The B-Movie Shelf

REVIEW BY: Bobby Lepire Company: UFO International Runtime: 90 mins Format: DVD Plot: A secret government facility in Alaska clones a dragon, which then gets loose and wreaks havoc within the secret facility. Newly appointed security chief, David Carver, and the other personnel must fight to try to outsmart this ancient beast and stop it before it can escape out into the world. Review: Before anything else, let’s break Dragon Fighter down to its core elements - Dean Cain (yes, Superman from ‘Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman’!) fights a cloned dragon. Superman? Cloning? Dragons? Sold! Done! Movie must be awesome! And fortunately, it mostly is. Before I oversell it, let’s get the flaws and issues out of the way. During the opening title sequence we get a prologue set in medieval England, in which some knights fight a dragon. This is the worst part of the film, and I promise it gets way better afterwards. None of the main scientists, researchers, security per...

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long Company: Saint Euphoria Pictures Runtime: 93 mins Format: DVD Plot: When Professor Jackson's colleague and best friend, Dr. Frasier, doesn't return from a scientific expedition in the deep woods, the Professor is sent to find and retrieve him. While searching, the Professor and Canoe Cops Sven and Gustav stumble upon an enigmatic meteorite that may hold the answer to Dr. Frasier's disappearance — and something far more cataclysmic than they could ever imagine! Review: I recently watched The Monster of Phantom Lake , the very first movie in the Mihmiverse – a series of micro-budget tongue-in-cheek movies made as parody homages to the classic 1950s era campy Drive-In B-Movies, where the creator Christopher R. Mihm makes a new one of every year. Even though each movie acts as kind of its own separate stand alone movie, there are recurring characters that pop in and out of them occasionally, with small dialog references to previous movies...

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long Company: Saint Euphoria Pictures Runtime: 97 mins Format: DVD Plot: Proud scientist Professor Jackson, his graduate student, and five swell teenagers out on a camping trip discover the terrifying effects of "Atomic Waste" in the form of a "shell-shocked" World War II soldier that has been horribly mutated into a lake-algae monster . Review: I've seen many of my B-Movie reviewing peers talk about a micro-budget filmmaker in recent years named Christopher R. Mihm and his series of micro-budget B-movie films (one a year) dubbed the Mihmiverse movies, and I've seen all of them talk pretty damn highly of the guy and his work, so after awhile it became obvious that I was missing out by not having seen any, so I ordered all of them online and chose The Monster of Phantom Lake to review first, mainly because it's also Christopher R. Mihm's very first entry in his 'Mihmiverse' series of films. Now, a mov...

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long Company: Outpost Studios Runtime: 90 mins Format: Itunes Plot: An international crew of astronauts undertake a privately-funded groundbreaking mission to search for life on Jupiter's fourth largest moon, Europa. Review: Europa Report was one of those movies I had heard of and knew about the existence of, but other then it's title and very basic premise, I stayed away from any other word on it because it felt to me like one of those movies that the least you know about it going in, the better it will be. As for it's plot, anybody familiar with the classic sci-fi novel 2010: Odyssey Two (sequel to the even more classic 2001: A Space Odyssey), will already be pretty familiar with it. In that novel (not the movie adaptation of it, since that left this part out) there's one chapter that talks about Chinese astronauts landing on one of the moons of Jupiter, the ice-covered moon Europa, to search for fresh flowing water to convert into...

REVIEW BY: Bobby LePire Company: The Asylum Runtime: 90 mins Format: BluRay Plot: After climbing a giant beanstalk, Jack discovers a land in the clouds populated by evil beasts. When the beasts make their way down to Earth, he must figure out how to get back down and save everyone from the oncoming threat. Review: Generally speaking, I am always stoked to see any film made by those maestros of mockbusting, The Asylum; this time around being no different. As they have done multiple times in the past, they have dipped into the fairy tale well, and Jack the Giant Killer (or simply just The Giant Killer in some parts of the world) is the result - their spin on the Jack And The Beanstalk tale - which was just in time to mockbust the big budget 'Jack The Giant Slayer'. Whereas their theatrically released counterpoint was a medieval fantasy adventure, Asylum's movie is set in the United Kingdom, during an anachronistic pseudo-1950s, which adds a timelessness feel t...