“Teen Witch” came in to existence from a studio’s desires to create a “Teen” monster franchise. “Teen Wolf” would give way to “Teen Witch,” and there was supposed to be “Teen Vampire.” Director Samuel Bradford’s super low budget “Teen Vamp” seems to aim to unofficially complete the trinity amounting to a bizarre eighties teen horror series. Although, you could ague “Love at First Bite,” “The Vampire’s Kiss,” and or “Vamp” completed the trilogy; I’d be more hard pressed to argue that “My Best Friend is a Vampire” feels so much more like a natural end to the desired gimmick. “Teen Vamp” is best left in the heap of obscure eighties video store shelf warmers.
Author Archives: Felix Vasquez
Primal Rage (1988)
Director Vittorio Rambaldi’s horror film is such a silly bafflingly bizarre horror movie that even after the credits rolled, I was kind of dumbfounded. “Primal Rage” feels so much like someone wrote a teen college drama comedy about an aspiring journalist, and his love interest. And then someone had the bright idea of taking a script for a horror movie and just awkwardly wedged it right in between all the twenty something romance and growing pains with mopey aspiring photographer Sam and even mopier student Lauren. Continue reading
Five of My Favorite Childhood B Movie Queens
Growing up during the video age, and with cable television, you tend to come across a lot of recurring faces. Over the years I’ve managed to build a list of some of my all time favorite B movie queens, and these five are only a select few of the many women that influenced my love for cult cinema, and inspired me to dig deeper in to underground and horror cinema over the years.
The Black Phone (2022)
Director Scott Derrickson bring to screen what is really one of the more riveting thrillers of 2022. While “The Black Phone” almost always runs the risk of getting lost in its obvious influences of Stephen King and Amblin, “The Black Phone” ends up being a truly engaging and often scary hostage thriller. This one thinks somewhat outside the box bringing us not only in to the hot seat of the character that’s been kidnapped, but it also gives us a look at the echoes that emanate with every victim that villain “The Grabber” has ever victimized and murdered.
End Of The Line (2007)
I’m frankly shocked that I’ve never seen or even heard of Maurice Devereaux’s “End of the Line” until this year. I typically have my ears perked to new horror titles, and “End of the Line” slipped right by me. I don’t know if I’d call it a masterpiece, but it sure is a damn good siege and survival horror movie in the tradition of “Assault on Precinct 13” and or “The Void.” It’s bleak, it’s dark, it’s gory and it has a climax that will likely keep the audience debating for days.
Z-O-M-B-I-E-S 3 (2022)
In 2020’s “Z-O-M-B-I-E-S 2,” heroine Addison spent a lot of her arc trying to figure out if she was perhaps the “Great Alpha” werewolf. When that was a bust, we were left on a cliffhanger as Addison was left pondering on her origins. And we were given a clue—from outer space. The idea of Addison perhaps being an alien makes a ton of sense considering the character guidelines the movies follow, and with the final movie in Disney’s “Z-O-M-B-I-E-S,” Disney works fast to seal up any and all lingering questions about Addison and Zed.
Z-O-M-B-I-E-S 2 (2020)
The follow up to the surprise 2018 hit musical is a superior movie in every way possible. Although there didn’t seem to be much that they could do with a follow up, “Z-O-M-B-I-E-S 2” does a darn good job in amplifying what was so great about the first one; the writers are great at adding on to the whole mythos of the town of Seabrook offering even more characters, more potential for more monsters, and give cheerleader Addison her own arc. While in the original she sought to fit in with the zombies, now she’s looking for her own group, unsure of where she really belongs after her experiences with Zed and Zombietown.