A CERTAIN JUSTICE (2014) **

Cung Le stars as a soldier with PTSD who accidentally kills three men roughing up a hooker (Briana Evigan).  Her pimp (Dolph Lundgren) lashes out by burning Le’s family alive.  Enraged, Le sets his sights on bringing Dolph’s operation down.

The first fifteen minutes look like they were chopped up in a blender and edited with a hot glue gun.  It’s hard to make heads or tails what's going on half the time.  I don't know if directors Giorgio Serafini and James Coyne were trying to put us in Le’s PTSD mindset or what, but it's damned irritating.  

Things improve when Dolph arrives on the scene.  He's great as the scary, soft spoken, and manipulative pimp.  While the movie is decidedly less than stellar, Dolph still manages to do some genuinely interesting character work.  He’s especially despicable when telling Evigan the harsh truth about their relationship.  Although his fight scenes leave something to be desired, he does get a decent shirtless training sequence.

A Certain Justice is generally more meanspirited and unpleasant than most of its ilk.  That doesn’t necessarily make it better.  Even though the beginning is poorly executed, the camerawork, editing, and action gets better as it goes along.  I can’t say it’s “good”, but it’s about on par with your average DTV actioner.  

It does lose points for the dumb ending.  I mean Dolph has Cung tied up and on his knees with a gun to his head.  All he had to do was pull the trigger.  Naturally, his stupid flunky wants a piece of him, so Dolph unties him so they can fight.  Predictably, Cung schools him, which leads to the big Le vs. Lundgren finale.  

AKA:  Puncture Wounds.  AKA:  Lethal Punisher.  AKA:  Lethal Punisher:  Kill or be Killed.

JIM AND ANDY: THE GREAT BEYOND (2017) ****

Milos Forman’s Man on the Moon is one of the most unsung dramas in recent memory.  If anything, I hope Jim and Andy:  The Great Beyond will give viewers a chance to go back and rediscover that wonderful film.  If you ever wanted to know how Jim Carrey transformed himself into Andy Kaufman, look no further.  This is a fascinating documentary of Carrey's Method acting.  By staying in character throughout the entire shoot, it caused friction behind the scenes between him and members of the crew.  It would've been one thing if Carrey had been playing an ordinary guy.  Andy Kaufman was anything but.

The film is essentially comprised of Carrey reminiscing about the filming while we see behind the scenes footage of him running wild on set.  We’re not talking about any old “making of” documentary either.  This is some unprecedented stuff.  It’s intimate, personal, and challenging, which helps to blur the line between real and reel.  

Take for example how Jim, as Andy, mercilessly taunts wrestler Jerry “The King” Lawler.  Even when Lawler confides that in real life, he and Andy were good friends and had a respectful relationship, Jim refuses to back down, which causes tension in between takes.  Finally, they come to blows and Carrey has to be taken out by ambulance.  

The funniest moments come when Carrey is dressed up as Kaufman’s aggressive, insulting alter ego, Tony Clifton.  The scene where he busts in to Amblin’s offices demanding to see Steven Spielberg is a riot.  Even better is the part when Clifton crashes a party at the Playboy Mansion.  I’d like to think somewhere Kaufman was smiling.

Even though Carrey’s dedication to his craft ruffled some feathers, it had an oddly healing effect for some of Kaufman’s family members.  Carrey interacted with them as if he was the real Andy; giving them all a sense of closure.  Like Kaufman’s work, there’s a bit of heart to go along with the madness.

Carrey himself proves to be a fascinating interview subject.  He is shockingly honest and forthright and offers a lot of insight into his career and personal life.  Even if you’re a casual fan of either man, you really owe it to yourself to check this out.  It’s one of the best documentaries of the year.

AKA:  Jim and Andy:  The Great Beyond:  Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton.  

CITY RATS (1986) **

A guy takes his kid to the amusement park and afterwards, while getting a snack from a roadside stand, an undercover cop hits the boy with his car.  Since the cop is well-connected, no charges are filed.  Outraged, the father slugs him and winds up going to jail for a long time.  Meanwhile, his now homeless kid joins up with a bunch of sewer-dwelling killer children who roam the streets in packs and stab hapless passersby for their money.  When his father is released from prison, he sets out to find his long-lost son.

This is a really weird movie.  It partly plays like a killer kid movie while another aspect tackles the corrupt Mexican police and prison systems.  Don’t be fooled by the fact that this flick makes your typical Mexican prison look like an ordinary parking garage.  Looks can be deceiving, especially when said prison is filled with guards who can’t wait to hook car batteries up to your gonads. 

The scenes where the killer sewer-dwelling children accost and murder innocent people are hit-and-miss.  Luckily, there are plenty of explosions in the third act to keep you awake.  When something blows up, it blows up good.  Unfortunately, the sound was so poor that most of the dialogue is unintelligible. I'm willing to give it a mulligan though based on the explosions alone.  Even then, you have to put up with a lot of long, dull stretches in between the good stuff.

SAVAGE DOG (2017) ***

Scott Adkins is a prisoner in ‘50s Indochina who fights in jungle boxing matches for the warden’s amusement.  When he is paroled, he goes to work at Keith David’s bar as a bouncer.  Eventually, he gets roped back into fighting for money.  When David loses a bet, the thugs kill him and take his bar.  They also come THIS CLOSE to killing Adkins’ girlfriend.  That of course sends Scott on a bloody warpath for revenge.

From the outset, there’s nothing really remarkable about Jesse V. Johnson’s Savage Dog.  I mean you’ve seen this type of scenario played out hundreds of times before and Johnson does little to distinguish it from the various other actioners.  The first half is unimaginatively ordinary in just about every way and I found myself sinking into my seat in dismay at around the halfway mark.

That all changed once Adkins rose from his grave and set out to get revenge.  It’s here where Savage Dog turns into something truly special. The scene where Adkins hacks off a guy's head with a machete, strolls into a bar, and nonchalantly places the head on the bar is some of the best badass acting he's ever done. From then on, things get even gorier. Hands are lopped off and faces get blown off in a hail of gunfire and grenade shrapnel. 

By the time Adkins ditches the machete in favor of his fists, things really get into gear.  The scene where Adkins goes toe to toe with Cung Le is solid, but the finale where Scott squares off against Marko Zaror is incredible.  I was literally standing and cheering by the end.  This fight might be even better than their brawl in Undisputed 3, which is about as high of praise as one can get.

So, if you can get past the first forty-five minutes, you'll be treated to some kickass fun.  Even the usually magnetic Keith has trouble carrying the clunky first half.  Just stay with it though.  Once Savage Dog gets savage, it’s savage af.

MY SUCKY TEEN ROMANCE (2011) **

A bunch of dorky teens gather at a science fiction convention.  Paul (Patrick Delgado) is a meek grocery store clerk who was recently bitten by a vampire.  He thinks the convention will be the perfect place to blend in while he waits to bite his first potential victim.  Paul meets the adorkable Kate (Elaine Hurt) and they instantly hit it off.  When he leans in for a goodnight kiss, he accidentally bites her on the neck.  (Awkward!)  Kate then calls on her geeky friends, who are all fans of horror movies, to help her find a way to reverse her vampire curse.

My Sucky Teen Romance makes a lot of easy jokes at Twilight’s expense.  It also takes a lot of jabs at geek culture and the sci-fi convention set.  These aren’t exactly pointed observations to be sure, and they aren’t especially funny either.

All of this was done on an obviously low budget with a lot of non-professionals, which is admirable I guess.  However, the convention scenes suffer from the small budget as it looks more like a birthday party than a sci-fi convention.  The amateurish special effects also hinder the horror aspects of the story, making it feel cheap and sloppy.  I could’ve also done without the Scott Pilgrimesque video game sequences.

The actors do what they can, but they just aren’t quite strong enough to carry the film.  It doesn’t help when they are stuck playing cliched nerdy characters.  Seeing disgraced Ain’t It Cool News founder Harry Knowles turning up as a so-called vampire expert who calls bloodsuckers “sexy things that are predatory” is a bit odd too.

Hurt gets the best line of the movie when she sums up why she can’t talk to guys:  “Bad things happen when I say words.”

JACK’S BACK (1988) ***

Rowdy Herrington made this a year before his magnum opus Road House.  It’s a twisty little thriller that relies on springing several surprises on the audience, most of which occur before the end of the first act.  Because of that, giving a plot description is a bit of a precarious task.  Just know that Herrington isn’t above using the Kitchen Sink theory of moviemaking.  He uses every plot device from identical twins to psychic links to hypnotism and grafts them onto a solid Jack the Ripper thriller storyline.  

Now, there were plenty of Jack the Ripper movies in the mid ‘80s that capitalized on the hundredth anniversary of The Ripper’s murders.  In addition to Jack’s Back, we also had Terror at London Bridge and The Ripper.  This one is easily the best of the lot.  Whereas those films had a lot of supernatural trappings that made them feel hokey, Jack’s Back concentrates on the psychological aspects on not only the murderer, but the victims as well.

Harrington uses a few cribs from Hitchcock, but adds his own brand of cinematic panache, which makes the old chestnuts feel fresh.  Sure, there’s a few ideas that don’t quite pop like so many kernels in a bag of popcorn.  The climax is a bit needlessly drawn out to boot.  Still, it’s stylish and engrossing enough to keep you entertained.

James Spader is excellent in the lead.  He’s clearly having a ball playing a dual role.  What’s great about his work in this film is it never feels like a casting stunt.  He’s able to develop two distinct characters in a relatively short span of time, each with their own faults, quirks, and ambitions.  So, if you’re a Spader fan like I am, you’re in for a real treat.  The interesting supporting cast includes Cynthia Gibb, Robert Picardo, and Chris Mulkey; all of whom make a memorable impression given their limited screen time.

AKA:  The Ripper.

FOUND FOOTAGE 3D (2016) **

An independent film crew are about to start production on a found footage horror movie called “The Spectre of Death”.  At the last minute, the producer decides to make it in 3-D, which confounds just about everyone.  They go on location to a supposedly haunted house in the middle of nowhere where a gruesome murder occurred years ago.  Before long, weird shit that echoes the supernatural events in the script starts happening.

I give Found Footage 3D props for addressing the silliness in making a found footage movie in 3-D right from the get-go.  It also has fun sending up the genre and the inherent stupidity of most found footage horror films.  The behind-the-scenes problems that plague the production make the early scenes feel like a horror version of This is Spinal Tap.  After about a half hour or so, the film starts to become less a clever send-up of the genre and more of an anemic example of it.  

The 3-D works best when the actors are being filmed with lots of available light and the camera is being held perfectly still.  Since this is a found footage movie, the camera is shaky a lot of the time and most of the scenes take place in pitch black.  That is to say, they pretty much abandon the gimmick as soon as it’s introduced, which is a shame.

The final nail in the movie’s coffin is the bloated running time of 100 minutes.  There’s no reason to have a Found Footage movie running that length.  I could have also done without the self-congratulatory cameo by horror journalist Scott Weinberg (who also produced) playing himself.  It’s just a bit too cheeky for its own good and adds nothing to the movie.

THE BLOODSTAINED SHADOW (1978) **

A priest (Craig Hill) witnesses a murder, but is unable to make out the assailant.  When he begins to investigate the crime, the killer starts leaving him threatening notes warning him to back off.  The priest’s brother (Lino Capolicchio) comes to stay with him and soon takes it upon himself to solve the murders.

The Bloodstained Shadow is a middling and overlong giallo, but the great score by Stelvio Cipriani keeps you from dozing off.  It’s easily the best thing about the movie.  Cipriani's score is all over the place, which gives him plenty of opportunity to dabble in different musical styles.  This anything-goes approach makes even the smallest scene interesting.  Not only that, but it’s just plain groovy!  You’re guaranteed to be tapping your toes throughout the inflated running time.

The murder set pieces leave something to be desired though.  Most of the deaths are strangulations, which offers up little variation.  The one standout murder involves a woman’s face being shoved into a fireplace, but that’s about as gruesome as it gets.  

Although the film fails as a straight thriller, it works as sort of a warped soap opera.  As Hill investigates the murders, he pulls back the curtain of his shady neighborhood.  Since he is their priest and has listened to all his neighbors’ confessions, he knows all their seedy secrets.  I just wish there was more done with this aspect of the picture.  

The ending is predictable and drawn out.  There are just too many flashbacks and red herrings here that spoil the fun.  It’s also way too long.  At 110 minutes, there’s so much filler that it drags the whole movie down.  

AKA:  Only Blackness.

STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI (2017) ****

You know a movie is special when a father and daughter are simultaneously on the edge of their seat during the final minutes.  The fact that the film in question is the latest installment of the Star Wars saga makes it even more special.  I still remember the feeling of awe I had as a child when I saw the speeder bike chase from Return of the Jedi in the theater for the first time in 1983.  I can only hope my daughter feels the same way thirty years from now when she looks back on The Last Jedi.  

I think it’s safe to say that she will.  When we got home from the theater, she emulated Rey by sitting in the floor and shutting her eyes.  Concentrating, she reached out her hand and tried to make a book move by using The Force.  If that isn’t a testament to the magic of Star Wars, I don’t know what is.

Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi is the best Star Wars movie since 1983.  It takes what George Lucas, and later, J.J. Abrams did, subverts it, and makes it feel fresh and new.  Yes, after the fan service-heavy likes of The Force Awakens and Rogue One, I thought the spark of originality was almost lost in the franchise.  Johnson protects that spark and ignites it into something much bigger.

George Lucas had a knack for making science fiction stories that had personality, quirkiness, and a fierce independence.  Even though they were epics, they still felt like personal independent films.  Whereas The Force Awakens and Rogue One felt like products off an assembly line, this one feels like it could’ve only come from the mind of Johnson.

Coming from someone who had issues with The Force Awakens, it was a sheer delight to see how Johnson thumbed his nose at Abrams’ “safe” storytelling decisions.  I won’t spoil anything, but you pretty much get all the answers you wanted to know from The Force Awakens and then some.  Like a Jedi Mind Trick, Johnson resolves just about every lingering plot thread with the wave of a hand.  (He even answers a question fans have been asking since the original trilogy:  Just where does blue milk come from?)  In fact, the film almost feels like the conclusion to a trilogy in many ways.  

Speaking of trilogies, there’s enough stuff in here to fill an entire Star Wars trilogy.  Much has been made of the length of The Last Jedi.  What is so amazing is that it never feels long.  Could Johnson have trimmed some stuff here and there?  Maybe, but I was so engrossed over every second of it that I honestly didn’t want it to end.

The Last Jedi is what Star Wars, and movies in general are all about.  It’s moving, harrowing, hilarious, tragic, and exhilarating; sometimes all at the same time.  I laughed.  I cried.  I was literally on the edge of my seat multiple times.  Johnson really puts you through the wringer.  Few blockbusters nowadays truly move viewers.  If you walk away nonplussed by this one, you might be a droid.    

Even if you don’t like the directions Johnson is taking the franchise (and judging by the internet, there are some that don’t), you’re guaranteed to feel at least SOMETHING when you leave the theater.  At least Johnson is taking chances, ones that pay off big time in the finale.  After J.J.’s safe bet greatest-hits collection, this is a breath of fresh air.  

I felt cheated by the lack of Luke in the last episode.  He was always my favorite character, so I felt shortchanged to have him reduced to a mere cameo.  I mean I waited thirty-four years to know what happened to Luke after the Battle of Endor and Johnson doesn’t disappoint at all.  While Luke isn’t really front-and-center that much (there are a LOT of characters to juggle, which is fine because Johnson can juggle with the best of them), when he is… well… all I can say is that it’s 1983 and I’m five years old again and I’m clapping and cheering over a Star Wars movie. 

EVERYONE has a moment to shine.  Most poignant of course is Leia because of Carrie Fisher’s untimely passing.  There was only one cheesy bit of the movie, and that belonged to her, but everything else she did was beautiful.  From arguing with Poe Dameron to commanding the fleet, this is a grown and mature Leia that still has a heap of spunk to her.  It’s unfortunate Fisher’s no longer with us because her presence will be sorely missed in Episode IX.

I liked where Kylo Ren was at.  He’s still feels haunted by the murder of Han Solo.  Will the guilt of killing his father pull him towards the light, or set him off into a more extremely unstable path?  His arc is one of the more interesting and unpredictable in the movie.

Then there’s of course Rey, who spends most of the film begging to be taught the ways of The Force.  Her interactions with Luke (who is clearly relishing a chance to play a cantankerous mentor) are some of the funniest and most heartfelt in the entire series.  The fact that Luke pushes her away gives her something in common with Kylo, and their shared recognition of that (and possible allegiance to one another) is one of the gray areas the film has fun exploring.

As someone who’s favorite new character from The Force Awakens was BB-8, I was not disappointed.  I’m glad to report he has plenty of hilarious moments in this one.  He even got at least one big hero moment that made me cheer.  

Even the new characters, who arrive hitting the ground running, are likeable, fully realized, and feel fresh.  Vice Admiral Holdo, Rose, and DJ still follow motifs from previous episodes, but they are integrated with the older cast so seamlessly that it feels like they’ve been around forever.  I certainly hope to see more of them in episodes to come. 

Speaking of new characters:  Porgs.  They’re further proof that, like the Ewoks, Star Wars characters can be cute AND awesome at the same time.  I loved them.

The action is off the chain.  This is a Star Wars film, and Johnson brings the wars.  It often feels like a non-stop assault.  Like some of the best entries in the franchise, this is a Chase Movie in the best sense.  It almost feels like Stephen King’s The Long Walk, but with space ships.  On the ground, in outer space, and with the lightsabers, there are some all-time Star Wars moments to be had.  The Praetorian Guard scene melted my brain.  It was like watching a futuristic Shaw Brothers Venom Mob movie.  Although it’s still a little early to tell, I have a feeling these guys might be the new Boba Fett.  This sequence also contains one of the most crowd-pleasing moments in a Star Wars flick since Han swooped in on the Millennium Falcon in the original.  Yes, it’s that good.

The new planets are great too.  Canto Bight, the casino planet (which is basically like a Cantina version of Monte Carlo), gives us a glimpse of how the class system works in the Star Wars universe.  While some of this was a little on-the-nose, I wouldn’t change a moment, especially when it leads us to the stirring final shot.

I honestly have no idea where the series can go from here.  It’s like Johnson mic dropped the series back into J.J.’s lap.  One thing’s for sure, J.J. has some big shoes to fill.

SCOUNDRELS (1982) ** ½

Ron Jeremy is an unhappily married shrink whose wife cheats on him with his best friend.  He’s having an affair with his secretary, who also happens to be balling his best friend.  His daughter is a nympho too and she soon takes to selling herself to satiate her desires.

It might not sound like it from that plot description, but director Cecil (Platinum Paradise) Howard didn’t set out to make a typical XXX movie.  He fills the movie with a lot of surrealistic touches and gives some sequences a dreamlike feel.  I can’t say it’s successful or anything as the scenes of the family in white face paint confessing their sins to an omnipotent being (okay, some guy waving a flashlight) get repetitive after a while.  

There are a handful of solid sex scenes here and Howard does a nice job of giving each one a distinct style.  Unfortunately, the best scenes are mostly weighted towards the beginning of the film.  I can’t rightly know if you’ll be turned on by them though.  I mean the horrifying sight of Ron Jeremy dressed like a mime is enough to kill any chance of arousal.  

Without Howard’s stylish touches, Scoundrels would’ve been instantly forgettable.  Even with them, it still isn’t all that great.  If anything, it’s a reminder of a time when directors could sneak a little artiness into a porno, just as long as he had enough sex in there to satisfy the paying customers.

SHORT NIGHT OF GLASS DOLLS (1971) **

A reporter named Gregory (Jean Sorel) is found comatose in the bushes.  He's still conscious, but his heartbeat is too faint to detect.  Presumed dead, the mortician prepares Gregory’s body for an autopsy.  He tries to get everyone's attention to stop the autopsy while wracking his brain to remember how he wound up in this predicament. 

The old “I'm not dead” yet cliché has been used by everyone from Edgar Allen Poe to Stephen King.  Director Aldo (Who Saw Her Die?) Lado is neither.  Maybe that’s because Poe and King’s tales were short stories.  The morgue scenes are mildly amusing and sometimes effective, but the mystery surrounding his appearance on the autopsy table just isn't interesting enough to sustain a feature length movie. 

This is one of those thrillers that basically save all the horror for the final reel.  Even then, it's kind of a bust.  The big reveal is okay I suppose, but the autopsy finale is a big letdown. 

Mario (Man Hunt) Adorf is pretty good as Sorel’s buddy, but it’s Barbara Bach who leaves the biggest impression as his luscious girlfriend.  Unfortunately, she disappears much too quick and her presence is sorely missed.  Sorel doesn’t have much charisma or anything, but he does sport a wicked head of hair.  In fact, his hair looks better when he’s dead than most men do when they’re alive.

AKA:  Paralyzed.  AKA:  The Short Night of the Butterflies.  

BETTER WATCH OUT (2017) **

A babysitter (Olivia DeJonge) watches an awkward teenage boy (Levi Miller) while his parents are at a Christmas party.  He has a big crush on her, so he gets drunk on champagne and tries to put the moves on her.  Before long, they’re menaced by a psycho who makes threatening phone calls and vows to murder them if they leave the house.

To tell any more would ruin the surprise.  (Imagine if Bret Easton Ellis wrote a John Hughes Christmas movie and that might give you an idea of what to expect.)  Better Watch Out does have a rather good twist that occurs early on; right after the first act, in fact.  By placing the twist so early in the narrative, it doesn’t really leave the movie anywhere to go.  It also causes the tension to flatline and the plot quickly gets repetitive from there.  

There’s a ring of truth here if you’ve been a boy that’s too old to have a babysitter, and a hot one at that.  This was done slightly better than The Babysitter though.  Even though that movie was a bit more outrageous, it still found a nice balance between the sitter and the sittee.  

DeJonge has a Kristen Bell quality about her.  She’s especially good when trying to reason with her attacker.  Miller is a bit too annoying though.  While he plays the whiny teenager role adequately enough, he just isn’t up to the task later in the film.  At least Patrick Warburton and Virginia Madsen get some laughs as Miller’s kooky parents.

AKA:  Safe Neighborhood.

BREAKING POINT (1976) **

Bob Clark had an interesting filmography.  He could direct anything from horror classics like Deathdream and Black Christmas to family-friendly movies like A Christmas Story and Baby Geniuses.  From raunchy comedies like Porky’s 1 and 2 to unheralded masterpieces like Rhinestone and Turk 182.  He also made this ho-hum thriller.

Bo Svenson stars as a happily married family man who witnesses a Mob hit.  Robert Culp is the cop who gets Bo to testify against the assailants.  When the Mob comes after Bo’s family, Culp puts them in the witness protection program.  Even though he repeatedly tells them not to contact anyone from their “old” life, Bo’s stupid step kid calls his dad, which leads the mobsters right to them.  After his family is threatened, Bo finally decides to stop hiding and faces the mobsters on their own turf.

The look of the film is similar to Black Christmas.  (It even takes place at Christmas.)  The giggling hitman certainly sounds like the killer from that movie.  Whereas Clark’s ‘70s horror movies had a knack for invention and economical use of their low budgets, this one is content to rest on tired revenge clichés.  It’s competently made, but it just feels like Clark’s heart wasn’t in it.  

Svenson is decent enough in the lead.  He basically just plays Buford Pusser again, minus the redneck aspect (he even hits a guy with a 2x4 at one point).  Culp is usually magnetic, but even he has a time finding a way to breathe life into his cliched character (whose only plot function is to be constantly wrong).  John Colicos is unnecessarily hammy as the Mafioso who wants Svenson’s family dead and the lack of a quality villain further prevents the film from kicking into gear.

THE ZERO BOYS (1986) **

Daniel Hirsch and his friends play weekend warrior survivalist games in a ghost town.  The leader of the rival team puts his girlfriend (Kelli Maroney) up as the prize and Hirsch wins her hand.  After the game, Hirsch and his team stumbles upon an abandoned house and begin to party it up.  There just so happens to be a knife-wielding maniac on the premises who quickly puts the friends’ survivalist skills to the test.

Directed by Nico (Hired to Kill) Mastorakis, The Zero Boys is an unsuccessful blend of action and slasher movie.  It’s surprisingly more fun during the early scenes where the gun-toting heroes try to act macho.  It helps that a lot of their banter is genuinely funny.  Maroney is particularly fun to watch as the Final Girl of the piece.

The horror cliché elements are a long time coming, and when Mastorakis finally gets around to exploiting them, they come off a little weak.  Even though it takes a while before the killer starts doing his thing, the stalking sequences themselves have an appropriate amount of atmosphere (there’s lots of fog in some scenes).  Unfortunately, the horror scenes are frustratingly low on chills.  That’s mostly because a lot of the kills revolve around guns and hunting and not good old hacking and slashing.  I guess it’s novel seeing the heroes fighting back against the killer using machine guns.  That doesn’t mean it works though.

Hirsch gets the best line of the movie when he pins up a picture of Rambo and says, “Eat your heart out, Sly!”

SNAKEEATER’S REVENGE (1991) ***

Soldier (Lorenzo Lamas) witnesses two people overdose on cocaine cut with rat poison and decides to take matters into his own hands.  He knocks on the dealers’ door, guns them down, and is promptly arrested.  He is then sent to a mental institution where the other patients quickly take a shine to him.  They eventually agree to help him escape so he can burn the pushers’ operation to the ground.

Snakeeater’s Revenge is, of course, the sequel to Lorenzo Lamas’ immortal Snakeeater.  It’s not as off-the-chain awesome as the other entries in the series, but there’s plenty of fun to be had.  I mean it’s hard not to love a movie that has characters named Soldier, Torchy (Ron Palillo), and Speedboat (Larry B. Scott).  Besides, any film that can combine elements from Death Wish and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is OK by me.

While Snakeeater’s Revenge is more routine than its predecessor, it does have at least one jaw-dropping bonkers moment.  Naturally, I’m referring to the scene where Soldier faces off against a hulking opponent in what can only be described as Wheelchair Thunderdome.  If you thought the wheelchair race in Days of Thunder was awesome, wait till you get a load of this!

Snakeeater’s Revenge gives Lamas another opportunity to shine.  He gets plenty of funny one-liners and garners some laughs while flirting with his shrink.  (The ink blot scene is memorable.)  Scott makes for a likeable sidekick, but Kathleen Kinmont (Lama’s then-wife) isn’t really given anything to do as a detective on the case.

AKA:  Snake Eater 2:  The Drug Buster.  AKA:  Vengeance of Fire:  Cobra Killer 2.  AKA:  Soldier.  

WHITE OF THE EYE (1988) ** ½

Donald (Demon Seed) Cammell’s White of the Eye is a moody, experimental, and intriguing little serial killer thriller.  It also happens to be uneven, muddled, and frustrating as Hell.  One thing is for sure, only someone with a knack for anything-goes dreamlike madness like Cammell could’ve concocted it.

David Keith is a stereo installer in Tucson who has an odd gift for knowing exactly where to place speakers just by closing his eyes.  Even though he’s married to the luscious Cathy Moriarty, he still happens to mess around with his lonely, sexy clients.  When one of them winds up murdered by a serial killer, it makes Keith the prime suspect.

The big problem with White of the Eyes is its languid pacing.  Clocking in at almost two hours, it really drags in the middle and some of Cammell’s cinematic indulgences (like the extreme eyeball close-ups) can be grating at times.  Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, there are some sterling stalking sequences here, along with a handful of truly bizarre images that help to separate the film from dozens of similarly-themed thrillers.

The story itself is one-note and predictable.  Had it been lacking Cammell’s stylish flair, White of the Eye would have been instantly forgettable (save for some of Keith’s intense theatrics).  Cammell gives the murder set pieces a stylized kick.  The scene where the killer puts a woman in a pile driver like a wrestler is just so bonkers that it works.  Other sequences feel like they came out of an Italian giallo.

So, in the end, it’s a toss-up.  Come for the stylish murders, random weirdness, and Keith’s overacting.  If you can get past the boring flashbacks, Indian mumbo jumbo, and general lackadaisical pace, you just might like it.

WAKE IN FRIGHT (1971) *** ½

Gary Bond stars as an Australian teacher who goes on vacation to see his girlfriend during the Boxing Day holiday break.  He spends the night in a small town where the male citizens outnumber the women about a hundred to one.  That night, he loses all his money drinking and gambling and winds up stranded.  Bond soon learns that’s about all there is to do in the town and the male populace are only too eager to enable his dysfunctional macho behavior.

Directed by Ted Kotcheff, Wake in Fright isn’t so much of a horror film, but rather a filmed nightmare you can’t escape from.  The horror elements come from the psychological trappings of allowing your male id to run rampant without limits or repercussions.  Even though it was made over fifty years ago, it feels like the perfect commentary on today’s “toxic masculinity” atmosphere.

The scene where Bond is taken by some pals to go kangaroo hunting are sure to disturb most viewers.  Even then, there’s a comical detachment to the characters that makes their action even more disturbing.  I mean at one point; the men fight the roos hand-to-hand like Sylvester used to do in the old Looney Tunes cartoons.

Bond makes for an ideal leading man.  He has the charm of Chris Hemsworth mixed with the bland manliness of Richard Chamberlain.  He’s especially good during his scenes with the drunk doctor (Donald Pleasence, who is excellent) who encourages to let go and give in to his temptations.

In the ensuing years, Kotcheff proved he can work in just about any genre.  He’s done everything from comedy (Weekend at Bernie’s and Switching Channels) to late-night cable erotica (Red Shoe Diaries 3 and 5), but he’s probably best known for the immortal First Blood.  It’s a shame he didn’t do more weird and trippy films like this.  Then again, it’s a one-of-a-kind, hard to classify minor classic.  That kind of feat is hard to replicate.

AKA:  Backwater.  AKA:  Holiday in Hell.  AKA:  Outback.  AKA:  At the Edge of the World.

MILAN CALIBRE 9 (1972) **

Gastone Moschin gets out of jail and is almost immediately accused of stealing $300,000 from the Mob.  Naturally, he’s innocent, but if he wants to keep breathing he has to go to work for them to pay it off.   The police want to use him as a snitch too, and if the Mob begins to suspect he’s in cahoots with the cops, he’ll REALLY be trouble.  To come out on top, Moschin must figure out a way to double-cross both the Mob AND the police.

Fernando Di Leo’s Milan Calibre 9 was the first chapter in his Milieu Trilogy.  Unlike the second installment, Man Hunt, it’s far too slow moving to leave much of an impression.  The constant plotting by not only the hero, but the villains as well, causes the pacing to hit a wall many times throughout.  We occasionally get a taste of Di Leo’s trademark violence, but there’s ultimately too much talk and not enough action. 

Moschin is much too stone-faced to make a good leading man.  He looks like the love child of Bruce Willis and Nicholas Worth.  Or maybe Jason Statham after a bee sting.  Either way, he’s so dull that the audience has a hard time rooting for him.

The supporting cast fares much better.  Whenever Barbara Bouchet is on screen, she gives the movie a much-needed shot in the arm.  She has a terrific go-go dancing scene that is easily the most memorable thing about the film.  I also enjoyed the interactions between Luigi Pistilli and Frank Wolff as the cops who are hounding Moschin.  While their sociopolitical discussions drag the plot down a bit, they are nevertheless fun to watch.  

It’s Wolff who gets the best line when he tells Moschin to "Go play with a dangling dingleberry!"

AKA:  Caliber 9.

ANGST (1983) ****

Erwin Leder stars as a mentally ill man who goes to a random house and shoots the occupant when she answers the door.  He goes to jail for ten years and when he is released, he immediately sets out to satiate his bloodlust.  After missing his chance to kill a taxi driver, he takes off into the woods where he finds a remote country house.  It’s here where he begins to terrorize a family.

Leder is great as the cold-blooded psychopath and all, but the camerawork is the real star here.  Having the camera attached to his body feels a bit disorienting at first.  However, as time goes by, it helps to put the audience squarely in the killer’s shoes throughout most of the running time.  Because of that, there is often no turning away from the horror.  (This technique would later be used on several reality shows.)  Another impressive camera move is the long crane shot that looms over the prison walls as Leder is being released.

The film’s clever use of narration heightens the sensation that we are in the killer’s shoes.  We hear him telling us trivial biographical tidbits while he’s committing unspeakable acts.  Not because he’s trying to, you know, justify what he’s doing, but to tell you more about himself.  

The opening scenes are equally effective, even though they use a completely different style.  This part of the film almost feels like a true crime show.  We are shown several crime scene photos, pictures of the killer as a child, and court documents while a morose narrator tells of his various crimes.  (It was supposedly based on true events.)  

All of this adds up to an unflinching, harrowing moviegoing experience.  While the murders themselves aren’t particularly graphic, it’s that feeling of being under the killer’s skin that is so unnerving.  It would make a perfect double feature with Henry:  Portrait of a Serial Killer, although you’d probably be too depressed to sit through them both.

AKA:  Schizophrenia.  AKA:  Fear.

THE ASPHYX (1972) **

The Asphyx has moments where it threatens to work.  That is when it’s not getting bogged down with a lot of stuffy British costume drama bullshit.  Much of the running time is spent with two boors having dull spiritual conversations in a parlor, which really cuts into all the corny, but fun supernatural shenanigans.

Robert Stephens stars as a scientist who takes pictures of people when they die and every time, he sees the same smudge on the photos.  He concludes that it could only be the soul leaving the body.  He then sets out to catch the specter (which he dubs “the asphyx”) that claims the souls.  His rationale being if he can steal his asphyx, he can become immortal.

When the ghostly shit finally does happen, it’s a bit hokey, but relatively amusing.  The scene where Stephens and his partner try to capture the asphyx plays like a 19^th century version of Ghostbusters.  (They shine a light on it and try to force it into a glass lamp.)  The special effects for the asphyx are a little wonky.  It just looks like a puppet being reflected with a disco light.  These scenes do get a bit repetitive after a while though.  

It all begins to get dumb when the scientists stage these elaborate deaths for themselves that they must wriggle out of at the last second in order to summon the asphyx.  The bit with the extravagant gas chamber was particularly eye-rolling.  However, we do get at least one nifty scene involving a guillotine, but the movie needed more sequences of this caliber to truly crackle.  Too bad it all builds to a lame Twilight Zone type of ending that features some bad make-up and a frustrating final shot.

AKA:  Spirit of the Dead.  AKA:  The Horror of Death.  AKA:  Experiments.  

SLIME CITY (1988) ** ½

Was it the Himalayan yogurt?  Or was it the old wizard’s moonshine?  Maybe it was all the sex with his punk rock neighbor.  Whatever the reason, Alex (Craig Saban) begins getting slimy soon after moving into his new apartment building.  Naturally, the only way to stop his body from being coated in slime is to kill homeless guys and prostitutes. 

Hey, we've all been there, right?

Director Gregory (Killer Rack) Lamberson’s Slime City plays like an amateurish and cheap mash-up of The Incredible Melting Man and Street Trash, with a little bit of Rosemary’s Baby tossed in there for good measure.  The acting is uneven, and the pacing is erratic.  That’s acceptable though seeing as the gooey special effects are the main selling point.  

As far as would-be low budget cult items from the ‘80s go, Slime City is better than say, your typical Troma movie.  While the slimy transformation scenes and sloppy murder sequences are fun, the stuff in between the highlights can be rough-going at times.  Still, there enough show-stopping gore in the last ten minutes to make up for many of its shortcomings.  While it’s easy to spot a lot of seams in the gory gags, they remain rather impressive given the film’s miniscule budget and the fact that there are so many of them.  Those scenes aren’t enough to qualify it as a classic or anything, but overall, it’s a decent slice of ‘80s cheese.

AKA:  The Slime.

THIRST (1979) **

Kate (Chantal Contouri) is kidnapped by a team of vampire scientists who claim she's a descendant of Countess Elizabeth Bathory.  She doesn't believe them, and tries to escape, but the scientists hold her prisoner.  Since Kate refuses to drink blood, they put her through elaborate mental torture in order to shock her system in the hopes of making her remember her vampire past.

Thirst gains points for an inventive mythology, but the unorthodox approach yields minimal results.  There are some good ideas here, yet it’s all put together with little finesse.  While the film adds interesting wrinkles to the usually accepted vampire lore, director Rod (Nick Fury:  Agent of SHIELD) Hardy’s delivery is much too stiff for any of this to be fun, let alone scary.  

I did like the scenes on the “Blood Farm” where innocent people in white pajamas mill around and are used as walking blood banks.  These sequences felt like they came out of Parts:  The Clonus Horror.  There’s also a dairy that packages blood in milk cartons.  Another nice touch revolves around how vampires shower.  The red faucet doesn’t stand for hot water; it stands for blood.  There were certainly enough of these little flourishes here to warrant a good movie.  It’s just a shame that Hardy’s pacing is much too slow, and the stuff with the scientists is so predictable.

PATRICK (1979) **

Patrick (Robert Thompson) catches his mom screwing a guy in her bathtub and electrocutes them.  After that, he slips into a coma for many years.  He’s admitted to a sketchy hospital where the nutty doctor (Robert Helpmann) performs all sorts of twisted experiments on him.  His new nurse Kathy (Susan Penhaligon) takes a shine to the unresponsive Patrick, but all the poor dope can do is spit in her face.  Patrick begins to get feelings for Kathy too and he begins to communicate with her telepathically (telePatrickly?) through her typewriter.  Pretty soon, people close to her start dying.  Is Patrick getting jealous?  Will Kathy be next?

Director Richard Franklin apes Hitchcock when he can (this was his dry-run for Psycho 2), especially during the scenes where people climb stairs.  Unlike Hitchcock, he doesn’t have much of a knack for pacing.  The plot drags its feet throughout much of the running time and when something does happen, it’s not all that scary or anything.  The only real reason you hang in there as long as you do is because of Penhaligon’s fine performance.

Patrick runs a long 108 minutes and it’s awfully slow going for the most part.  If Franklin wanted to keep things crackling, the film needed a nip here and a tuck there, especially seeing as the best stuff is weighted towards the final reel.  It does have at least one memorable jump scare, but that’s not quite enough to hang an entire movie on.

AKA:  Coma.

TRAILER TRAUMA PART 4: TELEVISION TRAUMA (2017) ****

Garagehouse Pictures’ Trailer Trauma 3:  80s Horrorthon was the be-all end-all horror trailer compilation.  Clocking in at almost eight hours, it was a mindboggling collection of some of the best horror trailers the ‘80s had to offer.  Now the folks at Garagehouse are faced with a dilemma:  What to do for an encore?  How can one top the biggest trailer compilation of all time?

The answer is simple.  You go smaller.  A lot smaller.  

That’s right, Trailer Trauma Part 4:  Television Trauma is a collection of TV spots for some of the best exploitation movies known to man.  Most of the spots are only about a minute long (many are only thirty seconds), so the exploitation goodness comes at you fast and furious.  All your favorite genres are covered.  It begins with a lot of ads for Roger Corman’s New World films (everything from Women in Prison to Naughty Nurses) before heading into Italian horror (there are a lot of Dario Argento and Mario Bava titles), Godzilla movies, Kung Fu flicks, softcore comedies, and American horror.  

Many of your favorite films are here including The Toolbox Murders, Doctor Butcher M.D., and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  There’s also enough oddball curios and hard-to-find rarities (The Cremators, Big Zapper, and Summer Camp) mixed in throughout the collection.  The various rerelease trailers are also a lot of fun and it’s neat to see how they were often repackaged for double features (like the ones for Phantasm).  Among the entertaining double feature trailers are The Velvet Vampire/Scream of the Demon Lover, Beyond the Door 2/The Dark, and Curse of the Headless Horseman/Carnival Blood.  

The disc is an interesting reminder of what was deemed appropriate for television during the ‘70s and ‘80s.  Since the previews were all meant for television, they don’t feature any nudity, but they do contain grisly gory images that wouldn’t fly today.  Also note how various curse words are bleeped out while the N-Word is tossed around quite freely.  

I can’t say Television Trauma is as exhaustive and complete as its predecessor.  Speaking as a connoisseur of trailer compilations, I can say that using strictly television spots was a stroke of genius.  I can’t wait to see what they have up their sleeve for their next edition.