While I have never been a fan of the Power Rangers — I was in high school during its original release and knew better — I went to a screening of the gritty remake a year or so ago, mostly disappointed and dismayed how they got rid of everything that made the original even remotely watchable: the bright colors, the cheap monsters and the generally jovial atmosphere.

As a matter of fact, when the Black Ranger shoved his sword into Rita Repulsa’s chest and said, “Eat Zord, space bitch!” I walked out of the theater in disgust.

But, settling in to watch the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, I was taken back to a time where I sat in the living room, agitated, trying to coerce my brother through bribes and threats into changing the channel to What’s Happening!! Youth truly is wasted on the young, isn’t it?

As the 1995 film starts, immediately we’re introduced to the fun teenage heroes — all in their signature Power Ranger colors, natch — about to skydive as a part of the Angel Grove Jump-a-Thon to benefit the observatory, which will probably come in to play later, right? (Oddly enough, the gang is jumping with the two local bullies, Skull and Bulk, who they’re always hanging out with, for some reason.) As the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ version of “Higher Ground” blasts on the soundtrack, rest assured we’re not in Fox Kids territory anymore, thank Zordon.

After landing at the drop point, they all immediately go rollerblading through a dangerous construction site, when, as they pass by, the hardhats find a mysterious sewer cover with a lion’s head on it; you know it’s something important because the operatic chorus unleashes an important swell in Latin. Instead of calling the experts at the local college to help them figure out what it is, the workers get a crane and open it themselves, unleashing a glowing purple egg.

A couple of the film’s monsters break the egg and unleash a 6,000-year-old demon named Ivan Ooze, who both resembles and acts like a tween-friendly version of notorious child murderer Freddy Krueger, right up to saying “Welcome … to my nightmare!” during a fight scene. Ready for war against the Power Rangers, Ooze launches an all-out early CGI-filled assault.

After a punch-up in a parking garage with the Ecto-Monsters (or whatever they’re called), the Power Rangers lose their super-ninja powers and, when their father figure Zordon lay dying, they decide to go to a distant planet that looks like the California desert to get said powers back. On that planet, a half-naked warrior woman named Dulcea shows up to help and gives its intended audience their first real erections.

The special effects are state-of-the-art (mostly terrible) computer graphics — Ivan Ooze and his liquidic sequences are ghastly even for a kids’ movie — but the Power Rangers themselves, here not replaced by their Japanese Super Sentai variations, remarkably, pull off some impressive fight moves that the children of the ’90s really didn’t deserve and probably didn’t know what to do with in the elementary school playground.

Regardless, it’s still far more watchable than the aforementioned reboot, Saban’s Power Rangers, but probably not as good as the official sequel, Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, I’m guessing. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

If you thought America has the market on dystopic futures mostly cornered, here’s White Chamber, a surprisingly non-YA tale of Great Britain under civil war (I think mostly because of Nigel Farage).

Waking up inside a white room (with, sadly, no black curtains), Dr. Elle Chrystler (Shauna Macdonald, The Descent) is slowly tortured by the mysterious room, which generously has the ability to heat up, freeze down and, gunkiest of all, drop acid for a sprinkler system. The man holding her hostage is apparently rebel leader Zakarian (Oded Fehr, 1999’s The Mummy), who we thought in the first few minutes of the film was a reputable leader of the people.

Then, surprise, the film backtracks five days and we learn that, originally, it was Zakarian who was the prisoner, with a whole team of scientists controlling the white chamber. They aren’t torturing him for fun and games — instead, they’re testing a wide variety of drugs to see what works and what doesn’t in order to create the latest and greatest of super-soldiers to make Britain safe for those who supported Brexit. Science!

As much as I like the idea of White Chamber, for the most part, it’s a little too repetitive given its two-room budget. We’re either in the chamber or the lab, making the film very rinse, torture and repeat for its own good. Additionally, it has a believability-pushing ending that almost made me feel like this might turn into a notorious comedy of manners, right down to the mistaken identities. Gorblimey, luv! —Louis Fowler

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If the Jeremy Renner vehicle Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters deserves scorn for anything, it’s for inadvertently encouraging the mockbuster Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft into existence. It’s so bad, you’ll want to shove yourself into an oven.

In this flaccid effort at a contemporized fairy tale, orphaned siblings Hansel and Gretel Jonah and Ella (real-life siblings Booboo and Fivel Stewart, respectively) are sent to an elite private school that turns out to be — bleached shades of Suspiria! — founded by witches. Although on the surface overseen by Mr. Sebastian (Eric Roberts, DOA: Dead or Alive), the institution is ruled by a secret society called The Circle, constituted of magic-makers and spell-casters who have gone on to be presidents, CEOs and other captains of industry. Hansel and Gretel Jonah and Ella are destined to join so they can help fight a character who is revealed to be an evil witch, but whose identity you would guess far before the reveal. (I say “would,” because I implore you to avoid watching.)

Bearing the production values of porn, the obviously rushed Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft aims for that teen-dream Twilight feel (a franchise being Booboo’s claim to fame) and succeeds, in that it is boring to the point of depression. The young Stewarts seem to be vying to out-not-act one another, and their bid is threatened by every young member among the compact, cost-efficient cast. Although leagues above in talent and screen appeal, Roberts, Vanessa Angel (Kingpin) and former Runaways vocalist Cherie Currie (Charles Band’s Parasite) can’t help but be tainted simply by association.

Not even on his best day would Daniel Day-Lewis be able to salvage such a stupid script by first-timer Larson Tretter (“Ella! I read in the paper you like pizza, right?”) or the lazy direction of the legendarily prolific David DeCoteau, whose bottom-drawer/bottom-dollar filmography includes Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, 1313: Giant Killer Bees! (exclamation his), and the cult curiosity A Talking Cat!?! (exclamations and question mark his). I know his budget for H&G:WOW had to be tight, but couldn’t he have grabbed three establishing shots of the campus instead of re-using the same one?!? —Rod Lott

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As the elderly ruler of a fictional Middle Eastern country, Amir (Reed Hadley, Zorro’s Fighting Legion), has a grand plan to beat his fast-approaching death — and, more importantly, the means to fund it: After his passing, he is to be wrapped in tin foil, be shipped to the United States and undergo secret surgery in which his brain will be transplanted into the body of a virile, strapping young lad. Amir’s scheme is quite ambitious; Al Adamson’s Brain of Blood is not.

Dr. Trenton (Kent Taylor, The Mighty Gorga) performs the illegal experiment, painstakingly protracted and presumably shown in real time. Although the doc has been blacklisted from every major medical institution, we know he is a legit cutter because of the anatomy skeleton and other science-class accoutrements in his laboratory. He’s just not the most ethical. When this mad scientist needs to “buy some time” to find that hot bod Amir desired, Dr. Trenton sticks the politician’s gooey gray matter into the nearest temporary brainpan: that of local simpleton Gor (John Bloom, Adamson’s Dracula vs. Frankenstein), a human can of Beefaroni whose face has been ravaged by redneck-poured battery acid. Sorry, Amir — consider your People’s Sexiest Man Alive dreams dashed.

As usual, Adamson’s wife, Regina Carrol (Blazing Stewardesses), all big breasts and mile-high hair, corrals the female lead. Playing Amir’s wife, she’s not thrilled with her hub’s new makeover; it’s a toss-up whether she has it worse than the women chained like pets in Trenton’s basement by his pint-sized assistant (Angelo Rossitto, 1947’s Scared to Death).

Everyone in the movie speaks with weird pauses, as if waiting for the cue cards to be turned (“There is no chance … for failure”), and the outdoor climax is filmed not unlike a high school play. In that scene, you’ll hear the words “That’s a very noisy little gadget you have there,” which double as a descriptor as good as any for Brain of Blood, an Adamson project so unmemorable, I didn’t realize until afterward that I had already seen it a decade ago, under the alternate title of The Oozing Skull. While we’re discussing titles, it’s worth mentioning that Brain of Blood often is believed to belong to the Blood Island franchise. Girl, it wishes it could be that good. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Two years before Journey 2: The Mysterious Island made a box-office splash, Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island did not. That’s the rosiest way to put it. While both films are very loose adaptations of Verne’s 1874 novel, this is the one nobody wanted or wants to see because it’s in the other one where The Rock bounces berries off his pecs — in 3-D!

In 1865, a Civil War unit led by Capt. Cyrus Harding (Lochlyn Munro, Freddy vs. Jason) hops into a hot-air balloon, hits a ripple in time, and crash-lands in today’s times on the title isle, which is now located in the Bermuda Triangle. The befuddled crew runs across the modern-day, resourceful beauty Julia Fogg (Gina Holden, Saw 3D: The Final Chapter) and her injured, airheaded sister, Abby (Susie Abromeit, Battle: Los Angeles).

Eventually, the girls tell the boys that, hey, they’re not in 19th-century Virginia anymore! Dialogue like this ensues:
• “What the heck’s a aeroplane?”
• “Colonel, you can’t seriously be listenin’ to a girl and a colored. They cain’t vote!”
• “What’s on yer face? It looks like you got Indian warpaint!”

There’s also a song that begins “‘Course I love yer biscuits / And your gravy, too,” but that’s beside the point.

Anyway, as these folks just wander about sandy beaches, the Syfy movie is kind of like the TV series Lost, but without the critical acclaim and massive fandom. In its place are invading pirates, killer bushes that growl like dogs, an active volcano and, as Capt. Harding puts it, “An octopus. A giant octopus.”

A turd. A giant turd. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.