Video High

Welcome to HELLGATE (1989)! A place where you can relax and remember the simpler times - doo-wop on the radio, menacing bikers, huge mustaches, the inability to be female and not get objectified in a diner, old-timey attractions that somehow make money...we've got it all! We'd like to thank you for joining us! Another Schlocktober, another head-scratcher. Just the way we like it. Don't forget your pie!

Like a dog with a bone, we're obsessed with BINGO (1991). This shaggy dog story follows a runaway circus dog that travels America in search of a family. Billed as starring a "sort of canine Macaulay Culkin," this dog and pony show comes straight from the Blockbuster shelves of Jamie's memory. But is this another forgotten childhood gem, or are we barking up the wrong tree? Go Packers!

Coming off their discussion of BINGO, the class ponders why Josh and Jamie can't make money off of their dog. Also we're not done talking about Paul W. S. Anderson.

We may not know anything about astrology, but we know what we like. And that's not knowing anything about astrology.

If the title means anything, it's the sheer pace with which new concepts are thrown out in SPLIT SECOND (1992). A thematic chopped salad, this dystopian thriller stars Rutger Hauer as a indeterminably psychic cop on the edge chasing a heart-eating serial killer through the flooded streets of London to avenge the death of the partner he cuckolded before he is driven mad by the heartbeat of the clawed rat-mutant sewer dweller that may be the actual Devil with an interest in astrology and scampish sense of humor. What's that? Blood? Coming out of my nose? Huh.

The class decides to extend their stay in Dinosaur City a little longer and accidentally lightly neg Tiffanie Poston’s career. Would you believe there were Forry jokes we DIDN'T include in the full episode?

Like a flightless pun-slinging pterosaur, ADVENTURES IN DINOSAUR CITY (1991) comes crawling up from way down in our collective memory holes. Maybe we caught it on the Disney Channel. Maybe it's just another piece of the omnipresent dinosaur media of the 90s. Maybe Forry is just the most Video High friendly character we've watched. But this group of friends who have nothing better to do than dive into a VHS sure did love this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cribbing mess about a group of friends diving into a VHS. At least we'll always have Tar Town.

Can't believe summer's almost over. No more songs around the campfire. No more passed around porno mags. No more encounters with Christ. Soon we'll go back to our boring lives, and drink the Flavor Aid with the rest of the squares. They say that's the real SUMMER CAMP NIGHTMARE (1987) EXTRA CREDIT episode, ya know?

In the name of the glorious revolution, do not wake us from this SUMMER CAMP NIGHTMARE (1987). This not-so-campy, surprisingly affective anti-authoritarian allegory Lord of the Flies in the face of its summer camp slasher packaging. Chuck Connors earns a Video High merit badge for showing up once again, this time as a pious camp director on the wrong side of a horny teenage people's rebellion. And it's the first movie we've done based on a book, so it pretty much counts as reading. Ya'll know us. We're Ed Heinz!

The class had so much fun talking about things that weren't STEEL DAWN that they needed their own episode. Such wide ranging topics as: the false scarcity of the Disney Vault, Lawrence of Arabia puns, and imagining the beauty of Paul W.S. Anderson's Murder on the Orient Express.

It's a mad mad mad max world in the post-apocalyptic western STEEL DAWN (1987). In this dystopian rip-off of the western classic SHANE, a dirty but non-dancing Patrick Swayze saunters out of the wasteland and into the arms of his real life wife, Lisa Niemi. But will a water robber baron, a knife-kneeing assassin, and the cries of a young boy to come back stop our unnamed hero? Not even a little. Now that's what I call wind racing!

To celebrate three years of Video High, the class infiltrates the airspace of another jungle shoot-em-up Rambo II ripoff with DELTA FORCE COMMANDO (1987). Brett Baxter Clark packs the guns and the pecs for just the right amount of M60 muscle jiggle, and Fred Williamson backs him up with cool quips and just the right amount of romantic subtext. The plot has something to do with avenging a murdered wife and a stolen nuclear weapon. But that's not important. We just need to know if it's ok to think a reactionary film villainizing a democratic people's revolution is this rad. Happy Commandoversary, class!

Beauty is a real beast in THE REJUVENATOR (1988)! A mad scientist turns an aging b-movie starlet into a b-movie monster. It's like if THE FLY and SUNSET BLVD went into the machine from THE FLY.

Can the killer make-up make up for a lackluster story? Does out of sync audio add to the film experience? Is Jamie the real monster for watching this movie at 1.5x? Lights, camera, serum!

Hold onto your plungers as we warp pipe into SUPER MARIO BROS (1993)! We all know the classic Mario story: alternate dimensions, royal fungus, Dinohattan, yadda yadda yadda. But is this legendary flop a masterpiece or a disaster-piece?

We need an extra week to get our heads around the 1993 Super Mario Bros movie. But thankfully after our "final thoughts" on DUNGEONS & DRAGONS (2000), we just couldn't shut up. Enjoy a taste of what happens after class, and we'll see you in the Mushroom Kingdom next week.

To celebrate the release of a new D&D movie, we're revisiting the old D&D movie: DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS (2000). It takes everything you love about the tabletop roleplaying game and burns it to a crisp. With graphics out of a late 90's screensaver and too many scepters to count, this one is a sight to Beholder. But at least Jeremy Irons is there to chew the scenery. Roll initiative!

In the nearish future Paco Queruak is a cyborg with second thoughts about his mission to assassinate an environmental crusader. After going on the run from his handlers, Paco wanders into an entirely different movie...an arm wrestling competition flick! HANDS OF STEEL (1986) is chock full of surprises. It has toilet paper based pranks. It has phallic computer renderings. It even has a helicopter chase that puts the "death" in "death-defying". You have no future, except to listen to this week's episode!

When you're whatever this gang is called, you're what that word is all the way. In KNIGHTS OF THE CITY (1986), Leon Isaac Kennedy leads a street gang of chain-swinging, switch-blading, tight leather shirt-wearing, bad b-boys with dreams of musical stardom taking them beyond their rough streets. The big music competition is their last shot to prove something to themselves and everyone else - except the record label head, who threw the contest specifically to see and sign them. But will rival gangs, a romance with the execs daughter, and the existential angst of being a gang that now focuses on music instead of violence break them? Or will it Breakin' 2 them?

Somewhere in the jungles of Southeast Asia, a drug kingpin has kidnapped another drug kingpin, foiling the DEA's plans and demanding his daughter bring him a key to a safety deposit box. Now it's up to golden throat gargantuan Reb Brown to shoot everyone and get whoever's left on the LAST FLIGHT TO HELL (1990). While we love Italian schlock jungle shoot-em-ups as much as the next school, this one rebbed some of us the wrong way. Today's episode brought to you by Long John Silvers, and their new Buttered "Lobster" Bites.

This Valentine's Day, give your Auntie THE KISS (1988)!

After the death of her mother, Amy's strangely estranged aunt comes to live with her and her oblivious father. Don't let Aunt Felice's supermodel body or free vitamin shakes fool you! She's only out for one thing: her niece's body...in a non-sexual demon possessing way, of course.

But best of all, THE KISS has the climax to end all movie climaxes. So THE KISS, will you be ours? XOXO

It’s January-Michael Vincent, so out of respect, today’s lesson plan will debate the ethics of death by ALIENATOR (1990): a Fred Olen Ray riff on two classic 80s franchises that, combined, make for something much more. A cast of B-movie vets, scenic Griffith Park shooting locales, and a cyborg female body builder with a gun arm make for essential Video High watching.

Video High once again puts its ear to the door of the future to listen to what cinema is coyly whispering about the year 2023. We see it all: what has passed,  what's to come, and what may yet shall be. The only thing we don't see is texts from each other to make sure we don't all cover the same movie. But our resolution this year is to try to be attentive, B-E attentive. The class discusses movies set in the year 2023, such as BRING IT ON: CHEER OR DIE (2022) and [redacted] and etc etc.

We pulled a gift from the video store shelves, because this Christmas we're unwrapping ELVES (1989)!

When a young woman summons a killer elf from the grass;
An ex-detective mall Santa helps her kick Nazi ass.

Given three ideas and a week for the script;
Writer/director Jeffrey Mandel pulled it together fast as St. Nick!

Plus the class has questions about elf folklore;
Luckily Greg may have some answers in store.

Even if the title makes it a little obvious, it's still possible to get lost in L.A. BOUNTY (1989). Written and produced by star Sybil Danning, she cast herself as Ruger: a monosyllabic ex-cop turned bounty hunter following the trail of a kidnapped mayoral candidate.  But let's face it, we're all here for the main attraction - Wings Hauser! - who delivers a trademark enigmatic villain performance that has the class asking themselves whether Heath Ledger deserves his posthumous Oscar. Was that a good one, God?

The class sashays down the runway with MODEL BY DAY (1994)! In this failed TV pilot based on a based graphic novel from the aptly named Rip Off Press, Famke Janssen stars as Lex. She's the world's best supermodel by day, but when her roommate is injured in a carjacking she must become the vigilante Lady X to avenge her roommate's...uh, eyeball we guess?

Hey all. Casey here. I want you to know that while I wrote HOLLOW GATE (1988) in the show title, the movie's opening credits clearly read "Hollowgate." Everyone else on the internet calls it Hollow Gate, and I don't understand why we're all perpetuating this farce. Either way, it's about a mentally ill middle-aged teenager named Mark who goes off his meds and kills people. Seemingly triggered by it being any Halloween in his life, this nutcake slashes out with a variety of kooky methods and rachel slurs. This is a Pepin-Mehri masterpiece before PM Entertainment. So it was AM Entertainment. Thank you. Goodnight.

The class blows the lid off Shlocktober with THE JAR (1984)! After getting into a car crash Paul finds himself tormented by a pudgy lil' demon in a jar...or a bottle. Much like everything in THE JAR it's not quite clear, or visible, or audible. But is it really as bad as the internet would have us believe?

For their big five-o, the class goes to the dogs with K-9000 (1990)! A failed TV pilot turned failed TV movie where a luddite cop reluctantly teams up with a cybernetic dog to save its creator. Special guest Jordan Olds (Two Minutes to Late Night) joins us to discuss: the lack of dog content, the cinematic canine-iverse, and the rabbit hole that is Catherine Oxenberg's IMDB trivia page.

Forgive us classmates, for we have sinned. In an act of gluttony, we couldn't stop ourselves from making a whole meal out of THE DIVINE ENFORCER (1992): the parable of the kick-boxing, gun-toting, dialogue-mangling vigilante priest who comes to a Los Angeles diocese to diodecease some scum bags. Armed with crucifix knives, psychic visions, and a never ending stream of confessors, Father Daniel tries to protect a Holy Order of B-Movie Bishops from Don Stroud eating corn flakes out of a human skull. That sentence makes sense. We'll tell you our sins, if you tell us yours!

Believe or not, William Katt is hankering for a fatal attraction in NAKED OBSESSION (1990) and the class is hot and BOTHERED. Urban planning and gentrification have never been sexier (???) in this psychosexual thriller. Allow Sam Silver to welcome you to the Dark Side—just be careful where you leave your neckties lying around.

John Tucker must die in FUTURE FORCE (1989)! In the near future, justice as we once knew it has ceased to exist (too real). Cops have been replaced by C.O.P.S, bounty hunters sporting sleeveless denim vests and beige sedans. After the CEO of C.O.P.S puts a bounty out on a reporter, John Tucker (famous martial "artist" David Carradine) goes rogue-er to keep her safe. It's a RoboCop ripoff without the Robo.

Don't think we've gone Hollywood or anything, but Fred Dekker gave his career so that we could have this insane threequel! ROBOCOP 3 (1993) casts a sans-Weller RoboCop in a PG-13 Detroit - filled with splatter punks, ninjas, and jetpacks - in the hopes of telling a brand new story the same way again. Dead or alive, creeps, you'll buy that for a dollar!

Boot up, kiddos - it's a blast from the past! Cold War agitprop goes full technophobe in TERMINAL ENTRY (1987), which makes WarGames look like kid's stuff. We dive into all the 8-bitty gritty with star & gentleman Patrick Labyorteaux! It's not just an episode, it's a warning... 

It's a Video High double feature! The class re-enters the tournament ring for TIGER CLAWS 2 and TIGER CLAWS 3. Forget everything you know about Tiger Claws. Because now there's magic, time travel, time-travel-magic and (sigh) even less Cynthia Rothrock. But which is the class' favorite? What's the "Indiana Jones problem"? And what rhymes with "Tarek"? Step through the magic Stargate to ancient China to find out!

The class hitches a ride back to visit Uncle Miguel but must contend with The Prince of Magic and his MASTER! Who could it be, we wonder? We'll have to summon all our squiggle magic to find out and join Lando, Renzo, and a host of snake people to crack open the secrets of THE KILLING OF SATAN (1983)!

2022 is the year of the tiger, so Video High starts a new semester with the DTV Jalal Merhi martial-arts movie megalith, TIGER CLAWS (1991). So many questions... Can Detective Tarek stop the Death Dealer, played by Bolo Yeung, by becoming a master of Tiger Claw style kung fu without becoming a killer himself? Can Cynthia Rothrock be there to help sometimes? Can anonymous wall hole sex prevent the spread of COVID? Somehow all these answers lie in Canada, the New York of the North. Claws out, yall.

Dearest classmates, Video High will be taking a brief hiatus. So we called the school into the auditorium to talk reboot culture, discuss our favorite remakes, and work out how to come back sexier, woker, and commercially viabler. Stay tuned!

It’s Christmas in July in January as the class time travels down the line for TRANCERS (1984)! A Terminator era tale of a bounty hunter named Deth  traveling back in time to stop a psychic-zombie cult by inhabiting the body of his ancestor and bagging a baddie. (And by baddie, we mean Helen Hunt. Grrrowl!) Nothing puts you in the holiday spirit like time traveling cops and psychic serial killers, right? So curl up next to the ashes of your yule log, grab a mug of expired eggnog, and join us for the most festive podcast you'll hear all month. Merry Schlock-mas!

The class reads the runes of these sacred cinematic texts to pierce the veil of time and comprehend the year 2022…

- SOYLENT GREEN (1973)
- THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON (1990)
- TIME RUNNER (1993)
- NO ESCAPE (1994)

The Video High class starts this holiday season with a deep meowtaphysical quandary: Cats or Death? If the deliriously delicious disease horror-comedy THE CARRIER (1988) has taught us anything, it's that can be a much more complicated question than it seems. So we’re making this a family practice by bringing sister extraordinaire Alana Regan into the classroom to diagnose our woes and dissect this perfectly imperfect allegory for our quarantine years.

Despite what BLOOD RAGE (1987) may think, very few people truly mistake blood for cranberry sauce. But that doesn't stop this cornucopia of carnage! Filled to the brim with blood, guts, weirdos, maniacs, and more - Blood Rage proves that we always have something more to be thankful for. Artist and friend Chloe Medghalchi (@lil.somethin) returns to our Thanksgiving table, unless her evil twin has something to say about it.