HUNT FOR THE GOLDEN SCORPION (1991) * ½

An explorer (David Brandon) is almost assassinated in the Amazon jungle while looking for a valuable golden scorpion.  He gets word to his sister Mary (Christine Leigh) that he’s alright, and she heads on over to the jungle to find him.  Naturally, the bad guys immediately come after her, hoping she’ll lead them right to her brother.  She teams up with a rugged adventurer (Andy J. Forest) who agrees to help find her brother.

Hunt for the Golden Scorpion was director Umberto (Nightmare City) Lenzi’s next-to-last movie.  It’s a dull and lifeless jungle adventure that features none of the hallmarks of Lenzi’s best stuff.  A lot of the problem has to do with his listless handling of the dialogue scenes, all of which seem to drone on endlessly.  As you can probably imagine, all of this is about as much fun as an actual trek through the Amazon jungle. 

Halfway though, the film takes an odd turn and goes from being a jungle film to an all-out low-rent Exploding Hut action flick.  Lots of stuff goes boom in this section of the movie (which prevents it from being a total waste of time), but none of it is choreographed very well.  (At least the sound of gunfire and explosions will keep you from falling asleep.)  Had Lenzi upped the sleaze quotient a bit in this sequence, all of this might’ve been tolerable.  

Another debit is the cast of non-stars.  While they hit their marks and recite their lines without stumbling over them, none of them exude an iota of screen presence, chemistry, or charm.  Leigh is cute and all, but she’s no Bo Derek or anything.  

Some of the inane dialogue is good for a laugh.  I admit I chuckled when a reporter asked a noted explorer, “Do you do the Lambada?”, a reference that was already dated by the time this was released.  The best line of the movie comes when the base is under siege.  The villain calls the guard station and asks what’s going on.  Forest answers, “Nothing sir.  The men are just watching Rambo 3!"

WAR GODS OF BABYLON (1962) ***

King Sardanapalo (Howard Duff) conquers the city of Babylon and puts his baby-faced kid brother Shammash (Luciano Marin) in charge.  Mirra (Jocelyn Lane), a beautiful survivor of a nearby raid, is chosen to be Sammash’s servant girl and he falls madly in love with her.  However, she has eyes for his brother, which sparks a feud between them.

Jocelyn Lane is great in this movie.  With her long flowing crimson hair and pouty lips, she is reminiscent of Bardot, but has her own unique brand of sex appeal about her.  If it wasn’t for her beauty (not to mention her solid performance), the tension between the brothers would’ve been kind of blah.  Because she’s so gorgeous, you can see why two guys (brothers at that) would go to war over her.  The love triangle is surprisingly effective (each of her suitors are equally worthy of her affections), which gives the film a dramatic center that most Italian peplum lack.

Likewise, the crisp direction by Silvio (Amuck) Amadio helps prevent War Gods of Babylon from becoming a standard-issue sword and sandal flick.  The scale is larger than your average Hercules movie and the sets and costumes look great.  Amadio does an especially good job on the finale when Duff draws the wrath of the gods, who flood the city.  The effects in this sequence are better than expected.  Sometimes the scale of the water crashing down on the walls of the castle is a little off, but the shots of people drowning in their own beds are startlingly effective. 

The most memorable scene though is when the two brothers go on a lion hunt.  The part where the lion attacks them is hilarious.  It’s obviously just a guy in a dime store lion suit.  Later, when they bring the carcass home, it’s the same suit, just with no one in it.

Silly lion effects aside, the severed heads are well done (for the time, that is).  We also get an arrow to the eye and a gnarly death involving some spikes.  These little bits of gruesome business weren’t necessary, but they help make War Gods of Babylon a better than average toga-fest.

AKA:  Apocalypse Over Babylon.  AKA:  7th Thunderbolt.

ENTER THE PANTHER (1982) **

A drunk strikes it rich when he discovers gold in his mine.  Some evildoers get wind of this and murder him.  Then, they try to trick his daughter into signing over the deed to the mine.  Luckily for her, Bruce Li is there to fight off the bad guys and protect her family’s share of the gold.

Enter the Panther is your typical chopsocky affair for the most part.  The dubbing, cropping, and sound effects are all out of whack, although not to the point where it becomes humorous (which is a shame).  Bruce does what he can, but he’s stuck playing a cookie-cutter hero type role in a thoroughly ho-hum actioner.  There’s a subplot where he is tempted by the charms of the slutty bad girl who is in cahoots with the villain, but he of course leaves her in favor of the old drunk’s virginal daughter.  Had Li fallen for the charms of the trollop, it would’ve at least made for an interesting dynamic. 

The ending is novel though.  During the finale, Li must fight off the bad guy’s henchman in a cemetery to buy time for the town officials to exhume the body of the old drunk.  While he’s keeping them busy, the doctor performs an autopsy on the body to confirm if he was poisoned or not.  You certainly don't see that every day.  However, the action itself is nothing to write home about, and the rest of the film is sorely lacking the energy of the final reel.

AKA:  Conspiracy.

SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY (2018) ****

Solo:  A Star Wars Story arrives five months after The Last Jedi, a film that left Star Wars fans polarized.  (I happened to love it.)  Solo:  A Star Wars Story is having the same kind of effect.  One thing is for sure, whenever the whiny fanboys bitch about a Star Wars movie on social media, it means the filmmakers are doing something right.  Solo is leaps and bounds better than the previous “Star Wars Story”, Rogue One and retains plenty of elements that made the original trilogy so much fun while offering us something unique at the same time.

The film’s success lies on the shoulders of Alden Ehrenreich.  A lot has been made about Donald Glover’s interpretation of Lando, but for me, Ehrenreich was the whole show.  Glover does a phenomenal job, don’t get me wrong.  It’s just that Ehrenreich had the unenviable task of living up to Harrison Ford.  The reason he pulls it off so well is due largely to the fact that he refuses to do an imitation.  Sure, there are moments where he captures some of Ford’s mannerisms and or speech patterns, but he’s playing Han Solo, not Harrison Ford.  There’s enough of the character you enjoyed in the previous films on display here, yet lots of wriggle room for Ehrenreich to carve out his own niche.  Ehrenreich, who already showed a knack for standing out in ensemble pieces like Hail, Caesar and Rules Don’t Apply, likewise doesn’t get lost in the shuffle of the various aliens and special effects and commands your attention throughout the picture.

Part of the fun is seeing how screenwriters Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan borrow tropes from westerns, war movies, and various other genres and graft them into the space setting.  Throughout the film, you’ll catch glimpses that may remind you of The Godfather 2, The Defiant Ones, Paths of Glory, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.  I mean, what can you say about a movie that starts off like Oliver Twist and ends like an episode of Maverick, other than, it’s awesome.

Yes, there are parts that are callbacks (callforwards?) to the original film.  However, like the cherrypicked genre moments, they are organically woven into the narrative in such a way that they don’t feel like gratuitous fan service (which is one of the problems I had with Rogue One).  There is at least one cameo that will make Star Wars fans stand up and cheer.  Whether or not Disney will follow through with giving this character a new storyline in coming films remains to be seen.  I'm just glad to know they’re still there lurking on the edges of the galaxy.

Ehrenreich has the right blend of cocky swagger and effortless cool the part requires.  He looks great standing next to a Wookie and is as quick with his wit as he is with a blaster.  I for one am on board for more solo Solo movies.  

I AM YOUR FATHER (2015) ** ½

I am Your Father is Toni Bestard and Marcos Cabota’s documentary on David Prowse.  He was an English bodybuilding champion who drew steady work in the Hammer horror films of the ‘70s, gained fame as the “Green Cross Man” in England, and had a memorable bit part in A Clockwork Orange.  In 1977, everything changed for Prowse when he became immortal for playing Darth Vader in Star Wars.

Prowse was always a bit miffed for not being able to provide the voice for Vader.  I mean, he though it wasn’t his voice in the finished product, he still had to memorize all his dialogue and deliver it on set.  That feeling was exacerbated six years later when George Lucas opted for a “classically trained” actor for Vader’s big unmasking scene in Return of the Jedi.

Prowse’s penchant for having loose lips to the press also caused friction between he and Lucas.  When Prowse allegedly blabbed they were killing off Vader, Lucasfilm effectively shunned him.  In the ensuing years, the still good-natured (for the most part) Prowse was reduced to playing the convention circuit, but was never invited to an official Star Wars con. 

The film is at its best when getting to know the man behind Vader’s mask.  It’s fun seeing Prowse hobnobbing with the likes of Lou Ferrigno and Jeremy Bulloch at conventions and hearing his family’s reaction to his fame.  It’s decidedly less effective when director Cabota worms his way into the spotlight.  I think the movie would’ve been just fine without all his on-camera fanboy gushing.  Who were you trying to make a documentary on?  Prowse or yourself?

I think it’s neat that Cabota tries to recreate the end of Jedi with Prowse in full makeup, giving him a chance to play the big scene he never got to do.  However, Lucasfilm blocks using the footage in the film.  So, what's the point?  The mock-up of Prowse in the Jedi burn makeup is cool, but since the finished scene isn’t in the documentary we can only imagine what Prowse’s acting would’ve been like.  Because of that, we never find out if he had the chops to pull the scene off (which is kind of the whole point); bringing us right back where we started.  It’s frustrating to say the least. 

WIZARDS OF THE DEMON SWORD (1991) **

Fred Olen Ray was a day late and a dollar short when he made this dumb barbarian comedy.  It was released (by Troma) well after the sword and sandal craze of the ‘80s had died down.  Fans of Ray’s work will find some sources of amusement here, but for the most part, Wizards of the Demon Sword fails to deliver in just about every department.

Ulric the Elder (Russ Tamblyn) is entrusted with a magic sword.  The evil Lord Khourda (Lyle Waggoner) imprisons Ulric with the intention of using the sword for his own devious purposes.  Ulric’s daughter (Heidi Paine), whose blood is the key to activating the sword, teams up with a rugged warrior named Thane (Blake Bahner) to rescue him. 

Wizards of the Demon Sword goes down a lot smoother if you refuse to take it seriously.  This movie contains some of the least convincing barbarian actors since Deathstalker 3.  Hoke (The Sidehackers) Howell is embarrassing as “The Seer of Roebuck” (get it?).  His phony beard and wig don’t do him any favors either.  Waggoner is woefully miscast as the villain.  Are we supposed to believe Wonder Woman’s boyfriend is an evil sorcerer?  I think not.  I also had a hard time buying Tamblyn as a wizard.  It was fun seeing Jay Richardson as Waggoner’s right-hand man, although he seems more like a Mafia henchman than a sorcerer’s assistant.  Michael Berryman is pretty good as a thief, but even though he’s featured prominently on the video box, he's only in it for like a minute.

I could excuse the dumb humor and anachronistic dialogue.  However, the awful sword fights and strange casting decisions ultimately sink it.  What can you say about a hero that’s so lame he's got to subcontract another hero to help him save the damsel in distress?

Of the cast, Lawrence Tierney fares best as a rascally slave trader.  The slave auction scene is far and away the best part of the entire film.  (Although the briefly seen stop-motion dinosaur effects are well done.)  It’s only in this sequence where Ray successfully blends the humor and barbarian genre clichés.  My favorite moment was when Tierney pulls off a slave girl’s top and says, “Take a look at that treasure chest!”  

BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, OR SITTING BULL’S HISTORY LESSON (1976) **

Buffalo Bill’s (Paul Newman) Wild West show is a big hit.  In what has got to be the Old West version of a casting coup, Bill lands none other than Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts) as the show’s latest attraction.  Sitting Bull soon proves to be more trouble than he’s worth.  He begins acting like a total diva, making lofty demands and generally causing trouble for the show.  It’s then up to Bill to placate his new star while retaining his artistic vision for the show (even if it differs from historical fact).

Like Robert Altman’s Nashville, The Player, and A Prairie Home Companion, Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History is a picture about the daily life of show biz folk and their various struggles.  It has all the overlapping dialogue, long tracking shots, and colorful characters you’d expect from an Altman picture.  It’s overlong, patchy, and uneven, but there are moments when you see can what he was going for. 

The scenes of Buffalo Bill trying to outwit Sitting Bull and his ever-increasing list of demands play out just fine.  Somewhere along the way, the film starts going around in circles.  Once the wheels start falling off in the second act, it slowly becomes a rambling endurance test.  The loose narrative becomes almost nonexistent as it enters the final act.  

Newman is good as the crotchety Bill.  The film is at its best when he’s front and center being wily and flashing his trademark smile, but even he can’t save the slow-moving narrative.  Harvey Keitel and Kevin McCarthy also get a few laughs as members of Bill’s company.  Burt Lancaster has a couple of nice moments too as Bill’s publicist, who mostly sits on the sidelines commenting on the action.

It’s Newman who gets the best line of the movie when he says, “The last thing a man wants to do is the last thing he does.”

GOLD OF THE AMAZON WOMEN (1979) **

Mark L. (Commando) Lester directed this Made for TV jungle adventure the same year as Roller Boogie.  Bo Svenson stars as an explorer looking for gold in the Amazon jungle.  Some Amazon women get wind that he’s snooping around and try to bow-and-arrow him to death.  The killer Amazons are in cahoots with crazy old Donald Pleasence who wants Bo to lead him to the gold, so he can steal it for himself.  Once Bo arrives in the Amazon village, he’s immediately kidnapped and marked for breeding stock by the sultry Queen of the Amazons (Anita Ekberg).  Pleasence attacks the village looking for the gold and Bo agrees to team up with the Amazon Women to stop him.

Since this is a TV movie, there is an awful lot of padding.  The scenes of Bo and Richard Romanus (who’s playing a Latino) making their way through the jungle are slow going for the most part.  You also have to wait until the film’s about halfway over until you get to see Ekberg.  The TV budget doesn’t help either as the climax is chaotic, rushed, and poorly choreographed.  The ‘70s “message” moments are often hilarious though.  (“Times are changing. Men are working with women now.”)

I did like the scene where Bo has to fight a tribe member (perennial ‘70s stuntman/That Guy Bob Minor) for the affections of a scantily clad native girl.  There’s also a decent stick fight between two Amazons on a raft surrounded by alligators.  Because of the television censors, it never gets violent or steamy enough to be worth a damn.  So much for the breeding stock subplot.  

AKA:  Amazon Women.  AKA:  Quest for the Seven Cities.  AKA:  Female 300.

DEADPOOL 2 (2018) *** ½

There are certain ways to approach a traditional sequel.  Deadpool 2 opts for two of them simultaneously:  Darker is Better and Bigger is Better.  It tries to up the emotional stakes while giving us (much) more of the same.  The results are often uneven, but Ryan Reynolds’ love for the character and his enthusiastic need to entertain prevails throughout, carrying the film confidently over the spotty sections.

Director David Leitch did Atomic Blonde and John Wick, so we know he can handle the action.  Furthermore, the action is clearly filmed, precisely edited, and balletically choreographed.  The Deadpool and Domino team-up is a lot of fun and the battle between Colossus and [REDACTED] is one of the best in the entire X-Men series.  

Leitch just isn’t nearly as consistent when it comes to telling a joke.  The X-Force scene is funny, and the cameos are good for a few laughs, but that owes more to the performers’ wiliness to show up.  Leitch kind of drops the ball when it comes to the potty humor.  He mostly just defers to Reynolds, allowing him to mug endlessly until the scene is over.  Leitch also oversells the dramatic scenes, which fit less successfully here than they did in the first movie.

Sure, the dramatic stuff is incongruent with the film’s irreverent nature, but Deadpool 2 is still enormously entertaining. Zazie Beetz makes a star-making turn as the lucky mutant Domino.  In her short amount of screen time, she proves without a doubt that she deserves her own movie. Josh Brolin is good as the soldier from the future, Cable.  It’s just that his performance suffers from comparison to his OTHER performance as a Marvel baddie a few short weeks ago.  

Reynolds puts in another funny turn as Deadpool.  Whenever he’s wryly commenting on the action and/or making pop culture references, it works.  Again, when it switches gears to dramatic it doesn't quite stick the landing.  Still, it has one of the best post-credits scene ever, so make sure you stick around for that. 

X-MEN MOVIE SCORECARD:

X-Men: Apocalypse: ****

Deadpool: ****
X-Men: Days of Future Past: ****
X-Men 2: X-Men United: ****
X-Men: ****
X-Men 3: The Last Stand: ****
Logan:  ****
X-Men: First Class: *** ½
Deadpool 2: *** ½
X-Men: Origins: Wolverine: *** ½
The Wolverine: ***

2018 COMIC BOOK MOVIE SCORECARD

Avengers:  Infinity War: *** ½ 
Black Panther: *** ½
Deadpool 2: *** ½

Accident Man: ** ½ 

SHOW DOGS (2018) * ½

As the parent of an eight-year-old, I'm sort of a connoisseur of bad talking animal movies.  As far as these things go, Show Dogs isn't quite as bad as the nadir of the genre, Super Buddies, which is a blessing.  It’s not quite as annoying and unbearable as Nine Lives either.  My daughter ate it up, which is what really mattered.  All I’ll say is, thank God for MoviePass.  

Will Arnett stars as an FBI agent who gets teamed up with a dog cop named Max (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges).  Naturally, they’re a mismatched pair who are forced to work together to complete an assignment.  They go undercover at a Vegas dog show to take down a ring of animal smugglers.  Since Max is gruff and disobedient, it’s up to a former award winning French papillon (Stanley Tucci) to show him the ropes of being a show dog.

Show Dogs is the kind of movie that spoon feeds its jokes to the audience.  I’m sure it wouldn’t surprise any adult viewer that the film makes numerous Turner and Hooch references since they’re both about a cop and his dog partner.  However, it has to gratuitously explain that Hooch was the dog because the target audience is too young to remember.  (It must be noted that there’s not one mention of K-9.)

Would it surprise you that Show Dogs was directed by Raja Gosnell, who also gave us Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo 2, and Beverly Hills Chihuahua?  Probably not.  The man’s made the same movie four times and he still hasn’t gotten it right. 

One thing that makes Show Dogs almost tolerable is the major plot point that revolves around Max’s ability to be groped by the judges.  This all leads to Arnett and the dog recreating a scene from Dirty Dancing.  As bad as the movie is, you have to respect a film that makes you question if you’ve just been dosed with a high-grade hallucinogenic.  

The Hal Needham-esque end credits are the best part, and not just because it means the movie is almost over.  The outtakes of the dog actors flubbing their lines are good for a laugh or two.  All this does is make you wonder if the documentary about the making of Show Dogs would be better than the film itself.

VOODOO DOLLS (1991) *

A girl suffering from the loss of her father goes to an all-girls boarding school and enrolls in the drama club.  Her teacher selects a weird play from an anonymous author that focuses heavily on voodoo.  As the play edges closer towards opening night, people at the school begin dying off in mysterious ways.

Voodoo Dolls had a solid premise, but other than a cool black and white flashback in the beginning, it takes way too long to unfurl its obvious and predictable premise.  You’ve got to wait a while before anything remotely horrific happens, and when it does, it’s rather tame.  The sluggish pacing, especially early on doesn’t help matters as the film is one long, dull slog.

There is at least one memorable subplot involving the main bitchy trollop’s relationship with her lesbian roommate.  When she rebuffs her roommate’s clumsy pass, the devastated girl runs off and commits suicide.  I guess it was progressive at the time to have this sort of undercurrent in the film, but unfortunately, not a whole lot is done with it.

If you’re wondering why the movie is called Voodoo Dolls, it’s because in one scene, the titular dolls attack a Peeping Tom janitor after he spies on some college girls showering a la Porky’s.  This scene is pitiful.  The dolls are basically pinned onto the actor while he flails around.  It makes Puppet Master look like Psycho by comparison.   After that, it’s back to more insufferable interminable boredom.

CREEP (2015) **

Mark Duplass stars as a guy dying of cancer.  He hires a cameraman (Patrick Brice, who also directed) online to document a day in his life so that his unborn son can spend some time with the father he never knew.  Slowly but surely, the cameraman learns Duplass is a real weirdo.

Basically, it’s My Life done as a mumblegore movie.  

This is pretty much the Mark Duplass Show through and through.  Your enjoyment of the film will probably hinge on how much you can tolerate Duplass’ mugging.  I didn’t mind him so much, it’s just that the scenes of him purposefully freaking Brice out quickly got repetitive.

Although sold as a Found Footage horror film, Creep revolves more on social awkwardness than out-and-out horror.  If Brice’s character was more of an asshole, he would’ve pushed Duplass aside and walked out the door ten minutes in.  Then again, if he did that, we wouldn’t have a movie.  Even when he receives an ominous phone demanding that he leaves the house right away, he can’t bring himself to do so.

That pretty much summed up my frustrations with the film.  The fact that Brice keeps filming once Duplass starts acting bizarre (even though he’s been paid) defies logic.  (Even when he FINALLY leaves the house, he waits FOREVER to notify the authorities after Duplass starts leaving him weird videotaped messages and odd trinkets on his doorstep.)  Of course, that’s one of the conceits we’re forced to make while watching a Found Footage flick.  As far as these things go, it must be said that the shaky-cam footage is far from the worst I’ve seen.  

Another genre pitfall is that we already know that nothing really happens in a Found Footage horror movie until the last few minutes.  The same goes for Creep.  The payoff is OK I guess, but it’s not exactly worth waiting 75 minutes for.  

Ultimately, this might’ve worked better as a short.  I might’ve been able to go along with it if it was part of a V/H/S anthology.  As it is, Creep just never clicked for me.

AKA:  Peachfuzz.  

BLOOD (1973) ** ½

Blood is one of Andy Milligan’s best movies, which is telling.  It’s a slapdash, low budget horror flick set primarily in one location that features crummy effects and inconsistent acting.  Some parts are out of focus.  Others are too dark to see.  Sometimes the actors flub their lines.  Other times their dialogue doesn’t match their lip movements.  All this makes the film more enjoyable, not less.  If you’ve ever sat through Milligan’s atrocious The Rats are Coming!  The Werewolves are Here!, this will seem like Citizen Kane by comparison.

Lawrence Orlofsky (Allen Berendt) moves his wife Regina (Hope Stansbury) and his gaggle of assistants into his ancestral home.  Almost immediately, they begin performing experiments on bloodthirsty plants to keep Regina looking youthful and vibrant.  When Lawrence starts making eyes at a pretty secretary (Pamela Adams), it sends Regina into a jealous rage.

Milligan’s Everything but the Kitchen Sink method is admirable.  Just when you start to get restless, he’ll toss in another improbable (but amusing) plot wrinkle.  (I wouldn’t dream of revealing why Orlofsky had to change his name.)  No matter how shoddy the production looks, I can’t in good conscience dismiss a movie that features mad scientists, vampires, AND man-eating plants.

Even at a relatively scant 69 minutes, the pacing starts to sag about halfway through.  The claustrophobic location doesn’t help matters either.  That said, there’s at least one memorable moment involving a mouse that will make your jaw drop.  While most of the performers are wooden and/or stilted, Stansbury is rather charming as the vampiric lady of the house.  The ending, though brief and anticlimactic makes me wish it had been on a double feature with Al Adamson’s Dracula vs. Frankenstein instead of the crappy Legacy of Satan.

AKA:  Black Nightmare in Blood.

STONEY (1975) *

The luscious Barbara Bouchet stars in the brain-dead lensed-in-the-Philippines stinker.  She plays the mistress of a smuggler (Michael Rennie) who gets a line on a valuable cache of jewels.  He sends Barbara to retrieve them, and naturally a lot of people come crawling out of the woodwork to get their hands on the loot. 

The promise of Bouchet naked will be the only thing to keep you watching this boring heist picture.  Even then, her nude scenes are brief and not all that titillating.  The presence of one of my all-time favorite character actors, Vic Diaz couldn’t even brighten things up.  That’s mostly because his role is minor, and his character is underwritten.  If only the filmmakers allowed Diaz to go full-tilt boogie on Bouchet.  What a treat that would’ve been.

Another problem is that the movie never tries to make Bouchet a credible action star.  Sure, she looks great while wearing a variety of vintage garments, but I bet she would’ve looked even sexier brandishing a machine gun.  Unfortunately, we’re forced to settle for a dull, British, way-past-his-prime matinee idol type to do that sort of stuff while Barbara cowers in a corner somewhere.

Most of the blame must be placed on director Wray Davis.  He never directed another movie and it’s easy to see why.  The film is painfully low on action and what action we do get is badly shot, poorly lit, and incompetently staged.  (The strobe light effect during the final double-cross is annoying as hell.)  Since most of the running time is devoted to long, boring scenes of people sitting around plotting and scheming, enjoying Stoney is a rocky proposition at best.  

AKA:  Surabaya Conspiracy.  AKA:  The Gold Seekers.

LEGACY OF SATAN (1974) * ½

Legacy of Satan was directed by Gerard Damiano, who’s probably most famous for directing The Devil in Miss Jones.  It would only follow that he would helm this horror movie about a lonely housewife (Lisa Christian) who is under the spell of a Satanist cult.  From the looks of things, it seems that this started life as a porno, but all the explicit footage was excised so it could play on the legitimate circuit.  (The frequent jump cuts and awkward edits are a dead giveaway.)  However, without any hardcore sex, the movie is a slow-moving and boring affair.  I can’t say if the presence of hardcore footage would’ve saved it.  All I know is that in its present state, Legacy of Satan ain’t much.

Legacy of Satan is reminiscent in many ways to the equally inane Lucifer’s Women.  At least that movie had some (not much) nudity.  If the synth-heavy musical score doesn’t get on your nerves, it’ll probably give you a headache.  

There’s a nugget of a good idea here, but Damiano is unable to make it work.  He films the black masses in such a shoddy manner than even the cool costumes and creative set dressing get lost in the shuffle. It’s mostly a chore to sit through and the sixty-nine-minute running time feels much longer.  

If you stick with it long enough, you’ll be treated to some OK moments.  I liked the scene where Christian is having a dream where she is lying on an altar and has a candle placed between her legs.  When she awakes, she notices she’s considerably warmer “down there”.  It starts to turn into a slasher movie near the end when Christian starts stabbing people to provide fresh blood for her master.  The ending is kind of fun, especially when her husband showed up brandishing a legit lightsaber, three full years before Star Wars.  It makes you wonder if George Lucas saw this.

HELP ME… I’M POSSESSED! (1976) ****

A doctor runs an insane asylum where he keeps a lot of women in cages and occasionally lets his hunchback assistant whip them.  His wife comes to stay with him in his mansion and is rightfully freaked out by the loonies running about.  When townsfolk start being found murdered in the nearby woods, a sheriff comes to investigate.  Gee… do you think the doctor’s crazy sister could be the cause of all this?

Help Me… I’m Possessed! would make a great double bill with Bloodsucking Freaks.  I’m not saying that because there’s an awesome scene involving a guillotine either.  It’s not quite as explicit as that flick, but it has the same anything-goes lunacy.  In some ways, it’s so reminiscent of a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie with touches of Ed Wood along the way.  Heck, there are some moments that might remind you of Manos, the Hands of Fate.

What I’m trying to say is that this is a great fucking bad movie.

The dungeon sets are cheap looking, but I wouldn’t want them to look any other way.  They’re absolutely perfect.  The scenes of women in their underwear being strung up while crazed lunatics rattle their cages will sear themselves into your brain long after you watch it. 

The POV stalking shots are a thing of beauty too.  An unseen killer slowly creeps up on unsuspecting (and sometimes suspecting) victims.  All they can do is just raise their hands and allow the red tentacled monster (or whatever the Hell it is) kill them while being splattered with the most ‘70s looking blood you’ve ever seen.

The low budget craftsmanship (or lack thereof) is endearing.  The dated costumes, groovy music, stilted acting, and awful wigs are guaranteed to put a smile on any bad movie lovers’ faces.  The surprise is, the monster effects are startlingly effective.  The writhing tentacles are similar in many ways to Rob Bottin’s effects in John Carpenter’s The Thing, even if they do resemble sentient Red Vines.

Also, no one gets possessed, says, “Help me”, or says, “Help me… I’m possessed!”, which somehow makes it all even better.

AKA:  The Possessed.

A GRIL NAMED IRON PHOENIX (1973) **

I've never known a gril named Iron Phoenix, but I did have a grill named George Foreman once.  I know, I know, the title should be A Girl Named Iron Phoenix, but I'm a stickler for calling a movie by what it says in the title credits, even if it is misspelled.  Unfortunately, the misspelled title is the most memorable thing about it.

Dock workers have been dying on the job while the company collects on the insurance money.  Iron Phoenix is sent in to investigate and uncovers a dastardly plot by the local Mob.  The big-time gangster behind it all then sends in The Four Tigers to silence her once and for all.

Things get off to a groovy start with lots of funky music, bad dubbing, and a handful of energetic fight scenes.  We also get a funny moment when Iron Phoenix catches a thief who uses chopsticks to steal money from people’s wallets.  However, once she follows him back to his “master” (a homeless Kung Fu beggar), the movie starts to fall apart.  

Look, if you’re going to call your film A Gril Named Iron Phoenix, make sure it’s going to be about the girl named Iron Phoenix.  Don’t all of a sudden make it a buddy comedy about a homeless Kung Fu master and his annoying pupil.  Let your feisty and likeable heroine fight her own battles instead of the painfully unfunny comic relief.  Don’t keep her on the sidelines watching the action.  Allow her to participate.  Even if Iron Phoenix’s role wasn’t marginalized, I’m not sure it would’ve saved the movie.  One thing is for sure, the short running time (77 minutes) doesn’t hurt.

AKA:  A Girl Named Iron Phoenix.  AKA:  A Girl Called Iron Phoenix.

DAY OF THE DEAD: BLOODLINE (2018) **

This Day of the Dead isn’t really a sequel to Day of the Dead 2:  Contagium.  Nor is it a sequel to the 2008 Day of the Dead remake.  It almost plays like another remake of George A. Romero’s original Day of the Dead, with a few weird additions.  I’ve seen plenty of terrible DTV zombie movies in my time and as far as they go, you can do a whole lot worse.  It’s certainly better than Contagium or the 2008 remake.

The world is overrun by “rotters” (zombies).  Zoe (Sophie Skelton) is a scientist living in a military compound along with some soldiers and other assorted survivors.  While out on a supply run, she stumbles upon a rotter named Max (Jonathon Schaech), who used to stalk her when he was still human.  He follows the soldiers and sneaks into the compound to see Zoe (once a stalker, always a stalker).  Zoe captures him, chains him up, and performs experiments on him in hopes of creating a rotter vaccine.

The character of Max is sort of a variation on Bub from the original Day of the Dead.  Having him infatuated with the heroine makes this just different enough to prevent it from becoming yet another run-of-the-mill zombie movie.  (There’s a scene where Zoe lets him lick her in exchange for a blood sample.)  I’m not saying this ever comes close to being “good”.  Let’s face it.  This was never going to live up to the original, but it separates itself from Romero’s universe in enough ways to justify its existence.  Sure, there’s still all the scenes of soldiers collecting zombie specimens, the asshole in charge causing trouble with the heroine’s research (although no one could’ve been as big of an asshole as Joe Pilato’s Captain Rhodes), and the large-scale zombie breakout at the end you’d expect from a Day remake.  If you wanted to see those beats recreated yet again, you’re in luck.

The opening scene of the outbreak is kind of fun.  (Students partying in a morgue store their booze in the freezers where they keep the bodies.)  The zombie attacks are fairly bloody (there’s a lot of arterial spray) and the Hateful Eight inspired blood puking scene was appropriately juicy.  The early scenes in the compound, while inferior to the original, are at least tolerable.  Once Schaech gets loose and the zombies start attacking, the whole thing begins to slowly circle the drain.  From then on, it becomes one interchangeable scene of zombies biting humans after the other.  It gets repetitive quickly and the gore is too brief to really put it over the top.

I will say I’ve enjoyed seeing Schaech’s transformation from potential leading man in That Thing You Do to DTV vet.  He stars in stuff like this every chance he gets, and he almost always looks like he’s having fun doing it.  His very appearance in crap like this usually guarantees I’ll watch it at some point.

DID BABY $HOOT HER $UGARDADDY? (1972) ** ½

A mobster is killed for a million dollars, but the money goes missing.  A detective is out to recover the loot and goes to pay a visit to the widow, who winds up being a nympho.  Her daughter, Baby catches them getting romantic and takes photos of them in the bath tub.  When his captain sees the pictures, he has him thrown off the case.   After Baby and her mother are murdered, the detective goes on the trail of the killer, a sexy stripper who works in a Mob-owned night club.

Did Baby $hoot Her $ugardaddy? is an uneven, but mostly agreeable ‘70s skin flick.  The strip club scenes are the best part.  There’s a memorable dance where a woman in a black trench coat brandishes a toy shotgun, but my favorite number was when a dancer wearing a motorcycle helmet shone a flashlight into the audience for some inexplicable reason.  Although you’ve got to wait a long time to get to the T & A, the short running time and snappy pace keeps things popping right along.  

The scenes with the detective are decent enough.  The actors aren’t quite strong enough to pull off their roles, but whenever our hero’s getting tangled up with Baby and her sex-crazed mother, it works.  (The reveal of the blue-faced corpse is effective too.)  While the ending is pretty much a bust, the dated ‘70s fashions and music go a long way to keeping Did Baby $hoot Her $ugardaddy? afloat till then.  Fans of ‘70s kitsch will love the song, “Baby’s Got a Fever” that plays over one of the stripteases.  That ditty alone is almost worth the price of admission.  

FRIEND REQUEST (2017) *

You know that one weirdo girl in a hoodie who always sits alone in the cafeteria?  You know how you get that feeling that maybe you should befriend her because society tells you that’s the nice thing to do?  Well, Friend Request is about the best argument for NOT doing that.

To add insult to injury, this gal has zero friends on (this movie’s fake, unauthorized, pleased-don’t-sue-us-Zuckerberg version of) Facebook.  That’s even worse than having no friends in real life because everyone on the golldurn internet can see what a loser you are.  Of course, if you take the bait and friend her on Fakebook, chances are she’s going to be a social media stalker.

In Friend Request, she’s not only a weirdo girl in a hoodie and a social media stalker, but she’s a witch too!  If you even think of unfriending her on Fakebook, she’s liable to hang herself, film it, and put it all over your social media to make you look like a complete asshole.  Then, she’ll probably use her witchcraft to make wasps kill off all your friends.

It’s like she’s unfriending you… LITERALLY!

Hopefully, that summation is enough so that you don’t even need to see Friend Request.  However, if you do take it upon yourself to see it, make sure you have a high tolerance for these lame “the internet is a scary place” movies.  I sure as shit don’t, and it was a chore to get through.

As horribly rotten as most of it is, I have to say that the performers were decent.  It’s just that they couldn’t elevate the shoddy material.  It’s better than Unfriended, that’s for sure, but that’s not saying much.

BURIED ALIVE (1990) **

A psycho in a Ronald Reagan mask likes to stalk scantily clad runaways from a school for wayward girls.  He wraps them in a straitjacket before walling them up behind a brick wall.  A new teacher (Karen Witter) comes to the school and almost immediately starts having weird visions.  She thinks she sees John Carradine coming out of the walls (and toilets), but no one, not even the head shrink at the school (Robert Vaughn) believes her.  More girls disappear, and she soon fears she’ll be next.

Produced by Harry Allan Towers and directed by Gerard (Edge of Sanity) Kikoine, this uneven (and very loose) Edgar Allan Poe adaption at least has the benefit of an awesome cast.  In addition to Robert Vaughn and John Carradine, we have Donald Pleasence (with a bad German accent and even worse wig) as a creepy teacher, Ginger Lynn (as the school’s resident bad girl), Nia Long, William Butler, and Arnold Vosloo.  Although all the plot developments are predictable, their efforts are enough to keep you watching.

Kikoine gives us a handful of effective freak-out scenes that feel like they came out of an Elm Street sequel.  (The breathing wall effect is pretty cool.)  The rest of the movie is something of a disappointment, especially considering how warped Kikoine’s Edge of Sanity was.  The kills aren’t all that graphic and are a letdown for the most part, but I did like the scene where one of the girls uses a mixer as a makeshift curling iron.  (Naturally, it ends badly.)  There’s also a decent shower initiation scene, although the nudity is rather fleeting.  Kikoine films it all in an atmospheric manner, giving us plenty of odd camera angles along the way.  Too bad much of the second act is plodding and the final reel is mostly a washout.

AKA:  Lost Girls.