The Terror Within (1989, directed by Thierry Notz)

Posted on October 18, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

Years after “The Accident,” the Earth is a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The surface is controlled by Gargoyles, scaly monsters with big claws and a rampaging libido. The few human survivors hide out in underground bunkers, trying to find a cure for “the Plague,” which I guess came about as a result of the Accident. That still doesn’t explain the Gargoyles, though. It doesn’t matter, though. This is a Roger Corman-produced cheapie, one that what so obviously made to exploit the success of Alien, Aliens, Insemenoid, and Day of the Dead that I hope Corman at least had the decency to buy Christmas presents for Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Norman Warren, and George Romero.

The plot kicks into high gear when a group of human scientists discover a pregnant woman on the surface. They take her into their bunker, where she gives birth to a garoyle/human hybrid. The hybrid baby quickly grows into an adult gargoyle and is soon running through the air ducts, killing all the men, and attempting to mate with all the women. It’s actually pretty offensive, not that anyone complained when the movie used to show up on late night Cinemax in the 90s.

It’s up to the humans to stop the terror within. Unfortunately, the humans are interchangeable and easily killed. The only two that you’ll remember are Andrew Stevens and George Kennedy. Stevens, you’ll remember because he’s the star and has the ability to somehow survive while everyone around him is dying. You’ll remember George Kennedy because he’s George Kennedy, an Oscar-winning actor picking up some extra money by barking orders in a few scenes. I doubt Kennedy listed this film high on his list of accomplishment but, because he manages to deliver his lines with a straight face, he’s one of the best thing about the movie. The other thing that partially redeems this film is that the monster, once it reaches adulthood, looks far more convincing than I think anyone would expect it to. Corman may not have spent a lot of money on this film but he was smart enough to invest in a convincing monster.

The Terror Within has a cult following, mostly made up by people like me who saw it when we were kids and were too dumb to realize that it’s really not a very good movie. The main problem is that, though the film may be based on Alien, the director is no Ridley Scott or James Cameron. He’s not even a Fred Olen Ray or Jim Wynorski. There’s no suspense or humor or anything that would really distinguish the film. The Terror Within was still successful enough to lead to a sequel. Fortunately, Andrew Stevens took over as director for The Terror Within II.

Game Review: A Man Outside (2020, litrouke)

Posted on October 18, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

You are supposed to studying English and building your vocabulary but you keep getting distracted by the man standing outside your window. It can be difficult to guess the right definition when you know that someone is hiding behind a tree and trying to get into your house. You text your friend. They suggest you call your mom. Is that the solution or is there another way to survive a visit from the man outside?

This is a simple but atmospheric game. There are three endings. It was pretty easy to get the good ending. I had to make some effort to trigger bad ending but it’s worth it because the bad ending is creepier than the good ending. Other than clicking on the right (or wrong) definitions of the words, there’s really only one decision to be made but make the wrong one or do bad enough on your vocabulary quiz and you’ll soon be getting a visit from the man outside!

Play A Man Outside.

Music Video of the Day: I Was Only Joking by Rod Stewart (1977, directed by ????)

Posted on October 18, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

On August 1st, 1981, MTV premiered. Over the course of 24 hours, 166 unique music videos were played on MTV. Yes, there was a time when the M actually did stand for music.

The 84th video to premiere on MTV on its first day of broadcast was the video for Rod Stewart’s I Was Only Joking. Rod Stewart was a popular man on August 1st. Including this one, eleven different Rod Stewart videos were played. I Was Only Joking was one of the few Rod Stewart videos to only be aired once on that day, despite the fact that the song itself remains one of Stewart’s most popular.

Enjoy!

The First Videos Shown on MTV:

Dead Connection (1994, directed by Nigel Dick)

Posted on October 17, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

A former boxer and phone sex addict (played by real-life boxer Gary Stretch) is picking up women in Los Angeles, taking them to cheap motels, and beating them to death. Detective Matt Dickson (Michael Madsen, with blonde hair) is a burned out homicide cop who finds himself investigating the murders. It doesn’t take Dickson long to figure out that the killer is using the names of former boxing champs when he checks into the motels. He also figures out that the boxer has phone sex before and after the killing. That’s a lot but it’s not enough to solve the case. To do that, he’ll have to team up with a journalist (played by Lisa Bonet) who has personal reasons for wanting to take down the killer.

Back in the 90s, the main reason that I watched Dead Connection was because I had a hopeless crush on Parker Posey and she was listed as being one of the stars of the film. Parker does appear early on in the film and is just as funny and appealing in her small role as she was in bigger parts in other movies. Unfortunately, Parker gets killed pretty early on in the movie. That traumatized me the first time I saw the movie.

After Parker dies, the main reason to watch the movie is to see what Michael Madsen can do with his clichéd role. It turns out that Madsen can do a lot, even though there’s nothing unusual about the character on paper. Madsen just had the right look and the right style of acting for neo-noirs like this one. Even in a movie like this one, Madsen makes the whispering and the arched eyebrow seem cool and natural. Judging from her performance here, Lisa Bonet should have been a bigger star too. Just as with Madsen, there’s nothing unusual about her role but she still plays it with a lot of conviction.

The main problem with Dead Connection is that it reveals the identity of the killer in the first few minutes and it’s hard to believe that it would take the police a particularly long time to track him down. The minute it was learned that he was using the names of boxers to check into motels, that should have been the end of it for him. Instead, the movie dithers around for a good 90 minutes before finally ending on a predictable note. Despite the script’s flaws, Dead Connection is competently directed by Nigel Dick, who was also responsible for several music videos in the 80s and the 90s. Perhaps that explains why Tears for Fears’s Curt Smith has a tiny role as a desk clerk.

In the U.S., the film was released under the title Dead Connection, playing up the phone sex angle. In Europe, the focus was instead put on the killer’s boxing career and the film was called Final Combination, which made it sound like it was a movie about safecrackers. Neither title is really great but I prefer Dead Connection.

Game Review: Anonymous Connection (2021, moniker ersatz)

Posted on October 17, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

The time is the near future. Earth has been invaded by the Hive. The sky is full of monsters. The surface is uninhabitable. You spend your days in an underground bunker, communicating with other survivors via the screen of your computer. Your user name is Blaze. Your friend, who you have never met in person, goes by the name of Topaz. One day, Topaz asks you if you remember what it was like to kiss. The two of you fantasize about the world that once was while trying to maintain a human connection in an inhumane world. What you don’t know is that the Hive is listening in as well, analyzing the conversation and trying to understand what makes humans tick.

There’s a lot more to this game than just sexting at the end of the world. (And the conversation between you and Topaz never gets that explicit so, if that’s what you’re looking for, you’re out of luck.) Instead, the game tells a story about how, even at the worst of times, people need to connect in order to survive. The conversation that you have with Topaz is about more than just getting off. It’s about surviving the bad times by remembering the good. Even though things are bad outside of your bunker, you and Topaz are capable of connecting. The Hive are not. All three of the characters come to life in this well-written, IF game. It’s a simple story that will leave you with a lot to think about.

Play Anonymous Connection.

Music Video of the Day: Calling All Girls by Hilly Michaels (1980, directed by ????)

Posted on October 17, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

On August 1st, 1981, MTV premiered. Over the course of 24 hours, 166 unique music videos were played on MTV. Yes, there was a time when the M actually did stand for music.

The 83rd video to premiere on MTV was this animated video for Calling All Girls, off of Hilly Michaels’s solo debut album of the same name. This was one of the more innovative videos to show up on MTV during its first day so, of course, it was only played once. They had to make room for Rod Stewart and Reo Speedwagon.

Enjoy!

The First Videos Shown on MTV:

Dinosaur Island (1994, directed by Fred Olen Ray and Jim Wynorski)

Posted on October 16, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

What do you get when a producer like Roger Corman notices that Jurassic Park was the most financially successful film of 1993?

Dinosaur Island!

Directed by not just Fred Olen Ray but also Jim Wynorski (and if that combination isn’t enough to spark your interest, I don’t know what is), Dinosaur Island is about what happens when a cargo plane transporting three AWOL soldiers back to the United States crashes near an uncharted island. Led by no-nonsense Capt. Briggs (Ross Hagen), the soldiers make it to the island.

They discover that the island is full of beautiful cavewomen who spend much of their time topless. For the film’s intended audience of teenage boys, that’s good.

They discover that the women are ruled by a queen (Toni Naples) who hates men. That’s bad.

When the women notice that one of the men has a smiley face tattoo, they decide that he is the chosen one who has been prophesized about in the ancient scrolls. That’s good, I guess.

Chosen or not, the men still have to battle the Tyrannosaurs Rex that rules the island. That’s bad. Or is it good? I don’t know anymore.

To save money, Roger and the gang reused the dinosaur who appeared in Corman’s previous Jurassic hit, Carnosaur. They also reused a lot of stock footage from that film. The Carnosaur footage often doesn’t match with the footage that was shot for Dinosaur Island but I don’t know that anyone would expect anything less from Corman-produced rip-off of Jurassic Park. There are some films where the cheapness of it all become a selling point and this is one of them. The special effects are less important than marveling at how the movie got a dinosaur without spending any money.

Dinosaur Island is a bad movie with less than convincing special effects and a lot of overacting but it seems to be aware of its limitations so it’s hard not to like it. It’s obvious that Ray and Wynorski both understood that there was no way that they were gong to be able to make a serious film with the resources that they had available so instead, they shot a flat-out comedy that made fun of its own cheapness. It was the right approach to take, even though the film’s jokes are as often groan-worthy as they are funny. Among the cast, Ross Hagen seemed to have the best understanding of what was needed because he deadpans his way through the entire film, delivering his weird lines with a straight face and giving a performance that wouldn’t be out of place in Airplane! or one of the other ZAZ films.

Not surprisingly, this was a popular film on late night cable back on the day. It’s combination of boobs, jokes, and dinosaurs made it a Cinemax mainstay. Rewatching it, I knew how stupid it was but I couldn’t help but laugh at a few parts. I enjoyed viewing it again. Nostalgia is more powerful than any dinosaur.

Game Review: RetroCON 2021 (2021, Sir Slice)

Posted on October 16, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

RetroCon 2021 is an entrant in 2021 Interactive Fiction competition. Browse and experience all of the games by clicking here.

Welcome to RetroCon 2021! You’ve just arrived in Las Vegas and now that you’ve unpacked, it’s time to decide what to do. You can go down to the hotel’s casino to gamble and try to add to the amount of money that you already have. Or you can head to the convention hall and check out Retrocon, where you can play three other unique games.

That’s pretty much the entire game. It’s simple but it’s also very addictive. Will you play poker? Will you bet on a horse race? Or will you save your money and play an old football game or maybe the zombie killing card game? There are several games to choose from and, what makes it even better, is that you can switch from one game to another. If you’re not winning any money, head on down to the convention hall and blow off some steam by playing Last Will and Testament. And when you’ve played enough for the day, head back to your hotel room and get ready to to play against then next day.

Retrocon 2021 is six games in one and they’re all enjoyable. It’s almost as good as going to Vegas yourself!

Play Retrocon 2021.

Music Video of the Day: Cruel You by Shoes (1979, directed by ????)

Posted on October 16, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

On August 1st, 1981, MTV premiered. Over the course of 24 hours, 166 unique music videos were played on MTV. Yes, there was a time when the M actually did stand for music.

The 82nd video to premiere on MTV was this concert clip from Shoes. Viewers during MTV’s first day saw a lot of Shoes.

Enjoy!

The First Videos Shown on MTV:

Daddy’s Girl (1996, directed by Martin Kitrosser)

Posted on October 15, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

Daddy’s Girl is a forgotten film today but I swear that there was a two-month period in 1997 when it showed up every weekend on late night Cinemax and Showtime. Like many former late night cable mainstays, Daddy’s Girl never developed enough of a cult following to justify getting a DVD release so, if you want to see it, you either have to have a working VCR or the ability to search YouTube.

I’m surprised this film doesn’t have a following because it features two thing that were every popular on cable in the 90s, William Katt and an evil child. This time, William Katt plays Don, a toy designer who can’t get anyone to buy his creations. Because he’s struggling, his wife (Michele Greene) is having to support the family. Despite the fact that they’re not in great financial shape, they still decided to adopt 11 year-old Jodi (Gabrielle Boni). Jodi loves Don and he spoils her every chance that he gets. Jodi hates everyone else and tries to kill all of them.

What sets Daddy’s Girl apart from other crazy kid movies is just how far Jodi will go to kill anyone who might get between her and her adopted father. Don’t even think about recommending that Jodi go to a special school because Jodi will knock you off a ladder and then push over a bookcase so that it lands on top you! Don’t try to investigate her past because Jodi knows how to use a meat tenderizer as a deadly weapon! Even if you’re at the hospital as a result of Jodi’s actions, she’ll just go down there and pull the plug herself! And Jodie won’t just kill you. She’ll make a joke about it after she does it! Jodi is full of one liners. Is this kid a comedian or a killer? You’ll die laughing!

It’s hard to believe that no one would catch on to what Jodi is doing and I think the movie overestimates the physical strength of a typical 11 year-old girl but Daddy’s Girl isn’t bad. William Katt was one of the better actors to regularly appear in direct-to-video thrillers like this one and Gabrielle Boni is a trip as the clingy and crazy Jodi. Direct-to-video mainstays Mimi Craven and Whip Hubley also make welcome appearances. Daddy’s Girl is an enjoyable take on The Bad Seed.