THRASHIN' (1986)

Amateur skateboarder Josh Brolin works his way to becoming a pro by competing in different skateboarding competitions around Los Angeles. At the same time, he starts seeing a girl only to find out that she’s the sister of his biggest rival. It really is a small world after all.

Watching THRASHIN' back in the 1980’s, it was just another teen-oriented film that was mildly entertaining thanks to the quick pace and interesting Los Angeles scenery. Personally, I was also intrigued by the various fashions (including band t-shirts for everybody from JFA to Siouxsie and the Banshees), the giant movie poster for THE HITCHER and Pamela Gidley’s awesome hair. Re-watching it now for this review, I still enjoyed that stuff, but I also noticed that this movie has something in common with the film LADY TERMINATOR! Just like LT, THRASHIN’ also features a still photograph earlier in the film of an event that happens later on in the film itself! How bizarre. This time around it’s one of Brolin’s buddies. There is a photo tacked to the wall…of him at the big race that takes place at the end of the movie. Same clothes and everything.

I doubt that THRASHIN’ is gonna change your life or anything, but it’s an enjoyable enough film. Very simple with almost no story, yet it still has a certain nostalgic charm to it.

Pointless trivia: THRASHIN' director David Winters also directed the 1979 SHAMPOO clone RACQUET.

Even further pointless trivia: Out of the current 29 RACQUET photos that IMDb has placed ads on on their site, 25 of them come from my ad-less review. Nice. Glad that my work can help make you money.

SPOOKIES (1986)

Two carloads of partygoers show up to a mansion in the woods and walk in like they own the joint. They don’t. The mansion belongs to an old wizard dude who likes to talk a lot and occasionally send one of his minions (werecat, zombies, farting muck men, a spider woman, etc.) to kill people. The End.

Every movie ever made, no matter how “bad” it is, has its fans. Especially horror movies. (For example: AX ’EM has a 1.4 score on IMDb, but I gave it a 6 because, to me, it’s a lot of fun and definitely unique.) So, with that in mind, I’m sure that SPOOKIES has its fair share of fans. I’m just not one of them. Slow pace, below average to average acting, mildly interesting special effects, terrible story with even worse dialogue, predictable ending, boring camerawork, zero nudity, zero gore, very little blood…honestly, I don’t what there is to like about this movie. The story is shit and the execution of the shit story is shit. I guess if I was forced to mention something positive, I'd say that the lighting was good.

The only real thing that I found interesting about SPOOKIES is the appearance of Charlotte Alexandra from A REAL YOUNG GIRL! Like, what the fuck? A REAL YOUNG GIRL is a solid 1970’s French arthouse film with Charlotte Alexandra as the lead and here she is 10 years later co-starring in the low budget horror movie that's so weak that I'm not even sure it can really be considered an actual Horror movie.

Skip it with a vengeance and never look back. If you need me, I’ll be in my room watching the original NIGHT OF THE DEMONS. While eating a bowl of fuck. Naturally.