50 films that I dug up on Tubi.

Enjoy!

Hellbenders (2012)

I really should have saved this for later, for my exorcism watch-a-thon What Possessed You, but the mere thought of not watching a Clancy Brown movie kicked off my hives.

Hellbenders is an unholy romp written and directed by J.T. Petty (who brought us The Burrowers, among others) based on the graphic novel of the same name.

It concerns a secret order of multi denominational priests who are trained to defeat unbeatable demons. They do this by sinning as much as possible, then inviting the demon to possess themselves before committing suicide and dragging the entity to Hell. It’s a fantastic premise, and the numerous references to their sins (ranging from stealing newspapers and having disparaging thoughts, to committing adultery and colourful blasphemy) is a lot of fun. Priests aren’t sent out on exorcism missions if they’re not guaranteed to go to Hell.

Clancy Brown plays Father Angus, the leader of this motley troop, and possibly the greatest user of profanity I have ever seen. This film is worth it for his swearing alone, but for God’s sake don’t do a drinking game based on the number of times he says cocksucker — you will die.

Everyone in this cast does a great job, and I especially enjoyed Dan Fogel as a punchy priest, and Stephen Gevedon as ‘Clint’ (a hilarious animated segment reveals why “Clint’ shouldn’t be a superhero name).

The possessions are fugly, the violence is daft and bloody, and there’s lots of biting off of appendages.

I really enjoyed this one.

9/10

Gargoyles (CBS, November 12, 1972) and Die Influencers Die (Orona Art, 2020)

Gargoyles (1972)

Don’t get excited, fans of the cartoon show (and potential Kenneth Branagh movie), this is a made for TV movie that was not bad for its time, and has developed something of a cult following.

Cornel Wilde and Jennifer Salt play Dr. Mercer Boley and his daughter, Diana. Dr. Boley is a leading authority on demonology, and his daughter feeds his obsession with trinkets she picks up around the world. They travel to a remote area in New Mexico called Devil’s Crossing — an area steeped in folklore and legend. There they encounter Uncle Willie, the owner of a roadside museum, who shows them a funky skeleton — before you know it, the gargoyles attack, and all hell breaks loose.

It’s a fairly tame flick, with a couple of slightly creepy moments, but the gargoyles don’t really stand up to scrutiny under the harsh lighting, and the action scenes are mostly choppy slow-motion. However, it licks along at a fair old pace, and it does feature Scott Glenn as a bad boy biker. You could say there’s an allegory blanketed under all of this regarding the treatment of indigenous peoples at the hands of settlers, but I ain’t here for no history lesson, mama.

Only recommended for the gargoyle-curious.

5/10

Die Influencers Die (2020)

If you know me, there’s nothing I like more than seeing harm come to a) matadors, and b) internet pranksters, so this title obviously whetted my appetite.

Known in Germany as The Influencers, The (a Simpsons gag for loyal followers), this film is a low-budget schlock-fest with very little in the way of redeeming features. The nonsensical story concerns an abusive, toxic alpha-male influencer (a cross between Mr. Beast and Patrick Bateman) who wants to destroy the ‘careers’ of three rival influencers in order to ramp up his views. He does this by inviting them to a ‘haunted film studio’, then tries to give them dysentery with a made up energy drink that they are supposed to hawk for him. Little does he know that a malevolent demon is on site, and ready to chop up and eat anything in her path.

Said demon is the resurrected body of a model that was murdered by one of his assistants and stuffed in a fridge. She walks around at a jerky pace due to edited frames in a clown mask with duct taped nipples and a tutu. She’s apparently there for revenge, so why she kills the duped influencers (who did nothing to her) makes no sense. The whole thing is shot and edited like the most annoying music video you can think of, and is full of shock metal, partly due to the presence of Lizzy Borden as an illogical demon whisperer.

It’s annoying, grating and mean-spirited, and I can only recommend it to folks who like metal, plastic knockers and overacting.

3/10

Monsternado (Uncork’d, November 14, 2023) and
The Police are Blundering in the Dark (O.I.S. Cinematografica, 1975)

Monsternado (2023)

Still on a kaiju high after Godzilla vs Kong, I foolishly tried to scratch my itch with this (potentially) fun flick. No sooner had it started, than I realized my mistake. It is an Uncork’d production.

Uncork’d makes The Asylum look like A24, but I bravely soldiered on.

Let’s get all the negativity out of the way. It’s not very good. The script is terrible, the acting is rubbish, and the effects are wonky at best.

I lied, here’s some more negativity. The thing that really irked me about this Sharknado knock-off was the filmmakers’ potential to do something really interesting with this idea. If you are going to have a plot reference mythical places like the Bermuda Triangle and Atlantis, then get some mythical monsters up in this windy shit.

As is, we are subjected to sharks, tentacles, gators, snakes, some token pterodactyls and aggressive scampi. If you’re going to spend the catering budget on CG, then at least make the monsters unique and fantastical.

I think it was supposed to take place in the US, but several shots of the Gherkin in downtown London, plus lots of dodgy American accents, gave up its true origins, and just keeping it set in England would have been a slight improvement.

It’s like I sometimes say to my children, “No, I’m not angry with you, just very disappointed.”

3/10

The Police are Blundering in the Dark (1975)

Fancied a giallo, and this title caught my eye. It was originally titled The Salad Garden, and that would have made just as much sense, as there’s no actual coppers in this (ultimately rather dull) murder mystery.

The film has all the ingredients of a giallo, a POV killer dispatching young women, mandatory nudity, sexual repression, long talks around the dinner table, male hair product, but this one brings a science fiction twist to the proceedings. A wheelchair-bound photographer has invented a machine (the kind that goes wooo, woooo, and bathes the user in purple) that can photograph people’s thoughts — but this doesn’t really come into play until the end of the movie.

Instead we follow the apathetic investigation of a journalist looking for his missing friend while trying to pop the cherry of anyone he comes across. Being Italian and mid-70s, no one can be killed before their shirt has come off, in fact in the opening scene, the killer kindly tears his victim’s blouse so that she can gallop breastily through a copse before she becomes a corpse.

Possibly the most boring giallo I’ve ever watched, so I can only recommend it to fans of the Italian countryside, small cars, bosoms and lettuce.
4/10

Caddy Hack (Wild Eye Entertainment, December 10, 2023) and Blades (Troma Entertainment, 1989)

Caddy Hack (2023) & Blades (1989)

A double-bill, you lucky people. Here we have a pair of golf-related horror films that are on opposite ends of the quality spectrum.

Caddy Hack is bloody awful. It purports to be a comedy, but it is so desperately unfunny that I ended up hate-watching it for the final hour. The style of humor put me in mind of Mad Cow; self-referential, endlessly repeated (unfunny) jokes, deliberately rubbish effects, extreme mugging for the camera, horrible editing, and so on.

The story dispenses with the whole Caddy Shack plot, and instead focuses on the gophers, which in this steaming pile have been mutated by fertilizer. Throw in a Trumpy business owner, a thousand ‘ball’ jokes, and a Gremlins rip-off, and you have a recipe for a warm crap casserole. Avoid.

On the flip-side, Blades was an unexpected joy. I was honestly expecting a second-tier slasher featuring a lump of machinery, but I received a brilliant homage to Jaws, right down to the sound-alike music, story beats and set pieces. They played it straight, which elicited much more laughter from me than Caddy Hack, and a lot of thought was put into the direct adaptation of the original shark film. It gets better as the film goes on because you realize what’s coming up, and for this reason I wholeheartedly recommend Blades, especially for lovers of Jaws.

1/10 and 8/10 respectively.

Psycho Gothic Lolita (Pony Canyon, September 4, 2010) and Destroy All Neighbors (Shudder, January 12, 2024)

Psycho Gothic Lolita (2010)

You did it! You’re about to read your 50th rubbish review of a film to be found in the bowels of Tubi!

It took me a while to settle on a final film. I started on Screecher of the Lagoon, but I’m tired of badly shot and acted efforts. I also started The Door in the Woods, but it was too serious for me to get into (I’ll return to it one day). So here we are.

Psycho Gothic Lolita (original title: Gothic & Lolita Psycho) sounded like a perfect fit. After all, I love psychos, I love ‘gothic’ and, um, I love psychos.

The film perfectly encapsulates the vibe of this entire watch-a-thon; bonkers action, extreme gore, body horror, dubious sexiness, and the sort of deadly umbrella that would make John Steed wet his pants.

It’s a revenge tale as old as time. Yuki’s mom is brutally killed by a gang of five ne’er-do-wells in black windbreakers, and so she dresses up as a ‘gothic Lolita’ (I just learned this is a thing) and exacts revenge Kill Bill style. Actually, there’s a lot of Kill Bill in this, right down to an eyepatch-sporting hit woman called ‘Elle’. There’s even a spoon-bender (who’s more proficient at lifting up skirts) called Yuro Gerao — which elicited a hearty guffaw from me.

It’s daft, bloody, and a heap of fun. A good way to go out.

8/10

Bonus Flick! Destroy All Neighbors (2024)

Not a Tubi Dive (this is streaming on Shudder/Prime), this one is a deliriously fun throwback to the bonkers weird-a-thons of the 80s. Think Society, Brain Damage or Freaked.

Jonah (MST3K) Ray plays Will, a musician who just wants to finish his prog rock album. As he descends into madness, many unfortunate and bloody events occur, and he ends up in a world of wise-cracking corpses and insane riffs.

It’s obvious everyone is having a great time making this, and Alex Winter chews the scenery under 50lbs of rubber as an East-European nightmare, while Ray is an excellent straight man to the chaos. Daft, messy and entertaining.

8/10

Here are all 50 films I watched on Tubi, and my three favorites — a handy guide for purveyors of slop.

Previous Murkey Movie surveys from Neil Baker include:

Tubi Dive, Part I
Tubi Dive, Part II
Tubi Dive, Part III
Tubi Dive, Part IV
Tubi Dive, Part V
Tubi Dive, Part VI
What Possessed You?
Fan of the Cave Bear
There, Wolves
What a Croc
Prehistrionics
Jumping the Shark
Alien Overlords
Biggus Footus
I Like Big Bugs and I Cannot Lie
The Weird, Weird West
Warrior Women Watch-a-thon

---

Neil Baker’s last article for us was Part VI of Tubi Dive. Neil spends his days watching dodgy movies, most of them terrible, in the hope that you might be inspired to watch them too. He is often asked why he doesn’t watch ‘proper’ films, and he honestly doesn’t have a good answer. He is an author, illustrator, teacher, and sculptor of turtle exhibits. (AprilMoonBooks.com).