Ultimate Desire (1993) – Rodney McDonald.

A ritualistic killer douses a specific perfume over each victim, and it's mostly down to tough, sexy undercover ex-cop Lauren (Kate Hodge) to sniff out the malign perpetrator. Routine DTV thriller is largely a slinky cat and mouse between handsome perfumer Gordon's (Martin Kemp) prodigiously gifted olfactory bulb, and Lauren's heaven scent sleuthing, as they both attempt to out foxy one another. Glamorous vixen Deborah Shelton is no less glamorously vulpine as usual, she's bold, sassy, bi-curious, and wants us to think she might be the musky marauder! Is she? Pfft!!!! with all that toilet water under the bridge, who's gonna care now!?? As a permanently crawlspaced man, I can numbly watch cheaply voyeuristic trash like this, and if you extracted the slasher elements, you'd barely notice, but sans T&A, the lurid entertainment quotient would drop well below watchability. Regarding as to any artistic merit Ultimate Desire, may, or may not have, Kate Hodge is absolutely charming, undeniably beautiful and really rather good. I've always thought the prosaic cop backstory needs to be gussied up, the slow-motion/rain/partner/death/guilt is limper than Madolf's dead noodle. Ultimate Desire is ultimately a bit niffy, but features some appealing shots of L.A., and McDonald delivers an unexpectedly satisfying climax.

 All-American Murder (1991) – Anson Williams.

Normally I would rather incubate mosquito larva in my eye ducts than rewatch anything starring Charlie Schlatter, but I hold Christopher Walken in such high esteem, I stoically overlooked my prejudice. Coolly enigmatic detective Walken attempts to solve the brutal murder of high echelon WASP Tally (Josie Bisset), while all circumstantial evidence points glaringly at ex-pyromaniac loner Artie (Charlie Schlatter), the sordid reality of this crime proves far more unsettling. Disturbingly, I didn't dislike Schlatter's tousled, love-struck tearaway Artie, I sympathized with the beleaguered misfit as he desperately tried to clear his name.

All-American Murder is a sardonic, splendidly engaging admixture of angsty Brat-packer melodramatics, and zesty high school slasher. The showy introduction of detective P.J Decker (Walken) is utterly delicious film-making, wholly meritorious of an immediate rewind! Decker's wry sleuthing skills are consistently joyous to behold, frequently expressing empathy with the younger, snarkier Schlatter. As a collegiate murder mystery, it still has much to offer thriller addicts, and the oafish panty-huffing caretaker Forbes (J.C. Quinn) raising that especially beloved slasher archetype to a giddy level of purest kitsch, and the frantic final act proves thrillingly mayhemic, boasting a number of juicy kills! It wouldn't be entirely preposterous to suggest that All-American Murder might be labelled as 'A John Hughes version of an All-American Giallo'.

 South Beach (1992) – Fred Williamson.

Rough-housin', private dick DTV shoot 'em up South Beach had me at Fred Williamson, and then the additional shock treatment of Gary Busey produced all the bonnie babies! Having TWO bona fide cult figures in one film is not absolutely unprecedented, but certainly not of the breathlessly winning stature of these two charismatic Alpha gods! For a slender narrative, no less pulpy than the beer mat it was speedily conceived upon, the gravitational allure of Mr. Williamson attracted an exemplary supporting cast: Peter Fonda, Vanity, Robert Forster, Stella Stevens, and a tasty cameo from Euro-cult icon Henry Silva.

An obsessive redneck psycho (Sam Jones) wants to permanently disconnect phone fantasy siren (Vanity), and her loyal ex's (Williamson) courageous attempts to prevent this prove increasingly deleterious to his continued well being. The vibes are pretty positive throughout, as the main actors share a natural rapport, all apparently enjoying themselves, with much of that playful energy transferable to the audience, well, the appreciative audience of me, myself and I had no complaints! The Pm Entertainment-esque South Beach remains an easy, fun watch, with handsome icon Williamson being on especially magnetic form, but I simply CONNOT believe our beloved Flash Gordon would have done any of those wicked things, this certainly must be one of Ming the merciless's more insidiously concocted plans!

 The Rain Killer (1990) – Ken Stein.

Tough, Boozy cop (Ray Starkey),and dapper dan FBI investigator (David Beecroft) seek the brutal, frustratingly elusive 'Rain Killer' in moody, sax-drenched L.A. Noir The Rain Killer. I have the distinct impression that if you threw a rock in 90s Hollyweird it would have hit someone working on a erotically hard-bodied, pseudo De Palma thriller. The cast is universally solid, featuring an early casting call for gruff, perma-cop Chiklis, and the flinty Tango & Cash shtick works well, especially as the text, and engaging performances prove lively enough to perk up the plot's lack of sophistication. For the first time in a wee while, I found the dialogue to be intentionally funny, bringing welcome verisimilitude to what may have been an altogether more disposable yarn.

The Rain Killer remains a credible, well-acted, if largely routine serial killer potboiler, and it is pretty slick-looking, but that may have more to do with the persistently inclement weather! Some of the sultrier sequences are so prodigiously diffused by smoke, it strongly suggested that the D.P. was prepping for Backdraft! If I may briefly, and somewhat indulgently return to the estimable Michael Chiklis, a charismatic actor I greatly admire, I have frequently thought that even at his birth, one of the attending physicians might have glibly remarked upon the fact that the newly minted infant looked just like a cop! Upon later reflection, I felt that Ken Stein's fine film enjoyed some appealingly Giallic tendencies, while the kills aren't overtly stylised, they remain effective.

 Twice Dead (1988) – Bert. L. Dragin.

The rarely mentioned schlock-singer responsible for overlooked teensploitation Summer Camp Nightmare almost guaranteed his fast-track to celluloid obscurity with his hokey-jokey, twisted domicile shocker Twice Dead. After a hard-luck family move into their derelict property, previously owned by deadbeat theater actor Tyler(Jonathan Chapin), Dragin fearlessly recycles all available haunted house tropes to occasionally amusing effect. Twice Dead plays out tepidly like a Charles Band quickie, sans his signature raunchiness, until the livelier final act, which features some robustly schlocky gore gags. It's not just drearily recycled B-scenarios, the dead dialogue is riper than Texas roadkill, and the dime-store hoods come across about as authentically menacing as a novelty coffin coin bank. The bellicose NRA poster boy pop (Sam Melville) was legitimately HOT, I'm digging his FU, Chuck 'cold dead hands!' Heston approach to TCB. On a more personal note, if any of those spunk bubbles had killed my cat, there wouldn't be enough left of 'em to clog a chemical toilet. Morbidly obese Melvin (Travis McKenna) has it about right when he angrily claims: 'What kind of shit is this?'. Scintillating sis-next-door (Jill 'Thunder Run' Whitlow) is undeniably lovely, and her Abercrombie bro (Tom Bresnahan) is only moderately irritating. One of the most patently unthreatening Home invasion horrors I have ever seen, Slick's (Christopher Burgard) crew couldn't invade a fucking Wendy house!  

 Knochenwald (2000) – Utz Marius Thompson.

Some Germans LOVE to make mindlessly gory S.O.V trash, I have absolutely no issue with that, and long may it continue. I was previously aware, and moistly appreciative of Heiko Fipper, Andreas Schnaas, Nico B, Olaf Ittenbach, Timo Rose, Andreas Marschall, Jochen Taubert, Marian Dora, and Andreas Bethman, but this Utz cat was brand new, and his outrageously offal spattered alfresco slasher Knochenwald strongly suggests that he's another keeper!

For 20 blissfully body rupturing minutes, lunatic asylum escapee Mike Mansfield runs gorily amok, ruthlessly slaying Mr. Thompson's obliging buddies in a rewardingly gruesome manner. The End. For such a short work, Marius kinetically packs in a lurid largess of splashy chunk-blowage, his micro-budgeted bloodbath producing a heroically high quotient of gratuitous S.O.V slaughter. Hey!!! it's dumber than a boxed frog, and the plentiful gore is crudely rendered in the brutalist, butcher-shopped manner of H.G. Lewis, but Knochenwald remains a strangely compelling excursion into cheapnis S.O.V kraut-shock!!!

 Party Line (1988) – William Webb.

Rugged Richard Hatch, slinky Shawn Weatherly, Shaft-tastic Richard Roundtree, and blonde moppet Lief Garrett star in saucily slap n' tickled 80s slasher Party Line. Sexily sinister siblings often provide one of the more innately skeevey tropes in horror/exploitation, incestuous families are the gristly backbone of B-Horror greatness. Party Line's plot of a twisted sister and her bonkers bro using a party line to set sketchy dudes up for the erotokill isn't hugely involving, but it must also be said that this is one of the most relentlessly 80s looking horrors I have recently seen, buoyed by the pleasingly photogenic presences of Hatch and Weatherly. Come to think of it, Hatch & Weatherly is a spiffingly tasty title for a retroid TJ Hooker'd cop show! The formula dialogue is pulpier than baby food, but its increasing awfulness proved hypnotic, and Garrett is bemusingly vanilla as a psycho, dude's foofier than a toy dog.

Like an especially pricey hooker, Party Line sucks in a all the best ways, and simpering Oedipus freak Garrett looks SUPER hot in his mom's wedding dress, if that makes me kinky, I'm kinky, and I'm absolutely okay with that...come to mommy!!!!! Party Line is ultimately no less bogus than Phil Spector's hairline, a legitimate party pooper, but its soooo massively kitschy, I kinda almost dug it! In the uproariously goofy final act, firebrand Weatherly gets all gussied up in a banger red dress, and looks F'n fiiiiiinnne! 'It's okay!!! I pushed him off the balcony!!!' Hey!!! I don't wish to sound overtly glib, but it felt like the the guy who wrote this fell of a phooken balcony too!!! When hunky Hatch does his end-of-movie shtick with his blithe, alpha dude 'Party's Over!' line, I might refute this by saying that the party never quite started, dude!!!