Writers Dennis Paoli and Stuart Gordon (the minds behind Re-Animator, From Beyond, and Castle Freak) tap into a very common fear and never miss an opportunity to make the audience squirm. It’s hard to believe that the dentist’s office was basically uncharted territory for the horror genre in 1996; prior to Yuzna‘s film, the screen hadn’t really seen too many fiendish dentists outside of Little Shop of Horrors and Marathon Man. Perhaps it was an oversight, or maybe people just felt that no one would care to see an entire film about a dentist inflicting pain with all manner of shiny, poky things. It seems that Junior and his buddies (one of whom is the town sheriff) don’t care much for independent, attractive women running businesses and frequently sunbathing in the nude. Thoroughly cheap and dingy, Junior can never seem to decide if it’s a gritty revenge tale, a horror picture, or soft-core sleaze, so what we get is a unwieldy hybrid of all three. As with many genre films of the era, it’s very much of it’s time, with references to aerobics, pro-wrestling, and extreme dieting. As is often the case, this dated quality adds immensely to the overall level of enjoyment. Blood Diner buzzes with relentless energy and holds surprises for even the most jaded of viewers; quite jarringly, the Tutman brothers are depicted at one point wielding automatic weapons while wearing Ronald Reagan masks (the use of guns in a movie like this is unusual). Kong displays no sense of restraint or subtlety, no hesitance to go all out. Her picture is frequently quite funny, too: unlike countless horror-comedies, a large number of gags in Blood Diner earn genuine laughter.

This is a… special film; a mentally handicapped approximation of a slasher. It’s the kind of movie you would see during weekend runs to the local mom & pop video store and think, “Damn, that big box art looks sweet and with a title like that it has to be gold!” And, really, if you watched this at any age under 17 it probably was. I will say there are bad movies that are just horrid through and through; Microwave Massacre at the very least has the luxury of being awfully entertaining in an oddly endearing sort of way. Finally, mercifully, the movie finally ends. It does so suddenly and with no real sense of resolution. Still, for those who have made it this far, none is really needed…just a cessation of suffering is enough. It is at this point that the oddest thing happens. The movie actually gets a bit clever WITH THE CREDITS! Listed as a producer, Turner’s exact duties on Howling IV remain unclear (like virtually everything in the man’s life). Hough was convinced that Turner regularly faxed script re-writes to the set under the pseudonym Freddie Rowe. The first installment to go straight-to-video, IV was easily the worst in the series to date, yet it failed to derail the Howling train. I’d also like to hear old Piedras Blancas stories from Wayne, who acted in the movie. He played a kid scared to death of the monster seen toting decapitated heads up and down main street. What ‘monster kid’ wouldn’t like that on their resume? Claims To Fame are where you find them.

The only movie on this list to rival The Meateater in terms of sheer ineptitude, Howling VII doesn’t feel like a film that was written, storyboarded, and rehearsed but rather like an extended goof, like we’re watching a bunch of grown people playing “Let’s Make A Movie” over the course of one long weekend. New Moon Rising is an astonishingly bad motion picture. The late, great Vernon appears very “out of it” for the duration (he’s almost certainly drunk). There are segments where he barely seems to know what’s going on, and his speech is constantly slurred. So many flubbed lines made it into Microwave Massacre that it has to set some kind of record (“I don’t remember leaving a wake-up hangover”…?). Art direction was provided by Robert A. Burns, a flat-out genius who built all the props used in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre; his color palette here is bright, garish. And yet the movie has a certain charm for fans of really bad films. You get the impression that the people behind it were really trying to make something but didn't possess the skill or talent to pull it off. When you watch the extras you get a glimpse into those people and what they thought about the movie they were making at the time.

The Howling series lasted far longer than anyone could have expected. Joe Dante’s 1980 original led to Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf, which was written and directed by French-born artist Philippe Mora; Mora then returned to helm Howling III: The Marsupials. Four years passed before Mr. Turner re-emerged with The Howling: New Moon Rising, and he entered with both guns blazing. In addition to taking the lead role, Clive wrote, directed, produced, and edited the seventh entry. Rarely have you seen these tasks performed so poorly. The jokes are so unfocused that misogyny comes to mind only as an afterthought. When Donald visits his doctor and confesses to only enjoying a woman if he eats her, the doctor naturally assumes that he’s talking about oral sex. The delivery is so flat that smiles are out of the question. Things never get wild enough to take us into ‘how far can this go?’ territory. The screenplay instead references the disclaimer that came with early microwave ovens, which were reputed to be dangerous for people with pacemakers. When the end titles roll up, they’re presented in the style of a menu at a French restaurant. The little in-jokes in the credit scroll are cleverer than anything in the movie. Our hero, such as he is, comes home and loses his temper about all the bad meals and ends up killing his wife. He doesn't remember any of it the next morning as he has a big hangover. He starts cutting up his wife's body and rolling it in foil. Once he accidentally eats some, he learns how delicious she is. And oh yeah, her head is still alive.MICROWAVE MASSACRE is a film that I truly, truly hated the first time I watched it. The question would be why I bothered giving it a second chance but there's no question that it played out much better this time because it's smart to go into it not expecting too much and certainly not expecting some sort of graphic horror movie. In the film, a drunk middle-aged man kills his wife during an argument. After eating part of his wife's hand, he acquires a taste for human flesh. He seeks further victims to cannibalize. The killer ignores problems with his pacemaker until they prove fatal. Welcome to Beat the Algorithm , a recurring column dedicated to providing you with relevant and diverse streaming recommendations based on your favorite movies. This time, we’re recommending movies like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise.