Barry Hostetler Movies

Slow-paced and with mediocre acting, this family-oriented mystery story focuses on the search for a missing treasure and for answers to the disappearance of a young girl nearly a century earlier. Susan (Randi Brown) and her brother Johnny (David Wagner) are on vacation at their aunt's and uncle's house (Jane Ferguson and Greg Wynne) when they come across an old map that may be a clue in finding a cache of gold. Susan has been having bad dreams about Rachel, a young girl who disappeared in 1889 in a nearby mansion (now run-down and crumbling) when her parents were killed by bank robbers. After Susan and Johnny make friends with Billy (Lindsay Bishop) their neighbor, all three children join together to look for the treasure, and to find out what happened to Rachel. In one interlude, two escaped convicts menace the youngsters for awhile, but some clever action by their friend and neighbor Sam (Dallas McKennon) saves the day. Now all they have to do is find the answers to their two big questions -- where is the gold, and what happened to Rachel? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Schlockmeister Ted V. Mikels (The Corpse Grinders) produced this dreadful gross-out comedy featuring lots of bad actors consuming live worms onscreen. After the bouncy title rendition of "Nobody likes me/Everybody hates me/Guess I'll go eat worms," the viewer meets Herman Umgar (Herb Robins, who directed and scripted from Nancy Kapner's story), a worm-breeder with a club foot and a German accent. Umgar sneaks a worm-filled cake into a little girl's birthday party, causing the grossed-out guests to run around in sped-up comic style. Umgar's father was killed by his partner, the mayor's father, in 1939, but Umgar actually owns half the town and the mayor is determined to have the worm-breeder committed and take the town for himself. The first worm is eaten in a plate of spaghetti by a woman named Heidi, who turns into a half-worm mutant from the waist down for no apparent reason. Soon, Umgar has several mutants in a wire pen, gobbling like turkeys. The local lake turns red, and then three fishermen show up in Umgar's bedroom, explaining that they are part-worm and "live in peace under the red tide." They came to find mutant worm-women, and Umgar promises to make mates for them while attempting to maintain his land claim. By the time Umgar is force-fed a whole mouthful of worms and the mutants lead an attack on the mayor, the joke has worn off. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide