Posts tagged vhshitfest

by Tim May

Weapons of Death is a great example of how to make a really fun martial arts movie without the benefit of an overwhelming presence like Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. Though the cover purports Eric Lee to be the lead of the film, Weapons of Death is a true ensemble. Every character gets a moment to be the star.

A San Francisco mob boss named Fong has his eyes set on the richest family in Chinatown. They’ve always refused to pay him protection money, so he hires a ragtag group of mercenaries led by the mysterious Bishop to kidnap the family’s teenage daughter Angela. Bishop works primarily with his own group, including the mysterious Carter (who’s black—it’s important), but Fong insists on sending his own henchman Chong along to make sure the job goes smoothly. When Carter seems somewhat inebriated, racist dick Chong remarks, “I wish this was an all Chinese operation.”

Throughout the early part of the film, we are also introduced to the aforementioned rich family, whose fortune seems to have been amassed through a mildly successful dojo. There’s the seemingly unnamed matriarch, swordsman extrodinaire Eric, archer David, family friend/getaway driver Josh, soon-to-be-kidnapping-victim Angela, and Angela’s 48 year old boyfriend Paul (played by director Paul Kyriazi).

When they all fail to prevent Bishop and his goons from kidnapping Angela, her mother wants to be “just as ruthless” as their enemies are going to be, so she calls Curt, a poor man’s Elliot Gould who also happens to be Angela’s deadbeat dad and Eric and David’s former stepdad. Eric’s not too pleased about this, basically giving him the whole you’re-not-my-real-dad bitch and moaning session when he arrives.

Meanwhile, Bishop’s getaway van breaks down in the dessert and Angela escapes. Bishop’s boys spread out looking for her, and before long, Fong suspects trouble and sends out his own men to find out what’s going on. Angela runs into a surprisingly skeezy and rapey biker gang, who gang up on her, clearly with dubious intentions. Thankfully, before they can violate the poor girl, she finds a surprise guardian angel in Carter, who intervenes and lays waste to the entire gang in short order. Carter, being the noble motherfucker he apparently is, lets her go and returns to Bishop to rethink his life.

While Carter is revealing himself to be a king, Angela’s family is still bickering back at the house, but at least they’re developing a good unlikely team dynamic. When they finally leave to look for Angela, Curt drops a fucking BOMB! He’s not Angela’s real father; Bishop is! Years earlier, Bishop had broken into their house and raped Angela’s mother. That fiend! With a newfound resolve, everyone marches into battle with Fong’s gang. There are so many great fight scenes throughout Weapons of Death’s climax your head will be knocked through the ceiling. Bishop VS. Carter! Eric VS. Chong! Curt VS. Fong! Everybody plays a part an get their own badass moment, even David the Archer and Josh the getaway driver, who basically steal Eric and Curt’s thunder at the end of the movie.

The VHS was released in a slipcase by Paragon Video Productions, though it was sadly missing their typical trailer reel (which generally featured Boarding House and The Witching, among others). The back cover engages in some light Brucesploitation with the tagline, “A New Decade… A New Legend” underneath a picture of a shirtless Eric, looking his most Bruce Lee-ish.

The movie was directed by Paul Kyriazi, who, aside from directing three other martial arts movies, is also known for writing a “motivational” seminar called How to Live the James Bond Lifestyle.

Weapons of Death is a wonderful martial arts movie with a simple, but effective story, some exciting twists and turns, and a cast that goes hard. This movie always surprises with its unpredictability and it surprised me by how much I enjoyed it.

(Source: vhshitfest.com)

This past weekend was the First Ever Horror VHS Collectors Unite VHS Convention in Stroudsburg, PA and it was a fucking blast. Thanks to everyone who came and supported this great format and thanks to all the people who came up to say “hi” and tell me how much they like the site. It really means a lot. I got a ton of dope tapes and made some amazing trades (trust me, a very long overdue update video is coming soon). Our Gore-Met Zombie Chef from Hell short screened to a solid response and it took third place (we were cheated I tell you!). I cannot stress this enough, if there is another convention next year, you will want to come. It was amazing and truly a beautiful sight to see so many collectors and cool tapes all in the same place. We made sure to document the whole convention for our film Adjust Your Tracking and get some much needed interviews, which leads me to my next topic.

We just reached our goal on Kickstarter!!! Thanks so much to everyone who donated and to those of you who promoted the film. We now have the bare minimum we needed in order to collect the rest of the interviews we need to get over the summer for the documentary! Any money we get over our goal will go towards the post production on the film and the release, so please keep sharing the link and donating. It means so much. More details about our trip will be coming sometime next month so be on the lookout. We also have some new reviews, two new videos, a ‘zine I’ve been working on, a DVD release, and possibly a limited VHS release coming soon!





Also, I recently moved, which was the biggest bitch in the world. Imagine moving thousands of tapes, toys, posters, etc. It was terrible. But the new place is even better so I’ll be shooting a tour video in the upcoming weeks to show off all the work I did!

- Dan

(Source: vhshitfest.com)

by Tim May

At the beginning of Demon Wind, I figured I was in for a deadly combination: uninspired slasher mixed with a dreadfully boring Satanic cult movie. Thankfully, for the most part, I got a surprisingly engaging horror film which subtly subverted many of the clichés of both genres.

The film begins in 1931 with an old woman trying to defend her barn from something, presumably demons. She’s decked the place in Catholic imagery, plays a Protestant hymn, and throws down some Satanic floor decorations. The place is lined with crosses and pentagrams, but that can’t keep her husband, who seems to have turned into a demon, out of the barn. He foams from the mouth and grows fangs before killing the poor old woman. Somehow, this causes the barn to explode, and the central mystery of the film has been laid out.

We then cut of present day (1990), where a couple named Cory and Elaine are on their way to Cory’s grandparents’ barn (could it be? Obv) after the recent suicide of his father has left it in his possession. They get to a creepy gas station where a creepy old guy warns them not to go to the creepy barn. Then they meet up with a bunch of their friends in an adjacent restaurant (drink menu: beer, Coke, water, and goatsmilk). You’ve got jock douche Dell and his girlfriend Terri, dork Jack and his girlfriend Bonnie, and finally, my favorites, two goofball magicians named Stacy and Chuck (both guys, in case you were wondering) who make their grand entrance blasting “Ride of the Valkyries” and announcing their own arrival via loudspeaker. Dell is not a fan of these two. He even calls them “son of a bitchin’ idiots!” Then again, Chuck is Terri’s ex-boyfriend, so perhaps he has reason to hate.

Despite the creepy old guy’s warnings, the group heads for the barn. In a slight twist on convention, however, Cory and the gang are all well aware of and ready to face the horrors which lay in front of them. When they finally get there, all that’s left standing of the barn is the door, but stepping through the entrance still magically leads to an almost perfectly preserved interior. There’s even a fresh turkey waiting for them! When Elaine reads the Latin phrase (translating into “Now Satan Shall Walk”) scrawled across the wall, the barn begins to shake and knives begin to fly. The group runs screaming out of the house. Even though he saw it with his own eyes, Jack, of course, insists upon Scullying it up. Soon, a thick fog rolls in (could it be? A demon wind?!) and transports them into many different locations. They finally wind up at a graveyard, where three strange little girls appear out of nowhere. When Bonnie tries to find out if they’re okay, they turn her into a baby doll, then make her disappear. Her boyfriend, Jack, seems slightly irritated by this. In fact, no one seems too bothered by Bonnie’s possible passing. Chuck, in an act which illustrates a George Costanza level of self-involvement, immediately begins asking Terri if she’ll take him back, even if she’s with Dell now. Bad timing, sir.

They all decide to hide out in the barn, which has now apparently been deemed safe. The magic twins are on guard when they witness a topless woman outside attempting to lure them out. They aren’t fooled for a second by the demonic illusion, so Chuck and Stacy go outside and try to kick some demon ass. Sadly, both of them die, but not before a cool demon effect or two.

The group continues to get picked off until just Cory and Elaine are left. Just when all of the demons are ganging up on them, they get distracted by the words of Enders, a rogue preacher who devoted himself to Satan one hundred years ago. By sacrificing Bonnie’s soul, Enders opens the doors to hell and creates some sort of Mega Demon out of all of his smaller demon minions. Elaine reads some spell out of Cory’s grandmother’s diary, which somehow causes Cory to turn into one of the aliens from Alien Nation, surely the only way to defeat such an ancient evil.

The Mega Demon gives Cory a false vision which makes him believe the whole ordeal was a dream and that all of his friends are alive. When he realizes it’s bogus, Cory takes it to the next level and has Elaine read the final spell from the diary, which makes the Mega Demon burst into flame and spew animated orange splotches out of his torso.

That awesome ending is sadly amended with a nonsensical epilogue in which Cory and Elaine return to the gas station the old man was somehow revealed to be behind the whole thing. Still, Demon Wind is a fun movie with a solid cast, who engage in a surprising amount of quiet, character based scenes. The film’s primary flaw is actually its near-complete lack of sound effects. Doors are opened and guns are fired with nary a sound to be heard on the soundtrack. Its effects are particularly strong and tension is often built well. Demon Wind is a solid horror film, which, with a little tweaking, could probably have been a really good one.

The film was released in a slipcase by Prism, with an excellent cover and the only mildly clever, but still pretty funny tagline, “There’s something deadly in the air. It’ll blow you away.” It has yet to see a domestic DVD release, but it has been release, with a hideous cover, in the UK.

The whole film has been uploaded to YouTube.

(Source: vhshitfest.com)

By Dan Kinem



So many things should have scared me away from this one. Not only is Rock N Roll Mobster Girls a nearly two-hour-long shot-on-video comedy, it also features the delusional marketing scheme making itself out to be Spinal Tap 2. I ignored these facts and took it like a man. I didn’t run away when I saw “110 minutes,” rather, I popped this into the player and never looked back. I was determined to conquer this beast, more out of a self-test of endurance rather than for entertainment (similar to that one time I stomached all the Hellraiser films). As the end credits finally rolled I prayed for God to take my life, but looking back now I realize Mobster Girls is proof there is no God. My only purpose in life now is to steer you unsuspecting fools away from this painful, post-Chinese buffet diarrhea shitfest.


(Crisp and clear print)

The movie attempts to be Spinal Tap but with chicks and punk music, except the only problem is they forgot to include the humor that made that original film so great. “Are you ready to be Spinal Zapped?!” Please. Who the fuck are you kidding?

RNRMG takes place in Seattle in the late 80s just before Nirvana took over the scene. The band the movie focuses on is Doll Squad, who was actually a semi-popular band in the 80s (mostly because they played with Nirvana once) and recently reformed in 2008. You can tell the band is having fun making the movie but they aren’t taking it seriously. None of the actors were. I cannot stand when movies are trying to force corny, shit-eating-grin delivered jokes down my throat (see clip below). I feel like I’m watching outtakes from a high school short film rather than watching an actual movie.



It’s a shot-on-video m[r]ockumentary that features interviews with local people around the scene at the time. They are attempting to get to the bottom of what happened to the Doll Squad and where they are currently. According to the film, their manager, Bruno Moltrock (great name), was an insane killer and the band disappeared. Doll Squad are painted to be a notorious and vital band in the scene that rose from eating out of dumpsters to having a song on the radio. Moltrock stops at nothing to make these girls popular and to control them… he even kills everyone who gets in his way. He goes on a slashing spree stabbing different people and eating their guts. Yes, they try to mix cannibalism into this movie for no reason.



Moltrock brainwashes the girls and changes their sound in order to gain popularity. People begin to notice things aren’t right — that the girls aren’t like they used to be — and a couple friends of the band come to the rescue just seconds before Moltrock tries to kill and torture the band members for his own sadistic pleasures. One of the girls in the band is finally able to get revenge on the manager by taking a corkscrew and screwing his head off of his neck. The movie crosses over into poor man’s Troma-terrority when Moltrock still has the ability to talk and his body is still moving around. Moltrock’s body continued to roam around the city and attend shows, annoying all in attendance.



There’s a subplot that tries to be the main supplier of humor where the girls owe money to their crazy landlords, The Count and Countess. The Count’s face is “mutilated” with cotton balls and Band-Aids for some reason. He also chooses to use a fake Arnold accent the entire movie as if he wasn’t annoying enough. No point to this “plot” at all.



This was one of the worst movies I ever sat through. It managed to do every single thing wrong — from the overly long running time, to the flubbing of every single line that is delivered. It runs 110 minutes and features about 40 minutes that don’t even matter. There’s a scene with the one band member’s father where he talks about a lump on his arm for 10 minutes and there’s even a 15 minute scene where a car won’t start. The actors are continually seen laughing during their scenes and oftentimes it will cut an entire poorly delivered chunk of dialogue out so you have no idea what is going on. The humor crosses from not being funny into being painful to listen to. The movie also looks like complete shit. It reminded me of an unintentional “So What’cha Want” video homage.



This VHS is incredibly rare. It was released by Donna Michelle Productions (Cannibal Campout, Attack of the Killer Refrigerator, The Abomination, Woodchipper Massacre, Splatter Farm, and Monsters and Maniacs) and is probably the second rarest release put out by them (the rarest being Monsters and Maniacs, which I need, so help me out if you have that or Splatter Farm). It’s no surprise this is hard to find since I assume anyone who rented it destroyed it immediately. There’s also such a small demand for a comedy on an all-horror label that very few were probably printed. It sucks I had to drop a decent amount of money in order to get this one. Not that I’m not happy I own this, but I think most people who want this honestly don’t know how terrible it is or else they wouldn’t be after it. The cover is fun and it definitely is a cool piece of history, especially for fans of punk and Seattle locals, but it’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever watched. Stay far away from this one unless I hate you, which, in that case, hunt this bad boy down!

Rick Werner Fahr also made one other movie with Doll Squad after this called Attack of the Hideopoid. I’m dying to watch that one (haha) so hook me up if you have a copy. Don’t even know who released it.