MOLE MEN AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (1964) ** ½

Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules was part of a series of Italian musclemen movies that were repackaged and redubbed by Avco Embassy Pictures who sold them directly to American TV as “Sons of Hercules” adventures.  This one stars Mark Forest as Maciste.  You might remember him from The Terror of Rome Against the Son of Hercules in which he also played the same character. 

As far as the Sons of Hercules go, Maciste is probably the best of them.  When most guys go fishing, they’re lucky if they catch a tuna.  This guy reels in a whale in the opening scene.

This time out, Maciste battles a race of albino warriors who live underground called Mole Men who get killed whenever they go out into the sun.  They sneak to the surface at night and kidnap villagers who are used as slaves in their underground lair.  Maciste rescues Bangor (Paul Wynter) from their clutches, then decides to get recaptured so he can save the villagers.  Naturally, the evil queen (Moira Orfei) who lords over the Mole Men falls for Maciste.

Forest is solid in the lead.  He’s nothing special or anything, but he gets the job done.  Orfei is a feast for the eyes though.  She is a busty beauty who makes for an ideal evil queen who dresses like a Vegas showgirl after a three-day bender.  Wynter also does a fine job as his sidekick Bangor.  Speaking of which, as always in these movies, the “Sons of Hercules” theme song is a real banger. 

The highlight of the silliness comes when Maciste battles an ape man in a cage match for the hand of the queen in marriage.  The monster is equal parts awful and awesome as it resembles Trog on steroids.  Another good scene comes when the queen hooks Maciste to a contraption that looks like a cross between a torture rack and a home gym and makes him lift weights until he croaks (which of course, he doesn’t). 

Mole Men Against the Sons of Hercules works in fits and starts, but the weak finale kind of prevents it from garnering a *** rating.  Still, it remains mildly amusing for fans of this sort of stuff.  One thing of note is the dubbing pronounces our hero’s name as more of “Majest-is” rather than the traditional “My-cheesesteak”, which probably won’t matter to the casual viewer.  For folks like me who’ve seen at least a half dozen or so of these things, it’ll feel strange. 

AKA:  Maciste and the Night Queen.  AKA:  The Strongest Man in the World.  AKA:  Mole Men vs. the Son of Hercules.

THE BOUNCER (2019) ** ½

Jean-Claude Van Damme stars a bouncer and single father who’s just trying to make ends meet.  A cop approaches him to narc on the owner of the club, who is obviously into some shady shit.  Pretty soon, his boss has him running “errands”, and he quickly works up the ranks and becomes his bodyguard.  Van Damme eventually learns the hard way the criminals are more trustworthy than the police. 

The Bouncer is an ideal kind of vehicle for Van Damme at this stage of his career as it allows him to flex both his fighting and acting muscles in equal measure.  He does a lot with a little as he relies less on dialogue (which is quite sparse) and more on his weary reactions to the predicaments he finds himself involved in.  I think this is definitely the kind of role Van Damme should be taking nowadays.  His performance is easily the best thing about the movie, and one only wishes the script was a bit tighter.  It’s also unfortunate that no one else in the cast even comes close to matching the level of his performance. 

In terms of action, the film is a bit of a mixed bag.  The highpoint is the scene where Van Damme interviews for a bouncing job.  All the applicants must fight each other in all-out brawl, with the last man standing receiving the job.  One or two more sequences of this caliber would’ve easily put this into *** territory.  It’s just a shame the car chases and shootouts weren’t done with the same kind of flair.  

Director Julien Leclercq favors long handheld tracking shots from behind Van Damme, which gives it a gritty feel of an independent movie.  By doing so, it winds up having a foot in both the independent drama and the DTV action worlds.  It ultimately never quite figures out which way it wants to lean.  Because of that, the film doesn’t ever really catch fire, despite the spark Van Damme brings to the role.  That said, The Bouncer remains a solid effort, all things considered. 

AKA:  Lukas.

THE “HUMAN” FACTOR (1975) **

George Kennedy stars as a family man working as a computer analyst for the American military in Italy.  One night he comes home to find his wife and kids brutally murdered.  He then uses the military’s state-of-the-art computer equipment (well, for the ‘70s anyway) to track down the killers.  Kennedy eventually pinpoints the culprits to a terrorist organization and sets out to get even. 

The “Human” Factor was the final film for director Edward (The Caine Mutiny) Dmytryk.  He’s an Old Hollywood kind of director, so his style doesn’t really mesh with a ‘70s thriller.  I mean this might contain the only car chase scene in history where the hero actually stops at a red light.  To be fair, even the best action director would’ve had a difficult time making a foot chase with the slow and husky Kennedy exciting.  The grocery store shootout in the finale is pretty badass though, but it’s ultimately too little too late. 

This must’ve been really high-tech stuff back in the ‘70s, but watching it now is a different story.  The long scenes of George hooking up his computer to a phone line and frittering away at his keyboard really bog things down.  Some may get a tinge of nostalgia for all the antiquated computer technology on display.  Those hoping for a legit thriller are going to be shifting in their seats. 

Not to mention the fact that Kennedy is sorely miscast in the lead.  I mean when you think “computer analyst”, big George isn’t exactly the first guy who comes to mind.  Another problem is the fact he spends too much time at the keyboard and not enough time kicking ass.  It’s also a little unfortunate that Kennedy’s high-tech computer is called “9/11”.  The supporting cast, which includes John Mills as Kennedy’s coworker and friend and Arthur (Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man) Franz as a general, is solid though. 

SCREAM 7 (2026) ***

Ghost Face(s) is on the loose once again.  This time they come after not only the O.G. Final Girl of the series, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) but her teenage daughter Tatum (Isabel May) as well.  Making it even harder to unmask the killers is the fact that they hide their identities behind AI technology. 

It took a while for me to get around to seeing Scream 7.  The early reviews were toxic, which was surprising, especially considering the fact that they brought Neve back to the franchise.  Maybe it was the low expectations, but I thought this was one of the best entries in the series. 

Maybe the hate was centered around the killers’ use of AI.  I know it’s low hanging fruit, but I thought it was implemented well enough.  I mean Ghost Face has always hidden behind a voice modulator.  Hiding his face behind AI that alters his appearance on Face Time calls just feels like the next step in the technological order. 

Having original screenwriter Kevin Williamson back to not only co-write the script, but direct was a no-brainer.  I’m actually surprised it took them so long to bring him back to the franchise.  He does a fine job behind the camera and delivers some solid suspense sequences.  The opening set piece (set at the original Scream house, which has been retrofitted into an Airbnb) gets the movie off to a strong start.  We also get fun stalk and slash scenes in a theater, behind a wall, and in a tavern.  Williamson also ups the gore too and gives us at least one applause worthy death that plays like a riff on the famous kill from My Bloody Valentine. 

The thing that makes the film work is that Sidney is once again front and center where she belongs.  It’s a nice change of pace from all that “passing the torch” crap they have been trying to sell us for the past few entries.  Just give her a daughter who’s a chip of the old block and have them kick Ghost Face’s butt together.  Williamson keeps it simple and the results are damned entertaining, especially for a seventh entry in a long running slasher series. 

OBLIVION (1994) ***

Longtime Incredible Hulk scribe Peter David wrote this low budget Sci-Fi western for Full Moon.  It’s got a great cast, some genuine laughs, and moves at a breezy pace.  It’s definitely one of the company’s better mid-'90s efforts. 

Andrew Divoff is Redeye, a snake-faced outlaw who takes over the titular futuristic Wild West town and kills the sheriff.  His son Zack (Richard Joseph Paul) comes to town, but since he’s an empath, he refuses to get involved.  Once Redeye and his gang take the pretty Miss Mattie (Jackie Swanson) hostage, Zach sets aside his nonviolent ways to kick some alien ass. 

Directed by Sam (Elvira’s Haunted Hills) Irvin, Oblivion is a rip-roaring good time.  The only fault I could find with his direction was that he goes a bit overboard with the slow-motion in some scenes.   It would’ve been different if he was doing a homage to Spaghetti Westerns or something, but it just seems like a way to draw out the action.  However, that’s just a minor drawback, all things considered. 

David’s script isn’t exactly “smart” but it is pretty clever.  I enjoyed the “futuristic” touches like a Wild West town having an ATM and the cowboys playing handheld video poker.  The funniest scene is when a somber funeral is interrupted by a bingo game in the next room.  The fun giant scorpion stop motion monsters by David Allen are cool too. 

The leads aren’t as good as the supporting cast but that’s perfectly acceptable, especially when everyone seems to be having a ball. Julie Newmar is a hoot as Miss Kitty, the madam of a brothel who still purrs like she’s playing Catwoman.  We also have Carel (Twin Peaks) Struycken as a psychic undertaker, Musetta Vander (who kind of resembles a Great Value Ornella Muti) as Divoff’s whip wielding dominatrix cowgirl sidekick, Meg Foster as a cyborg deputy, Star Trek’s George Takei as the town drunk, and Isaac Hayes as a trader. 

David’s script has plenty of solid one-liners too. One of my favorites came when Divoff told his slow-witted henchman, “I have hemorrhoids smarter than you!”  It’s Takei who gets the best line in the scene where he gets drunk on Jim Beam and says, “Jim, beam me up!”

AKA:  Aliens and Desperados.  AKA:  Alien Desperados.  AKA:  Welcome to Oblivion. 

ULTRAMAN: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS (1987) **

Hanna-Barbera teamed up with Tsuburaya Productions for this cartoon adaptation of the beloved Japanese superhero Ultraman for American audiences.  It’s kind of ho-hum, and it suffers from some needlessly Americanized aspects.  Still, Ultraman completists will want to check it out.

Three stunt pilots have a near death experience and are saved by aliens who fuse with their bodies to make them Ultramen.  Meanwhile, monsters from a distant nebula fall to Earth hidden inside of asteroids.  The pilots eventually embrace their new powers by doing battle with a plant monster in New Orleans, a robotic lizard in San Francisco, a clumsy dinosaur in Utah, and finally a monster that grows at an exponential rate in New York. 

Even though the film is from Hanna-Barbera, the animation itself looks closer to a typical Japanese anime.  It is kind of neat seeing the Japanese mythology tweaked for US audiences, as is the way they make use of American iconography.  (Ultraman bases are hidden inside of golf courses and Mount Rushmore.)  However, the Americanization takes away some of the uniquely Japanese aspects of the source material and as a consequence, it feels more like a watered-down imitation.  In an effort to make something more accessible, the producers have wound up making it more generic. 

The brash pilots (voiced by Michael Lembeck, Chad Everett, and Adrienne Barbeau) aren’t really endearing (I think Top Gun was a major influence here) and their comic relief robot companions are pretty annoying too.  Also, even though this was intended as a feature length standalone movie, it still feels like a bunch of episodes strung together, thanks to the fractured narrative.  That said, Ultraman:  The Adventure Begins is essentially a goofy cartoon meant for kids and maybe a dude in his forties shouldn’t be over-analyzing every little detail of it. 

AKA:  Ultraman:  USA.

ALL MEN ARE BROTHERS: BLOOD OF THE LEOPARD (1993) *** ½

Lin Chung (Tony Ka Fai Leung) is a benevolent soldier and Kung Fu expert.  His beautiful wife (Joey Wang) catches the eye of a sleazy lowlife who also happens to be the pampered son of a high ranking general.  Meanwhile, Lin Chung befriends an obnoxious but knowledgeable Kung Fu monk named Ru (Elvis Tsui) and the pair becomes inseparable.  After Chung is framed for an attempted assassination, he is punished and sent to the front line of battle.  While he is away, his wife is killed by her stalker.  Naturally, Chung and Ru go out for revenge. 

Based on the Chinese classic, The Water Margin (which had been filmed many times before), this ‘90s version of the historical Kung Fu epic has a little something for everybody.  There’s romance, comedy, drama, and of course, lots of action.  The various sword fights and Kung Fu battles are handled with a lot of pizzazz and feature some impressive and frenetic wirework.  We even get a couple of brief (but choice) gory moments as there is at least one memorable beheading scene and one semi-comic bit in which a guy is cut in half lengthwise. 

The dynamic between Ru, Ching, and his wife is what sets All Men are Brothers apart from similar action epics of the era.  There's a funny scene where the monk spends the night at our hero’s house and has a quiet Kung Fu duel with his host, so they won’t wake up his wife.  Her reactions aren’t too different from a wife who has to put up with her husband and his best drinking buddy.  Except instead of pounding cans of Budweiser, these guys just Kung Fu one another at all hours of the night.  Tsui gets some solid laughs as Ru and together with Leung, they make an amusing team.  Their camaraderie and chemistry helps make this one a real winner. 

AKA:  The Water Margin:  The True Colors of Heroes.  AKA:  The True Colors of a Hero.  AKA:  Waterside Story:  Heroic Character.