RED CHRISTMAS (2017) ****

Neo-Ozploitation has been kind of hit and miss for me.  I can’t say I’ve enjoyed much of it from Wolf Creek on down to the recent Patrick remake.  Craig Anderson’s Red Christmas proves that Ozploitation is alive and well.  Not only that, it’s one of the best Australian horror films ever made.

Twenty years after a horrific incident at an abortion clinic, Diane (Dee Wallace, who also produced) prepares for a nice Christmas with her family.  A dark shrouded figure named Cletus (the awesomely named Sam “Bazooka” Campbell) arrives unexpectedly at the house.  In the spirit of Christmas, Diane feels charitable and opens her home to the bandaged vagrant.  When he reads a letter that offends her, she kicks him out.  Before long, Cletus is picking off the family members one by one with his trusty ax.

Red Christmas would pair well on a double feature with Inside as they are both pregnancy-themed Christmas horror movies.  It also has a bit of a You’re Next vibe as the gaggle of constantly bickering characters are quite amusing.  What makes it unique is that they feel more like real quirky people instead of characters trapped in a horror flick.  

The offbeat tone helps propel the film.  It starts out almost like a Troma movie before becoming a Lifetime Original with shades of the slasher genre thrown in there.  That is to say it never goes where you’d expect it to.  It’s simultaneously fun, disgusting, and heartbreaking, which is quite a feat.  All this could’ve wound up being in extremely poor taste, but the cast really sells it.

Red Christmas is anchored by the fierce and funny performance by Wallace.  This is probably her best role since Cujo.  Like that film, she must protect her family at any cost from a menace in a claustrophobic setting.  It’s Gerard Orwyer who steals the show as her son who has Down syndrome and is obsessed with Shakespeare.  He’s hilarious, has genuine screen presence, and I hope to see a lot more of him in the near future.  

Then there’s Campbell as the killer, Cletus.  Even though he looks like a leper version of Mumm-Ra from Thundercats and chops victims up with the best of them, Campbell brings a tender vulnerability to the role that’s unexpectedly touching.  You can’t help but feel sorry for him.  I for one hope he returns for a sequel mighty soon.

The editing gets a little wonky near the end (it looks like they either ran out of time or money), but the finale is truly devastating.  I haven’t even gotten to the showstopping murder set pieces (which I won’t go into as I wouldn’t dream of spoiling them).  I have a feeling this might find its way into my Christmas Horror marathon come December 25^th.  

INCONCEIVABLE (2017) **

Brian (Nicolas Cage) and Angela (Gina Gershon) are a wealthy couple whose child was conceived by in vitro fertilization.  When Angela decides to go back to work, they hire a friend of a friend named Katie (Nicky Whelan, who has a topless scene) to be their live-in nanny.  Brian and Angela decide to try for another baby, and they ask Katie to be their surrogate.  Unbeknownst to the couple, she has an ulterior (and deadly) motive.  

Inconceivable is basically an updating of the old Nanny from Hell trope from the ‘90s.  Actually, “updating” is the wrong word because nothing has been updated.  Merely rehashed.  The big twist is also predictable, especially if you’ve seen more than one Lifetime Original Movie.

It’s good seeing Gershon and Cage together again two decades after their appearance in Face/Off.  It’s particularly nice to see Gershon in a leading role.  If you came to the party hoping the third-billed Cage partakes in his usual Cagey activities, you’re bound to be disappointed as he’s relegated to the stock “husband” role.  Faye Dunaway has some good moments though as Gershon’s meddling mother in-law, who doesn’t trust the nanny as far as she can throw her.

This was the directing debut of Jonathan Baker (who also appears in a small role).  If you’re a fan of reality shows, you’ll know he was the asshole on The Amazing Race.  I don’t know about that because I don’t watch reality shows, but he has a workmanlike style and a straightforward approach that befits the standard-issue material.  More interesting is that the screenwriter was none other than Zoe King, daughter of Red Shoe Diaries czar Zalman King, who also wrote Poison Ivy 2 back in the day.

Inconceivable is competently put together.  The actors turn in respectable performances.  It’s just all rather unremarkable.  Ultimately, Inconceivable is forgettable.  

AKA:  Unthinkable.  

SUSPIRIA (2018) **

Director Luca (Call Me By Your Name) Guadagnino’s remake of Dario Argento’s iconic Suspiria is an odd duck.  It’s almost as if Guadagnino took a look at Argento’s film and did the exact opposite.  Gone is the original’s colorful look.  The color palette here is muted, mostly with a lot of drab browns and beiges.  Goblin’s searing, pulsating score has been replaced with Thom Yorke’s somber tones.  Argento’s bloody death sequences have been traded out for some relatively bloodless scenes (well, until the end that is).

Guadagnino’s approach is closer to a Roman Polanski psychological slow burn than Argento’s poppy, brightly colored waking nightmare.  I get that Guadagnino was trying to distance his picture from Argento’s so it could stand on its own.  It’s just that it’s so different that it makes you wonder why he didn’t just make his own movie unconnected to the original.  

The basic plot is the same.  Susie (Dakota Johnson) comes to a dance school and uncovers a plot by the secret society of witches that run the place.  Having Tilda Swinton playing the headmistress was a nice touch.  It’s just the theory is better than the execution.  I mean having Swinton playing multiple roles seemed like a sure bet.  Anyone who bets enough will tell you the house wins eventually.

There’s also a heavy emphasis on dancing, which is fine.  I guess.  Even though in doing so it makes the movie feel like a David Lynch remake of A Chorus Line.  There was no goddamn reason it needed to be over two and a half hours though.  I kept asking myself, “When is something going to happen?”  When it did, it was wild enough to keep me watching (and awake).  Mostly, it’s just a slog in between the good stuff.  Oh, and did we need the Epilogue that was nothing more than an Exposition Dump to stuff that really didn’t need to be explained in the first place?  

Another problem is the character of Susie.  There is nothing wrong with Johnson’s performance as she is only working with what she was given (which wasn’t much).  It’s that her sole focus is dancing, which makes her character wafer thin.  

I wanted to love Suspiria.   Although I love the original, I was receptive and open to a reimagining.  Guadagnino’s film just never clicked for me.  The slow burn is a bit too slow and the burn is more of a fleeting spark than a sustained ember.  The ending is a bit of a letdown too and isn’t scary in the least, unless you think the sight of old women’s boobs are immediately scary.

CRASHING LAS VEGAS (1956) **

The forty-first installment in the long-running Bowery Boys franchise finds Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall) trying to get enough money to save Mrs. Kelly’s boarding house.  When Sach receives a huge electric shock, it gives him the inexplicable ability to predict numbers.  Slip makes him go on a game show and thanks to his uncanny gift, the boys wind up winning a trip to Las Vegas.  They then set out to win a fortune in the casino, and naturally become targets for unscrupulous gangsters.

Directed by Jean Yarborough (who directed many Abbott and Costello comedies), Crashing Las Vegas is a typical Bowery Boys entry.  It features Sach getting into fantastic misadventures while Slip rattles off a series of quips and malapropisms.  The laughs are sparse for the most part.  The best stretch comes when Sach gets mixed up with a gangster’s moll played by Mary Castle (who has sort of an Adele Jergens quality about her).  The fantasy sequence involving the Boys in prison stripes playing a game of “Musical Electric Chairs”, is amusing, but it feels like it came out of another movie.  Even though it’s consistently inconsistent, it’s nowhere near the bottom of the Bowery Boys barrel.

Unfortunately, Crashing Las Vegas is memorable for all the wrong reasons.  This was the final appearance in the series for Gorcey.  Still hurting from the recent death of his father (who also appeared in many of their movies), he apparently drowned his sorrows in drink.  He spent most of the filming drunk and was fired from the movie halfway through.  He’s clearly hammered in some scenes (most notably in the casino and hotel sequences) and slurs his dialogue, which lends a depressing pall over the film.  

Look fast for Three Stooges straight man Emil Sitka in a bit part during the game show scene.

HIGH SCHOOL U.S.A. (1983) **

Michael J. Fox stars as the class cut-up who draws the ire of the school preppie (Anthony Edwards) when he falls in love with his girlfriend (Nancy McKeon, who was in Poison Ivy with Fox two years later).  Naturally, Edwards gets jealous, and plays a prank on Fox that lands him in detention.  Michael J. then challenges him to a drag race to settle the matter once and for all.

I’m kind of a sucker for these all-star Made for TV movies, especially ones that have teenage casts chockful of ‘80s stars.  Even with my predisposition for the genre, High School U.S.A. left me a little cold.  I wanted to like it, but it’s high on clichés and low on laughs.

Still, it’s worth watching solely for the incredible cast.  I mean where else are you going to see Bob Denver and Crispin Glover playing father and son?  There’s also Tony Dow as the principal, Dawn Wells as a home economics teacher, David Nelson as the janitor and Dana Plato, Todd Bridges, and Crystal Bernard as students.  Seeing all these familiar faces in one place has its charms.  If only they had some decent material to work with.  

High School U.S.A. is sprawling and ramshackle.  It’s at its best when it’s focusing on the students, but it unwisely gets bogged down with a lot of unnecessary subplots involving the teachers.  Director Rod (The Garbage Pail Kids) Amateau sets up the gags in an obvious manner and many of the punchlines are foregone conclusions.  It may be an ‘80s movie, but most of the clichés (like the drag race finale) come straight out of the ‘50s.

It’s not all bad though.  I liked Bridges’ robot, who at one point, falls in love with a soda machine.  There’s also a scene where the girls spy on the boys in the locker room for a change.  No matter what you think of High School U.S.A., it does have a scene where Michael J. Fox saves Crispin Glover from a bully two years before he did the same thing in Back to the Future, so it has that going for it.  

A TV pilot, which featured some of the same cast members playing different characters, followed the next year.

ARMED RESPONSE (2017) *

The government covertly sets up several “temples” around the globe. These temples are high-tech rendition centers that utilize a super computer to extract information from terrorists.  (It’s kind of like a liar detector on steroids.) When one of the temples mysteriously go offline, Wesley Snipes enlists the help of its inventor (David Annable) to figure out what happened.  Snipes and his team gain access to the temple and find the temple’s security team dead.  The computer then locks Snipes and his crew inside and sets out to make them its next victims.

Director John Stockwell sets everything up economically enough, but once Snipes and company arrive at the temple, it becomes a shitty Guys with Guns Walking Around in the Dark movie.  Speaking of dark, the whole movie is so dark at times that it’s difficult to tell what the hell is going on.  (The overuse of shaky-cam footage captured from GoPro cameras attached to the soldiers’ helmets and guns gets nauseating almost instantly.)  It’s a big departure for Stockwell whose bread and butter is brightly-lit movies such as Blue Crush and Into the Blue.

The horror elements that rear their head in the second half are painfully half-assed too.  It’s sort of like a variation on those Your Worst Fear Can Kill You movies.  When you finally see what the hell it is that’s been attacking them, it’s a fucking joke.  There are a few gore scenes in the final act, but it’s too late in the game to make much of a difference.

Obscured behind a pair of big sunglasses and a low brimmed hat and speaking in an overly gravelly voice, Snipes rightfully tries to hide his face for most of the movie.  Gene Simmons is equally unrecognizable in a small role, and Anne Heche looks miserable as Snipes’ second in command.  I can’t say I blame any of them.  Since it was a WWE production, you’ve got to have a wrestler in there somewhere.  That dubious dishonor goes to Seth Rollins, who skates by from just acting like he’s still in the ring.

Stockwell is a talented filmmaker.  He recently made the Kickboxer remake, which was tons of fun.  Armed Response on the other hand, is just a dark, dreary, murky mess.  

LORNA (1964) ** ½

Lorna (Lorna Maitland) is an impossibly stacked, hopelessly bored housewife trapped in an unsatisfying relationship with Jim (James Rucker) who yearns for some excitement in her dreary life.  She gets more than she bargained for when an escaped convict (Mark Bradley) has his way with her while her hubby is at work.  At first, she tries to fight him off, but it doesn’t take long before they’re playing house together.  Predictably, it ends in tragedy when Jim comes home early and finds them in the throes of passion.

Lorna is a prototypical Russ Meyer movie.  It was a transitional film for Russ, seeing him moving away from the nudie-cuties of his early work and heading into his southern-fried gothic melodrama phase.  It doesn’t quite have all his hallmarks yet (the editing isn’t nearly as rapid-fire as it would later become), but there are certainly shades of his future greatness here.

Meyer’s eye for beautiful compositions (both of the female form and the landscapes of nature) is as strong as ever.  The cinematography is crisp, and the film is quite gorgeous to look at.  I also enjoyed the narrative device of the fire and brimstone preacher (Jim Griffith) who narrates and casts judgment upon our characters.  

Maitland is good at projecting her character’s isolation, yearning, and loneliness.  She holds her end of the film.  Bradley is sort of a bore as her husband, but Hal Hopper has his moments as Jim’s drunk co-worker.

I said earlier Lorna is a transitional film.  Like most transitions, not everything is quite worked out and fully formed.  For example, the scenes of Lorna’s cuckold husband getting made fun of at work isn’t nearly as hard-hitting and involving as the stuff with Lorna and the convict.  It all ends in a typically violent, highly moralistic Meyer fashion.  I can’t say it’s totally successful, but it’s interesting seeing Meyer forging the building blocks that would become the foundation of his entire career.

AFTERMATH (2017) ****

Roman (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is devasted by the loss of his family when they are killed in a mid-air collision.  Jake (Scoot McNairy) is the air traffic controller who was on duty when the accident took place.  Lonely, hurt, and shunned by the unsympathetic airline, Roman turns his rage on Jake and sets out to make him pay.

This sounds like a roundabout Death Wish clone, but nothing could be further from the truth.  Aftermath is not your average revenge movie.  It is a dour, grim and depressing tragedy that also happens to be quite moving and powerful.  (It was also based on a true incident.)

Roman ranks among Arnold’s best performances.  The moment we realize this isn’t going to be your typical Arnold picture is when he receives the news his family is dead, and he faints.  Now, we’ve seen Arnold knocked out, shot, melted, and even bested by Batman, but I think this is the first time we’ve seen him faint on camera.  We’ve certainly never seen him this vulnerable, ragged and wounded.  

What makes Aftermath so gripping is that Jake isn’t a bad guy.  The accident was horrible, but it really isn’t even his fault.  He just happened to be on duty when it happened.  Try telling that to Roman though. 

Both men are experiencing unfathomable grief.  One is suffering the loss of immediate loved ones.  The other is feeling responsible for a catastrophic loss of life.  Both flirt with the possibility of suicide but relent before giving themselves over to death’s embrace.  The scenes of both men contemplating suicide are powerful and goes to show how they are forever linked to the tragedy.

The real villains are the airline’s lawyers who want to sweep the incident under the rug and pay off the victims’ families.  Roman doesn’t want any of that.  He just wants them to apologize.  And maybe look at a photo of his family.  In the long run, it’s not that much to ask, especially considering what happens in the end.

Even then, the ending doesn’t go as you’d expect.  You get a sense that maybe if Roman caught up with Jake a few months sooner things, things would’ve gone differently.  That’s what makes the ending a tragedy instead of an ordinary drama. 

I have a feeling that if anyone other than Arnold was in the lead role, Aftermath would’ve probably had some awards buzz.  It’s frank, grim, and unrelenting, and an excellent showcase for his skills.  Because Arnold was in the role, it was probably dismissed for being just another action flick.  Let me tell you, this is anything but.  It’s a well-executed gut-punch of a movie.  It would also make a good Arnold double feature with Maggie as both films are about as bleak as they come. 

AKA:  478.  AKA:  Aftermath:  Impact.

THE 2018 VIDEO VACUUM AWARDS

Here it is, folks!  The moment you’ve all been waiting for.  Here are the winners of The 2018 Video Vacuum Awards!

Best Dialogue

And the nominees are…

Creed 2 for “He broke things in me that ain’t never been fixed!”
The Equalizer 2 for “I expect a 5 Star rating!”
Mandy for “You ripped my shirt!”
Mute for “I’m AWOL!  You’re an A-Hole!”
Ready Player One for “It’s fucking Chucky!”
Red Sparrow for “You sent me to whore school!”
Solo:  A Star Wars Story for “I know.”
Spider-Man:  Into the Spider-Verse for “I frolic.  I dance.  I do this in my pants!”
Superfly for “I’m not going nowhere where the j’s are silent!”
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies for “Save me from Gene Hackman’s real estate scam!”

And the winner is… The Equalizer 2 for “I expect a 5 Star rating!”

Best Scene I Could Not Make Up

And the nominees are…

An Alien chestburster erupting out of Goro in Ready Player One
Iron Giant vs. Mechagodzilla in Ready Player One
The Trip to the Overlook Hotel in Ready Player One
The weaponization of Chucky in Ready Player One
Eric Roberts’ La La Land-inspired song and dance in Stalked by My Doctor:  Patient’s Revenge

And the winner is… Eric Roberts’ La La Land-inspired song and dance in Stalked by My Doctor:  Patient’s Revenge

Best Kids Movie

And the nominees are…

Goosebumps 2:  Haunted Halloween
Hotel Transylvania 3:  Summer Vacation
The House with a Clock in its Walls
Paddington 2
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies

And the winner is… Teen Titans Go!  To the Movies

Best DTV/Streaming Movie

And the nominees are…

Before I Wake
A Futile and Stupid Gesture
Kickboxer:  Retaliation
The Night Comes for Us
Puppet Master:  The Littlest Reich

And the winner is… The Night Comes for Us!

Worst DTV/Streaming Movie

And the nominees are…

Black Water
China Salesman
Deep Blue Sea 2
Godzilla:  City on the Edge of Battle
Hellraiser:  Judgment

And the LOSER is… China Salesman!

Worst DTV/Streaming Sequel

And the nominees are…

The Cloverfield Paradox
Deep Blue Sea 2
Escape Plan 2:  Hades
Godzilla:  City on the Edge of Battle
Hellraiser:  Judgment

And the LOSER is… Hellraiser:  Judgment!

Best Action Movie

And the nominees are…

Bumblebee
Death Wish
Solo:  A Star Wars Story
Superfly
Venom

And the winner is… Venom! 

Worst Action Movie

And the nominees are…

China Salesman
Black Water
The Debt Collector
Escape Plan 2:  Hades
Peppermint

And the LOSER is… China Salesman!

Best Comic Book Movie

And the nominees are…

Ant-Man and the Wasp
Aquaman
Avengers:  Infinity War
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
Venom

And the winner is… Venom!

 Best Sequel 

And the nominees are…

Ant-Man and the Wasp
Creed 2
Pacific Rim:  Uprising
Bumblebee
Solo:  A Star Wars Story

And the winner is… Creed 2!

Worst Sequel

And the nominees are…

Deep Blue Sea 2
Escape Plan 2:  Hades
Godzilla:  City on the Edge of Battle
Hellraiser:  Judgment
The Nun

And the LOSER is… Hellraiser:  Judgment!

Best Horror Movie

And the nominees are…

Before I Wake
The House with a Clock in its Walls
Mandy
The Meg
Mom and Dad

And the winner is… Mom and Dad!

Worst Horror Movie

And the nominees are…

Day of the Dead:  Bloodline
Deep Blue Sea 2
Hellraiser:  Judgment
Hereditary
The Nun

And the LOSER is… Hellraiser:  Judgment!

Best Sci-Fi Movie

And the nominees are…

Ant-Man and the Wasp
Bumblebee
Pacific Rim:  Uprising
Ready Player One
Solo:  A Star Wars Story

And the winner is… Ant-Man and the Wasp!

Worst Sci-Fi Movie

And the nominees are…

Annihilation
The Cloverfield Paradox
Godzilla:  City on the Edge of Battle
Godzilla:  Planet of the Monsters
Mute

And the LOSER is… Godzilla:  City on the Edge of Battle!

Best Movie Based on a TV Show

And the nominees are…

Bumblebee
The Equalizer 2
Goosebumps 2:  Haunted Halloween
Mission:  Impossible:  Fallout
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies

And the winner is… Teen Titans Go!  To the Movies

Best Drama

And the nominees are…

Bohemian Rhapsody
Creed 2
The Last Movie Star
The Mule
The Other Side of the Wind

And the winner is… Creed 2!

Best Actor

And the nominees are…

Trevor Jackson (Superfly)
Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther)
Joaquin Phoenix (You Were Never Really Here)
Burt Reynolds (The Last Movie Star)
Bruce Willis (Death Wish)

And the winner is… Joaquin Phoenix!

Best Actress

And the nominees are…

Cate Blanchett (The House with a Clock in its Walls)
Hailee Steinfeld (Bumblebee)
Marci Miller (Children of the Corn:  Runaway)
Tessa Thompson (Creed 2)
Ariel Winter (The Last Movie Star)

And the winner is… Tessa Thompson!

Best Director

And the nominees are…

Steven Caple, Jr. (Creed 2)
Ruben Fleischer (Venom)
Ron Howard (Solo:  A Star Wars Story)
Peyton Reed (Ant-Man and the Wasp)
Director X (Superfly)

And the winner is… Steven Caple, Jr.! 

Worst Picture 
And the nominees are… 
China Salesman
Hellraiser:  Judgment
Hereditary
Peppermint
211 

And the LOSER is… China Salesman!

Best Picture 

And the nominees are…

Ant-Man and the Wasp
Creed 2
Solo:  A Star Wars Story
Superfly
Venom

And the winner is… Creed 2!

That wraps up The Video Vacuum Awards for this year.  Thank you all for visiting, commenting, and participating in the discussion.  I look forward to exploring another wild year of cinema with you all.  See you at the movies!

THE 2018 VIDEO VACUUM AWARDS: THE TECHNICAL AWARDS

Before that OTHER awards show steals all my thunder, I figured I’d go ahead and give out the 12^th Annual Video Vacuum Awards.  We had a wealth of great nominees this year and I can’t wait to hand out the awards.  Before we do that though, tradition dictates that we first hand out The Video Vacuum Technical Awards.  These of course are awarded to movies that had zero or no competition in their respective categories.  So, without further ado:

Best Remake

Superfly
Runner-Up:  Death Wish

Best Shark Movie

The Meg
Runner-Up:  Santa Jaws

Worst Shark Movie

Deep Blue Sea 2

Best Movie Based on a Video Game

Rampage

Worst Drama

211
Runner-Up:  Hold the Dark

Best Comedy

A Futile and Stupid Gesture

Best Documentary

They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead
Runner-Up:  Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Best Nicolas Cage Movie

Mom and Dad
Runner-Up:  Teen Titans Go! To the Movies 

Worst Nicolas Cage Movie

211

Best DTV/Streaming Sequel

Kickboxer:  Retaliation

Best TV Movie

Stalked by My Doctor:  Patient’s Revenge
Runner-Up:  Santa Jaws

Worst Kids Movie

Show Dogs

Runner-Up:  Peter Rabbit

DOCTOR MORDRID (1992) ** ½

Jeffrey Combs stars as Doctor Mordrid, an immortal sorcerer who lives in an apartment in New York City and has a pet raven named Edgar Allan.  It’s up to him to stop the evil Kabal (Brian Thompson) from bringing about the apocalypse.  When Mordrid is arrested for one of Kabal’s murders, his mystical amulet is confiscated by the police, leaving him in a mortal state.  Mordrid then relies on a pretty detective (Yvette Nipar) to help him escape prison and save the world.

Directed by the father and son team of Albert and Charles Band, Doctor Mordrid plays like a half-assed low budget version of Doctor Strange.  His inner sanctum lair has a cool retro-art deco look and the production design probably cost more than anything else in the entire movie.  The chintzy effects have a certain charm about them too, it’s just that the budget was too small to realize its fantastic vision.    

Doctor Mordrid has ambition, I’ll give it that.  Unfortunately, the pacing is erratic at best.  The opening is rather sluggish, and overall, it feels much longer than the seventy-four-minute running time suggests.  (The second act feels like a Law and Order episode.)  Luckily, the film really comes alive during the rousing finale.  The stop-motion dinosaur skeleton fight is simply awesome, and it’s a shame there wasn’t more scenes of this caliber throughout the picture.  

It also benefits from a great performance by Combs, who lends considerable gravitas to the cheapjack surroundings.  He can earnestly spout mystical gobbledygook like few can and he really sells the character’s sense of impending doom.  Thompson is a blast too as the badass villain who looks like a lost Mortal Kombat character.  Whenever they are squaring off against one another, Doctor Mordrid is just what the doctor ordered.

AKA:  Rexosaurus.  

PARANORMAL EXTREMES: TEXT MESSAGES FROM THE DEAD (2015) *

Writer/director Ted V. (The Corpse Grinders) Mikels made Paranormal Extremes:  Text Messages from the Dead when he was eighty-six years old.  I can’t imagine being alive and kicking at eighty-six, let alone making a movie at that age.  With that in mind, I tried to take it easy on the film.  However, this just might be Mikels’ worst.

Addison (Colie Knoke) is a ditzy blonde who meets an old man (Mikels) in the park.  He asks her to pass a message along to his wife.  When Addison does so, she’s befuddled to learn from the wife that the man has been dead for three years.  Later, her boyfriend goes on a business trip and keeps texting her about needing her help to “cross over”.  Since their last conversation revolved around a GPS, she thinks he needs help with directions.  Little does she know, he’s actually dead as a doornail and trying to communicate with her from beyond the grave.

Like most of Mikels’ latter-day shot-on-video affairs, Paranormal Extremes:  Text Messages from the Dead is a rather slipshod affair.  The dialogue and the acting are mostly terrible across the board (except for Mikels) and some of the extras and bit players are… shall we say… eclectic.  Knoke’s performance almost singlehandedly sinks it.  Her blank line readings and unresponsive reaction shots are often good for a laugh though.  There’s obviously SOMETHING supernatural going on around her, but she’s such a dim bulb that you have to wonder if she can even conceptualize what’s happening.  

If it was just a bimbo version of The Sixth Sense, I might’ve been okay.  However, once Knoke joins a Ghost Hunters-style reality show in the third act, I had to tap out.  It just tacks on another useless twenty minutes of unnecessary plot at the end and makes the one-hundred-and-two-minute running time feel a hell of a lot longer.

BORIS AND NATASHA (1992) ** ½

Before the Rocky and Bullwinkle movie, we got this live action spin-off featuring the two nitwit Pottsylvanian spies.  Since it never got a theatrical release and pretty much fell off the face of the earth after premiering on Showtime, my expectations were lower than slug shit.  As it turns out it’s fairly clever and contains a few genuine laughs. 

Boris (Dave Thomas) and Natasha (Sally Kellerman) defect to America.  Really, they’re unwitting decoys for the real agents who are out to steal a microchip that can turn back time.  Along the way, Natasha becomes a fashion model and Boris has to come to grips with his feelings for her.

The plot is somewhat similar to Spies Like Us (which is fitting since Thomas wrote that flick).  Thomas, it must be said, is a bit miscast.  He doesn’t go all in with the accent and seems much more dapper than the cartoon Boris ever was.  Kellerman is a lot of fun though.  She is clearly having a blast and really gets to cut loose. 

The funniest part is the narration, which is done in the same style of the old show.  Not only does the narrator steal the movie, he helps keep the spirit of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show intact.  Too bad the budget was too low to prevent the real moose and squirrel from making proper cameos.  Most of this is silly, and it’s occasionally downright dumb, but there are some insane cameos here (especially Kellerman’s “date”) that add to the fun.

It all kind of falls apart by the end, but I guess that was to be expected.  Director Charles Martin (Trick or Treat) Smith’s style is a bit too flat.  I guess that is due in part with the low budget.  However, there’s enough bright spots here to make it recommended as a curiosity piece.

FUTURE KICK (1991) *

Here’s a ripe slice of What the Hell Did I Just Watch?  It’s one part Terminator rip-off, one part Virtual Reality flick, and one part stripper movie.  Imagine if Albert Pyun directed Total Recall but had to have a random striptease tossed in every ten minutes or so.  That still doesn’t do it justice. Holy cats is this one big clusterfuck.

Don “The Dragon” Wilson stars as a Cyberon, or cyborg.  He’s the last of his kind and makes his living as a bounty hunter.  Meg Foster (who deserves like… SOOOOOO much better) wants to avenge her husband’s death and hires Don to help her.

This is incredibly, seventy-one minutes long, but it is one of the longest seventy-one minutes I have ever endured.  Some scenes don’t make a lick of sense.  Others are too dark to see.  Others are filled with so much nothing you wonder how it even got before a camera.  We also get inexplicable overuse of footage stolen from other Roger Corman productions to pad out the running time.  There’s an occasional WTF moment to keep it from being a total waste of time (like the decapitation scene) and there’s plenty of boobs, but for the most part, this is one frustrating experience.  

Speaking of frustrating, the ending is something else.  It’s one of those “It was all a dream” deals.  More like a nightmare if you ask me.

Wilson skates by, just barely, by deftly acting like a robot the whole time.  Or maybe he wasn’t.  It’s hard to tell.  Just thinking about the supremely talented Foster in this movie is too depressing for words.  The great Chris Penn is completely wasted as the villain’s lackey who only gets like one line of dialogue.  Maria Ford also shows up briefly as a stripper, but that’s not nearly enough to pull this one out of the gutter.

Writer/director Damian Klaus didn’t write or direct another movie.  That alone proves there is a God and he is merciful.  

AKA:  Futurekick.  AKA:  Kickboxer 2025.

THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES (2018) ** ½

Two kids (Judah Lewis and Darby Camp) left alone on Christmas Eve stay up late and try to film Santa Claus (Kurt Russell) with their old camcorder.  They stow away aboard his sleigh and cause Santa to wreck in the mean streets of Chicago.  To save Christmas, the kids have to help Santa find his reindeer, the sack full of toys, and magic hat.

The Christmas Chronicles is perfectly harmless family yuletide entertainment.  If it wasn’t for Kurt Russell playing Santa, I doubt I would’ve even seen it.  He brings his usual swagger and bravado to the role and does a fine job erasing the traditional Santa stereotypes.  He’s physically fit, has a penchant for mischief, and sings a mean rendition of “Santa Claus is Back in Town”.  It’s fun seeing Kurt channeling Elvis once again as he leads a jailhouse combo (including Stevie Van Zandt) in what is far and away the best scene in the movie.  

If only the rest of The Christmas Chronicles had that same spirit.  Much of the drama with the bickering siblings is your usual Hallmark Channel-style fluff.  (At least the child actors don’t grate on your nerves too bad.)  Some of the subplots (like the kids’ run-in with some thieves) are superfluous.  I could’ve also done without the CGI elves, who look like garden gnomes and act like those annoying Minions.  The identity of Mrs. Claus (which I wouldn’t dream of revealing) is pretty great though.

Kids are sure to enjoy The Christmas Chronicles.  Grandparents too.  People that fall somewhere in the middle (like me) may feel a tad underwhelmed.  Still, there’s enough good-naturedness here to make it an OK Christmas flick.  

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON: SWORD OF DESTINY (2016) **

Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a landmark film for the Kung Fu genre.  It combined arthouse drama and elegant cinematography with badass fight scenes that were among the best ever filmed.  Sixteen years later, Michelle Yeoh returned for this direct-to-Netflix sequel without Lee or Chow Yun-Fat.  I thought the addition of Donnie Yen to the cast and the fact that the legendary Yuen (Drunken Master) Woo-Ping was at the helm would be enough to make this a surefire winner.  Sadly, Sword of Destiny is a clunky, curiously uninvolving affair.

A ruthless warlord (Jason Scott Lee) wants the titular sword to fulfill a prophecy.  It’s up to Yeoh and a band of intrepid fighters to make sure that doesn’t happen.  Yen is a mysterious stranger who joins Yeoh on her quest.  

This misguided sequel features none of the elegance and style of the original.  The pacing is sluggish, and the plot is one-dimensional.  Even the usually adept Woo-Ping’s choreography seems to be on autopilot.  Aside from an OK fight on an icy lake (which is a bit too dark) and Yeoh’s duel with a witch (which is a bit too short), the film feels fairly ordinary in just about every way.

Yeoh once again is great.  It’s just that the film lets her down.  It’s fun seeing Lee getting to chew the scenery a bit as the villain, even though he feels like he came out of an entirely different movie.  Yen is sadly wasted and isn’t given a whole lot to do until the very end.

Overall, this is a disappointment in many regards.  If it was just called Sword of Destiny, it might’ve been a forgettable programmer.  As a sequel to Crouching Tiger, it comes with a certain set of expectations.  Unfortunately, it just can’t live up to them.

FEARLESS FIGHTERS (1974) ****

Two clan brothers are at odds.  One feels the government owes him, so he steals a shipment of gold.  His brother, hoping to restore his honor, steals it back with the intention of handing it over to the authorities.  Of course, HE gets blamed for the theft.  Four strangers are drawn into the plot, each with their own suspicions and motivations for getting involved with the gold.  Eventually, they learn to trust one another and work as a team to fight the evildoer who wants the gold for himself.

Fearless Fighters is densely plotted but never confusing.  It reminded me a little of Shogun Assassin as it sometimes feels like there were multiple movies edited into one.  It moves at a breathless pace and amazingly enough, it crams in a ton of plot and even more action into a short amount of time.  Our heroes can’t take two steps without a group of bandits or killers or somebody jumping into the frame to do battle with them. 

It’s also chockful of colorful characters, many of whom have cool gimmicks.  My favorite was a badass named “One Man Army” whose sword splits in two.  He also lulls his enemies by hypnotizing them by waving his arms.  While they’re busy standing around watching him flail around, he runs in and cuts them to shreds. 

Fearless Fighters features lots of scenes where the bad guys shoot arrows at our heroes, who almost always catch them and throw them back.  Incredibly, the arrows always land into the chests of the archers who shot them.  This begs the question:  Why would you need a bow in the first place if you can just throw arrows so fast that they kill their intended targets?  No matter.  It’s just another reason to love this nutty movie.

If you’re looking for non-stop carnage and first-rate chopsocky goodness, Fearless Fighters is hard to beat.  It’s a film about loyalty, friendship, honor, and kicking lots of ass.  Kung Fu fans will undoubtedly eat this one up. 

James Hong helped prepare the American version and did some of the dubbing. 

AKA:  A Real Man.  AKA:  A Hero of Heroes.