A Russian scientist’s experiment creates killer spiders of unusual sizes. They’re shipped on a Colombia-bound commercial airliner in precariously stacked and unsecured wooden crates marked “CARGO.” A turbulent takeoff knocks the crates over, spilling those arachnids. 

From those British blokes behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey comes the pound-ante Spiders on a Plane, a ridiculous tardy mockbuster, given Snakes on a Plane landed nearly two decades ago. ITN Distribution could learn a lot from its American counterparts at The Asylum, whose Snakes on a Train not only ripped off the Samuel L. Jackson vehicle, but beat its release date by three days!

Regardless of calendar failings, Spiders on a Plane exists. And even with its abbreviated running time of 78 minutes, your attention will not be caught in a web; to the contrary, you will have it with these motherfucking spiders on this motherfucking plane. They eventually take out the pilot so some influencer girls have to land the 747. Before then, one of those girls (Lila Lasso, Snake Hotel) Mile-High Clubs it with a stranger, while in an adjacent restroom, her guy friend (Gaston Alexander, Mary Had a Little Lamb) unloads a massive amount of diarrhea as he inserts a contact lens. He doesn’t notice the teeny-weeny spoder crawling on the lens until he gets bitten on the eye.

All of the eight-legged freaks are CGI. Some of them look real — or, rather, real enough, while some look like wind-up toys. The lone giant tarantula looks like a pineapple with pipe-cleaner legs. At least these spiders resemble actual spiders (which cannot be said of ITN’s creaky Spider in the Attic), but Lord knows why director Ben J. Williams (Tsunami Sharks) allowed the arachnids to make chittering noises like they’re xenomorphs. Mayday! Mayday! —Rod Lott

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Carnal Fear rocks! But apparently not hard enough. The band’s first single, “Spread Eagle,” went “top chart,” but the album failed to go platinum. That puts a lot of pressure on their follow-up record, so the foursome convenes at their manager’s Oklahoma lake house to finish the album, Death Whispers, within a three-day deadline.

In other words, it’s a terrible time for the lead singer, Mitch (Trey Fillmore), to suffer bizarre recurring visions, no matter how many frozen treats, toy monkeys and bare breasts they contain. It’s also a terrible time for a masked serial killer to prey on beautiful women in the area. It’s Branded — the title speaking to the sizzlin’-hot drug spoon pressed against the victims’ left boob. 

The first sign of trouble arrives with drummer Crash (Jamie Sworski), he of the heavy eyeliner, pubic goatee, dog collar, UPC code tattoo and raging heroin problem. He even brings his junkie groupie of choice, Skat Kat (Tulsa-based director Darla Enlow), whose bobbing corpse attracts police suspicion. It’s enough to drive Carnal Fear’s MILFy manager (Dana Pike, The Last Trick or Treater) into a wine-swilling tizzy, what with their upcoming European tour and all.

Branded captures a special time in American culture. Not when men dressed like a nu-metal venereal disease (although there’s that), but when sales of DVDs rivaled that of smack, created a hunger for content that allowed homegrown Hitchcocks like Enlow to crank out their low-budget takes on the slasher. In her case, Branded comes sandwiched between Toe Tags and The Stitcher, and I’m all for her casting herself in each. Here, Enlow’s first line — spoken while rubbing her trashy lingerie-clad hindquarters against Crash’s crotch — is, “Hey, baby, up for a little sport fucking?” (He is, as am I.)

Speaking of speaking, screenwriter Gigi Phillips helps lift Branded above the fray with the gift of lively dialogue. As the Carnal Fear manager, Pike gets to deliver one memorable putdown (“You couldn’t follow the instructions on a cereal box”) after another (“I would’ve aborted you”). And this being shot on video in Oklahoma, every utterance of “told” is pronounced by Pike as “toad.”

Phillips doesn’t leave the boys empty-mouthed, either, especially when demonstrating the friction between band members. Mitch berates Crash for neglecting band duties, saying work is “a stretch in your vocabulary, since you probably never made it quite that far in the alphabet!” A livid Crash responds, “You’re right, muh-muh-Mitch! I only made it to the Ps: ‘party’ and ‘pussy!’ You should be so lucky!”

You know who also should be so lucky? The killer’s other victims, particularly the Carnal Fear fans at the bait shop. One of them (Angie Knowlton) makes the pink bikini sexier than it’s ever been since Heather Thomas, while her friend (Bonnie Stribling) gets a teddy bar duct-taped to her chest, because why the hell not. I wonder if that touch comes straight from the novel.

Yes, Branded is based on a novel — exactly whose, though, is a mystery tougher than crack than the killer’s identity, as the credits don’t credit anyone for it. —Rod Lott

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Basements were built for shelter and storing wine. But I suppose they’re good for caging humans, too, which is how Dr. Blackwood (Bill Greer) makes use of the space in the desert castle serving as his sanitarium. It’s where, amid other misdeeds, his ever-blinking hunchbacked assistant (Pierre Agostino, The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher) whips an underwear-clad cutie until her back resembles a bag of spilled Twizzlers.

With box walls that scream “magnet-school Shakespeare,” the castle doubles as the residence for Dr. Blackwood and his basically R-word sister (Lynne Marta, Blood Beach). Into this intermingling of mental illness and domestic bliss steps Diane, aka the new Mrs. Blackwood (Deedy Peters, channeling the confidence of Martha Raye in her Polident commercials).

Once she starts poking her nose into his bizness, her husband starts gaslighting her so she won’t notice the lady he sticks in a box with a snake. Or the guy he guillotines. Or the eye exam conducted via fireplace poker. And especially not the murders being committed by a cave monster, played by quick shots of red bicycle-handle streamers.

Meanwhile, from certain side angles, Dr. Blackwood’s hairline resembles the shape of a Southwestern or Midwestern state. I’m going with New Mexico.

Absolutely zero possession occurs in Help Me… I’m Possessed!, but I hardly care because then we would be denied that wonderful title. Although directed by Charles Nizet (The Ravager), this bargain-basement potboiler is written by the Blackwoods themselves, Peters and Greer, both way over their heads. At least their script goes out of its way to treat the mentally ill with respect rather than stereotype them … okay, yeah, I’m totally kidding there, as you can see.

A decade after playing this pic’s fire-and-brimstone physician who achieves a sexual thrill for decapitating a guy, Greer went on to produce more than 100 goddamn episodes of TV’s Charles in Charge. Shoulda quit while he was ahead. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.