Actualités

In what I thought would be my final feature for the Class of 88 series, I sang the praises of Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers as the kind of trashy goodness that’s quite separate from movies we watch just so that we can rag on them for being so terrible. As luck would have it, earlier this month I stumbled on a movie very much on the opposite side of the equation, Jag Mundhra’s schlockfest Hack-o-Lantern. I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to at least briefly talk about one of the most entertainingly terrible movies I’ve seen in recent memory.

To provide some context, I’d never even heard of Hack-o-Lantern until I saw it being advertised at the Mahoning Drive-In, a bastion of genre cinema nestled in the Pocono Mountains of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Hack-o-Lantern was the first billed movie for their second annual Drive-In VHS-Fest,...

Murder Weapon

Stars: Linnea Quigley, Karen Russell, Lyle Waggoner, Lenny Rose, Stephen Steward, Michael Jacobs Jr, Allen First, Richard J. Sebastian, Eric Freeman, Rodger Burt, Allen Tombello | Written by Ross A. Perron | Directed by David DeCoteau

When mobster daughters Dawn (Linnea Quigley, Creepozoids) and Amy (Karen Russell, Vice Academy) by chance meet in an insane asylum, the pair hatch a plan to free themselves. They do this by manipulating and downright blackmailing their psychiatrists Dr. Randolph (Lyle Waggoner, Wonder Woman) and Dr. Gram (Lenny Rose, Beach Babes From Beyond). Once successfully free, the pair decide to celebrate their freedom by holding a little get together. They decide to invite their ex-boyfriends Kevin (Stephen Steward), Eric (Michael Jacobs Jr), Cary (Allen First), Billy (Richard J. Sebastian), Jeff (Eric “Garbage Day!” Freeman), Bart (Rodger Burt) and Al (Allen Tombello) to celebrate their release and hopefully get a little of welcome home action.

In recent years there has been a real boom in documentaries surrounding popular culture. Films such as Electric Boogaloo, Video Nasties, The Search for Weng Weng and Adjust Your Tracking have captured the zeitgeist of fans across the globe, and in turn inspired more people to create their own documentaries about pop culture subjects that matter to them…

But not all these documentaries see the same success. Having been on something of a documentary kick lately, I thought I’d break down the ten of the best little-known, or better yet little-discussed, pop-culture documentaries from the many, many examples I have been watching. So here they are and, for once, they’re in order:

1) Slaughter Nick For President

There’s a good reason this film is at the top of my list. This is the documentary that kicked off my exploration of pop culture documentaries (eventually ending up at compliling this list) and,...