The B-Movie Shelf

At the end of 2011 I did a Best B-Movies of 2011 list and I always intended that to be an annual post I do up around New Years of every year. Suffice to say I totally and completely forgot all about it come the end of 2012, so while this list is a bit late, at least it's better late then never! Now to be honest, this entire list is pretty much being done on the spot, with no research behind it other then my own memory of what I saw that year, mixed with what I could find in my collection here at home and what reviews I may have done, plus which ones still stick out as having been really good in my memory after all this time, so forgive me if I ended up forgetting some by accident. Also, there is still plenty of movies from last year that I haven't yet seen, so it's possible I've potentially skipped over a few diamonds in the rough due to that as well, since this list is based off what I've actually watched myself. Also, this list is solely based off what...

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long Company: Full Moon Entertainment Runtime: 67 mins Format: Screener Plot: Five girls compete for a chance to model diva Deedee DeVille's fashion line, but they're soon competing for their lives against four mythical beings, led by the mischievous leprechaun, Farr Darrig. Review: Full Moon, while I grew up watching and loving their more classic B-Movies, it's no secret at all that the current incarnation of the company has turned in, well, just outright shitty stuff, more often then not for the last decade or more. Yes, there have been some nice diamonds in the rough (The first Gingerdead Man , Zombies vs Strippers , the Evil Bong trilogy...hell, even the second Gingerdead Man , while I'm not a big fan of, was still way better then some of the other shit Full Moon has strung out in recent years), but for the most part their movies these days are boring, sad excuses to make low budget porno, or just all around hard to sit through...

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long Company: The Asylum Runtime: 90 mins Format: BluRay Plot: A group of survivors hide on Alcatraz Island to escape from the rising zombie hordes. When their refuge is overrun, and upon hearing that a scientist hiding in the middle of the city may have discovered a cure, they leave the island to seek him out. Review: A couple years ago the SyFy Channel and Asylum got together for a co-produced project for Halloween called 2012: Zombie Apocalypse. I ended up enjoying that one quite a bit, even though I felt it got really repetitive, had no plot to speak of, and the zombie actors were pretty terrible. Well it seems Syfy and Asylum joining together for a zombie flick is becoming an annual Halloween tradition as they did it again last year with the just-as-bland titled Rise of the Zombies. Luckily, the saying 'Practice Makes Perfect' rings true here. While the movie itself may not be perfect, it's certainly a nice improvement...

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long Company: Stirton Productions Runtime: 69 mins Format: Screener Plot: In the far future, a group of shipwrecked mercenaries must struggle for survival on an uncharted alien world; A world where death is only the beginning... Review: MTI Home Video recently sent me a whole bunch of screeners for some of the backlog of movies they've distributed over here in Canada and the U.S over the years, and the first of those that I wanted to check out was the ultra low-budget sci-fi/horror from 2006, simply-titled The Planet. Now right out of the gate, I have to dock some points for such an unimaginative bland title like The Planet. It does nothing to help tell you what the movie is about, or even what genre it is. I personally can't stand boring bland basic titles like that (movies with similarly-bland and overused titles like any form and variation of The Possession or The Possessed are top offenders as well). Anything more would have b...

REVIEW BY: Bobby Lepire Company: Oracle Post Runtime: 88 mins Format: DVD Plot: A rescue team is sent to find a missing expedition, which set out to recreate a 1954 lost mission on a forbidden mountain, only to cross paths with a ravenous creature, which is protecting something special. Review: For some reason, it seems like lots of B-Movies open with pointless prologues, and 2011's Killer Mountain from the SyFy Channel is no different, and unfortunately things don’t much improve from there. Opening in 1954 Bhutan, a mountain expedition gets caught in a terrible snowstorm. One dumbass decides to go out into the storm, despite resistance from the others. We are not given any information about their expedition or how long they’ve been trekking, so Charles Wetherby, the aforementioned idiot, leaving in a terrible storm makes no sense to us as viewers. He then gets eaten by the creature of the movie, which is a sort of bug/worm/spider/wyvren thing. The CGI here, as throug...