Flickers from the Cave

We continue our Halloween tradition of looking at films that hit our personal phobias...this time, it's the idea of " eye trauma ". We start off with 1975's appropriately titled " Eyeball " from Italian director  Umberto Lenzi . A fairly boilerplate  giallo  with a gloved killer and tons of misdirects, but it is fun and moves along quickly. It also features a number of off-camera eye gouging incid...

We've all missed  Gene Hackman  since he stopped acting with 2004's  Welcome to Mooseport . On this episode of the podcast we look at two of his films from the early 70's and then proceed to dissect them bit by bit. Starting off, we look at 1971's  The Hunting Party  with a brutal game of cat and mouse between the impossibly rich Hackman and the scoundrel  Oliver Reed  who has inadvertently kidnap...

The cave is filled, once again, with the furious sounds of martial arts as we are joined by Eli to look at two movies from the 1990s that star Mr.  Tae bo  himself,  Billy Blanks ! We start off with 1993's " TC 2000 " where Blanks plays part of a "Tracker-Communicator" team in a  dystopian future where the elite live underground in secure facilities, while the surface of the earth is populated wit...

We go deep on this episode of the podcast and get soaked in the process. We start off with 1998's " Deep Rising " from director  Stephen Sommers , which stars  Treat Williams  and several other notable big-name Hollywood stars in a tale of a heist gone horribly wrong. It takes place on an ocean liner that meets up with a horrific beastie from the depths with teeth in places you don't expect. It is...

We fight our way back into the 90's action-movie world for this episode of the podcast. Starting off, we look at " Universal Soldier " from 1992. Directed by the typically lousy  Roland Emmerich , it stars two genre favorites,  Jean-Claude Van Damme  and  Dolph Lundgren . It tells the story of a group of resurrected soldiers, equipped with high-tech equipment who fix problems that seem to have no...

Fred "The Hammer" Williamson  starred in some great films throughout his still-continuing career. We look at a great one, and a...not so great one. We start with a film from 1983 that  goes by a handful of names, but we watched it as " The New Gladiators ". Directed by show-favorite  Lucio Fulci , it is a clunky, goofy, slow-moving slog that is representative of Fulci's worst films. We survived it...

We were longing for simpler times, when all you needed to be happy were video games, psychic powers and a few  garter belts . We start off with 1983's  Joysticks  from maestro  Greydon Clark . It is enjoyable if you think of it as a parody of the  teen-sex-comedy  genre, but extremely rough-going if you watch it as a regular movie. We follow that up with the "star"-packed 1982 movie  Zapped , with...

We finally got the whole gang back together again for a long, drunken, food-filled episode, with a truly apocalyptic amount of rambling. We look at two movies that explore the life of notorious bank robber John Dillinger. First up is 1973's  Dillinger , from maverick writer/director  John Milius , with  Warren Oates  playing the titular character. It is a rough and rowdy tale of criminals and the...

We have gotten the gang back together...sort of...for this episode of the podcast. In what can only be described as "The best we can do at the moment" we present a hodge-podge of recordings and a metric ton of rambling as we look at two classic motorcycle movies of the 70s. Thanks to a great recommendation from Craig, we were turned on to the 1974 Australian classic " Stone " which none of us had...

We're back with another two-seater Covid19 special from the cave, looking at two films with similar storylines but VERY different tones. We start off with 1985's  Tenement  from director  Roberta Findlay . It is a super low budget, exploitation movie that takes place mostly in and around a tenement building in the South Bronx. There are some very rough moments in the movie, and they pack a punch,...

During this global downtime, we wanted to harken back to a simpler period, when all we needed was a little kicking and punching to make us feel better. One of the biggest female martial artists back in the day was Cynthia Rothrock, and we look at two of her films for this show. Mike is struggling with scheduling during the pandemic, so we brought Eli back for a repeat engagement to help us come to...

With all the craziness in the world, we have another two-headed episode for you...this time with Julie and Marty looking at some movies that are ALMOST  Robocop . We watch the excellent " The Vindicator " from 1986 ( released BEFORE Robocop ) and " The Demolitionist " from 1995. We both agree that The Vindicator is excellent, from director  Jean-Claude Lord , with a great suit-design from  Stan Wi...

Truckers  were HUGE when Mike and Marty were growing up. They were featured on TV shows, on songs on the radio and were big business on the movie screen. We've been dying to cover this topic and finally got around to it on this show. Unfortunately, Julie was tied up and could join us, but she'll be back soon. We start off with 1978's  High Ballin'  which stars  Jerry Reed  and  Peter Fonda  as two...

Surely no one can argue that some movies are better than others...does it not logically follow that there must be one movie somewhere that is objectively the worst one ever made? Tastes being what they are, it's really not possible to make that overall judgement, but we dare anyone to challenge the statement that we cover two of the very worst ones on this episode of the podcast. Joined in the cav...

It is time to go back to the 80's AGAIN for more of that good, crunchy, slashery goodness. We start off with 1981's  Happy Birthday to Me , with a stellar cast, a big-deal director and SFX from a legendary artist. We follow that with 1982's  The House on Sorority Row , from director  Mark Rosman . Packed with nubile co-eds, and a series of mysteries killings, it was a real surprise. Listen in to t...

High school honor student by day...and Hollywood hooker by night! This phrase is the central conceit of three films from the 1980s. Starting off with the very successful " Angel " from 1984, writer director  Robert Vincent O'Neil  created a rose-colored view of the life of a VERY young girl in Hollywood, California who had to turn to street-walking to pay the bills after her mother abandons her. W...

It was Julie's turn to pick this time and she set her sites squarely on director  Charles Band ! We watched two great movies from him, starting off with 1984's  Trancers , starring  Tim Thomerson  and  Helen Hunt . Borrowing heavily from a variety of sources, this is an ambitious and largely successful story that combines time travel, mind control, humor and even a little romance. This is good, en...

We head far far away to the land of middle earth for this episode, with two movies chosen by Mike. We start off with 1981's  Strange Behavior , from director  Michael Laughlin . Filmed in Auckland NZ, it is set in Illinois, with a mostly American cast. It tells the story of a university that is doing experiments on people to enhance their mental abilities, but which actually makes them exhibit the...

We entered into this show without the guidance of Julie...and we felt her absence...but we persevered and made it through the fire of two VERY problematic and interesting films. We start off with 1970's " The Mind of Mr. Soames " with a great lead performance from  Terrence Stamp  and directed with flair by  Alan Cooke . Based on a novel of the same name, it tells the story of a 30 year old man wh...

Julie picked some interesting and obscure films for the podcast this time. We start off with 1988's  Destroyer  with the late, football superstar  Lyle Alzado  playing a terrible criminal who is executed for his long list of crimes, but who may not actually be dead. The cast has some other familiar faces from the 80s in it, even  Norman Bates  himself,  Anthony Perkins , who is clearly having a gr...

We return to our Halloween theme of "what scares you", this time focusing on Mike's fear of his home being invaded. We look at two movies that are similar on the surface, but very different once you dig into them. First up is 2008's " The Strangers ", directed by  Bryan Bertino  and starring  Liv Tyler  and  Scott Speedman . They play a couple that has VERY bad things happen "because they were hom...

We're back after an extended break while Julie is moving to her new digs. This time we look at two movies starring the late, great  Richard Hatch . These are maybe not the two best movies to examine though if you want to prove that he truly was "great". We start off with 1983's  Prisoners of the Lost Universe , which is staggeringly inept on many levels but still fun in a  RiffTrax  kind of way. W...

From out of the blue, came TWO movies that star  Vic Tayback  AND  Gloria Grahame , so we had to feature them on the podcast this time. We start off with 1976's  Mansion of the Doomed , which stars  Richard Basehart  as a CRAZY eye surgeon who's lovely young daughter has gone blind following a car accident. He makes it his mission to restore her sight, no matter how high the karmic debt is. It is...

Two cinematic EPICS! are showing in the cave this time, as selected by our stalwart member, Julie.  We start off with 1989's  Chopper Chicks in Zombietown , which has a cast filled with familiar faces. There was some disagreement in the cave about just how good this one was, but there was NO disagreement about film number two, 1991's  Stone Cold , starting the Boz himself,  Brian Bosworth . Direct...

Last episode we spontaneously decided to come up with a bunch of top 5 lists, so we did, and on this episode we whip-em out and compare'em...Tune in to find out what we each put on our own lists and hear how bummed we were to have to leave certain awesome movies off our lists and how some of us completely forgot the entire catalogs of some of our favorite filmmakers due to utter dumbness. Please s...