Rightfully tanked, Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot is so awful, it may be the worst Marvel Comics movie made. On the eve of opening weekend, the sophomore director of the sleeper hit Chronicle famously tweeted his way out of the studio’s favor, not to mention a lucrative Star Wars gig, by basically disowning his Four in 140 characters or less: “A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would’ve recieved [sic] great reviews. You’re probably never see it. That’s reality though.”

Somewhere, Oley Sassone shook his head and mutters to himself, “You want to talk reality? Hey, at least your movie got released.”

Sassone should know. He directed the first film version of The Fantastic Four. Not the 2005 summer smash with Jessica Alba and Chris Evans, but the 1994 one made with no stars and little money, but a lot of heart. That one, produced by Roger Corman, was shelved permanently and might never have been intended to see the light of day, depending upon whom you ask.

Well, Marty Langford asked, and the whole sordid affair is recalled and revealed in his documentary, Doomed!: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four. While crowdfunded docs rarely rise higher than the level of “glorified DVD bonus” (assuming they aim that high at all), Doomed! is pretty polished and unexpectedly moving. Yes, that’s right: moving.

As conveyed through their candor, the ill-fated Four’s cast and crew were pumped about this project, in an age where not only did superhero cinema barely exist, but the entries that did were DC Comics properties: Richard Donner’s Superman, Tim Burton’s Batman and Wes Craven’s Swamp Thing. Marvel, meanwhile, was stuck to the small screen, where The Incredible Hulk spent five years in prime time, roaming town to town.

Yet here was what they all considered to be Their Big Break: one with a larger budget than any Corman project in history. On one hand, they shot on recycled sets from the thrifty producer’s Carnosaur; on the other, a 40-piece orchestra was performing the score. The end result was not perfect (Doomed!’s principals exercise healthy self-deprecation in detailing the flubs that made it to final cut), but they believed in it and couldn’t wait to share it with audiences.

Bootlegs aside, they’re still waiting. And while they may have given up on that dream, they have not given up on the movie itself. Alex Hyde-White, who played the elastic Mr. Fantastic, feels Sassone is the person most owed, having worked so hard to deliver a picture that would propel him out of the low-budget world of straight-to-video sequels to Bloodfist and Relentless: “He deserved this film.” Stuntman Carl Ciarfalio, who donned faux orange rock to play The Thing, is literally owed, having sunk $12,000 of his own money into promoting the film nationwide … while it’s entirely possible the financiers had no plans a release, ever.

Why? It’s a long story, and a damned good one. Doomed! stands strong as a compelling case study of the tributary of commerce flowing into the river of art; it investigates the executive-suite machinations as it celebrates the creative process. Stan Lee even makes his usual cameo, this time playing Two-Face. —Rod Lott

Get it at Doomed!

Picture this (because you certainly don’t want to witness it for real): Two alien creatures who happen to be brothers crash-land on Earth. One of them, Nukie (rhymes with “dookie,” which is what he appears to be made of), lands safely in the jungles of Africa. The other one, Niko, is injured upon his arrival in Florida, whereupon he is snatched by evil NASA staffers who stick tubes up his nose and jab him with needles. As contrivance and convenience would have it, both aliens speak English, yet never move their mouths.

In his search for his sibling (who also looks like a bowel movement with eyes), Nukie inadvertently scares away rhinos, yet carries on conversations with baboons as snot drips out his nose. He also encounters twin native boys whose loincloths constantly expose their 8-year-old rumps. Glynis Johns (1962’s The Cabinet of Caligari) plays a nun in the village, while Turkey Shoot-er Steve Railsback is an astronaut in search of Nukie.

Co-directed by Sias Odendaal and Michael Pakleppa (Break Out: Rap in the Bronx), this international production is E.T. meets Sally Struthers’ ChildFund commercials. Given that animals talk and that its space-monkey star is a foam-rubber creation with facial paralysis, Nukie is aimed directly at the kids. Two words of warning to parents, however:
1. The scenes of Niko being subjected to shock therapy will frighten them.
2. Also, they will come to resent you with every fiber of their being years in advance. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

As one of those Bush presidents famously said, we must stand up and demand that no Ghoulie is left behind. Ergo, Ghoulies Go to College. Sometimes this sequel is referred to as Ghoulies III, but to do so only minimizes the great strides they have made in higher education.

At Glazier College, school is in session … and everyone is majoring in wacky pratfalls! (Their minor? Three Stooges sound effects.) It’s Prank Week on campus, which means Beta Zeta Theta fraternity man Skip Carter (Evan MacKenzie, Scanner Cop II) has been busy setting the water fountains to spurt at crotch level and altering the benches to eject those who dare sit a spell! Don’t even get me started talking about the inflatable crocodile he’s hidden in the lectern of dean of students and humanities professor Ragnar (Kevin McCarthy, UHF), because I just might die of laughter!*

Not a prank, but certainly well-timed to the institution’s informal culture of zaniness, is the arrival of three Ghoulies — resembling a rat, cat and fish — through the pipes of the BZT toilet. Predictably, they like to party. They also exclaim, “Beer run!” and then burp and fart accordingly. One of them tricks another into chugging Drano: “Tastes great!” “Less filling.” Most uproarious.**

The creatures are denied further high jinks and sent back to the magic shitter from whence they came, once Skip and his girlfriend (Eva LaRue, Mirror Images II) utter the ancient spells found in an old comic book. Meanwhile, former Academy Award nominee McCarthy has to say, “Ghoulies have no dicks!” aloud and on camera, for all the world to (hypothetically) see, which may have been an ad lib requested by director John Carl Buechler (Cellar Dweller). Former Playboy centerfold/Andy Sidaris heroine Hope Marie Carlton (Hard Ticket to Hawaii) appears in a supporting role, but her ass might garner more screen time than her face, which — even with the franchise’s pivot from horror to comedy — definitely qualifies as Exploitation 101.*** —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

*Consider this a lesson in sarcasm.
**This, too.
***But this, students — this is true.

In honor of psychotronic film legend Herschell Gordon Lewis, who died yesterday at the age of 87, we’ve raided our vaults to present every review we’ve run thus far involving the groundbreaking “godfather of gore.” Rest in pieces, sir!

• Doctor Gore (1973)
• Gods of Grindhouse: Interviews with Exploitation Filmmakers edited by Andrew J. Rausch
• The Gruesome Twosome (1967)
• How to Make a Doll (1968)
• The Uh-Oh! Show (2009)

Based on the evidence that is The Break-In, we may assume that do-it-all filmmaker Justin Doescher saw Paranormal Activity — and perhaps even one or more of its sequels — and said aloud to himself, “Heck, I can do that!”

But he cannot. The Break-In is a rank-amateur, found-footage thriller that deserves to stay lost.

Built upon the flimsy-even-for-fiction premise that Jeff Anderson (Doescher, who also wrote, directed and produced) has a cool new phone and feels the need to record his every move, the movie presents itself as a week’s worth of police evidence. With a rash of recent burglaries plaguing the neighborhood, Jeff installs a security system to better protect his fiancée, Melissa (Maggie Binkley), and their unborn child. Cameras keep tabs on exactly four rooms: the kitchen, the bedroom, the living room and the “lounge room” (known to the rest of the civilized world as “a lounge”).

Whenever the movie’s POV shifts away from Jeff and his goddamn phone (not often enough) and to these security cams, the screen denotes which room we’re looking at, presumably in case viewers are unable to process obvious visual cues that a bed indicates a bedroom; a refrigerator means a kitchen; and so on. But mostly, The Break-In is Jeff yammering away as he eats dinner, shops for a crib, takes out the recycling — you know, the special moments to preserve for Baby!

Whether he is by himself or with “my boy”/best friend/next-door neighbor/fellow athletics-obsessed meathead man-child Steve (J.P. Veizaga, 10 Rules for Sleeping Around); with Melissa, who applies glitter to her eyelids, yet works as a teacher and not a stripper; or with the buzz-cut Det. Garcia (Ted Fernandez, at once the standout performer and the screen’s least convincing police detective), Jeff records it all.

The way in which Doescher tells his story is maddening: He speaks all the exposition, as if he were reading stage directions from a script. Despite the writer’s axiom of “show, don’t tell,” Doescher figures, “Hey, why not both?” In essence, he narrates actions that need no narration, shares information that needs no sharing and, most damning, externalizes his internal thoughts, as if he does not trust his audience to know that, for example, seeing Melissa stretching in workout clothes and sunglasses on the front porch suggests that a run either has happened or is about to happen.

And to say anything “happens” in the no-budget microindie is being awfully kind. On occasion, we get a glimpse of some mysterious figure in the corner of the frame or far in the background, yet what all that leads up is no mystery: It’s right there in the title! How a found-footage project possibly could capture a dream sequence, however, there’s your mystery.

Many a found-footage film falls flat, but The Break-In usurps the likes of The Gallows and 8213: Gacy House as the subgenre’s worst. If a sports bar could make a movie, the result would be The Break-In. And yet it’s all out of cheese fries, so what’s the point? —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.