T.N.T. Jackson (1974)

Blaxploitation? Check.
Karate? Check.
Funk music? Awwww yeah.
Bad plot? Check.
Topless karate scene? You bet your honkey ass.

I love cheesy movies. I think it's because of this that I love blaxploitation movies so much. I don't necessarily like what the stand for, but I do for the most part enjoy the genre as a whole.

T.N.T. Jackson is awesome. You have a woman seeking revenge, karate, nudity, bad '70s music all rolled into one awful and cheesy plot. Diane "T.N.T." Jackson is searching for the man who killed her brother in Hong Kong. Did I mention she knows karate? Oh yeah, she knows karate. EVERYONE knows karate. Teamed with Dynamite Wong (played by a dude named Chiquito... that's his full name, like Cher) they battle the underworld crime bosses... At least I think they do.

Of course Chiquito knows karate

To be honest the plot seems to jump all over the place. TNT Jackson seems to be working with, though possibly somewhat against the crime bosses. The whole issue of who killed her brother? I guess it was resolved, though I wasn't 100% sure who even did it in the first place. Also there's a whole subplot about heroin and undercover cops that seems to somewhat take center stage about halfway through the movie.

There's a problem with watching the Mill Creek Entertainment version of movies. They tend to not only have horrible transfers but also have a tendency to be edited versions. Maybe they cut out parts that made T.N.T. Jackson make sense. Maybe there's a scene that would have made me understand everything... but that's not what I saw, I saw the version that was completely batshit insane, but still somehow awesome.

The karate in this movie is hilarious. When the people who it appears actually know karate go to attack T.N.T. you can tell they slow down their movements so that she can block them. And occasionally her movements are super sped up, which is not only horribly noticeable it's also super hilarious. I unfortunately can't seem to put you at a certain time in embedded youtube video but skip to 1:00 into this video and watch about two and half minutes of the video for an amazing display of martial arts.


It's like when I first saw Citizen Kane

Even though its plot is confusing and garbled it still manages to be awesome to watch (though I will say I wish there was more action and less plot... not often I say that). Everything about this movie reeks of cheesiness, from the bad acting to the bad fight scenes. Sure it's not the best blaxploitation movie I've ever seen, but it's certainly worth a watch... even if it's just for the topless karate scene.

2 Birthday Fish out of 5

Squid.

Death by Dialogue (1988)

At some point in time a person sat down and wrote a movie, he decided that "Death by Dialogue" was a good title. At some other point in time he pitched that movie to some studio executives and they too decided that it was a good name. Somehow none of these people decided that "Death by Dialogue" might be the most boring name ever.

Death by Flames is a much more awesome name.

Have you ever thought the idea of a killer movie script sounded interesting? Yeah, me either. Though apparently someone did because that's what Death by Dialogue is about.

Our story starts out with a man reading said script, and not soon after he's lit on fire by a woman wearing garters and carrying a flamethrower. And yet somehow this movie makes that really kind of boring. I'm not sure how you manage that but it does. After that you're instantly cut to a scene with some bad 80's music where you meet the characters in the story who might actually matter: Lenny and his friends.

Lenny and his four friends decide to visit Lenny's uncle, though I'm not entirely sure why. I'm not even really sure if it's specified in the movie why they do this... I mean besides to advance the plot. It just strikes me as odd that a bunch of people in their mid-20s would decide to vacation at one of the dude's uncle's house. I would think the beach would be a lot more exciting... and rarely do you run into any demonic movie scripts at the beach.

Either way Lenny's friend Shelly stumbles across the movie script and that's when shit starts to hit the fan. Kind of. Mostly it's after that when it starts getting kind of confusing... and stupid.

While Shelly is reading the script what she's reading is actually happening, or at least there's little hints to that. And yet when she reads about her friends dying she doesn't seem all that concerned when they're missing the next day. I would like to think that if I found a script that oddly had my friend's names in it, described the location where you were at, and then when I read that they died in the script it just so happens that they're missing the next day I might at least mention it to someone else. Apparently not Shelly though.

Maybe I'm wrong about the movie though... maybe that's not what happened. I can't tell you because this movie has parts in it that make absolutely no sense. Like the two friends who go missing that I mentioned up above. It all starts off with a sex scene where at the end the woman gets blown out a window and disappears. The man runs off into the forest looking for her only to find... an '80s hair band rocking out in the middle of the forest. I have no idea why. I'm not sure it's ever really explained. This is a total Birthday Fish moment. There's several of these kinds of moments throughout the movie. It's very difficult to make sense of a movie that has a habit of making no sense.

There were roaming gangs of hair bands in the '80s

So after a few more deaths our characters finally figure out that it's the evil script. I can't remember if they figured it out or the uncle told them... because he knew about it all along. You know, I don't think if I had a problem with "killer manuscripts" running rampant I would let my nephew and his four friends come out to my house to hang out like lambs to the slaughter. Then again, I'm not a dick.

So after they figure out it's the script killing everyone they have figure out a way to stop it. Just writing that sentence I feel stupid. They wrote a movie about it. Either way the ending is... well horrible. It contains demons and fire and... dirt bikes. Also a whole lot of confusion. It's one of those things you kind of have to see for yourself, but I wouldn't suggest it. It's as bad as it sounds.

All and all the movie was pretty terrible, had a lot of rather confusing parts to it, and also had the worst name I could possibly think of. Also a movie about a killer script is pretty lame.

One thing I would like to point out though. Look up at the top, that's a poster for this movie. I'm not sure if you can read what it says so here it is "Ken Sagoes, the kid who survived Nightmare on Elm Street 3 is back!". That was their big selling point... now you know what you're getting yourself into.

3 Birthday Fish out of 5

Squid.

Legacy of Blood (1971)

I'm pretty sure I saw this plot on Scooby Doo. So a rich old man dies but instead of leaving money to each one of his kids he's a dick. According to his will his four kids must spend the night in his mansion and whoever is left in the morning will receive or split his fortune. Guess what! Things go wrong and people start dying! Seriously if the house had been haunted this would have been a Scooby Doo episode. I'm sure the cast of Gilligan's Island would have showed up at some point.

Hackneyed plot aside this movie is awesome, and by that I mean terrible. Sorry apparently watching this movie has made me just as retarded as the people who were in it.

Before I talk about the movie let me ask you something. If someone said that you would get millions of dollars if you could sleep in a house overnight wouldn't you be at all suspicious? I mean, I sleep in a house every night and I've yet receive any sort of payment for it. Yet no one seems to wonder what the catch is and seemed somewhat surprised when shit went bad.

Do you remember The Surreal Life on VH1? Basically they got a lot of D List stars who had tons of personal problems and threw them in a house together? Shockingly crazy people do crazy stuff. Legacy of Blood is kind of like The Surreal Life, but instead of booze and STDs you have incest and LSD.

Seriously, only one of this man's four kids turned out even sort of normal. Not a great batting average there. Let's see you have Laura, the normal one. She spends most her time doing boring things with her equally boring husband. Than you have Johnny, he's the brother who I'm pretty sure slept with his sister Leslie... the movie was a little vague in that department, also he's completely crazy in an overacting kind of way. Than you have Veronica, I guess she's kind of normal too but also somewhat manipulative and bitchy. And finally you have Leslie, I can't tell you if she's normal because she slept through about 90% of the movie. Either way she was hot, they should have fleshed out that part of her story more.

On top of that you also have the spouses and the help. The only one worth talking about is Leslie's husband. He was a psychiatrist and sleazebag. While he didn't sleep with everyone who was at the house I think given the opportunity he would have. Than there's the help. Apparently if you have a crazy family you have to hire crazy ass help. We'll start off with the driver Frank. I think if I hired a driver who's room looked like it was decorated by Hermann Göring I might consider getting a new one.



Now granted all of that is from Nazi's he killed during WWII not that he was one... still I like to think that when someone you employ has a lamp made of the skull and skin of a Nazi he killed he may not be the most stable of people. Moving on you have Elga, apparently she's the creepy nanny who raised the kids. Which would explain why none of them turned out. Finally you have Igor, yes Igor. I'm not really sure what his job is other than to look like a muscular Mel Brooks and have a creepy relationship with Elga.

I loved you in Spaceballs. Now please put your shirt back on.

There's one more character, Sheriff Dan Garcia. He's the first to die so he's not all that important. He comes over to the house, only to end up as a severed head in the fridge. I only bring this up because it seems weird to include it in the movie. Seriously, no one notices that the town sheriff goes on a call and than doesn't come back for hours? I didn't know this mansion was in Mayberry.

After the Sheriff's untimely death, members of the family start turning up dead. As they wonder who is killing them off one by one you're treated to a look into the family's lurid past via flashbacks or perhaps acid trips. Really, the flashbacks are like looking at the world through Hunter S. Thompson's eyes.

Makes sense to me.

So slowly over the course of the night more and more of the family members are killed in more and more gruesome ways... and yet no one just leaves. Maybe this is some sort of metaphor for our power and money hungry lives. That these people are willing to die or witness their family die all for the almighty dollar. On the other hand it could be that the entire family is just retarded. Yeah, I'm going with that one.

3 Birthday Fish out of 5

Squid.

Night Train to Terror (1985)

If I had to describe Night Train to Terror in one word it would be confusing. If I had to describe it in three words it would be awesome and confusing. Night Train to Terror starts off with a great '80s song, with singing and dancing and trains.

Man the '80s sucked

Anyway after their done singing their awful yet catchy song you get to meet God and Satan who apparently travel by train. From what I gather they meet up occasionally to divvy up random souls, and with each soul you get to watch a story of how these people died. Starts off well enough, I mean all except for that godawful '80s song... but when you start to watch the three stories that's when it all goes to hell.

The three stories of the people's death? They make absolutely no sense. With a little bit of research you'll find out why. You see, most movies would film their own stories if they were going to put them in a movie... but not Night Train to Terror, it's different. You see the three stories you're seeing are actually just other movies edited down to around 20 minutes to make these stories.

The Case of Harry Billings? Actually a movie called Marilyn Alive and Behind Bars. The Case of Gretta Connors? Carnival of Fools. The Case of Claire Hansen? Cataclysm. If you add up the length of all these movies they're about 270 minutes long. Night Train to Terror is 93 minutes long. Think something might get lost in translation?

You bet ya! Night Train to Terror is like giving someone a 350 page book... except 179 pages are ripped out... and what is left isn't necessarily in order... also every 60 pages there's a bad '80s music video.

That's right, they even managed to screw up editing these movies correctly. Occasionally it's very noticeable that the scene you just watched happened after the scene you're watching now. In the second story the couple goes from hating each other and the girl having short hair to the couple being madly in love and the girl having long hair. I'm pretty sure you can't miss something like that so it tells me they just didn't care.

So here you have three 90 or so minute movies that you have to edit down to about 20 or so minutes each and try to make it at least somewhat coherent. If you were going to do that do you think you would pick two movies that didn't have THE SAME ACTOR IN THEM? Night Train to Terror didn't.

Richard "Bull" Moll

That's right, the first and third story both star Richard Moll. Seriously though of all the confusing things int his movie I don't think that even ranks in the top ten. There are so many things in this movie that confused me that I think I spent about 85 of the 90 minutes laughing and saying out lout "What the hell just happened!?"

This movie is bad. Really, really bad. So bad it's good. Hilariously good. You can't watch this movie without laughing. Confusing as hell, but so bad it's good.

2 Birthday Fish out of 5

Squid.

How the Rating System Works

I thought I should specify how the rating system works, just in case you don't read the Mama Dracula review. Most of these movies that I will end up watching are going to be terrible. Not just terrible because of the bad acting, lousy productions, awful scripts, and horrible directing... those are all part of what makes them bad. What I've found generally with these types of movies is that you have all of those things, but you also have a movie that in the end is incoherent and confusing. Plot points not explained, new characters popping in with little to no explanation, horrible continuity issues, etc. It's things like that which take a movie from being bad to a movie being incomprehensible. A lot of those things popped up in Mama Dracula, like the Birthday Fish. I don't know why it's there, where it came from, or its purpose... but here it is. So instead of a lot of one star reviews I've decided to essentially rate there WTF?ness.

WTF?

If a movie is descent and watchable you're going to get one birthday fishes. If the movie is an awful mess that's probably not going to be enjoyed because it can't even be comprehended, then you're looking at a five birthday fishes kind of movie.

Hopefully this kind of clears up the rating system here at Bad Transfer Reviews. Just remember that here, one birthday fish is better than five birthday fish.

Squid.