Witchboard (1986)

Watch the full movie here!



Soundtrack: Bump in the Night by Steel Breeze



Directed by Kevin Tenney

Starring Tawny Kitaen, Todd Allen, Kathleen Wilhoite and Stephen Nichols

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Body Count (1986)

Soundtrack - Claudio Simonetti "Main Theme"



Clip: The Killer Attacks



Directed by Ruggero Deodato

Starring David Hess, Mimsy Farmer, Charles Napier and Bruce Penhall

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The Abomination (1986)

Clip: "Wanna beer?"



Soundtrack: Main Theme



Directed by Bret McCormick

Starring Scott Davis, Jude Johnson and Blue Thompson

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The Stabilizer (1986)

Clip: Peter O'Brian doesn't have much fun at the show



Watch the full movie here courtesy of Troma Films



Directed by Arizal

Starring Peter O'Brian, Craig Gavin, Gillie Beanz and Harry Capri

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The Wraith (1986)

Soundtrack: Lion - Never Surrender



Directed by Mike Marvin

Starring Charlie Sheen, Sherilyn Fenn, Randy Quaid, Nick Cassavetes and Clint Howard

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Hardbodies 2 (1986)

Directed by Mark Griffiths

Starring James Karen, Alba Francesca and Louise Baker

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Ninja Destroyer (1986)

Directed by Godfrey Ho

Starring Stuart Smith and Bruce Baron

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King Of The Streets (1986) aka Alien Warrior

Directed by Ed Hunt

Starring Brett Baxter Clark and Pamela Saunders

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The Zero Boys (1986)

Directed by Nico Mastorakis

Starring Daniel Hirsch, Kelli Maroney and Nicole Rio

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Wired to Kill (1986) aka Booby Trap

Directed by Francis Schaeffer

Starring Emily Longstreth, Tommy 'Tiny' Lister and Devin Hoelscher

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The Malibu Bikini Shop (1986)

The Girls Of Rock N' Roll



Directed by David Wechter

Starring Michael David Wright, Bruce Greenwood and Amanda Horan Kennedy

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Never Too Young to Die (1986)

Entertainment Tonight spot with Gene Simmons explaining his "hermaphrodite" character Ragnar...



The theme song "Never Too Young To Die" by Iren Koster. Fucking mindblowing...



Directed by Gil Bettman

Starring Gene Simmons, John Stamos, Vanity and George Lazenby.

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Hands Of Steel (1986) aka Atomic Cyborg

Clip: (Spoiler alert) - Big Brawl:



Soundtrack: Claudio Simonetti - Hands of Steel (Main theme)



Watch the entire movie here!



Directed by Sergio Martino

Starring Daniel Greene, George Eastman, John Saxon and Janet Agren

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My Letterboxd Review:

"Everytime I watch it I have a new favourite scene, but this time it was George Eastman endlessly taunting Paco Queruak to arm-wrestle, until Paco decides to respond by grabbing a marker, writing something on Janet Agren's marble counter-top, ripping a huge chunk of that same marble counter-top off with his bare hands and throwing it at Eastman. The piece of marble says "You're On". This is genius. Random but genius.

Another great moment is John Saxon wielding a ridicoulously huge laser gun and keeping a straight face. A classic piece of Italian trash that's just as entertaining as The Terminator, the film it rips off."

Chopping Mall (1986)

Watch The Entire Movie!



Directed by Jim Wynorski

Starring Kelli Maroney, Barbara Crampton, Dick Miller, Mary Woronov and Angus Scrimm.

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The Ninja Squad (1986)

Directed by Godfrey Ho and Robert Young.

Starring Richard Harrison and Dave Wheeler.

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No need to watch the real film. This trailer is good enough.

It's like every ninja movie (and there are nearly a hundred) produced in the 80's by Joseph Lai all take place in the exact same forest clearing. Just watch any ninja movie trailer from this time period and you will recognize the exact same spot in the forest where two rival ninjas must fight to the death on overexposed film stock.

The Joseph Lai films are becoming some of my favourite trailers.

Reform School Girls (1986)

Directed by Tom DeSimone.

Starring Linda Carol, Wendy O. Williams and Sybil Danning.

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This film could very well be held up as the definition of trash cinema. Yet this had major studio backing and grossed a respectable 2 million at the box office.

Just as the trailer indicates, this film is totally over the top and it's hard not to have a good time watching the likes of Williams and Pat Ast snarl their way through ridiculously campy performances.

80's Metal Movie Tie-Ins

Dated?

Uh, a little. But horror movies and bad hair metal had a thing going on in the 80's and here's a few samples of some of those glorious train wrecks.

First up, Dokken does the main theme song for 1987's Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. This brings me back to my youth when I took stuff like this quite seriously. I wonder what's more scary to main star Patricia Arquette - Freddy Krueger and his minion of creepy girls skipping rope or Don Dokken's poodle haircut?





Somehow, this one is worse. Alice Cooper continues his embarrasing 80's slide by penning this keyboard driven drivel for 1986's Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.

Yet the video itself is entertaining as hell. The theatre setting is great and there are some truly bad special effects, such as Jason ripping through the screen and Alice inexplicably trying to scare the patrons by breaking a glass bottle over his forehead. Oooohh scary!





I have to include this one even though it's not really a music video. It's one of the climactic scenes of 1986's Trick or Treat, one of the best heavy metal themed films from that era.

That's actor Tony Fields as rock demon Sammi Curr but the music is really by Fastway, a second-tier act that included a former member of Motorhead and a guy from U.F.O.

This film also had Ozzy Osbourne in a great cameo as a preacher who railed against heavy metal lyrics and musicians, lampooning the PMRC and Tipper Gore who were in the midst of their metal witch hunts at the time.

The best part of this is when the guitar goes flying through the air and someone randomly yells "Rock and Roll!!".

If you can't stand the Fastway stuff, fast foward because there is some hilarious shenanigans towards the end and a ripping guitar solo straight from hell that could have been the inspiration for Will Ferrel's classic Satan and Garth Brooks sketch from SNL.




And while we're going there, I might as well bring this one out. A scene from 1988's Black Roses.

The context of this scene is that a metal band called Black Roses is playing a small town and the local parents and authorities are concerned about the effects on their kids. They sit in on the first song to make sure that nothing is going on and the band do their best to fool everyone with a vanilla sounding soft rock song. Soon the parents leave and the real metal begins!





Now, the best for last. This is a clip from 1985's Hard Rock Zombies. It's not a metal song, but there's a bunch of long hair bangers doing choreographed dance moves in the film's big montage scene and even some miming. Completely retarded and great.



Had enough yet? This is another clip from Hard Rock Zombies. This is quite possibly the most ridiculous scene ever put on 35 mm film. The band have been killed earlier in the day and then rose from the dead, making sure they still turn up to do their soundcheck for that night's show! This is some kind of love song for the main girl Cassie in the movie. Oh unrequited love!