Stinker Madness - The Podcast for Bad Movie Lovers

No Escape - No chicks allowed

Ray Liotta is one tough guy and he'll let you know about it. Its The Running Man meets Lord of the Flies and I don't think I asked for it.
So its an interesting idea for a film at this point in time. Ray Liotta wants an action role. Fine. So he's a former military hero who received a life sentence after killing his superior officer who made him do bad things. He's sent to a penal colony but is just too much of a headache so they ship him off to a tropical island paradise. Huh. There he must choose sides between the Outsiders (raiders in Fallout 4) and the Insiders (settlers in Fallout 4). He's poopy about both so instead he tries to figure a way off the paradise island to go back to the dystopian mainland because....he's poopy? I don't know or understand him.
The movie almost could trick you into thinking its good. Good(ish) production design, decent acting, competent cinematography. What it suffers from is two-fold: Its dumb and boring. Which is disappointing. Because if it wasn't dumb it might be "good". If it wasn't boring it might be fun. The plot and character motivations are inane. Why does the Warden have a secret jungle island he can just ship cons over to if he feels like it? What possible benefit is there for him? Why does Ray Liotta's guy want to leave so bad? There's lots of "why" questions here. Secondly, it's an action movie with pretty mundane action. Yeah there's a way too big explosion at the end but for the most part, things are done with very rudimentary CGI and bland stunts by a clearly not Ray Liotta. There's just too much yelling at each other and character origins to make it worth my time. 
But the worst crime it commits is setting up a great statement about private prison systems and punishment vs. rehabilitation and instead tries to fumble around with bland action sequences. I find it to be a frustrating film at best and a snoozer at worst. Sam likes it though.

Slime City - Don’t eat pudding before watching

That time your fiancé turned into a goop monster and had to kill people to stay ungoopy long enough for you to do it for the first time and then kill him.
I mean, there's just that much to see here. This guy moves into an apartment only to be invited to eat some goop and then turn into goop because the spirit of a Jim Jones guy lives in the goop and splits control over your body. He then threatens you (astral interior(ly), its a thing) to turn you into goop unless you satisfy his bloodlust and kill some bums and hookers. Pretty standard stuff here. Oh wait, everyone else in the apartment building has to do the same thing. Oh, and you've got a pesky 22 year old virgin girlfriend sniffing around/wanting to bang on your super gross mattress (it was gross before you became a goop monster, so....I think that's her fault? No its yours). That's nothing really that weird right?
This movie is bonkers. I'm not even talking about the best part of the movie but the plot on its own is as crazy as Death Bed: The Bed that Eats and it goes way past that level in nanners throughout. It is self-aware of how ridiculous it is, but its also incredibly artistic especially when factoring in its very modest $50K budget (even in 1988 this is crazy cheap). 
The only thing that can steer you away from this is if you have a weak stomach but the film helps you out with that by showing the insides of a tummy. Its just hot dogs and fruit salad so nothing to worry about. Barf away!

Cocaine Bear - Winnie the Pooh loved his honey, so....

You know the story. Bear finds coke. Bear eats people. Bear community is destroyed by illicit drugs. Rampant racism takes over bear cops. Struggle is real.
There's not much I can say about the plot that you don't already know. So lets just skip through that. So lets ask this - does it keep the momentum for the runtime that the trailer has? Well...no. Sadly I think that any excited about the movie will be disappointed. Its a little too tame for what you're sold. But if you go in expecting to be disappointed you might be alright. When you've been disappointed by so many movies of this vane, you expect another Wolf Cop. So maybe all that disappointment will work out for you. 
It could be a hall of fame movie but its not. So that's where I'm disappointed. It could have been great. Instead its just pretty good. I hate missed opportunities for hall of fame movies. If I didn't have such high expectations and needs, I'd have probably loved Cocaine Bear. Instead I find it to just be ok and only worth watching the one time.
Bummer.

An Appointment with Death

Hercule Poirot sticks his nose into the show and tells us our business, uninvited! Well told him all the problems with his "detecting".
So this is clearly Cannon Group's best produced movie. The production design is good. The costumes are fine. The locations are expensive and fitting. The casting is good. And that's where the compliments stop.
The plot is far from diabolical. In fact, it's blatantly obvious and with and incredibly stupid motive. Then there's the backstory to the motive which is even more stupid. So because the villain of the film is so painfully obvious (mostly just due to a major actor in the role, hint, hint. Its not like Kevin Spacy just suddenly appears out of nowhere with no mention in the credits) 50% of the movie is just the cast tutting around waiting for the plot to start and then the next 40% is Hercule Poirot tutting around and wasting everyone's time. Its not that its tedious because most of it is stupid but it is completely unnecessary and defeating when the reveal finally happens. You're left saying "why did I have to sit through all that build up for that?"
It's not that its really that bad, but unless you love ALL whodunits or you're an Agatha Christie completionist (I guess that's redundant), you can skip this one.

Zardoz - Rerun

We had a bit of an audio kerfuffle as Jackie didn't record any of her audio after doing the whole episode. We'll have to redo it this week and get it out next week. Sorry. So instead you get a treat of Sean Connery being randy in dystopia in Zardoz. Original date of release was back in January of 2018 in the "before time". Enjoy!

American Ninja 4 - Ninja manliness wars!

Dudikoff returns as Joe Armstrong but does any of the magic of the first 2 films come with him? And can David Bradley match up to his Alpha Ninja? And can Karl stand in for Steve James? Nope, uh uh and wowie no way man.
So basically, our boy from AN3 Sean (David Bradley) pairs up with his buddy to save some POWs held captive by a snobby Colonel Neil Diamond and his terrorist pal Shah-Blah-Blah who want $50 million and blow up a nuke in NYC. Well Sean and Carl get nabbed and tortured so the USA calls in ol' Joe Armstrong to ninja up and kick his way through a ninja training camp to free them all. The usual stuff here. Along the way he travels to Barter Town, fights in Thunderdome and recruits a horde of barbarians to invade the baddies fortress. Joe then finds the captives, proves his superiority to Sean, kills Sean, finds out dead Sean is an imposter (because?) and then wanders off.
So its the worst of the AN series and by quite a ways. There's very little remarkable in it outside of the lunacy that I mentioned last paragraph. The ninjas are dumb. The stunts are boring. The fight choreography is mushy. And the villains suck. There's also a ton of filler with the middle section mostly consisting of Sean, Karl and Sarah (Robin Stille) getting smacked around, Joe sharpening his sword (which he never uses) and the baddies cackling ala Dr. Evil.....for 40 minutes.
It's still a do, but just barely and not for anyone that isn't a baloney ninja action movie fan.

American Ninja Rerun

We go WAY back to 2016 (ugh, do we have to?) and revisit our first episode of the American Ninja saga (tee hee) with special guest Joe Fulgham of the Caustic Soda Podcast. Enjoy!

The Dirt - Whose wiener is this anyways?

Its pretty much a VH1 Behind The Music episode but with a lot more naked chicks.
Look, if you like Motley Crue (insert the umlauts on your own, bub) good for you. I'm not here to bash your taste in music. I think they have some ok jams and some terrible ones as well but that can be said about anyone (including The Beatles and Led Zeppelin) so enjoy your cassette tape of Decade of Decadence and rock on. This however is a podcast about bad movies and so this whole thing will be about the movie. And this movie sucks.
My problem with The Dirt is that its not a movie. There's no plot. There's no character journey. They start out as "fucking idiots" and end as "fucking idiots". "Well, its a biography pic", you might argue. "Sometimes people don't have any character arcs because they aren't characters, they are people." Ok, good argument. Except...
It isn't a damn biography. They movie even comes right out and says its all bullshit (delivered by Iwan Rheon's Mick Mars). Which is fine...if you're sitting around talking rock folklore with a dude wearing a Motorhead (stop it with the umlauts, dammit!) t-shirt. But this is outright revisionist history and by declaring some of it is bullshit so that it looks like a movie makes ALL of it bullshit and then what's the point of it anyways?
I'll tell you what. A celebration of infantile misogyny and entitlement. This is a man-boy jerk-off fantasy. "Wow, look at those guys shit on everyone they ever met and smack women around. Sure wish I could do that." said a future election denying mom's basement dweller. I'm over the romanticizing of hair metal excessiveness. None of it should be looked on fondly or celebrated. They were shitty people then and they are shitty people now.
Watch if you like excessive nudity though. I could use my time better though.

Primal Rage - Sasquatch is so lonely

Sasquatch finds the love of his life and then her husband smashes his head with a rock. Shakespeare it is not.
So a couple get hit with rocks and get lost in the woods. What ensues is Squatch gets a crush on the lady and wants to have some alone time with her. Standing in his way is some rednecks, her husband and a local sheriff that's coming down from a bad peyote trip. And its way weirder than that. Its a tiny little indy-budget movie that is like the John Wick of DTV horror films as in someone that is GREAT at makeup directs and writes a movie. The makeup is great (like the stunts in JW) but the story is baffling (unlike JW) with the world of Bigfoot being very confusing and dubious. Throw in some Native American weapons and some bark armor and Bigfoot just gets weirder and weirder.
Apparently, what Squatches are, is the spirits of deceased Native American chiefs. So there is no lady Squatches, I guess. Much like the Catholic clergy (too soon?) that's a problem as our Squatch is a randy bastard who stalks our heroine for the sake of making some squatch/human baby hybrids. Oh, it gets weirder. A bog witch becomes involved and we're still not sure whose side she is on. 
Eventually, there's much murder of rednecks and buckets of gore with Squatch bouncing off trees like a ninja. Which is all fun. But there's too much not that surround this that makes it not awesome.
It's bizarre and dumb but it still may not be for everyone. If you like creature-features its a do. Everyone else might want to take a pass. 

American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt - Wanna hunt some blood this weekend, Phil?

Is there a Blood Hunt? Are there actually ninjas? Is there anything in this movie at all? Hopefully we have answers but its not looking good.
So I'm gonna try to sum up the plot here. A pair of criminals launch their criminal empire by stealing the box office of a local karate tournament. Ten years later, they plot to create a super-virus to sell to terrorists but in order to prove it works, they must inject it into the world's toughest ninja and watch him die. To do this, they have their lead ninja disguise herself as his adoptive karate dad and the secretary for the Ministry of the Interior....nope I can't do it. This crap makes no sense.
I mean this plot is nanners. Its not the idiot plot because the idiot plot requires an clear and achievable goal by either the protagonist or the antagonist. I literally have no idea what these guys are going for here. I mean its the kind of thing you write on a bedside notepad after a wild dream and think you've got the next Academy Award for screenplay on your hands and then you wake up and attempt to read it and all you can manage to decipher is "banana dogs". You then throw that note away. Well not for Cannon Films. They made that dream into reality and it stinks.
Aside from that is the ninjas. They are awful. These are probably the worst ninjas in film. They are bad at martial arts. They aren't sneaky. They appear to just be hourly employees that aren't ninjas but are dressed as such because the uniforms were cheap. Our heroes aren't much better. Steve James at least looks like he's done action scenes before but he's the sole bright spot in that dept.
I may be making this sound unwatchable but really AM3 is pretty fun. Its doesn't hold a candle to the first one but its a great bad movie Sunday especially in a double feature. Its a do!