter what time they were on.  I also rented them when available at rental stores.  For whatever reason, one of the Godzilla films that sticks out the most for me is Terror of Mechagodzilla.  This is indeed a sequel to the previous Mechagodzilla film, but like most of these movies, you can catch on pretty quick.

The film stars off with a montage of Godzilla history, some a little inaccurate, but awesome regardless because right away you get to see monsters fighting.  Most importantly you get to see the most awesome part of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla where Mechagodzilla shoots Godzilla a bunch and Godzilla sprays blood all over the place.  Then Godzilla uses some kind of magnetic radiation power to shoot the rockets out of his body and keep Mechagodzilla grounded so he can behead him.  It is important to know that Mecha was created by Aliens that want to take over the world.

Anyway in this movie some scientists are looking for the remains of Mechagodzilla in the ocean when they are attacked by some Aquatic Godzilla-like Dinosaur known as Titanosaurus, who doesn't look like a Titanosaurus.  They are attacked and killed which leads a team of biologists to investigate this incident with Interpol.  I forgot to mention the Sub is body slammed into the ocean and explodes.

The biologist main character in this movie is called Ichinose.  Meanwhile, aliens disguised as Japanese people who look that way without any real disguising want to destroy Tokyo and make a Neo-Tokyo with the help of a shunned scientists named Mafune, who believed he could control a dinosaur he was looking for known as Titanosaurus with some device he made.  Got all that?  Well it gets weirder from there.  You see, Mafune has a daughter named Katsura who helped him with his research.  Sadly due to some faulty wiring, Katsura was shocked to death during an experiment and the Aliens revived her by making her a cyborg.  This makes Mafune in debt to the Aliens.  Combine that with his hatred for mankind for not believing in his life's work and it leads him to help the Aliens with a new Mechagodzilla as well as controlling Titanosaurus.

Interpol and the scientists now believe Mafune and want his help to find this creature, but they are too late.  This does introduce Ichinose to Katsura however and the two fall in love basically over a couple meetings and one date.  So Katsura warns Ichinose about going after Titanosaurus but he doesn't listen.  They build a better Sub and narrowly escape dying.  This meeting in the water does help them to discover that Titanosaurus is weak against super sonic waves, so they build a sonic oscillator.

Ichinose tells Katsura this and they are overheard by the Aliens.  Then when Titanosaurus and Godzilla are about to fight in Tokyo the Aliens capture Katsura and put Mechagodzilla's controls in her stomach.  Then they also capture Ichinose and tie him up in the control room where Katsura now controlled by the Alien's lackey Tsuda, is controlling Mechagodzilla and Titanosaurus with her eye beams and a computer, all while Mafune looks on in the same room.

So anyway, with less than a half hour left Mechagodzilla finally comes out to play.  What follows is a damn fine Godzilla battle where the King of Monsters is clearly outmatched.

Ichinose gets free and goes after Tsuda while this one Interpol dude who is in the movie a lot comes in and shoots Mafune and Katsura.  Once Mafune and Tsuda are taken care of, Katsura can think again.  Interpol and the scientists finally use their oscillator to stop Titanosaurus for a bit so Godzilla can focus on Mecha.  Ichinose holds the hurt Katsura and says, "Even if you are a cyborg, I still love you."  Katsura however reveals that the controls are in her stomach and shoots herself with a ray gun.  This allows Godzilla to take down the monsters, blow up the escaping Alien ships, and return to the sea once again.

This movie is awesome, at least by Godzilla standards.  There is so much monsters and models destroyed, as well as monsters fighting.  Just as importantly, the human story is equally ridiculous which makes it so much more watchable than some of the other movies.  The main problem with these films is that for the most part the humans follow the same formula, even in this one sort of, so that story always seems like it gets in the way of the crazy big monster fights that everyone wants to see.  Luckily the story is so entertain and strange in this one that the whole movie really feels worth the watch.  I like scientists walking around in rooms and discussing things by the way.  Pacing isn't always an issue for me as long as something is going on.  Sameness is the problem with most Godzilla films, but not so with Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, and Terror of Mechagodzilla.  Really I love to watch all of them, but if I were to introduce someone to Godzilla and I didn't start with the original, this is probably a great place to start.

Django... The Real One.

Around the age of 11 or so, I became aware of what spaghetti western was referring too.  Before this I had seen a handful of them, and even heard them referenced as that.  I had no idea what it meant.  When I was 6 and my dad mentioned it while I was watching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly for the hundredth time and I assumed people used to eat spaghetti while watching them, though I couldn't imagine where.  Maybe at the Drive-In, because at the time I knew that's where people watched westerns, but I thought that was way too messy.  Give me a break, I was 6.  I could barely understand what was happening in the movie to begin with.  Shortly after I forgot about it completely and continued on with my life.  Then five years later I saw Django.

By this time I was aware that The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly was directed by an Italian person and that much of the extras were Italian as well.  I saw this name on the list of what was playing next on a movie channel and I couldn't figure out what it was about so I decided to watch it.  Boy was I happy that I did.  Finally I figured out what people meant by spaghetti western.  Not that I gave it much thought or anything.

Django is the story of a stranger travelling with a coffin in tow.  He comes across a woman named Maria being tortured by some guys who are whipping her on a bridge because she tried to escape them.  These bad hombres are then shot down by some guys in red bandannas.  The bandanna guys are going to burn her to death because she left with the Mexicans.  This woman cannot catch a break.  Then Django comes by and shoots them all down.  He helps the woman get back to town where he hangs out with his muddy boots and coffin inside a hotel/bar/brothel, when a guy named Jackson comes in.  Jackson is a leader of some kind of gang who is racist against Mexicans and kills them for fun.  Well Django for whatever reason hangs out to meet this guy, pisses him off, and shoots all his men down.  Then he tells Jackson that he should bring all his men next time so it would be fair. The amount of men Jackson has is 48 by the way.

How bad ass do you have to be to challenge 49 guys to a gunfight in the streets?  What we don't know is that Django has a personal vendetta against Jackson which should be obvious if you listened to the theme song, and that Django has a trick up his... coffin.  Yeah it is pretty easy to guess but hey the guy is still the most bad ass man ever.

Django is the kind of movie you don't really question the story during.  Django's motives change multiple times, and you wonder why he has any interest in helping people outside of being a random vigilante.  This doesn't matter though because this movie is straight up awesome.  Violence, drinking, hookers, its all there.  It's the kind of movie that's made just for it's audience.  But at least it is made well.  It looks great, and the music is fantastic as well.  I highly recommend this movie.

Joysticks

Joysticks is a weird film.  Sometime after the popularity of films like Porky's and Animal House, low budget film makers from all over decided they too could make classic adult comedies with less money.  The problem with this is that most of them have less charm.  For every Screwballs, you have at least ten Joysticks, and sadly they are not worth playing with.

This movie happens to have two actors I like, Joe Don Baker, and John Gries.  Joe Don Baker plays the main bad guy, Joseph Rutter, a man who hates the arcade and thinks his daughter spends too much time there.  Jon Gries plays a guy named King Vidiot, the other sort of bad guy.  This is the reason (if any) you should see it.  King Vidiot is a punk guy with weird hair who has a small gang of punk girls, and it's pretty much the best.  You may have seen Jon Gries in Napoleon Dynamite, but I know him best as O.D. the infamous rocker dude from TerrorVision.  Luckily he is just as awesome in this.  I'll get back to him, but let's talk about what the movie is actually about.

So there is this kid named Eugene that is going to his first day of work at a video arcade run by a guy named Jefferson Bailey.  The arcade is frequented by somewhat attractive ladies who all don't seem to mind getting naked or being touched by random people, as well as "colorful" characters such as Jonathan Andrew McDorfus.  Now Dorfus is supposed to be the lovable gross overweight scamp in the film, and only three of those words could be used to describe him.  He is absolutely annoying in this film.  Anything that is gross or is supposed to be "funny" that characters like this do, he does.  The legend goes that Dorfus was class president or something, but shortly after graduating he started to frequent this arcade where he became friends with Bailey.  Sadly, he also became insanely overweight due to the Arcade food, and a complete waste of space, but as far as video games go he can't be beat.

There is this girl named Patsy Rutter who hangs out there and has a pretty terrible valley girl accent.  It brings the arcade to the attention of Joseph Rutter, her father, who thinks that everyone there is terrible.  This is further helped by some college girls who, when convinced the arcade is on fire, are forced to run through the arcade wearing nothing but panties and end up running into the man.  The arcade is obviously a den of filth and scum, so he forces his daughter to leave.  The problem is that this place really is a den of filth and scum, but we are supposed to love it.

So Joseph's cronies try to steal the arcade machines and put the place out of business.  Eugene overhears this and a bunch of guys go there to stop the dudes.  Meanwhile Eugene and Dorfus sneak into the Rutter house for... reasons and Eugene ends up in the arms of a sex starved, drugged up Mrs. Rutter.  Anyway, after the pointless interlude they leave and Rutter's daughter goes with.  Bailey is having some sort of after hours party to celebrate and many of the guys bring their ladies over in the PJ's.  King Vidiot and his crew want to hang out so there is a showdown between Vidiot and Dorfus where the stakes are if Vidiot wins he stays, if not he goes.  They play Satan's Hollow, a pretty awesome game.  The weird thing is they have these big screens that come down near the bar and play it with these huge joystick that you must stand to use.

So Dorfus wins but Bailey lets the punk gang stay, so none of this was relevant.  Then Joseph Rutter comes by and gets angry that his daughter is there.  This launches a battle for Joseph to try and get the arcade closed down.  King Vidiot joins the dark side and attempts to help Joseph with the promise that he will be awarded his own arcade machine.  At some point this comes to a town meeting where Rutter claims the place is tainting the youth, and you know what?  He's right.  It has ruined McDorfus' life and turned Vidiot into a crazed violent punk dude.  Not that I have anything against punks, but this guy is just stupid and mean for no reason.  More importantly it has turned into a place where kids can go to drink, and have sex or sexually assault each other with reckless abandon.  The case is brought to it's knees when Bailey shows a picture they shot earlier with Rutter and the two girls that ran into him in the fake fire incident.  This proves somehow that Rutter is morally bankrupt.  Then the Mayor says that there is no evidence that anything illegal is going on so the arcade will stay open.  The problem with this is that they just saw physical proof that there has been, by way of the slide with Rutter.  There are two naked girls next to him in public, more specifically in the arcade which proves that the patrons are at least guilty of indecent exposure.

For whatever reason Bailey agrees to a match against Rutter's champ King Vidiot, and the arcades chosen valiant warrior Dorfus in a game of Super Pac-man, Vidiot's favorite game.  Then Dorfus is nowhere to be seen and Bailey must face his fears.  Earlier in life Bailey lost his virginity to this girl in an arcade, but right after her dad came in.  Bailey sees the father in the reflection of an arcade screen and the girls father starts hitting her.  Then he takes the girl away and they move somewhere.  This scars Bailey and he can no longer play games or he becomes physically ill.  So Bailey is forced to play against King Vidiot and starts failing bad.

It turns out the cronies kidnapped Dorfus, but when they are not looking, Rutter's wife smells Dorfus' essence and remembers that night of drugged up passion so she goes down to bang him.  He convinces her to let him free with the promise of a gang bang later and goes off to save the day.  When he gets there, King Vidiot has already stopped playing because he was so far ahead of Bailey.  Eugene convinces Dorfus not to take over for Bailey and let him face his fears.  Then he gets good and wins the game, so the arcade is saved.  Bailey and Dorfus rent a motel room so Eugene can go lose his virginity with Mrs. Rutter.  The End.

Wow, this movie is bad.  There are positive things however.  If you want it, there is a lot of ladies wearing virtually nothing.  The music is pretty fun overall.  There is a decent amount of arcade machines to look at and people play them in head to head competition.  Most importantly however, is King Vidiot himself.  He is so awesome that he makes every scene he is in worth it.  He is way too good for this movie.  John Gries is great, and if you want to see him be great in a movie that doesn't suck, watch TerrorVision.  If you already love O.D. from that and simply must have more, I guess you could fast forward through this.  Otherwise just skip it.  Nothing here worth while.

Ghost in the Shell

A this blog is mainly a hobby for me, sometimes it takes a back seat to real life.  It is no secret that I suffer a great deal from depression, but that's not relevant to this really.  I just wanted to note that I have been away for a while.

I grew up watching anime in the early 90's.  When I was young, it all seemed so cool to me.  Often times I would go to a comic shop, and get denied the ability to buy The Invisibles or some other more mature themed comic, but for whatever reason I could rent anime at rental stores.  Perhaps the people at the rental stores didn't know (or care) about the content in these cartoons.  So when I looked at the cool covers, I imagined all the things I was missing from picking up Bloodshot, or Spawn, would be in there somewhere, but also animated.  It was exciting and bad ass looking.  Plus there were adaptations of Fatal Fury or Street Fighter to be seen.  Sadly, my predictions were usually correct when it came the bad end of the spectrum.  For every Ghost in the Shell there were like 50 M.D. Geist's, just like for every Invisibles, there were 50 Heroes Reborn's, but being filled with teenage lust and angst, this was just fine.  I was willing to overlook the problems of these movies for the 5 minutes of awesome that was usually within.

You may have noticed that I mentioned the title I am about to review.  Yes, Ghost in the Shell is one of those pretty good anime titles.  Practically everyone who was into anime at the time had seen it, or owned it.  This was the gold standard for anime at the time and for good reason.

This movie is about a cyborg woman named Motoko Kusanagi, who works for Public Security Section 9.  This is of course a sort of government agency that employs a bunch of specialists to do insane things and protect the public from stuff like robots or whatever.  Anyway, she is a Major of some kind and loves to hang out on top of buildings at night, mostly naked in order to use her super camo thing to become invisible-ish and shoot up bad guys.  With her are other employees like Batou, and Togusa.  Batou is a white haired dude with cyber eyes that do... something, and Togusa is a mostly human guy who is seemingly employed for that reason.

A large portion of this movie is people musing over what it means to be human, and if it's any different or more special than being an AI.  There are a bunch of action scenes though and that it sweet.  I like the themes explored in the movie, but honestly there isn't enough time to really go through it all.

So a Robo-Chick body escapes a facility and gets run over.  Section 9 recovers it and discovers that it got up and left on it's own without any AI or Ghost inside.  It turns out that... Something is inside.  It awakens and goes on a bit of a rampage.  What is this something?  Well is it an AI, a soul?  These are the questions that attempt to get answered along the way as Kusanagi gets naked and blows stuff up.

Though the movie is not too long, it leaves a lot of weird questions, and usually one wants more.  I felt that way.  The only real option for a while however was a not so well translated, blown up, and flipped comic version of the manga.  This was pretty undesirable as it would cost way too much to really get much out of it.  Luckily Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex would come out later, and this is where people really became obsessed with the franchise.

The movie was meant to be sort of "Stand Alone" in it's own right and has an ending of sorts.  It can be viewed as a bit of an oddity of fandom and 90's nerd culture, but it is also a very good looking movie, and totally worth watching.  I recommend it very much.  It isn't all that fantastic in retrospect however.  Most of it's special nature is based around the time it was released so i could see how people could just watch it and not care too much.  It is a part of anime history, and is very important to America as a release that helped popularize anime as a media format to view though.  For this reason, fans of the whole anime thing should just watch it anyway, but it's better than most of the others of it's era.  Take that for what it's worth I guess.

Rodney Recommends for Halloween: House (1986)

Recently, I've been working on a project of sorts that has taken up my time.  So naturally this means very little posting.  That being said, it is related to this blog.  Also, one of my reviews had a huge spike in views and I was rather surprised to discover this.  Anyway I should be doing something for Halloween since it is my favorite holiday and I celebrate it throughout the month.  It's not as though I only watch horror during October either.  Honestly it is my favorite genre.

So naturally I would like to review a movie that was very important in shaping my taste in movies.  When I was little I saw part of Child's Play and it made me very scared of my favorite toy at the time, a My Buddy doll.  The damn thing even looked like me, but nonetheless I buried it as far as I could in the toy box and didn't dare take all the toys out for fear that the face would stare up at me.  I did continue to watch horror and monster movies though.  Most of them until around 7 were classic monster movies, or Godzilla films.

Then this happened, my father decided it was time for me to man up and he showed me some horror movies.  The first one on the list was a movie called House, starring William Katt (The Greatest American Hero).  The movie itself wasn't all that scary, but it did have jump scares and quite a bit of comedy, helped along by George Wendt.  I immediately fell in love with it.  Constantly I tried to show it to people, and still do to this day.  But let's review the damn thing already.

The movie is about a guy named Roger Cobb, a sort of two hit wonder in the horror novel world, who has had problems with writing as of late due to his son having disappeared, his wife leaving him, and his new book being about his traumatic experiences in the Vietnam war with a guy named Ben.  Anyway, fans are clamoring for his new book, and so are his publishers.  It's at this time his Aunt who raised him, commits suicide.  His Aunt always thought her house was haunted and painted morbid pictures as well as talked constantly about it in her old age.  She even blamed Roger's son's disappearance on the haunted house where the child went missing.

Roger decides to stay there and get some writing done after entering it again and quickly experiences paranormal activity.  He meets a neighbor who is pretty damn hilarious, and a fan of Roger Cobb's as well.  When Roger tells his neighbor about the ghost that attacks him in the middle of the night, he doesn't believe Roger.  Of course now Roger is convinced that his Aunt was not only killed by the house, but perhaps the house itself is behind his son's disappearance.  All this while flashing back to his time in Vietnam.

This movie works so well on so many levels.  First of all, it's a comedy horror film, and secondly it's sometimes in Vietnam.  Here and there you will spend time there for a few minutes before cutting back to the real world.  It all makes for some great pacing that keeps you interested.  The film is directed by Steven Miner who also did Friday the 13th 2 and 3.  Also the story (but not script) is by Fred Dekker of Monster Squad fame, and I think it shows.  It is honestly quite brilliant with both horror and comedy working well together as opposed to playing tug of war like some other horror comedies do.  The story itself is engaging enough for the average person, even those new comers with a short attention span, to see it through to the end.  Most importantly, when you do see it through, you are rewarded with a damn fine time as well.

I won't say much more as, despite it being popular I think there are plenty who haven't seen it and would love it not to be spoiled.  Here's what I can say for quality though.  I have been watching this movie around every year or two for more than 20 years now.  Clearly it must be good.

Mutant/Night Shadows 1984

It has been a while since I posted something.  This requires a bit of explanation.  It turns out that I have a real life outside of the hobby of posting reviews, and sometimes that gets in the way.  Probably more so because I don't do this for a job or anything.  Enough of that though, let us get to the action.

Mutant, also known as Night Shadows and a few other things, is a 1984 horror film starring a guy named Wings Hauser.  What an awesome name by the way.  We need more people named ridiculous things.  How about Jet Panzer? That sounds pretty action like.  Anyway I saw this film recently and thought I would fill you in as it seems this movie isn't talked about too often.

The movie is about two brothers named Josh (Wings) and Mike who are on vacation, spending time with each other for the first time in eight years.  They decide to go somewhere and start driving recklessly, which invokes the wrath of a group of rednecks in a truck that runs them off the road.  So sadly they have to go to redneck town in order to get their car fixed.  The first thing they do is find a dead body, and Mike wants to report it.  They go to a bar asking around for the police where they run into the rednecks from before who start a bar brawl.  In this fight they are nearly killed by these maniacs when a Sheriff finally stops them.  Mike informs the Sheriff of the dead guy, but when they go to find him, some other bum is laying where he was.  Then Mike and Josh stay at a local Bed and Breakfast where Mike is attacked from under his bed by someone emitting a lot of smoke.

When Josh wakes up bright and early at the crack of noon to get his car fixed so he can leave this crazy town where he was nearly killed twice in the duration of a night, he discovers Mike is gone.  So he goes into town and the only place open is a bar.  Here he discovers that many people in town are getting sick.  This leads to an "investigation" where we learn that people in town are turning into mutant zombie things and attacking people.

They seem to bleed yellow acid stuff from openings in their hands and they are made from toxic waste.  All this leads to a few people in town running from these creatures.  Much of them are townsfolk who attack them in one long stand off moment at the end of the film.

I feel I have spoiled too much already, especially for a movie that has likely not been seen too many times.  So let's tell you what I think of it.  The movie is pretty slow paced, even though things seem to happen often early on.  It is however, largely just talking.  This isn't a problem for me but I could see someone giving up on this movie easily.  It really has the feel of a 50's horror film where people talk about vague science and investigate until a big finale of sorts.  If I had watched it some other time I may not have enjoyed it a whole lot, but I was kind of in the mood for that sort of thing so I was lucky.  

There is virtually no violence to speak of, and no ladies or dudes get nekkid in it so you can't really look forward to that.  The thing with this movie is that throughout it I felt it had some charm I couldn't put my finger on.  This is the kind of movie you show to a seven year old to scare them because it doesn't have much R rated content, but that doesn't mean it is stupid or anything.  Nothing in the movie is truly good or bad, it just happens to be okay.  The most stellar thing about it is the soundtrack by Richard Band which is very appropriate and fun throughout.  I don't know why but the whole thing was just kind of fun.  If you are looking for a bad movie you can laugh at, this isn't it.  If you are looking for a great scary movie, this isn't it either.  But if you are just looking for something half decent that you haven't seen and are bored... here you go.

Just a quick note here.  When I did my Dolemite review, (My least viewed review.) I mentioned that I plan on reviewing all the movies in the Dolemite Experience Box.  I still plan on doing that, but I will do movies like this in between as well.

Dolemite: The Total Experience. Part 1, Dolemite.

Hell yeah.  When I first saw this movie as a young lad, I was immediately obsessed.  This launched a very long legacy of occasionally making reference to Rudy Ray Moore things and sadly having it go over people's heads.  Well I am here to say that I finally picked up Dolemite The Total Experience box.  That is eight discs of Rudy Ray Moore.  Of course only three of them are Dolemite movies, and a couple are live stand up, But nonetheless, it is the best collection of Rudy you can get.  So I am going to review, not just the Dolemite films, but every damn disc in the box.  Here is the thing though,  Rudy's comedy is very NSFW.  So in order to preserve his legacy, I am not going to hold back as well.  So if you don't like swearing and such, you should just ignore this.

Rudy Ray Moore is well known as a comedian who recorded raunchy comedy albums, usually rhyming while cool jazz played in the background.  Dolemite is a character who Rudy steps into to make some of his best stuff happen.  Dolemite is a character who is a kung fu fighting, smooth talking pimp, is the greatest in bed and employs an array of martial arts hoes to do his bidding.  The New York Times calls this "The Citizen Kane of blaxploitation films!" and I for one am ready to revisit this movie.

The first film, simply titled Dolemite, sees our character starting out in prison.  Dolemite was wrongfully accused of dealing drugs during a set up.  Why didn't they just get Dolemite on the many other things he actually did, such as run a prostitution ring, or murdering people?  Well anyway the warden brings Dolemite to his office where he says that Dolemite can go free if he agrees to help clean up the streets of the big drug kings now in charge of the area.  The main guy Dolemite is worried about is Willie Green, a rival pimp who seems to have bought up excess stuff that has been sold off from Dolemite's seedy empire, including a club that Dolemite loves.  A madam that works for Dolemite named Queen Bee has been trying to keep things afloat and also enrolls his bitches in the Chuck Norris Martial Arts School.  If you've got an empire to protect, that is the way to do it mother fucker!

So Dolemite has some catching up to do.  Specifically he needs to bang lots of hoe's vaginas.  He immediately starts banging two of them in the back seat and some of Green's men start to chase him down.  Dolemite murders them with a rifle on the highway.  Then he goes out to see what happened to his neighborhood.  This leads to him finding out that Green owns the club and has a former hooker of Dolemite's in his employ.  Well then, it looks like it's time for Dolemite to... bang some bitches, drive around, get framed again, and bang more bitches.  This framing happens when he's getting info from an old contact that is now a drug addict, which leads to some martial arts and a gun fight.

One of Dolemite's plans is to have a party at his old club.  So he breaks in, grabs some money hidden in the floor I think, and pays off Willie Green's men what the Dolemite empire owes him.  After a brief interlude where Dolemite watches his bitches do kung fu, it's off to the club to do a stand up show.  Oh yeah, it's revealed that Green works with the Mayor.  It is well known that Dolemite is a serious mutha fucka when it comes to laying down sweet rhyming stories to the beat of music.  This of course impresses Willie Green who stops by and offers to go into business with Dolemite.  There is only one way to respond to such a thing though, and that is to kung fu Green and kill every single mother fucker in the goddamn mother fucking army of Willie Fucking Green with the help of his fine ass pussy peddling kung fu hookers.

In the fight with Willie, Dolemite is shot but he rips out Willie's stomach.  Some police guy comes out and shoots Willie to make sure they can't pin it on Dolemite.  So he goes to the hospital.  The cop guy chases down the Mayor after a failed attempt at assassination by one of the hookers makes the Mayor flee.  The Mayor is killed trying to get in a plane.  It is revealed to Dolemite that his cop friend is an FBI agent, and that there is a hit out on him.  This is quickly resolved in the hospital by the death of every last mother fucking guy who dares to accept the hit on Dolemite and their asses get murdered in the hospital that seemingly has the darkest damn hallways known to man.  Also there are some corrupt cops that are sort of in the movie and they get arrested fairly quickly.

I glossed over a few things, but this movie is downright awesome.  The budget is pretty low, but they make up for it with a hell of a lot of nudity.  The editing is not so great, but they make up for it with bad ass music.  The acting is usually sub par, but they make up for it with not so great kung fu, and Dolemite doing stand up.  So there's violence, nudity, drugs, pimps, hoes, kung fu, guns, car chases, and stand up comedy in this movie.  What the fuck else do you need?

Stay tuned for the next installment.  I will be updating frequently to get the entire box taken care of.  That way you will know all you need to about the film saga of Dolemite, and Rudy Ray Moore's greatest feats of acting and comedy.

Burial Ground: Nights of Terror

Here's the thing, I love zombie movies.  Since the first time I saw Night of the Living Dead (thanks basic cable) my life was changed.  I was around eight at the time and it would be fair to say that my obsession with horror started right then.  Being haunted by the fact that no one survived and Ben got shot in the head even though he was human, I began seeking out everything horror, and more specifically zombies.

Nowadays there are a million zombie movies though.  Ones based on classic books, but with zombies, ones where scouts fight zombies, it is a bit out of control.  Thanks Walking Dead/ Dawn of the Dead remake/ Resident Evil, you have ruined it for me.  The worst thing however is zombie comedy.  Don't get me wrong, I like Shaun of the Dead as much as the next guy but after the fiftieth zombie comedy, you tend to stop finding it funny.  Burial Ground keeps getting funnier every time I see it though.  You probably need explanation, so on to the review.

A bearded man who is a professor of something informs us that only he knows the secret to whatever it is that he knows while pouring over some book and a couple of papers.  Shortly after he gets eaten by what we can assume is zombies due to the lighting being poor.  Though this may be due to my VHS copy.

So a bunch of people arrive at a mansion for some reason in three cars.  One woman who I learn later is named Leslie, is wearing a kinky outfit and she says that she found in the room they are staying in. To which her husband/lover replies, "You look just like a little whore, but I like that." and then they bang.  A shadowy figure creeps up on them and in a surprise turn of events, the figure is actually creeping up on a different husband and wife.  They are his parents George, and Evelyn whose name I only discovered by writing down other people's names and then fact checking with the credits.  I don't recall her name being spoken.  That is just how this movie is so I will forgo the other explanations of this.  Anyway Evelyn's son is Michael and he is played by Peter Bart, a rather short adult.  Oddly he is dubbed by someone who passes for a kid even less when it comes to vocals.  From what I gather from the context, George is a step dad.  Peter Bart, looks like this

True face of horror right?  So then a blonde in her night clothes named Janet immediately says to her husband/boyfriend named Mark that something bad is going to happen, but he puts an end to her paranoid ramblings by making out with her.  Then zombies appear and shamble along to let you know that this is a zombie movie.

Everyone is arguing at the dinner table and it turns out they had all been invited to the Professor in the beginning who has been researching the undead.  I looks like they don't have to go far to find out more about it though.  After a brief discussion, most of them go outside.  Janet is out taking pictures with her husband and she is apparently clumsy.  The lights start acting strange at the house and begin to explode which scares the maid and butler.  Of course we are now treated to zombies coming out of seemingly everywhere to attack Janet and Mark as they are about to bang outside.  Then even more zombies come out to a cacophony of annoying electronic sounds.

Evelyn, George, and Michael are in some room with statues where the two adults are playing with firearms with their eyes closed.  Suddenly Michael gets really clingy with his mom.  Zombies attack them though and they try to shoot the things but it doesn't work.  It actually looks gross and kind of cool when they are shot in slow motion.  The zombies kill George and start tearing apart his stomach.  This also looks cool.  Michael escapes with mommy.

When you are a clumsy person you end up getting stuck in bear traps that are just laying around, just like Janet does.  As Janet and Mark struggle with the trap rather hilariously, zombies come for them.  So Mark grabs a pitchfork, but quickly loses it and waits for the zombie to wrap its hands around his neck.  Luckily James and Leslie arrive with rocks to smash some zombie heads, which looks pretty gruesome.

Zombies appear to be surrounding the cars, so they have to try and get back into the mansion.  After doing so, the zombies give up and they start to board up the place.  The maid goes off searching in the dark and looks out a window where her hand gets skewered by a zombie with excellent throwing skills.  Afterwards her head is sawed off by a scythe.  The zombies rip her apart and then equip themselves with sharp objects to hack through the door.  So James goes on a head exploding spree.

Janet seems to have only bruised her ankle from the bear trap.  While Leslie is looking around a zombie breaks through the window and tries to "Zombi 2" Leslie's eye, but the glass misses and gets her face.  Janet can't escape the zombies coming in, but Mark and James start bashing skulls for her.  Then Evelyn machetes some zombies to protect her son.  Michael returns the favor by trying to suckle on his mother's breast and fondling her.  Evelyn rejects her son's advances.

The group decides to let the zombies in and walk past them because zombies are slow, which seems stupid.  So Evelyn goes looking for Michael and follows a blood trail to where Leslie is munching down on her son.  Evelyn smashes her to death on a bathtub.

The zombies get in so the crew goes walking around.  Somehow, just the butler runs into the Professor who is now a zombie and gets killed.  Day comes and they make their escape to a monastery where the priests are all zombies.  James is killed in this fiasco so Mark, Janet and Evelyn escape to a workshop of some kind where they find zombie Michael.  Evelyn is so happy to see her son that she let's him suckle her, at which point he tears her nipple off with his teeth.  As she is being eaten, the zombies shove Mark's face into a table saw and surround Janet.  The End.

This movie is made up of chaos, very little plot, and some pretty offensive material.  There is a decent amount of naked ladies, a lot of violence, and one scene with both.  The movie is mostly remembered now for Peter Bart and his on screen mother's relationship, and justifiably so.  The first time I saw this I could not believe what was going on.  I have now watched the movie three times.  I recommend this to hardcore horror fans and those that are already used to Italian horror films.  This movie is pure chaotic enjoyment.  Sure the character's logic makes no sense and very little is explained, but who cares.  This movie is exactly what it needs to be, totally ridiculous and awesome.

Robo Vampire

In 1988, a man named Godfrey Ho dared to take two movies that were unrelated (but surprisingly neither involved ninjas) and make a strange cult film that the internet chose to remember for some reason.  Those of you who watch internet reviewers have probably already seen a review for this movie by someone, and likely this means you are familiar with Godfrey Ho as well.  The man made a career of making low or no budget films at a dizzying rate.  It didn't matter if a movie of his failed to make any money because there were always a few more on the way already.  Often times he would get stock footage or buy unfinished films to make up a portion of his movies and film new scenes to make it complete.  This had the unfortunate effect of making them pretty incoherent.  Regardless, lets look at this crazy thing.

To start with, Army guys leading a person covered in denim to... somewhere are attacked by a hopping vampire dude when they start opening coffins for seemingly no reason.  That is how this movie starts.  Then a guy with a mustache comes down some stairs and says,"We must find a way to handle Tom, that goddamn anti drug agent."  His has employed a Taoist and his lackeys to train some vampires.

So a guy named Ken, who likes to dress as Waldo is busy at work loading vampires and drugs into some coffins.  I think the plan is for the vampires to protect the drugs or something.  A guy wearing black scolds him momentarily for screwing around and after Ken hits his nuts the vampires wake up, so fighting ensues.  They stop the vampires with their exorcising papers or whatever and soon discover the drugs they have are not real.

Taoist, the leader of the vampire trainers wakes one up in another scene to show off his sweet vampire wrangling abilities, but is soon interrupted by a woman named Christine.  She wears see through clothes and is hellbent on revenge due to the vampire being her husband.  This causes them to no longer be able to spend eternity together, so naturally she is mad.  Then the vampire wakes up and starts attacking her, but suddenly stops when he recognizes her sweet gecko tattoo.  Taoist and crew start to refer to her as a ghost and she decides to help them as long as she is allowed to get married to her vampire husband.  This relationship is too confusing for me.  A vampire and a ghost, but they have to get remarried?  Why?  Oh, the vampire is named Peter by the way.  But most importantly, where the hell are all the robots I was promised?

Anyway, Taoist and crew are driving along the road when they are ambushed by Army guys with what seems to be automatic shotguns.  They send out a vampire who shoots some fireworks and kills a guy named Tom.  Some people are working on poor Tom and one of them says, "I want to make use of his body to make an android like robot."  So after a verbal application is submitted, they make Robo Tom.  They refer to him as Robo Warrior and he looks like this

So another movie is going on where some blonde agent is kidnapped and they send a dude out to save her.  That continues and I get bored, but what I didn't know is that most of the rest of the actual Robo Vampire part of the movie is just Tom fighting vampires, which is cool.  Eventually the other movie grows on me as it has decent fight scenes, and some violence.  Robo Tom eventually faces off against the ghost, and her husband that have some lovin' together (though not much) and he also kills the Taoist.  The other movie gets rid of the other characters.

Robo Vampire is a pretty strange movie overall.  The cover with a picture of Robocop is what usually makes people watch it.  The movie has some decent violence and martial arts sequences, and some really bad robot fighting vampire scenes.  There is also some naked ladies, so at least they checked that off the list.  The story is fairly scattered and unimportant when it comes down to it, and that's odd considering there are two of them kind of.  Another thing to note is that there is a part where a woman cuts open a real dead animal and stuffs drugs into it.  For me, this is hard to watch.  I recommend this to a bunch of drunk people, or anyone who seeks out "bad movies" in general as this is not good in terms of quality.  I would also recommend it to Godfrey Ho fans that haven't seen it.  Normal human beings could probably skip it though.  I mostly enjoyed what it had to offer, but there are better Godfrey Ho movies out there and I will probably just watch one of those next time I feel the need for something like this.  Better Godfrey Ho movies with Ninjas, and Zombies.