EDITOR’S NOTE: Body Slam was on USA Up All Night on July 19, 1991 and January 20 and July 28, 1995.

This movie nearly didn’t come out. Dirk Benedict, who stars in Body Slam, has said that he and director Hal Needham (Megaforce, Rad) fought with the film’s writer-producer team, Steve Burkow and Shel Lytton. Burkow had no other writing credits, but Lytton wrote a series of teen books titled Mustang and a few episodes of Death Valley Days. However, they were lawyers, and between the verbal and physical fights, lawsuits kept the movie out of theaters for an entire summer. It ended up going straight to video.

Also, and this is my favorite part of this movie, Benedict needed to smarten up to the wrestling business. He plays M. Harry Smilac in this, a music promoter who only has one band left, Kick*. After falling for Candace (Tanya Roberts), Smilac tries to hire Rick Roberts (Roddy Piper in his second acting role after playing Leatherneck Joe Grady in The One and Only; his nickname is “Quick Rick,” which is ironic as Piper feuded with “Quick Draw” Rick McGraw in WWF before that man’s untimely death) to be a performer before learning that he’s a wrestler. So he ends up managing Rick and his tag partner Tonga Tom (Sam Fatu, the Tonga Kid who was wrestling Madison Square Garden at the age of 18, ironically feuding with Piper; you can also see him teaming with Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell to battle The Fabulous Freebirds in Highlander; he’s considered a relative of The Rock) and they have a pretty good run until they start dealing with politics.

Let me tell you, as someone who has spent way too many years in independent wrestling, I get it, M. Harry.

Captain Lou Murano (Captain Lou Albano, who had appeared in Below the Belt and Wise Guys before this) and his men, The Cannibals (Sione “The Barbarian” Vailahi and Tom “T. Joe Khan” Cassett) hurt all three of our leads and get them blacklisted, so they start booking themselves on outlaw rock and wrestling shows, getting back to the big time just in time to get a world tag title match.

This movie, beyond wrestling, features many 70s stars, including John Astin, Charles Nelson Reilly and Billy Barty. And if you look carefully enough during the main event, you can spot Ric Flair, Freddie Blassie, Adnan Al-Kaissie, Bruno Sammartino and Alexis Smirnoff during the match.

Speaking of that main event, the crowd turned on the match when they saw the moves being redone for filming. At this time, there was no such thing as sports entertainment. As fans began to say the f word — fake — all of the wrestlers started brawling for real, even throwing Needham out of the ring. It took a ton of people to break up the fight, leading to chaos amongst the crowd, cast and even the crew. When they all got backstage, Piper finally smartened Dirk Benedict up on why they had to make everyone believe it was real.

You can watch this on Tubi.

*Kick is made up of drummer Jack D’Amore (Rock Rose), Kelley Dillard, David Hallowren and Bruce Wallenstein, who composed the soundtracks to Twisted Nightmare and Demon Wind.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Mugsy’s Girls was on USA Up All Night on June 26, 1992; July 14, September 3 and December 3, 1993; February 5, April 4 and May 7, 1994.

“Everybody knows wrestling is fixed.”

Also known as Delta Pi, this is a movie where the stakes are simple, classic and absurd. A group of sorority sisters discovers that the Delta Pi house is facing imminent financial ruin. Their solution? Packing their bags for Las Vegas to compete in a high-stakes mud wrestling tournament.

They’re led by Monica, who is played by Laura Brannigan, who was already well-known at this point for her covers of Umberto Tozzi’s “Gloria” and “Self Control.” Somehow, for some reason, she does not sing in this movie. As for Mugsy, that’s Ruth Gordon in the last movie she would ever film.

The girls — Jacqueline (Estrellita, who also had several hit songs in her native Spain), stoner Magic (Joanna Dierck), Karen (Rebecca Forstadt), Sharon (Candace Pandolfo), Laurie (Kristi Somers, who has the best background for this kind of movie, as she’s also in Hardbodies, Savage Streets and Tomboy) — meet Shawn (James Wilder) and his partner Lane (Eddie Deezen, how else would you have a USA Up All Night movie without him?), who bring them to Vegas to take place in a mud wrestling tournament, which I guess was a thing in 1984.

Of course, the whole thing is run by the mob, led by the evil Jack Enoff (Steve Brodie). He even wants to kill the Delta Pi mascot, a bunny. As for the evil mud wrestling women, the Nevada Nasties, they’re Lungs (Annie Ample, who did adult as San Diego Annie and came up with the idea for Olympus Force: The Key), Terrible Tawny (Dee Booher, who was Queen Kong in roller derby and Matilda the Hun in GLOW), Madame Antoinette (Tantala Ray, who is also in Slammer Girls and Assault of the Party Nerds using the name Darcy Nychols), the very Cats on steroids Fang (a one-and-done role for an actress named Pillow), Mauling Mama (Katlyn Miller) and Bronco Billy (Cherie Standerfer). To add a little pro wrestling/boxing glamor, Jimmy Lennon Sr. is the ring announcer.

Director and writer Kevin Brodie only made two other movies: a C. Thomas Howell racing movie, Treacherous and A Dog of Flanders, which is the kind of message movie I try to avoid. He also acted in The Giant Spider Invasion and produced a 1981 VHS release of Female Mud Wrestling Championships, which explains a lot about this movie. I have to track this down, as Adam West and Rory Calhoun were the coaches and Marianne Marks from Russ Meyer’s Up! is the host.

While Laura Branigan was the star power, the heavy lifting on the soundtrack was actually handled by Joanna Dierck, who was married to Brodie. There’s a synth part that sounds a ton like “Automatic” by the Pointer Sisters that plays several times.

This suffered through the classic 80s distribution shuffle. It debuted in various markets throughout 1985 as Delta Pi, but by the time it hit the burgeoning home video market in 1986, it was rebranded as Mugsy’s Girls.

If you ever wanted to see Ruth Gordon mud wrestling, this is made for you.

Here’s Laura Brannigan introducing the 40th-anniversary screening.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Based on H.F. Heard’s 1941 novel A Taste for Honey, this Freddie Francis film-part of UK science fiction and horror history-predates the 70s killer bee craze by nearly 10 years.

You know, singers don’t just get exhausted today and have to escape from reality. They used to in 1966, Vicki Robbins (Suzanna Leigh, Lust for a Vampire, Son of Dracula) collapses on television and has to go to Seagull Island to get her life back together. Look for a young Ron Wood in the opening number.

Originally adapted from Heard’s novel by Robert Bloch, director Freddie Francis and writer Anthony Marriott worked to improve the script, but the film was poorly received, perhaps because it lacked expected stars like Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee, which might have influenced its reception.

Bloch never saw the completed film, although he was a gentleman in how he felt about Francis, Marriott and Amicus, the studio that produced the film. He did say, however, that the movie “buzzed off into critical oblivion, unwept, unhonoured and unstung.”

If you want to see a movie with plastic bees glued to the faces of thespians, by all means, this would be that film.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam was on USA Up All Night on December 23, 1995.

Before the world outside of Nashville (he’s already been doing more than twenty different brands’ ads as Ernest) knew him as the denim-clad, nasally-voiced icon Ernest P. Worrell, Jim Varney was busy playing a mad scientist with a hand living on top of his head.

Directed by John Cherry—the architect of the entire Ernest cinematic universe—this flick is essentially the Big Bang. While it’s technically the first film to feature Ernest, it’s a far cry from the slapstick family outings that would later define Varney’s career. This is darker, weirder and plays fast and loose with reality, KnowhutImean?

Dr. Otto (played by Varney in heavy prosthetics) is a villain with a serious ego and a literal hand attached to his scalp. He’s intent on world domination using the Gloom Beam, a device designed to erase the contents of every bank on Earth, plunging humanity into economic collapse. To stop him, the powers-that-be call in Lance Sterling, an all-American hero who is essentially Otto’s polar opposite—born on the same day in the same hospital, but raised with love instead of, well, being the result of a botched abortion.

The real draw here is Varney’s sheer commitment to the bit. To dismantle Lance and his sidekick, Doris Talbert, Otto uses a changing coffin to assume a variety of bizarre disguises, like Australia child-trainer Rudd Hardtack, pirate captain Laughing Jack O’Cockney, the drug-dealing Auntie Nelda, and Guy Dandy, a wealthy playboy who is exactly as sleazy as he sounds.

The chase takes them through bizarre scenarios, including Russian roulette and accidental elevators that lead straight to the villain’s lair. In true B-movie fashion, the climax hinges on a binary choice between a Right Button and a Wrong Button, because why complicate things?

Jim Varney is the engine of this movie. He plays nearly every major role, showing off the manic energy that made him a commercial sensation long before the big screen took notice.

The supporting cast is led by Myke R. Mueller as the heroic Lance and Jackie Welch as Doris. You’ll also spot Bill Byrge—a staple of the later Ernest films—popping up as a gas station attendant. The production itself was a local affair, filmed in Tennessee spots like Fall Creek Falls State Park and Nashville.

This was intended to be the start of a massive franchise, and a sequel, Song of the Tarantula Women, was even in development. Plans for that were quickly scrapped when The Walt Disney Company came calling, looking to turn the Ernest character into a cinematic juggernaut.

As writer Coke Sams joked, “Disney intervened.”

You can watch this on Tubi.

How did I get this far into SOV movies without more Donald Farmer?

The band Rikk-O-Shay is trying to get big in the heavy metal business, and you know what would help? If their lead singer Michelle Shock (Carol Carr) wasn’t woshipping Satan and biting off their male groupies’ cocks to drain them of their blood. She tries the same thing to Derrick (Nikki Riggins), who is one of the band’s two backup singers and let’s just stop there and say that no other hard rock or metal band seemed to ever have dedicated singers outside of Motley Crue and their Nasty Habits backup singers and dancers (the fact that I knew they were named Donna McDaniel and Emi Canyn maybe says something about how much I read Hit Parader as a teenager). This already seems unrealistic.

Well, Michelle invites Derrick over for some demonic fellatio, and he ends up nearly dying too, so they replace her with a new singer named Jamie Summers, and she’s neither the Six Million Dollar Woman nor the Brat. She’s played by Melissa Moore, Glaze from Vice Academy Part 2 and Angelfist. She’s soon overcome by the same demonic possession thanks to Michelle.

The fact that a full demon-suited monster is coming after a band because they screwed with their demonic leader, well, this is the kind of movie that seems like a Jack Chick pamphlet come to life. As I watch years after I was a Rip! obsessed lover of metal, well, I found it all so very charming. So much blood, so many puppet demons, Tennessee instead of the Sunset Strip, video in the place of film. This is at the center of so many of my loves — devil movies, SOV, heavy metal, gore — all within one great compilation. Rock on.

Extras on the Visual Vengeance release include commentary with producer/director Donald Farmer, a Heavy Metal Horror Primer Video Essay with Justin Decloux and Adam “Riot” Thorn; interviews with Nick Riggins, Jesse Raye and Rick Gonzales; behind the scenes image gallery; excerpts from a Donald Farmer Q&A; trailers; a reversible sleeve featuring original VHS art; a folded mini-poster; “Stick Your Own” VHS sticker set; a limited edition O-Card and a limited edition Scream Dream guitar pick. You can get this from MVD and Diabolik DVD.

Directed by David Grieco, this chilling film explores the life of Andrei Chikatilo, the infamous Monster of Rostov. Based on Grieco’s novel The Communist Who Ate Children, this film is set against the backdrop of a decaying Soviet state. It follows Andrei Romanovich Evilenko (Malcolm McDowell), a history and literature professor whose professional life in an orphanage crumbles after he is dismissed for predatory behavior. Embittered by the decline of his nation, Evilenko retreats into a life of unimaginable horror, becoming a serial killer who hunts, mutilates and cannibalizes women and children.

Vadim Timurovic Lesiev (Marton Csokas), a dedicated magistrate and family man, spends years attempting to track down the killer. Assisted by the psychiatric profiler Aron Richter (played by Ronald Pickup), he soon learns that Evilenko seems to have some kind of hypnotic influence over his victims, a power that allows him to commit his crimes and evade capture for years. As the Soviet era fades, the cat-and-mouse game between the determined Lesiev and the elusive ideological killer culminates in a desperate, dark conclusion.

Grieco spent time as a film critic for the Communist newspaper L’Unità and personally witnessed the real-life investigation. He was inspired to make the film after seeing the real Andrei Chikatilo on television and becoming fascinated by the paradox of a card-carrying Communist intellectual committing such horrific acts. The film’s atmosphere is heightened by a score composed by Angelo Badalamenti.

The Unearthed Films release of this film has a 4K restoration of the original camera negative by Unearthed Films; commentary with writer/director David Grieco and actor Malcolm McDowell; an 81 minute cast and crew interview collection including writer/director David Grieco, actor Malcolm McDowell and composer Angelo Badalamenti; Evilenko Dossier: Andrei Chikatilo, a 27-minute look at the real-life basis for the character of Evilenko; David Grieco and Malcolm McDowell on Evilenko, a 69-minute interview from 2021; a photo gallery and a trailer. You can get the 4K UHD and Blu-Ray from MVD.