A movie like Rock ’n’ Roll High School — one of my favorites and with an awesome Ramones soundtrack — should have a riff-blowing sequel. Should have.

See, when I noticed Rock ’n’ Roll School High Forever at my video store in the early ’90s, I was quite ecstatic and, of course, I rented it. And watched it.

And became visibly sick.

My preconceived notions rubbed out like a GPC cigarette on the wet pavement, I took the tape from the VCR — being nether kind nor rewinding, natch — and dumped it back into the shop’s return box, thoroughly disgusted at what I’d seen.

Thirty-plus years later, the sequel is one of the bonus features on the original film’s 45th anniversary edition in 4K Ultra HD (my 10th time to buy the movie). I popped in the disc and, like a fetid stream of A/V puke, once again dropped out of Rock ’n’ Roll School High Forever.

It starts out somewhat promising, with the re-named Ronald Reagan High School and various teenagers plotting a PG-13 rock ’n’ roll insurrection. But as once-popular star Corey Feldman turns directly to the camera and sneers, “Are you ready to rock and roll?,” I guess we’re not ready at all.

Instead, in his standard and strange Michael Jackson mimicry, Corey overflows the school toilets and tears off the skirt of a comely student, all as the title theme by The Pursuit of Happiness (whoever they are) warbles on the soundtrack. Ha-ha?

The plot, as it stands, is about Corey and his “band,” The Eradicators, trying to play their substandard covers of Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” and Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin’” at the school dance. Meanwhile, the school gets a new vice principal in Miss Togar Dr. Vadar, reprised (?) by Mary Woronov. To be sure, she rules with an iron fist — and a robotic hand on her left.

With needless help from the apparent heir of illustrious scrounger Eaglebauer (no relation to Clint Howard) and the Spirit of Rock ’n’ Roll (Mojo Nixon in a low-budget fantasy sequence), Corey and bad company crash the prom. Utilizing dated sequences from the first movie, they take Togar Vadar down and burn down the school.

By the time the credits roll, it’s apparent that rock, finally, is dead.

With the combined failed efforts of director Deborah Brock (Slumber Party Massacre II), whichever distribution outfit Roger Corman had at the time and the sheer ugliness straight-to-video movies at the time were going for, Forever remains was an unmitigated disasterpiece. With Feldman on the soundtrack, the deceased Ramones are defiantly spinning in their graves. Gabba gabba nay. —Louis Fowler

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As punishment for a graffiti-related arrest, community college slacker Raphael is sent to live with his drug-dealing cousin. And an overzealous cop demands Raphael provide intel on his cuz, believed to be stashing and selling plutonium warheads. 

Meanwhile, around Fresno, Texas, the FBI investigates a string of disembodied hands turning up. That these federal agents — and everyone else in Rats! — mispronounce the mitts as “haunds” with no explanation should clue you in to the movie’s peculiar wavelength. 

And if it doesn’t, sit tight for a toilet POV shot you won’t soon forget. That’ll do it. 

The debut feature for co-directors/co-writers Carl Fry and Maxwell Nalevansky, Rats! immediately distinguishes itself as a sharp celebration of bad taste. A slightly less transgressive The Greasy Strangler by way of Greener Grass, it’s very, very funny and really, really not for everyone. Its Barbie-bright colors belie the darkness of its gags, many of which hit with the blunt force surreality of a PTSD episode.  

For his first movie, newcomer Luke Wilcox lucks into the lead role of Raphael, but he’s essentially the straight man in an unknown cast of curves and zigzags. The most askew among them is the aforementioned cop, played with go-for-broke gusto by Danielle Evon Ploeger (2022’s Country Gold). Darius Autry (The Asylum’s Jungle Run) greatly amuses as the cousin, while Jacob Wysocki (Unfriended) is responsible for at least a dozen laughs in the first five minutes alone as an ineffective shoplifter.

But speaking of theft, this show gets stolen by burlesque artist Ariel Ash and Brian Villalobos (Scare Package) as, respectively, a sex bomb and henpecked husband who cosplay as a TV news team, hoping to nab on-the-scene exclusives regarding the suburban absurdity unfolding around them. And brother, does Rats! ever scurry up more than plenty, haunds down. —Rod Lott

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In 1977, John Waters released the filthy Desperate Living, one of his most underrated features and, to be sure, one of his best. On the other hand, famed pop artist Andy Warhol’s film editor Jed Johnson directed his own filthy ditty, Andy Warhol’s Bad, and, true to its name, it really wasn’t very good.

In fact, it’s Bad.

Sure, Bad had the Waters vibe of the Baltimore suburban dystopia, all played for full belly snorts and unrushed chortles, but Waters’ own artistry and persona made all his films so unique. At times, his amateurish bravado made his films better.

Bad has none of that. Sure, Johnson had the low-class substrata, the skid-marked panties and a brutally nasty tone, but unlike Waters’ work, Johnson’s film doesn’t have the well-oiled crotch or the well-timed heart. Just a bunch of people acting like assholes.

Starting with the boozy theme song courtesy of blues musician Mike Bloomfield, the movie starts with an overflowing public toilet and, sadly, doesn’t get better. Drifter L.T. (a pre-Riptide Perry King) gets in the murder-for-hire business for downbeat electrolysis pimp Hazel (Carroll Baker, 1978’s Cyclone). L.T.’s a sleazy dude who struts around waiting for the phone while stealing from his landlord as she puts broken glass on the floor for him to step on.

Waiting for the call, he encounters all the women in Hazel’s service, including an oversexed Italian ice queen; Hazel’s undersexed, long-suffering welfare daughter (Susan Tyrrell, Avenging Angel); and a pair of sisters who are psycho-sexual arsonists and stab a dog in the street.

It all culminates when not only does L.T. strikes an autistic child many times on his job, but when a woman throws a screaming child out the window that, of course, causes it to splat on the street, all for comedy … right?

I am all for the blackest comedy around — seriously! — but you need to have even slight tittering somewhere in there, even for the most uncomfortable jokes. Instead, Warhol and company thought they were woefully posturing around the New York art scene, yet they were the only audience for it. It’s sad this could have been something but when a bad joke isn’t a joke at all, it becomes a tarnished insult.

The direction is bad, the script is bad, the performances are bad and, worst, the comedy is bad. At least Paul Morrissey could set up a camera and a joke. —Louis Fowler

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What kills so many monster movies today is cheap CGI. The further down a film sits from that line item on a Steven Spielberg production, the less convincing the creature. In the low-budget world, the effects can be so bad, you wonder why anyone bothered, from the makers to the viewers.

The Invisible Raptor gets around this by, well, making its titular dinosaur unseen. For a good chunk of the pic, the prehistoric beast is represented by a Mylar helium balloon tugged by its string. Because Mike Hermosa’s movie is an out-and-out comedy, that trick works — like the proverbial charm, actually.

Escaping from the lab that created it, the indiscernible apex predator embarks a killing spree. Only downtrodden paleontologist Dr. Grant Walker (Bachelor Party Massacre’s Mike Capes) recognizes the carnage as the works of a raptor. He also recognizes a chance at redemption from his humiliating daily job: teaching kids about fossilized feces at a dino theme park. And, in the process, if he can win back the heart of his former girlfriend (Caitlin McHugh Stamos, Random Tropical Paradise), newly divorced, that’s a bonus.

I was fully prepared to abhor this based on title alone. Yet I wasn’t at all prepared for something so more-than-intermittently clever, it’s kind of ingenious. (Had Capes and co-writer Johnny Wickham stuck to one “butthole” joke, I doubt “kind of” would remain part of the previous sentence.)

Although not a true spoof, The Invisible Raptor is engineered as a gentle Jurassic Park parody steeped in reverence for other Spielberg milestones (Jaws, E.T., Gremlins) and popcorn actioners of the 1980s (Rambo, Predator, The Terminator, et al.). Thus, it’s no accident they recruited Goonies leader Sean Astin for an extended cameo and top billing.

You’ll quickly forget he’s in it because Raptor roars to life on the combined comedic strength of Capes, Stamos and David Shackleford (Vacancy 2: The First Cut) as the park’s redneck security guard. Oh, and some really dark, really funny gags at the expense of kids’ feelings and dead people. —Rod Lott

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For a movie about stand-up comedians, not to mention from a frequent Mel Brooks collaborator, The Funny Farm is stunningly unfunny. Ron Clark’s Farm withers in such a laughter drought, Willie Nelson could stage a benefit concert. It’s also not to be confused with the 1988 Chevy Chase vehicle Funny Farm, but should you accidentally stumble on that instead of this, good on you.

Our alleged protagonist, 20-year-old Mark (Miles Chapin, French Postcards), leaves home to chase fame and fortune in the titular L.A. comedy club. Actually shot in Canada, the pic never lets you forget his Midwest origins. Like a frickin’ psychopath, the beady-eyed Mark approaches strangers throughout the film with an extended hand and a hearty “Mark Champlin! Cleveland, Ohio!” On the street, in parking lots, inside places of business, he does this to everybody. Honestly, he’d be more effective selling Amway than trying his hand at the mic. 

You’ll find him annoying as soon as he unleashes his Groucho Marx impression with no warning, invisible cigar and all; this happens in the first true scene. That dislike will increase with each groaner that passes his lips: “You’ve heard of Best Western? I’m at Worst Western!” By the time he charms the club’s clumsy waitress (Tracey E. Bregman, Happy Birthday to Me) into bed with the words “boppo sock ’em,” you may want to die.

Because The Funny Farm thinks itself to be a ribald bundle of high jinks, it needs a villain. That falls to Private Benjamin’s Eileen Brennan as the tight-fisted club manager. Assumedly a Mitzi Shore analogue, she’s (mis)treated as an ersatz Dean Wormer. On and off the Funny Farm stage, we’re asked to root for its roster of comics, including Howie Mandel, Peter Aykroyd and Maurice LaMarche, yet none of them are funny. Worse, these guys are never not performing. They won’t shut up.

Undaunted, Clark leans hard on showcasing their sets at length because he’s got to will this thing into theaters. Several bits he chooses to spotlight had to smell past their expiration date even at the time, from Richard Nixon and Howard Cosell to Fantasy Island and Midnight Express. Nonetheless, constant cutaways to Mark’s amazed mug try to convince us the punchlines are golden. What they really are is something of a horror show, befitting of producer Pierre David, the money man behind the Scanners franchise. —Rod Lott

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