Lots of unintended inter-film echoes in this one. Killers with gas masks. Deep South swamp monsters produced by genetic meddling. Characters named Tom and Sara. Nigh-unwatchable parodies. Point-missing adaptations. Movies that got the way they are because somebody figured they were too cheap not to be cheesy. Jerks played by Josh Gad. Intervals of 28 years…
Deathstalker II (1987), in which Jim Wynorski first becomes JIM WYNORSKI…
Don’t Go in the House (1979), in which I suppose we can’t really call him a slasher when his weapon of choice is an army-surplus flamethrower…
Doom (2005), in which you might just barely recognize an element or two from the source games if you squint hard and hit yourself on the head with a hammer…
Kids Go to the Woods… Kids Get Dead (2009), which I fully admit I brought on myself…
Little Monsters (2019), which must surely be the only romcom in which zombies eat children…
Mark of the Beast (2012), in which you might recognize the source story, but you won’t understand why they treated it this way…
My Bloody Valentine (2009), which manages to be one of the better horror remakes of the aughts mainly because that’s one of the easiest leagues around…
Razortooth (2009), which tries to get away with mutating Asian swamp eels into giant viperfish…
Terror in the Swamp (1984), which tries to get away with mutating a nutria into a killer Bigfoot…
and…
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026), in which teenaged maniacs cosplaying as Jimmy Saville make life difficult for an elderly man who just wants to listen to old Duran Duran records and shoot morphine with his giant, naked rage-zombie pal.
El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.
#1 by Alaric on March 6, 2026 - 5:46 pm
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Always great to get one of your updates- the bigger, the better.
#2 by supersonic man on March 8, 2026 - 12:14 am
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I kind of like Doom 2005 though I can in no way defend it.
Little Monsters sounds worth seeking out.
#3 by Jared on March 11, 2026 - 6:14 pm
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Whereas otters are mustelids— carnivores distantly related to cats and hyenas
I think you’re thinking of viverrids or mongooses there. Mustelids are among the carnivorans known as caniforms, which means they’re more related to dogs and bears.
#4 by Alaric on March 12, 2026 - 11:07 am
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Technically, though, they ARE distantly related to cats and hyenas, they’re just more closely related to dogs and bears (and seals). They’re ALL members of the order Carnivora.
#5 by Calypso on March 15, 2026 - 2:53 pm
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I’ve been reading and loving your reviews forever, but they’ve gotten wonderfully academic of late (in the BEST sense of the word)…truly encompassing the historical ties of EVERYTHING to the subject at hand). What was once entertaining has become endlessly educational, and that’s Big Damn Fun. P.S. in the “Doom” review you recast the lead as Dwayne Nelson, which gave me a giggle when I googled him. Interesting mental picture. I thank you!
#6 by El Santo on March 15, 2026 - 4:55 pm
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“Technically, though, they ARE distantly related to cats and hyenas…”
Indeed– but Jared has the right of this one. I did indeed mentally transpose the cladistic affiliations of weasels and mongooses. Fixed now.
“…you recast the lead as Dwayne Nelson…”
HA! Oh man. That’s a much funnier transposition: Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson and David “the Rock” Nelson, the latter man the auteur behind the current Worst Movie I’ve Ever Seen.
#7 by veida on September 18, 2026 - 8:56 pm
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The connections between gas masks, swamp monsters, and those recurring Tom-and-Sara names make this sound like a wonderfully deranged game of cinematic coincidence. I especially enjoyed the description of Deathstalker II as the moment Jim Wynorski became JIM WYNORSKI—there’s probably no better way to capture a filmmaker embracing the cheese.
#8 by emaki on September 18, 2026 - 9:08 pm
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ガスマスクの殺人鬼や、遺伝子操作で生まれた南部の沼モンスターが同じ記事で並ぶだけでも強烈ですが、「28年の間隔」やトムとサラの名前まで重なるのが面白いですね。『Deathstalker II』を境にジム・ウィノースキーが大文字化する、という書き方にも笑いました。
#9 by highvalyriantranslator on September 21, 2026 - 9:25 pm
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The pattern of unintended echoes is what makes this roundup so entertaining, especially the 28-year intervals and the observation that Deathstalker II is where Jim Wynorski fully becomes “JIM WYNORSKI.” I also appreciate the distinction between films that are accidentally cheesy and those that seem to embrace cheapness as a creative strategy.
#10 by bigjpgai on September 21, 2026 - 9:29 pm
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The cluster of accidental echoes is what makes this list so entertaining, especially the recurring gas masks and those 28-year intervals. I also liked the observation about Deathstalker II being the moment Jim Wynorski fully becomes “JIM WYNORSKI”—that kind of self-aware B-movie history is hard to resist.
#11 by Carl Frost on October 13, 2026 - 9:52 am
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The bit about low-budget schlock accidentally echoing each other is spot on — I noticed the same thing going through a run of swamp creature flicks last month, where every third movie had a guy in a rubber suit and a gas mask. I ended up ripping a couple of those cheap transfers to pull quotes for a writeup, and since the audio was muddy as hell I ran them through a free video to SRT converter just to get a searchable transcript instead of scrubbing the timeline by hand. Honestly the transcript was more coherent than the dubs.