I didn’t quite get everything written that I wanted to, so there’ll be one last film from this year’s B-Fest reviewed in the next update, but I came pretty close:

Arcade (1993), in which you should always make sure the human brain tissue you’re harvesting to power the processor of your cutting-edge virtual reality game didn’t come from a child who was abused to death, lest the kid’s spirit reassert itself as Nintendo Power Freddy Krueger…

The Chilling (1989), in which a cryonics lab really ought to produce a higher class of zombies than these…

Hard Rock Zombies (1984), in which these zombies, on the other hand, are exactly the ones you’d expect to arise when a necromantic spell is cast over the graves of a slain cock-rock band…

Hot Potato (1975), in which we all deserved so much more from a sequel to Black Belt Jones…

Runaway (1984), in which the cops in charge of dealing with malfunctioning robots find themselves confronting droids that have been deliberately programmed for crime instead…

and…

She-Devils on Wheels (1968), in which Herschell Gordon Lewis can make a biker movie every bit as awful as his worst gore or soft-porn flicks.

With my first update of the year, I’m formalizing something that I’ve been doing semi-regularly for a while now by introducing Movies Whose Times Have Come. Henceforth, this banner will gather together all my reviews celebrating the completion of our latest circuit around the sun by examining some old sci-fi flick set during the one that’s beginning. 2024’s Movie Whose Time Has Come is…

A Boy and His Dog (1975), in which Don Johnson’s Johnson is pressed into service by the leaders of a post-apocalyptic Good Ol’ American Small Town where the resident young men are having trouble getting the womenfolk with child.

And as for the rest of the update, we’ve got:

Chinatown Kid (1977), in which a fresh-off-the-boat bumpkin gets drawn steadily toward the center of a sprawling gangland conflict, first in Hong Kong, and then in San Francisco’s Chinatown…

Godzilla: Minus One (2023), in which the King of the Monsters’ first visit to Tokyo is reimagined as occurring in the late 1940’s, when Japan was still almost totally supine from its defeat in World War II…

and…

Warlords of Atlantis (1978), in which a pair of explorers and the sailors who mutinied against them fall captive to the extraterrestrial rulers of the Lost Continent.
 

 El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.