(1984)
Overall: MEH
Writer/director/producer Jim Wynorski kicked off his career behind the lens with abandon on The Lost Empire. The proprietor of schlock was one of several Roger Corman alumni, getting the finances here as a tax write off by a theater chain owner, resulting in a movie that goes for broke with big naked boobs, ninjas, training montages, mystical legends, forth wall-breaking humor, and Angus Scrimm playing a megalomaniacal immortal with a black skull under his face. The production is as cheap as any from Corman or Charles Band, but Wynorski gets some mileage out of the limited funds, especially once it switches gears to Scrimm's fortified training ground where he is raising an army of heaving-bosomed warriors to fight to the death and prove themselves worthy of his nefarious dong. It is a ridiculous watch that is, (hopefully), a parody of Indiana Jones type adventure movies as much as it is a riff on Russ Meyer's output and 80s action camp. Most of the silliness fails to land, (at least intentionally), and the set pieces, acting, and groan-worthy quips leave too much to be desired, but the absurd tone is appreciated and there is more than enough naked or half-naked babes doing naked and half-naked ass-kicking to applaud.
(1986)
Overall: MEH
Meant to be nothing more than a dumb, cheap, and silly horror-comedy with enough boobs and blood to keep the viewer from yawning, Chopping Mall was officially produced by Roger Corman's wife Julie, (though her famous husband was involved as well), and directed by Jim Wynorski who would go on to make about seven hundred more sleazy, straight-to-video horror movies. Unfortunately, the results here only partially deliver. The characters are idiots from top to bottom as most of them are just horny California bros and bimbos, we get two scenes of control technicians getting killed by robots in the same manner when only one is necessary, the dialog is routinely terrible and when it is trying to be funny, (which it does often), it is not. The movie is not a total waste though. The cameos from B-movie players Dick Miller, Mary Woronov, and Paul Bartel, (playing their same characters from A Bucket of Blood and Eating Raoul no less), are fun, the premise is so stupid that it is a hoot, and some of the death scenes are chuckle-worthy, including one of the genre's most superb head explosions. Being a Corman production which always had a "Yeah, that's good enough" spirit to them, the script could have gotten a rewrite or two and some scenes would have benefited from more takes, but time is money people so hey, at least someone's head blows up.
(1988)
Overall: MEH
A pointless if also harmless remake, Not of This Earth is significant for containing the first non-pornographic role for Traci Lords. Prolific schlock peddler/director Jim Wynorski allegedly made the film under the result of a wager that he could do so for the same budget and within the same shooting schedule as cinema's most penny-pinching filmmaker Roger Corman's did with the original. That movie's screenwriters Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna should have sued for screenwriter credit as Wynorski's treatment here lifts roughly ninety percent of the dialog verbatim as well as virtually every plot point. The only difference of course is that there are sexual innuendos that would make Elvira proud, plus lots of naked women. On that note, though Lords' clothes are also regularly removed and she is certainly there for eye candy purposes at least in part, she turns in a wonderfully charming and sassy performance. Despite the heightened comedics and on-the-nose B-movie pandering, it still pales in comparison to Corman's still silly yet more genuinely menacing version, yet fans of juvenile genre fare will probably not complain.
(1989)
Overall: MEH
While it is hard to hate such a sincere and relentless horror spoof such as Transylvania Twist, loving it is a different matter. Director Jim Wynorski throws in so many groan-worthy puns, fourth wall breaking and hackneyed horror movie references, plus overall juvenile and bottom-barrel gags that one is bound to get exhausted at such stubborn goofiness never letting up. Yet at the same time, Wynorski and co-screenwriter R.J. Robertson clearly going for the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker style of at least one joke per shot means that several of them are bound to land. The movie is more stupid than hilarious, but this is part of its charm. Roger Corman serving as producer allows for some old AIP footage to get thrown into the mix, (including the crashing House of Usher waves and Steve Altman having an interaction with Boris Karloff from The Terror), and we are not limited to just ole timey genre callbacks since Pinhead, Freddy Krueger, and Angus Scrimm sending up his Tall Man image from Phantasm are also present. We even get a couple of terrible songs that make fun of how not seriously any of this is to be taken. Part insufferable, part hilarious, and all ridiculous, you can do both worse and do better when it comes to your all-inclusive horror send-ups.
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