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Capsules

CAPSULE: PHANTASMATAPES (2025)

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DIRECTED BY: Annie Choi, Joseph A. Ziemba, Norman Earl Thompson (The Revenge of Dr. X), (The Brain That Wouldn’t Die)

FEATURING: James Craig, Tota Kondo (Revenge of Dr. X); , (The Brain That Wouldn’t Die)

PLOT: A double-feature of The Revenge of Dr. X and The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, presented as if it was taped off of a local TV broadcast complete with VHS tracking errors, amateur commercials, and more surprises.

Still from Phantasmatapes (2025)

COMMENTS: OK, so TV stations used to broadcast cheapo horror films late at night (especially weekend nights), interrupted by badly acted commercials for local pizza parlors, shoe stores, and video rental joints. If you never experienced this phenomenon—or if, for some sick reason, you want to relive this insomniac entertainment—the retro-weirdos at Bleeding Skull have come to your rescue.

Thankfully, they don’t recreate the experience faithfully, but instead imagine the broadcast as it might have appeared if you were dead tired and fading in and out of consciousness, or if you had the flu and had taken a greater than recommended dose of Nyquil before tuning in. First off, the movies are heavily edited, to fit into a brisk 72 minute total runtime, including commercials, station IDs, and a few other intrusive surprises I won’t spoil. The ruthless edits are not a problem with the -scripted Dr. X, an extremely dull and padded Frankenstein variation about a NASA scientist who decides to spend his vacation in Japan engineering a giant, mobile Venus flytrap. In fact, this crap still drags a little when cut down to about 30 minutes. The Brain That Wouldn’t Die moves much faster, and is still relatively coherent in the edited form, but they unfortunately cut out one of the WTF-iest moments (the catfight scene). The nearly-coherent editing exaggerates the surreal elements of the originals, while jettisoning a lot of blah filler. (Watching Dr. X unedited is recommended to cinema masochists only.)

Secondly, the two movies are not only edited, but manipulated. First off, synthy new 80s vintage soundtracks have been added— a pipe organ patch with a Casio keyboard beat underneath, that kind of thing. The digital doodling is more profound in the colorful Dr. X. Tracking errors and faded color are kept (and new ones are added), along with overlaid images: sometimes from other scenes from the original film, and sometimes from outside sources, so that suns and galaxies and landscapes and abstract dust storms occasionally play over the duller imagery. The Brain That Wouldn’t Die is less altered than Dr. X—it plays straight for most of the time—but there are a few fun stylizations. One motif is that, in the more delirious second half, the mad doctor’s assistant is always shown in a different “film stock,” which looks like they played a battered VHS tape on a particularly staticky cathode tube TV set, filmed it with a cheap camcorder, and re-edited the new footage into the movie. Another cool idea is that when Jan’s severed head is monologizing, the “camera” does a slow zoom to focus directly on her mouth. Along with the soundtrack, these experiments supply the new reimagined content. I only wish they had pushed things even further. (The trailer is actually a little misleading, implying more video manipulation than actually shows up in the finished product.) The concept of using public domain B-movies as canvases for -type experiments is a thrilling one, and that potential is barely scratched here. Hopefully they will push the conceit further with the promised “Phantasmatapes 2.”

The Blu-ray includes uncut versions of both features, in VHS full-frame scans complete with lousy sound and picture quality. The Blu-ray wraps the whole package up with a commentary track from Choi and Ziemba and three nostalgia-themed shorts: a mini-documentary on the “Max Headroom” pirate signal broadcast from 1987, a supercut of “Casper the Friendly Ghost” scares, and another mini-doc on the early 80s moral panic around the Dungeons and Dragons game. All in all, this compilation will resonate strongly with a certain demographic—you probably have already decided if you’re in it—and is at least worthy of a gander for others.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

No other critics’ reviews located.

Phantasma Tapes: Volume One [Blu-ray]

Phantasma Tapes: Volume One [Blu-ray]
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Capsules

CAPSULE: JACKER 2: DESCENT TO HELL (1996)

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DIRECTED BY: Barry Gaines

FEATURING: Phil Herman, Barry Gaines, Ben Stanski

PLOT: After being thrown off a cliff Mike, the carjacker-cum-serial killer from Jacker, becomes an invulnerable supernatural entity.

Still from Jacker 2: Descent Into Hell

COMMENTS: Where to start with Jacker 2? Well, maybe start with Jacker, the senseless story of a serial-killing carjacker who likes to put blood in his Wheaties and who easily outwits some of the stupidest cops in the world, who can’t figure out he killed his girlfriend because they never think to check the handwriting on her suicide note and can’t figure out he killed the investigating detective’s sister despite his basically threatening to do so in front of a group of police witnesses. It features dingy VHS camcorder videography often lit by streetlights, some less-than-thrilling taking-an-elevator-to-your-apartment scenes, lobotomized acting, sound that ranges from inconsistent to inaudible, and a reasonable amount of violence, but almost no gore or special effects. (To be fair, the script for Jacker was written in a reported four days.)

Jacker 2 picks up exactly where Jacker left off, and most of Jacker‘s characters—including the dead ones—show up again. This fact might give you some reason to watch Jacker, but the main reason to watch Jacker is because it makes Jacker 2 look so much better by comparison. Although the sequel’s story is even more nonsensical—a positive, since the whackadoodle plot is the only real reason to watch this—everything else is much improved. There are a greater variety of creative camera shots, more effective attempts at deliberate comedy, sleazier sex scenes, goofier supporting characters, better (though still not good) sound, occasional lighting for scenes, more non-sequiturs, a bigger ketchup budget, and a trip to Hell (which, as you might have suspected, is actually a basement in New Jersey)—complete with demonic costumes that might have looked silly except for the fact that you can barely make them out through the heavy yellow filter and solarization haze. The editing is actually impressive, given the low quality of the raw footage they had to work with. While Jacker 2 likely would have earned a “Beware” rating if I had seen it first, in contrast to Jacker, it’s a near masterpiece—the Citizen Kane of New Jersey-shot microbudget invulnerable supernatural carjacker flicks.

Of course, it’s a rough ride for the average viewer accustomed to movies with more polish, but Jacker 2 is—if not actually good—at least memorable. The 90s no-budget shot-on-video aesthetic is a real one (heck, Harmony Korine even deliberately aped it). In fact, with all of its technical deficiencies, the biggest complaint against the film is that, at 105 minutes, it’s way too long. Trim out a few of the carjackings that went nowhere, and it would almost be a strong little indie.

Falcon Video was (is?) a New Jersey-based team of zero-budget horror film makers who originally sold most of their movies through mail order. They take turns directing, writing and producing films, but Phil Herman (who stars as Mike the Jacker, wrote both films, and directed the first one) is the central figure. They’re a fascinating collective: a group of friends who break out the camcorder and make feature films in their spare time while holding down day jobs. We should all be so lucky. There are lots of references to Falcon Video and other FV films spread throughout Jacker and Jacker 2, including a running joke that whenever someone’s TV is on, there’s an FV production onscreen.

Semi-star alert: Marilyn Ghigliotti had a major role a few years earlier in cult classic Clerks (she played Dante’s girlfriend, Veronica), but accepts a much smaller role here; talk about climbing down the ladder! (Don’t worry, Marilyn rebounded and is doing just fine today, having accumulated 42 IMDb credits and counting.)

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…it doesn’t just repeat the earlier movie’s formula but adds horror and the supernatural to the mix in a way that comes across as properly creepy, and it’s clear to see the filmmakers made the most out of what little they had. And the result … may not be a masterpiece, objectively speaking, but if you’re into shot-on-video movies from the era, there’s a good chance you might like this one.”–Michael Haberfelner, (Re)search My Trash

Jacker / Jacker 2: Descent to Hell [Blu-ray]

Jacker / Jacker 2: Descent to Hell [Blu-ray]
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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THEODORE REX (1995)

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DIRECTED BY: Jonathan Betuel

FEATURING: Whoopi Goldberg, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Juliet Landau, Bud Cort, Stephen McHattie, voice of George Newbern

PLOT: A cybernetically enhanced cop and a genetically restored dinosaur are paired up to solve a murder, but their investigation uncovers a larger plot to destroy humankind and bring about a new ice age.

Still from Theordore Rex (1995)

COMMENTS: Once upon a time, the high concept of a cop paired with another, weirder cop had been efficiently reduced to its purest form by including the signifier “Heat” in the title. There was a run of movies with titles like Red Heat (cop is paired with another cop who is from the Soviet Union), Dead Heat (cop is paired with another cop who is deceased), and very nearly Outer Heat (cop is paired with another cop who is an alien) until some studio executive realized that “Heat” wasn’t moving any tickets and switched the name to Alien Nation. That one word did all the work of summing up the premise while warning savvy filmgoers to avoid it at all cost. What I’m saying is, the producers of Theodore Rex had Jurassic Heat sitting there, ready to go, and they passed. Cowards. It wouldn’t have helped the movie, mind you. It just would have saved us all a lot of time.

A mostly forgotten bomb today, if Theodore Rex has any reputation at all, it’s either as the most expensive film of its time to be released direct-to-video or as the movie that Whoopi Goldberg only agreed to appear in after the producers sued her for trying to bail on the project. This is unfair, because Theodore Rex ought to be remembered as terrible on its own merits. It’s always a delight to find a diamond in the rough, a gem that the masses were too closed-minded to appreciate, but sometimes the masses are right, and a bad movie gets the public raspberry it deserves. 

The premise is so aggressively high concept that its overall illogic barely qualifies as an afterthought. You have to take a lot on faith from the outset: dinosaurs have been resurrected via hand-wavey DNA science as human-sized, English-speaking, long-armed, ghettoized cartoonish weirdos. (They are all animatronic caricatures, bumpkin cousins to the stars of the sitcom “Dinosaurs.”) The city is a Dick Tracy-style candy-colored series of backlot alleys. Whoopi Goldberg wears a skintight Lycra catsuit. If you can accept all of these ideas into your heart, then you’ve achieved the bare minimum of scrutability to get you into the plot. 

About that plot. It’s already a shopworn premise — initial crime leads to bigger conspiracy — that is drained of all suspense by the inexplicable decision to reveal the identity of the villain and his elaborate scheme in the opening narration. Aside from killing the little bit of mystery the film might have, it forces the story to become a character study of two completely empty shells: Goldberg’s cop, who is so devoid of personality that she plays both by-the-book and screw-the-rules without any seeming contradiction, and Teddy the dinosaur, who combines an endless display of neuroses with the vibe Continue reading IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THEODORE REX (1995) →

Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: HAGGARD (2003)

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DIRECTED BY: Bam Margera

FEATURING: Ryan Dunn, Brandon DiCamillo, Bam Margera, Jenn Rivell

PLOT: Ryan, aka “Random Hero,” is depressed over having been dumped by his girlfriend Glauren (‽) in favor of a dim-yet-confident lunk named Hellboy; his sulkiness irritates best friend Valo, who determines to break him out of his funk.

Still from Haggard (2003)

COMMENTS: If all Bam Margera and Brandon DiCamillo ever did was the CKY (Camp Kill Yourself) series of videos, they still would have staked out a tiny corner for themselves in entertainment history. These collections of outrageous stunts, puerile pranks, and skateboarding tricks earned a following that eventually included the producers of MTV’s “Jackass.” Invited to contribute to the show, the CKY crew generally did their own thing out in West Chester, Pennsylvania, to be edited into the Hollywood hijinks later. The transformation of Jackass into a movie franchise only brought them more fame, but Margera & Co.’s wildness became too much even for Johnny Knoxville and his band of idiots. Margera got fired, and troupe member Ryan Dunn died after smashing up his car while intoxicated leagues above the legal limit. 

Some people might be surprised to discover that the CKY videos weren’t all Margera & Co. did. In fact, they made more than one attempt to graft their brand of messy, violent humor onto a narrative. In doing so, they followed the number one maxim of storytelling: write what you know. In this case, what they know is bumming around town looking for something to do, drinking too much while depressed over being dumped, and skateboarding.

The film makes no apologies for the fact that nearly all its characters are emotional adolescents. Our Random Hero is deeply unpleasant, launching into a harangue at a girl in a coffee shop so intense that she stabs him in the eye with a fork. Glauren is a tramp with the emotional needs of the men who wrote her. (“I can play all the games I want at the bar,” she teases Ryan.) Side characters include a nude video-game playing distributor of advice called Naked Dave, a toga-clad old man who hangs out in a hot tub while topless girls feed him grapes, and a bunch of women who appear near the film’s conclusion primarily to facilitate a set of makeout sessions.

As you might expect, there are a lot of crazy, gross-out moments thrown in to hold your attention. These range from the genuinely hilarious (a random man clocks Dunn over the head with a watermelon) to the disappointingly crude (Valo and Falcone tape turds to Glauren’s garage door) to the outright inexplicable (Ryan injures himself while perched naked atop a bathroom sink masturbating). The film also traffics in randomness as a source of humor, most notably in a side plot about DiCamillo trying to invent a “reverse microwave.” It’s the kind of small joke that would serve as a minor running gag in most movies, but here gets a lot of screen time to explore the hunt for supplies, the competitors in an invention contest, and the diamond-crusted bicycle that serves as prize.

And when there’s nothing else to say or do, everybody goes skateboarding. Too much stress in everyone’s lives? Skateboarding. Flashing back to happier times? Skateboarding.  (Who’s that making a cameo as a cop who arrests Ryan for hurling his empties at a cinderblock wall? Why, it’s skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, of course.) Considering that’s how he made his name, it’s not at all surprising that Margera would hold a special place for street surfing, but it’s pretty funny how little effort he makes to disguise Haggard’s hidden agenda as a skateboarding delivery system.

As a director, Margera is not untalented. The film moves along briskly, the cast of mostly amateurs is enthusiastic and game, and he enlists cohort Joseph Frantz behind the camera to capture some intriguing angles and settings. But as a storyteller, he’s way too sure that he and his friends’ hijinks and witty repartee are enough to do the job, and they just aren’t. Margera thinks he’s making Clerks with skateboards, but sadly, Haggard doesn’t have a tenth of the wit of Clerks. Making a narrative movie out of a series of stunt videos is a bodacious trick. Haggard just can’t land it.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Well, if you loved MTV’s obnoxious, over the top dumb-stunt show Jackass then you’ll love this weird, profane comedy as well…”–The Indie Film Cafe

(This movie was nominated for review by JoE, who raved “If i could compare it’s comedy to anything, it would be Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” but then confessed “It has my official seal of approval, which means absolutely nothing lol.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Channel 366

CHANNEL 366: THUS SPOKE KISHIBE ROHAN (2017-2019)

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DIRECTED BY: Toshiyuki Kato

FEATURING: Voices of ; Landon McDonald (English dub)

PLOT: Manga artist Kishibe Rohan recounts macabre tales he has encountered while researching material.

Still from "Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan"

COMMENTS: Although this macabre miniseries stands alone, a small of amount orientation may be helpful for those (like me) unfamiliar with “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure,” the manga/anime from which “Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan” is a spinoff. “JoJo” is a series about… well, I’m not quite sure, but it has been running for about 30 years through various incarnations. My research suggest that, other than Rohan and perhaps a few other character cameos, there are no real links in this one to the main series. There is at least one thing it’s helpful to know: like many characters in the series, Rohan has a superpower (or “Stand”): “Heaven’s Door,” which allows him to pause time and turn people into books, whom he can then read to discover personal secrets (and, occasionally, to jot his own notes inside them, altering their history or behavior). Bizarre, huh?

Originally released as standalone manga, the stories here were made for the Japanese OVA (Original Video Animation) market, then picked up by Netflix. The order of the tales is arbitrary, and the episode sequencing Netflix uses is different than the order of the OVA release (but the same as the order they appeared in the original manga, although, confusingly, the episode numbers in the manga titles are assigned randomly). You can watch them however you’d like, but if you want a suggestion, I would start with either “At a Confessional” (Netflix’s first episode, the third OVA release, and my personal favorite) or “The Run” (the wildest and final story which, based on IMDb ratings, is the fans’ favorite). The entire series is short enough to watch through without feeling like you’re wasting your time, but sampling one of those two first may help you decide whether you want to continue.

The Italy-set “At a Confessional” is a Poe-like story of callous indifference, guilt, and revenge from beyond the grave, with a demonic tongue, a popcorn-eating trial, and a twist ending. “The Run” has a more straightforward narrative; it’s a satire of male narcissism, as an actor/model takes his workout regime to unhealthy, supernatural extremes. It also features the series’ most ambitious animation, with abstract, wavering backgrounds in crazy color schemes; split screens; almost obscene, anatomically incorrect musculature; and surrealish scenes like the one where the protagonist climbs down an apartment building, Spider-man style. The other two stories are equally fantastic: “Mutsu-kabe Hill” features an eternally bleeding corpse, and “Millionaire Village” begins with an interesting premise about an ultra-exclusive suburb, then incorporates local Japanese demigods and an extremely intricate test of etiquette.  Some of the stories have ironic subtexts, but the psychology never gets too deep; the stories are dark in subject matter, but light in delivery.

I have to confess that, after watching all four episodes, I’m not sure why Rohan is such a popular, breakout character. He frankly seems a bit superhero-dull to me. With his “Heaven’s Door” power, he’s too omnipotent; there is seldom much sense of him being in jeopardy. His major character trait seems to be mild arrogance and haughtiness, which comes through in his fey, aristocratic voicing (in both the original Japanese and the English dub). This makes him seem a bit unpleasant to be around, although other characters fawn over him regularly. Perhaps Rohan doesn’t get a chance to shine here, since he is only a narrator for two of these stories, and not really the focus in any of them. Still, because he’s mostly a framing device, Rohan’s lack of charisma didn’t effect my enjoyment of the series, which is not bad, and at less than two hours to take in the whole thing, worth a shot for the curious. It didn’t make me want to explore the wider JoJo universe, though—and if you want some freaky Japanese animated horror, I’d suggest checking out “Jungo Ito Maniac” (also on Netflix) instead.

(As an odd aside, the major characters in this series always have crazy hairstyles: once has four giant bent spikes of red hair, one has random bow-like protrusions growing out of his scalp, and Rohan himself wears a strange circlet that looks like an inverted crown and is mostly covered by greenish locks that jut several inches off the side of our hero’s head.)

We may not be done with Kishibe Rohan: there are plans for a live-action adaptation of the same material.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…retains the straight-faced absurdity of its parent show… Its most tense and tragic stories hold a grim sense of humor—such as the various strange (bizarre, even) rituals throughout, tests of the mind and the body all tinged with otherworldly, life-and-death stakes.”–Kambole Campbell, Thrillist (contemporaneous)

Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan (LE BD)

Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan (LE BD)
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