Into The Black (1983)

For those familiar with Jim Van Bebber (Deadbeat At Dawn, The Manson Family), and his small but very unique filmography, it is no secret that the writer, director, producer, stuntman etc. has more short films to his name then full length features. His infamous short gore film Roadkill : The Last Days Of John Martin is a gore-hounds delight while serial killer and real crime fanatics embrace My Sweet Satan which is a retelling of real life teenage Satanist and murderer Ricky Kasso.

Into The Black is a earlier example of Jim Van Bebbers short films. Teenage Van Bebber writes, directs and stars in this ridiculous kung fu flick. If anybody else made this thing it would have been completely irrelevant and probably unwatchable but while extremely amateurish this short backyard movie holds some charm to it. Yes its cheesy. Yes its amateurish and yes its even childish but what would you expect from a teenage martial artist obsessed with film?

In this 40 minute home movie we watch Jim Van Bebber and his friend escape from jail and go to war with apocalyptic street gangs. Its basically Mad Max made by high school kids. They ride around on motorcycles, hang from moving cars and do all sorts of other dangerous stunts. It comes complete with gore and even a bit of tit from a young actress who is striped naked and tied to a tree. Into The Black is a perfect example of what would come in the future from Jim Van Bebber and crew.

Don't watch this looking for a polished movie. If you go into it expecting a movie made by kids and for kids then maybe you will even enjoy it.

She (1982)

What the hell did I just watch? She is kind of like Mad Max on acid. There really is no plot to follow and the movie is all over the place. We get knights covered in swastika's, a robotic Frankenstein monster who's head explodes, toga wearing werewolves, barbarian babes in white panties, stinky fog, guys who wait inside wooden boxes and attack the first person to walk by, a telekinetic dude with green glowing eyes, a fat hairy transsexual in a tutu, a guy who multiplies when a body part is dismembered, naked men wrapped up like mummies and all kinds of other crazy happenings.
Quote of the movie, "This doesn't make any sense. This has nothing to do with sense". I couldn't agree more. This movie is so weirdly off the wall that I couldn't even tell if I liked it. My VHS copy is only 90 minutes but I see that there are some versions that go up to 106 min. I don't know if I would have been able to make it through anymore runtime unless of course if it involved some bare breasts because nudity was the one thing aside from a plot that the movie was missing. Only check this one out if you can dig crazy nonsensical, 80's post apocalyptic, mystical mayhem. Otherwise you're libel to lose your mind.