1
2

The Raven (1963) is the movie for this Sunday's "monsterdon" watch party over on Mastodon, our fediverse sibling!

  • Just start watching that movie this Sunday, August 3, 2025 at 9pm ET / 8pm CT / 6pm PT which is 1am Monday UTC
  • and follow #monsterdon over on mastodon for live commentary. For example, you can follow that hashtag here: https://mastodon.social/tags/monsterdon
  • I usually open two web browser windows side-by-side on a computer. But you could follow the mastodon commentary on a phone app while watching the movie on TV or something.

How to watch the movie:

a 1963 American comedy Gothic horror film produced and directed by Roger Corman. The film stars Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Boris Karloff as a trio of rival sorcerers. The supporting cast includes Jack Nicholson as the son of Lorre's character.
...
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times panned the film as "comic-book nonsense ... Strickly [sic] a picture for the kiddies and the bird-brained, quote the critic."[10] Variety wrote that while Poe "might turn over in his crypt at this nonsensical adaptation of his immortal poem", Corman nevertheless "takes this premise and develops it expertly as a horror-comedy."[11] The Chicago Tribune called it "fairly thin fare, made up mostly of camera tricks, and some very obviously false scenery, but Peter Lorre's performance is mildly entertaining. Youngsters may find it fun."[12] A generally positive review in The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that the film "starts off with the inestimable advantage of a script which not only makes it amply clear from the outset that [Corman] is cheerfully and wholeheartedly sending himself up, but manages to do it wittily." Its main criticism was a "long central section" of the film that drags until things pick up again for the final duel.[13] Peter John Dyer of Sight & Sound wrote, "Richard Matheson's script, a good deal more tenuous than its predecessors in the Corman-Poe canon, at least treats its actors generously to props, incantations and quotable lines ... A pity the equation doesn't always add up; there's too much slack, due perhaps to an imbalance between the comedy, which runs riot, and the horror, which trails behind in the wake of previous Corman films."[14] ...

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 88% based on reviews from 17 critics, with an average rating of 6.8 out of 10.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raven_(1963_film)

2
3
Red Sun Rising (1994) (media.piefed.social)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by klu9@piefed.social to c/bmoviebonanza@lemmy.world

A.k.a. Red Sun Rising: Based on the Legend of the Death Touch

Tagline

Japan's toughest cop is in L.A. to track down the Yakuza's deadliest killer


Elevator pitch

  • Rush Hour but with less laughs and more laserfingers

Premise

A tough Japanese detective comes to LA to seek vengeance after his partner is killed by a deadly Yakuza ninja.

Trailer

Full Movie

Details
Unless otherwise stated, all full movie links I post are for free, no account required, licensed (AFAIK, IANAL) streaming VOD in English (or original language with English subtitles) and work at time of writing in my location, Mexico. Availability and language options may be different in your location. Asterisk by the one I watched.

  • I saw it on VCR Party, an Owncast watch party. I can't find it on any of my legit streamers here in Mexico, neither free nor paid. Check below for your country.

Legal stream finders

Details
The 'nobraincellsleft' link finds legit stream sources from many countries, listed by two-letter code.

The Just Watch link lists legit stream sources only for one country at a time. On the web page, change the country to your location, e.g. change Mexico to Australia.

Neither is perfect. Check your preferred streamers directly, just in case.

Info

Personnel

  • Director: Francis Megahy

Cast

Opinion

Last night on VCR Party (Mastodon) this was the surprise showing (well, about 30 minutes notice). And you know a movie is going to be classy when the title appears on screen as Red Sun Rising: Based on the Legend of the Death Touch!

Don "The Dragon" Wilson strikes again, this time as a Japanese cop who must overcome culture shock (i.e. US racism and cars much larger than back home) and learn the Power of the Laser Finger. Actually the deadly ninja technique had some Orientalist bollocks name I can't remember now, but everyone in the watch party immediately dubbed it 'the laser finger' because that's what it looked like. Taught to Don by Mako, playing a fallen priest/uncle, who swills brandy, lives in a big house with a big pool and has two hot assistants now that he gave up religion for selling bullshit merch to dumb, rich Americans.

[Cue training montage]

The Laser Fingering Baddie is James Lew, the sifu from Shira the Vampire Samurai (previously on BMB), who even uses his ninja wizardry to make a zombie. He also like to snap necks in the most sensual way possible.

Playing Chris Tucker to Don's Jackie Chan (but with more sexy time) is Deep Space 9's Terry Farrell, trotting out the usual casual racism towards Japan typical of the era, until she and Don ride her giant convertible to Makeout Point.

Clearly emerging (about a year or two too late) from the "ZOMG Japan will be more powerful than us soon" panic/trend in western pop culture of the 80s to early 90s, along the lines of Rising Sun, Black Rain etc.

  • 0 out of 5 sharks. Not all ninja movies have sharks, you know.
  • 2 out of 5 ninjas. (Marked down because nobody was actually in a shinobi mask.)
  • 3 out of 5 Dragons. Not bad... for a Don "The Dragon" Wilson movie, if you know what I mean, and if you're a sucker for 90s action like I am.

Screenshots

I took none cuz:

  1. it's a watch party, so I couldn't pause/rewind etc for juicy bits, and also I didn't have the movie full screen, two thirds taken up by chat window, web page etc
  2. VCR Party is literally a VHS tape inserted into a VCR streamed online, with all the visual quality you can expect from three-decade-old second/third/fourth-hand cassettes found cheap at a charity shop.

Here are some from the interwebs:


What a title!


James about to give Don the Finger... the Laser Finger! (Right where the red sun don't rise?)


Mako teaching the Power of the Laser Finger to Don in a tank top that is frankly rather inappropriate for the workplace


I don't even want to speculate what Terry is indicating there!


No, this is not a Dutch angle from Battlefield Earth

3
4

Just my personal ranking of the shark movies I watched for c/BMovieBonanza Shark Week 20th-27th July, 2025. All I cared about was entertainment value, not serious artistic merit.

My Shark Week 2025 Movie Ranking

Title Rating
1 Ninja vs Shark 5
2 Meg 2: The Trench 4.5
3 Under Paris 4
4 Shark Night 3.5
5 Santa Jaws 2.5
6 Shark! 2
7 Cocaine Shark 1
8 Narco Shark 0

WARNING:

  • All these films (except maybe Santa Jaws, Meg 2, and Shark!) should not be viewed by children.
  • Cocaine Shark and Narco Shark shoud not be viewed by anyone.

(I should probably downgrade Cocaine Shark's score to half or even a quarter of a shark, but that's the score I gave it in my original post so it stays.)

4
1

Elevator pitch

  • Jaws à la française

Premise

The freakishly large shark that killed her husband in the middle of the Pacific is now in the middle of Paris. Will anyone believe her?

Trailer

Full Movie

Details
Unless otherwise stated, all full movie links I post are for free, no account required, licensed (AFAIK, IANAL) streaming VOD in English (or original language with English subtitles) and work at time of writing in my location, Mexico. Availability and language options may be different in your location. Asterisk by the one I watched.

Legal stream finders

Looks like this is a Netflix exclusive, but I'll put the stream finder links just in case that changes in the future.

Details
The 'nobraincellsleft' link finds legit stream sources from many countries, listed by two-letter code.

The Just Watch link lists legit stream sources only for one country at a time. On the web page, change the country to your location, e.g. change Mexico to Australia.

Neither is perfect. Check your preferred streamers directly, just in case.

Info

Personnel

  • Director: Xavier Gens

Cast

  • Bérénice Bejo (A Knight's Tale, The Artist)
  • Nassim Lyes
  • Léa Léviant

Opinion

Another one of the 'guilty pleasures' in the lists from sharkologists and Jaws fans.

A little bit of silliness, a little bit of Jaws rehashed. Good action above and below ground, through the spooky catacombs under Paris (hey, that's the title!) The CGI sharks are more convincing than in the other movies.

I even thought the film might make it all the way without a shark doing a Free Willy-style leap through the air, but I guess no shark movie director can resist the idea of airborne shark.

Shark Week Score: 4 out of 5 sharks.

Screenshots

(Some screenshots are low quality, because when I rewound on Netflix to take a screenshot, the image quality was reduced for a while before going back to normal.)


Our heroine meets our villain


I, too, use Shark Searcher for all my shark searching needs.


The mayor ain't gonna let any nonsense about sharks spoil ~~Fourth of July weekend~~ the International Triathlon!


Environmentalist activist gets her chance to bond with the shark. I'm sure the relationship will end well.


How many movies can give you a location with underwater pillars of skulls?


Sweet underwater decks. DROP THE BASS! (Actually part of the explosives set up to trap the sharks... although the idea of an underwater rave in shark-infested catacombs does intrigue me.)


That's... a lot of sharks.

5
3

WE'VE EATEN THEM FOR YEARS, NOW IT'S THEIR TURN!

A chemical accident turns ordinary donuts into blood thirsty killers. Now it's up to Johnny, Michelle and Howard to save their sleepy town from... KILLER DONUTS.

TRAILER

IMDb.com || letterboxd.com

6
2
Santa Jaws (2018) (media.piefed.social)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by klu9@piefed.social to c/bmoviebonanza@lemmy.world

Tagline

Tis the Season to be Sharky

Not really, I just made that one up


Shark Week continues!

Elevator pitch

  • Hallmark makes a teen shark movie

Premise

A teen comic book nerd draws a comic about a Christmas-themed killer shark, which thanks to a magic pen comes to life and starts eating his family and friends.

Trailer

Full Movie

Details
Unless otherwise stated, all full movie links I post are for free, no account required, licensed (AFAIK, IANAL) streaming VOD in English (or original language with English subtitles) and work at time of writing in my location, Mexico. Availability and language options may be different in your location. Asterisk by the one I watched.

Legal stream finders

Details
The 'nobraincellsleft' link finds legit stream sources from many countries, listed by two-letter code.

The Just Watch link lists legit stream sources only for one country at a time. On the web page, change the country to your location, e.g. change Mexico to Australia.

Neither is perfect. Check your preferred streamers directly, just in case.

Info

Personnel

  • Director: Misty Talley

Cast

  • No one I've ever seen

Opinion

Just like a Hallmark movie, it's competent without being especially entertaining, grey Canadian skies and 99.9% white. And it's the shark movie you could watch with your parents or kids.

(Looking at the end credits, I see it was actually distributed by Sony Pictures Television and made in Louisiana. That explains the "TV family friendliness" and the absence of snow but not the absence of black folks.)

Provides a Christmasy twist on the final kill in Jaws, but succumbs to a family-friendly happy Xmas ending.

Shark Week Score: 2.5 out of 5 sharks. (I had to bump it up to respect the vast gulf between it and Cocaine Shark.)

Screenshots

Santa Jaws
Here comes Santa Jaws!

Santa Jaws
Bye bye, Pop Pop!

Santa Jaws
Hey Santa, if this is what happens to your staff, you need to improve your elf and safety.

Santa Jaws
Turns out, Santa Jaws is only vulnerable to Xmas-themed weapons.

Santa Jaws
Santa Jaws in all her glory

Santa Jaws
Bye bye, mom!

7
3

Unlike the more austere comic book itself, Danger: Diabolik embraces both the 1966 Batman and James Bond styles, resulting in what amounts to an over-the-top, campy Eurospy film.

Top-notch direction comes from Mario Bava, not yet the cult film superstar he would soon become. The hip, jazzy score even comes with a 007-style theme song.

Used to read the comic in my teens, and saw the film about 6 years ago. Not great but enjoyable.

8
2

The Albert Pyun cut of the infamous superhero movie is finally coming to the big screen at a couple of festivals. The film had a troubled pre-production history bouncing around between studios, directors, scripts and stars. Curiously, both the stars of Pyun's Radioactive Dreams (BMB post here), John Stockwell and Michael Dudikoff, were at different points attached to the picture before Pyun ever came on board. And then once made, the studio recut Pyun's edit into something "more conventional", which bombed.

Movie Info

World Premiere: New York, Friday 1st August 2025

As part of the Asian-American International Film Festival

West Coast Premiere: Los Angeles, 23rd August 2025

As part of the Big Bad Film Fest action movie festival

9
3

Shark Week continues!

Elevator pitch

  • 'Yojimbo' meets 'Jaws 3'

Premise

A fishing village is being extorted by an evil gang and hires a bodyguard as nasty as the gangsters. At the same time, any villager who enters the sea is likely to wash up a dismembered corpse.

Trailer

Trailer has spoilers, too many IMHO

I didn't see the trailer before watching, and I'm glad I didn't.

Full Movie

Details
Unless otherwise stated, all full movie links I post are for free, no account required, licensed (AFAIK, IANAL) streaming VOD in English (or original language with English subtitles) and work at time of writing in my location, Mexico. Availability and language options may be different in your location. Asterisk by the one I watched.

Legal stream finders

Details
The 'nobraincellsleft' link finds legit stream sources from many countries, listed by two-letter code.

The Just Watch link lists legit stream sources only for one country at a time. On the web page, change the country to your location, e.g. change Mexico to Australia.

Neither is perfect. Check your preferred streamers directly, just in case.

Info

  • IMDb 6.0/10 (Gives info on English-dub voice cast but little on the Japanese cast)
  • Plex (Doesn't offer a stream but better on the Japanese cast)
  • Wikipedia in Japanese

Personnel

Cast

  • Hirano Kōshu
  • Nishime Shun
  • Nagano Juria

Opinion

The thing you have to understand about 'Ninja vs Shark' is that for the first hour it's a low-budget but good, serious, dramatic samurai movie with betrayal, conflict, family drama, unrequited love, emotionally significant flashbacks, melodramatic villains, geysers of CGI blood, curses, giant sharks, magical ninjas, devil worship, zombies, sorcery, human sacrifice, decapitations, and homoerotic shape-shifting vampiric ninja weresharks... and only then does it get crazy. Absolutely unhinged!

I love this film! My fave of Shark Week so far.

Shark Week Score: its sharkiness is relatively low (until, of course, the very end, when everything is dialled up to eleven, given an overdose of steroids and PCP, and let loose on an unsuspecting audience.) 2 out of 5 sharks.

B Movie Bonanza Score: 5 out of 5 sharks!

Screenshots

Ninja vs Shark
Oh man, if you think things in this village are weird in the first five minutes, just you wait till the last five minutes!

Ninja vs Shark
Of course, the mayor's first reaction to news of a villager disappearing is to objectify him.

Ninja vs Shark
Trust me, at this point, this movie ain't even close to jumping the shark.

Ninja vs Shark
Overly dramatic villain states overly obvious point.

Ninja vs Shark
We're gonna need a bigger sacrifice.

Ninja vs Shark
Always nice to have a ninja etiquette teacher.

I got a couple more completely batshit screenshots but I feel it's way more fun to watch the movie to experience those scenes.

OK, just one (gory)


And she ain't even dead yet!

10
1
Shark Night (2011) (piefed.social)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by klu9@piefed.social to c/bmoviebonanza@lemmy.world

a.k.a. Shark Night 3D

Tagline

Terror Runs Deep


Shark Week continues!

Elevator pitch

  • I Know What You Sharked Last Summer

Summary

A weekend at a lake house in the Louisiana Gulf turns into a nightmare for seven vacationers as they are subjected to shark attacks.

Trailer

Full Movie

Details
Unless otherwise stated, all full movie links I post are for free, no account required, licensed (AFAIK, IANAL) streaming VOD in English (or original language with English subtitles) and work at time of writing in my location, Mexico. Availability and language options may be different in your location. Asterisk by the one I watched.

Legal stream finders

Details
The 'nobraincellsleft' link finds legit stream sources from many countries, listed by two-letter code.

The Just Watch link lists legit stream sources only for one country at a time. On the web page, change the country to your location, e.g. change Mexico to Australia.

Neither is perfect. Check your preferred streamers directly, just in case.

Info

Personnel

  • Director: David R. Ellis (Snakes on a Plane)

Cast

  • Sara Paxton
  • Dustin Milligan
  • Donal Logue

Opinion

It finally occurred to me to check out a few lists of shark movies, and I think I found this on a 'Jaws' fan site under "guilty pleasures".

A fairly serious entry that, like 'Jaws', tends to wisely keep the sharks out of sight much of the time, with brief moments of silly shark action that seem more explainable now that I know it was originally a 3D movie (flashbacks to the gimmicky shots I saw in 'Jaws 3D' in the cinema).

Apart from Donal Logue, I didn't recognize any names (except Graeme Revell) but a bunch of faces were a bit familiar.

Score: 3.5 out of 5 sharks.

Screenshots

Coming later

11
1
Meg 2: The Trench (2023) (media.piefed.social)

Tagline

New Meg.

Old Chum.


Shark Week continues!

Elevator pitch

  • 'Godzilla' but with giant sharks.

Summary

A group of scientists must outrun and outswim the megalodons when a malevolent mining operation threatens their mission and forces them into a high-stakes battle for survival.

Trailer

(Full Movie)

Details
Unless otherwise stated, all full movie links I post are for free, no account required, licensed (AFAIK, IANAL) streaming VOD in English (or original language with English subtitles) and work at time of writing in my location, Mexico. Availability and language options may be different in your location. Asterisk by the one I watched.

I saw this on Prime Video. I don't think there are any legit free streams for this. Check the links below for paid streaming options.

Legal stream finders

Details
The 'nobraincellsleft' link finds legit stream sources from many countries, listed by two-letter code.

The Just Watch link lists legit stream sources only for one country at a time. On the web page, change the country to your location, e.g. change Mexico to Australia.

Neither is perfect. Check your preferred streamers directly, just in case.

Info

Personnel

  • Director: Ben Wheatley (High-Rise, Free Fire , Kill List)

Cast

  • Jason Statham
  • Cliff Curtis
  • Sienna Guillory (Resident Evil, High-Rise)
  • Wú Jīng 吴京, a.k.a. Jacky Wu (Drunken Monkey, Wolf Warrior 2)

Opinion

After three duds from free streaming, I decided to try something from paid streaming and checked out Prime's shark offerings.

I saw 'The Meg' a couple of years ago, and didn't remember much except it got the job done. As it's called in Mexico, a palomera (a movie that's fine for eating popcorn to).

So I clicked 'play' on Meg 2. Is it a serious oeuvre of the seventh art that conveys a deeper message? Is it fuck! Is it braindead schlock that delivers what I needed: thrills, spills and kills? Fuck yeah!

Score: 4.5 out of 5 sharks.

Screenshots

Giant wild beast in captivity? Oh, that always ends well!

Close call between megalodon and submersible

Poor guy will probably never get the deposit back on that pedalo

A world first for "shark tonsil POV"?

12
8
Super Shark (2011) (lemmy.world)

Super Shark is a 2011 science fiction comedy horror film directed by Fred Olen Ray and starring John Schneider, Sarah Lieving, and Tim Abell.[1] The film follows a marine biologist named Kat Carmichael, played by Sarah Lieving, who has to investigate and survive the rampage of a mutated primordial shark.
...
The Lexikon des internationalen Films - Filmjahr 2012 found that the special effects in the film were too poor for it to compete with Godzilla productions.[2] The Geman book Die 100 schlechtesten Filme aller Zeiten-Das große SchleFaZ-Buch included it in its list of the 100 worst films of all time.[3]
However, various reviews found that precisely because of its extremely unconvincing production, the film remains entertaining.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Shark

Maybe you got an investor. Maybe you can afford a washed-up actor or two. And a couple c-listers who are between Lifetime Movie and tv commercial gigs. And a bunch of bikini models who'll work for exposure. Maybe your cousin who owes you a favor knows how to do graphics on their gaming computer. What kind of movie you going to do? Sharks, man, everybody loves sharks. Whip up the script in a Starbucks and let's get ready to party!

So one of the washed up actors is John Schneider, who played one of the Duke boys in the Dukes of Hazzard. He's not the best actor in the world, but he knows what he's doing.

The other washed up actor is Jimmie Walker, famous for playing JJ in the 70s tv show "good times". Jimmie was apparently on a tighter schedule bc he's got the standalone kind of role that was written up so it could be filmed seperately from everyone else's. They dress him up like a P-Funk groupie and let him say 'dyno-mite" a lot. He plays a DJ who runs a bikini contest which has very little to do with the rest of the movie, bc that's the kind of movie this is.

Anyway, there's this shark who can crawl on land for Reasons, and eventually they call out the Army (in this case represented by 4 soldiers and a commanding officer). No, wait, they also have a WALKING TANK! The graphics look like they were rendered in Unreal Tournament, but it's actually not a bad idea, for a B-movie. They should have called this "Super Shark meets the Walking Tank" or something. You're leaving money on the table, folks.

Oh wat else.... there's a very brief subplot with a couple lifeguards, and the scientist lady who's investigating all this has some kind of backstory... and there's even a bit of an anti-corporate story here... tbh the parts that show the shark attacking, those are moderately entertaining, in a laughable kind of way... If you're at the bar talking to your buddies and there's a TV on, this wouldn't be too bad to be playing there, if the sound was off... you'd be like: is that a land shark? wtf are they saying there? and your buddy would be like: don't worry about it, you're prolly better off not knowing... And they'd be right!

for more pictures look here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1698008/mediaindex/

13
1
Shark! (1969) (piefed.social)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by klu9@piefed.social to c/bmoviebonanza@lemmy.world

Shark (1969) - Poster

a.k.a. 'Caine', a.k.a. 'Man-Eater'

Tagline

A realistic film became too real!

Shark will rip you apart!


Shark Week continues!

Elevator pitch

  • 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre' by the sea

Summary

A fugitive American gun runner finds himself stranded and penniless in a small town on the Red Sea coast of Sudan. A couple recruit him to help with their diving expedition, which is not all it seems and has already lost a member to the local sharks.

Trailer

Full Movie

Details
Unless otherwise stated, all full movie links I post are for free, no account required, licensed (AFAIK, IANAL) streaming VOD in English (or original language with English subtitles) and work at time of writing in my location, Mexico. Availability and language options may be different in your location. Asterisk by the one I watched.

Legal stream finders

Info

Personnel

Cast

Opinion

Sam Fuller was a significant director of noir and war movies in the 50s principally, helming 'Pickup on South Street', 'House of Bamboo' and 'The Big Red One', and inspired Jean-Luc Godard and Jim Jarmusch.

But 'Shark!' was re-edited without his consent and he couldn't get his name taken off it. Later, it was re-re-edited and released again to cash in on the success of 'Jaws' (the cut known as 'Man-Eater').

Burt Reynolds is his usual charming self, perhaps a little more abrasive than in most films, and convincing as a dirtbag with a vestigial conscience.

With a slow pace and very little shark action, this is more of a noir thriller. And even as a noir thriller, it ain't great. Who knows if it would have been any better in Fuller's (apparently lost) edit?

Moreover, the licensed versions available on free streaming have very poor image and sound quality. Hard to see in nighttime scenes, hard to see in underwater scenes, and almost impossible in nighttime + underwater scenes.

Score: 1.5 out of 5 sharks.

There are better Sam Fuller films out there, including on free streaming. See https://watch.plex.tv/person/samuel-fuller for starters.

Content warning

The producers tried to push a story that a diver was almost killed filming this movie when a shark broke through a protective net. Others have countered that the 'attack' was almost certainly fake and the more likely sequence of events was that the production used some drugged or dead sharks and genuinely stabbed them in one or more scenes.

Screenshots

Shark (1969) - Opening dedication

Shark (1969) - Shipwreck

Shark (1969) - Shark clear as mud

This is one of the more visible shark scenes, believe it or not.

Shark (1969) - Burt arises from the water

14
6
Cocaine Shark (2023) (piefed.social)

Shark Week continues!

Elevator pitch

  • 'Clash of the Titans' meets 'Altered States'

Summary

An undercover cop infiltrates a drug operation that makes a shark-based hallucinogen, from whose lab various hybrid creatures have escaped.

Trailer

Full Movie

Details
Unless otherwise stated, all full movie links I post are for free, no account required, licensed (AFAIK, IANAL) streaming VOD in English (or original language with English subtitles) and work at time of writing in my location, Mexico. Availability and language options may be different in your location. Asterisk by the one I watched.

Legal stream finders

Info

Personnel

  • Director: Mark Polonia

Cast

  • Ken VanSant
  • Samantha Coolidge
  • Titus Himmelberger

Opinion

This is a bit more like what I was expecting from post-Sharknado schlock. But even schlockier. A bunch of friends and family decide "Hey, we can make our own shark movie!" using their lakehouse and motorboat.

But instead of terrible CGI sharks, we get terrible rubber & papier mâché sharks. Sweet!

Unfortunately we get too much of the non-existent acting and not enough of the laughably bad effects. And it's nothing like the poster, of course.

Score: 1 out of 5 sharks.

Screenshots

Cocaine Shark - title

The classiness of the opening titles belies the shittiness of the film.

Cocaine Shark - Skellington

Skellington!

Cocaine Shark - Guy vs Glasses

The actor screams "Shark!" But the reflection in his glasses screams "Person with a tripod!"

Cocaine Shark - Shark-crab eats a guy

Hammerhead shark/crab hybrid eats said actor.

Cocaine Shark - Guy melting

Shark/crab also melts people?

Cocaine Shark - shark-man

Shark/man is still on the loose! Beware the papier maché!

15
3

COLD-BLOODED AND DARING— RECKLESS AND DEATH-DEFYING, HE IS.. THE SHARK HUNTER

Mike di Donato is a former CIA agent who is now a recluse on a Caribbean island trying to scrape a living selling shark teeth. It turns out that Mike has a secret plan however: recovering millions of dollars from the wreckage of an airplane laying on the ocean floor.

TRAILER

IMDb.com || letterboxd.com

16
22
Narco Shark (2023)(English) (media.piefed.social)
submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by klu9@piefed.social to c/bmoviebonanza@lemmy.world

Tagline

The Greatest Action Movie Never Made

Elevator pitch

  • Mexican Steven Seagal vs ninjas

Summary

An "unreleased" 80s action movie about a hero cop who takes on the Mexican Yakuza (in shiny red ninja outfits), who make sacrifices to a shark god.

Trailer

Full Movie

Details
Unless otherwise stated, all full movie links I post are for free, no account required, licensed (AFAIK, IANAL) streaming VOD in English (or original language with English subtitles) and work at time of writing in my location, Mexico. Availability and language options may be different in your location. Asterisk by the one I watched.

Legal stream finders

Info

Personnel

  • Director, Writer & Producer: Gerardo Preciado

Cast

  • "Ricky Valente"

Opinion

Shark Week is here, and I wanted to start off with a bang. Unfortunately, I chose Narco Shark. I love the posters for Narco Shark and sequel Narco Sharks and it sounds good on paper. But I hate the actual film. It's like an experimental student film. A bad, dull one. With almost zero shark or narco action! (I'm sure there's some ironic justification for that.) I fell asleep in the middle, and restarted it the next day but just couldn't be arsed to finish it.

If you want to watch a no-budget action flick filmed on the mean streets of the developing world, watch Bad Black.

If you want to watch a parody of 80s action & martial arts flicks, watch Kung Fury.

If you want to watch a self-aware shark movie, watch a Sharknado.

Any of those is a million times more fun than Narco Shark.

Screenshots

Narco Shark - Mexican Yakuza Red Ninjas

The ninjas of the Mexican Yakuza

Narco Shark - Title

Title

Narco Shark - eyeballs

Ricky holding the eyeballs of a passerby who pissed him off.

Narco Shark - Ricky serenades his wife

Ricky serenades his wife's arse with his sexy sax.

Narco Shark - Boxing shark
If you drink every time you see a shark in this movie, you might get mildly tipsy.

Please don't let the screenshots trick you into thinking this movie is more fun than it actually is.

17
6

"Has anyone seen my record?"

宇宙快速船 (Uchū Kaisokusen), (featured in experiment #819) produced by Toei and starring Sonny Chiba. Very notable names! Very dull movie!

And the dullness ramps up in the last quarter of the film, what with all the padding made up of repeated dog-fighting shots and re-used footage from other films (World War III Breaks Out according to some sources), it's enough to give a guy Roji Panty Complex, I tell 'ya.

As intimated in the MST3K episode, Space Chief really isn't as interesting as Prince of Space, and the Classic Sci-Fi Movie blog might have an explanation for that:

Toei Studios' 1961 super hero "Iron Sharp" (Space Chief in the English version), was a copy of Prince of Space, which Toei marketed in 1959. Prince of Space was himself a copy of Toho Studios' serial hero, "Supa Jaiantsu" (Super Giant), who was himself a copy of Superman.

Well, that about wraps it up for Invasion of the Neptune Men.

MY RECORD!!!

18
16

Get ready to ROCK! all those fancy oscar-winners may have smartypants actors and pricey special effects, but do they have A SOUNDTRACK BY AC/DC??!!?? Were they written and directed by Stephen King -- before he got sober?!? Do they have more car action than a demolition derby?!?!?

Yes, Maximum Overdrive (1986) is the movie for this Sunday's "monsterdon" watch party over on Mastodon, our fediverse sibling!

  • Just start watching that movie this Sunday, July 20, 2025 at 9pm ET / 8pm CT / 6pm PT which is 1am Monday UTC
  • and follow #monsterdon over on mastodon for live commentary. For example, you can follow that hashtag here: https://mastodon.social/tags/monsterdon
  • I usually open two web browser windows side-by-side on a computer. But you could follow the mastodon commentary on a phone app while watching the movie on TV or something.

How to watch the movie:

follows the events after all machines (including trucks, radios, arcade games, vending machines, etc.) become sentient when Earth crosses the tail of a comet, initiating a worldwide killing spree.
...
Maximum Overdrive was theatrically released on July 25, 1986, to critical and commercial failure. It was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Director for King and Worst Actor for Estevez in 1987, but both lost to Prince for Under the Cherry Moon.[6] King disowned the film, describing it as a "moron movie", and considered the process a learning experience,[7] after which he intended never to direct again.[8]
...
first-time director King stated that he was "coked out of [his] mind all through its production, and... really didn't know what [he] was doing".[7] On-set translator Roberto Croci did not remember King's cocaine use, but recalls him drinking from early in the morning until late at night. "I never saw. I didn't. But I did know that he was drunk. That 6 o'clock in the morning we have a roll call and he's drinking beers. And by 8:30, he's on his 10th beer."[9]

At a fan screening in 2021, Jock Brandis, the film's gaffer, told the audience that King rode a motorcycle from Maine to Wilmington, so he could ride alongside semi-trucks on the highway. He wanted to get a better feel for how terrifying big-rigs could be when in close proximity, and to better know their loud sounds and movements. When King arrived at the studio on his bike for the initial production meeting, the security guards wouldn't let him through the front gate because they did not believe he was part of any production taking place on the lot. His appearance was disheveled, and he was rambling on about a film he was to direct involving killer trucks that had come alive due to a space comet. He was granted access to the studio lot after Brandis pointed out that the plates on his motorcycle were from Maine.
...
King did try to create a positive environment for the crew, at one point renting out an entire theater to screen classic films such as Godzilla and Night of the Living Dead. He provided free refreshments and personal commentary during each film. King would also participate in golf cart races on the studio lot during down time.[9]
...
Writing in the Chicago Tribune, Rick Kogan gave the film 1 star out of 4 and called it "a mess of a movie", further stating that "King's direction is heavy handed and his dialogue hackneyed and stiff."[20] Paul Attanasio of The Washington Post wrote that the film "is like sitting alongside a 3-year old as he skids his Tonka trucks across the living room floor and says 'Whee!' except on a somewhat grander scale", and added that as a director Stephen King "proves that he hasn't got an ounce of visual style, the vaguest idea of how to direct actors or the sense that God gave a grapefruit."[21]
...
John Clute and Peter Nicholls have offered a modest reappraisal of Maximum Overdrive, admitting the film's many flaws, but arguing that several scenes display enough visual panache to suggest that King was not entirely without talent as a director.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Overdrive

19
6

TERROR COMES IN SMALL PACKAGES!

Sally Reynolds is grateful to Mr. Franz for giving her a job as a secretary. Little does she know that he is more than a doll maker. In actuality, he is a merciless mad scientist who fights off loneliness by shrinking people down in size and forcing them to serve as his living dolls.

SPOILER-HEAVY TRAILER

IMDb.com || letterboxd.com

20
12

As you may know, it's the 50th anniversary of the release of Jaws. Reading an article interviewing a shark expert on the impact of the film, one of the points they brought up was the many, many other movies that have come since, with this quote:

There's two types of shark movie: There's Jaws and there's bad shark movies.

And he mentioned some of the notable examples, like the Sharknado series, Sharktopus, Avalanche Sharks etc. "Ooh, I should check some of these out." I've only seen a few in my time: Jaws 1-3 (including Jaws 3-D in 3D in the cinema, and never since), Deep Blue Sea, and The Meg. (I also caught the last half hour of a Sharknado movie on TV.)

Went to the usual free legal sources (Tubi, Fawesome, YouTube) and saw a whole slew of shark movies. (Some links below)

Ideas for a B Movie Bonanza/Fediverse Shark Week:

  • Everyone who's up for it: pick a different shark movie to watch, post a review in the threadiverse (watch during or before Shark Week and post during Shark Week)
  • Everyone pick one shark movie for a watch party, posting in the... tootiverse?
  • Both of the above
  • Coordinate with other fediverse communities: #Monsterdon, !Bad Movies, horror, others?

I then wondered "When is the actual (Discovery Channel) Shark Week?" And it's coming soon! Starts the night of Sunday 20th July.

(I can't check on the official Discovery website as they keep blocking or redirecting me because I'm in Mexico.)

So maybe Fediverse Shark Week could match Discovery Shark Week. (Although I think any watch party would be good to have on the final Sunday, not the first.)

Anyone interested?


Free streaming links for shark movies

A few on licensed YouTube channels (load the channel then search for "shark"), e.g.

21
8

THE ANNUAL TRANS-AMERICAN OUTLAW ROAD RACE - A CROSS COUNTRY DEMOLITION DERBY WITHOUT RULES!

Racing across the country from L.A. to New York, a plethora of exotic cars carry contestants hoping to win a large sum of money.

TRAILER

IMDb.com || letterboxd.com

22
84

THE FINAL FRONTIER IS NOT OUTER SPACE. IT IS THE HUMAN MIND.

In the future, humanity has moved underground to escape the pollution. One of the few pleasures left is a narcotic in the form of computer chips which can be plugged directly into the brain. Lori, a female body guard, steals a case of these chips and flees to New York with Danner, a pleasure android. In their pursuit is Plughead, a dangerous criminal so named because of the many sockets and ports which decorate his scalp.

TRAILER

IMDb.com || letterboxd.com

23
7
The tenant in room 7 is very small, very twisted, and very mad.

On a budget of what can be found in the protagonist's pocket, Basket Case is the story of a boy and his wicker basket on a hunt for revenge against the doctors who made him the freak he isn't.

Trailer


Watch it: Tubi : Sling : This one dailymotion link I found

24
6
submitted 1 month ago by klu9@lemmy.ca to c/bmoviebonanza@lemmy.world

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/post/1019689

Tagline

They will seduce you - just before they kill you!

Elevator pitch

'La Femme Nikita' meets 'Hong Kong's Next Top Model'

Summary

40 kidnapped girls are trained to become smoking hot international assassins. But there can be only one! *

Trailer

Movie

Details

Unless otherwise stated, all full movie links I post are for free, no account required, licensed (AFAIK, IANAL) streaming VOD in English (or original language with English subtitles) and work at time of writing in my location, Mexico. Availability and language options may be different in your location. Asterisk by the one I watched.

Legal stream finders

Info

Personnel

  • Director: Tony Ching Siu-tung (Chinese Ghost Story, The Swordsman, Dr. Wai in 'The Scripture with No Words'; action choreographer for Shaolin Soccer)

  • Writer & Producer: Wong Jing (Naked Killer, Future Cops)

Cast

Opinion

Thinking about Category III movies (see here), I searched for Wong Jing-directed Naked Killer but could only find Wong Jing-scripted Naked Weapon. (Which I don't think was rated Cat III.)

Around the world, 40 sporty 13-year-old girls are kidnapped and taken to a tropical island to be trained as assassins... which is, like, totally not an excuse to have six years later lots of sweaty girl-on-girl action in skimpy thin cotton outfits.

With the exception of an unnecessary rape scene (if you want to skip it, it's ||right after they drink the wine Madame offers them||), this actually manages to be a decent action movie, far less schlocky than I was expecting... until the last 20 minutes, when the director decides to dial up the wire fu, bullet time and sappiness to 11.

The film tends to flag every time we get Daniel Wu's CIA agent, but Maggie Q does well in the lead.

A 7 out of 10, imho.

Screenshots

(Suffering a little compression going through various apps and Pixelfed)

Slinky model assassin knows snake style!

Caption should have read "Pew, pew!"

Emotional support soaping

A slice and a miss!

I think I remember this one from the Kama Sutra... the Congress of the Thigh Lock?

Don't show. Tell!

She'll seduce you... just before she kills you!

Is Dennis Chan (Kickboxer, Future Cops)... checking this woman out in her moment of grief???

Commence romance!

Final battle

25
10
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by klu9@piefed.social to c/bmoviebonanza@lemmy.world

[Apologies / let me know if this is off-topic for B Movie Bonanza]

Two-part article from Eastern Kicks

TL,DR:
Despite being one of the world's centres of film production back then, laissez-faire colonial Hong Kong didn't have any system of film classification or censorship until a film came out in 1988 (Men Behind the Sun) that was so egregious, it almost single-handedly created the political impetus to introduce a film classification law and system.

The most restricted classification was Category III, which made it a crime for anyone under 18 to watch.

Rather than shut down the worst productions, it unleashed a boom as many producers treated Cat III status as both a licence and a badge of honour, indulging in the greatest excesses in exploitation cinema: soft-core porn, torture, rape and cannibalism. And, to be frank, a lot of misogyny :(

And unlike an X rating or NC-17 classification in other countries, Cat III certification wasn't the kiss of death for mainstream respect and business, with Cat III films shown in mainstream cinemas, actors appearing in both mainstream and Cat III films, and some Cat III films even winning mainstream awards. (Actors like Anthony Wong, Simon Yam and Shu Qi got their start and first critical acclaim in Cat III exploitation.)

The boom faded as the 90s ended, as the novelty wore off and Hong Kong came under PRC control, but there are still some occasional Cat III films made, often in the sex comedy genre.

Personally, while I watched a lot of HK movies in the 90s, I wasn't into Cat III (although I would curiously read about their excesses in mags like Impact or zines like Trash City [some images NSFW or gory]).

I got thinking about Cat III again when watching (the absolutely not Cat III) Future Cops (from @LaurenceWolse@feddit.nl's post). I chuckled when at the end Chun-May almost kisses Ti-Man but is too chaste to go through with it, given that the actress Chingmy Yau was largely famous for doing Cat III softcore porn / "girls with guns" exploitation flicks like Raped by an Angel (1992) and Naked Killer (1993), by the very same director as Future Cops, Wong Jing.

Category III film links

Links may lead to NSFW or gory images

Eastern Kicks has a category ;) called Category III to see some reviews of Cat III films.

City on Fire search for "category III"

City on Fire review of the "original" Cat III film, Men Behind the Sun (a film not actually meant as exploitation but to highlight the then relatively unknown war crimes of the chemical and biological warfare experiments of Japan's Unit 731)

Men Behind the Sun comes with the reputation of being one of the most controversial movies ever made, often mentioned in the same sentence as the likes of Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust, and Japan’s Guinea Pig series. The facts certainly indicate the same – it holds the distinction of being the first movie to be rated Category III in Hong Kong, has been released in very few territories uncut, was originally banned in Australia, and caused such an outcry in Japan that the director received death threats.

view more: next ›

B Movie Bonanza

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A place for lovers of B movies to come together and talk about them.

Rules:

  1. Be most excellent to one another. (Don't be a jerk)
  2. Try not to repost movies that have already been posted. (If it has been over 12 months feel free to repost)
  3. If posting links for people to watch the movies let them be legal ones. (Free is best but not when it's shady, you dig?)
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