COME OUT AND PLAY (2013) **

Come Out and Play is a dull, dreary, and completely unnecessary remake of Who Can Kill a Child?  It’s sort of reminiscent of the Cabin Fever remake in that there is no real drive to the movie.  There’s also no real point to it either.

A vacationing couple are annoyed that there’s a big festival in town, so they rent a boat to visit a nearby island.  They soon discover the place is completely deserted, save for a bunch of miscreant children.  Eventually, the killer children come after the couple and they’re forced to fight for their lives.

Like Who Can Kill a Child?, the first half of the movie is extremely slow moving.  The original’s use of real newsreel footage of children suffering worldwide was grotesque and disturbing, but at the very least, it was memorable.  That footage is nowhere to be seen in this version.  Without that nasty kick, Come Out and Play is about as generic and hollow a remake as they come.

I did enjoy the fact that Vinessa Shaw played the very pregnant wife.  Her performance in Ladybugs left a lasting impression on me when I was a teenager, so I never miss an opportunity to see her in a film.  Unfortunately, she isn’t given much to do.  Ebon Moss-Bachrach is thoroughly unmemorable as the husband too.  Without compelling leads, it’s hard to care what happens to them.  You know you’re in trouble when you start rooting for the bloodthirsty brats.

Writer/director “Makinov” goes for the same slow-burn type of suspense of the original, and likewise comes up short.  The pacing is sluggish, and the suspense sequences quickly fizzle out.  These scenes rarely escalate.  Instead, it just kind of flatlines.  There aren’t any real scares either.  Things just sort of happen.  The final reel where our hero starts socking kids left and right has a little oomph to it, but it’s not nearly enough to justify the slower-than-slow slow burn beginning.

AKA:  The Child.

BACKTRACE (2018) **

After making a successful getaway, Matthew Modine and his bank robbing cohorts meet to split up the cash in the middle of the woods.  There is a disagreement about how to divvy up the loot, a shootout unfolds, and Modine is shot in the head and left for dead.  He winds up going to prison for the crime but is sprung by a young thief (top-billed Ryan Guzman) who wants to know where the money is hidden.  The only catch is Modine’s brain injury causes him to have severe amnesia. Luckily for him, the thieves have an advanced super drug that can help jog his memory.  

This is an okay set-up for a crime thriller.  The follow-through is a bit lackluster though.  The twist ending is decent, but it’s not enough to really make or break it.

I’ve always been a big Matthew Modine fan, so it was fun for me to see him matching wits against Sylvester Stallone.  I mean who would’ve thought we’d ever see Louden Swain go up against Rocky Balboa?  (Or, if you prefer, Private Joker versus Rambo.)  Too bad they only share one brief scene together.

Oh yeah, Stallone is in this movie.  It’s a shame his character is a supporting player, even though he gets second billing.  He seems disinterested most of the time, probably because he knows literally anyone could’ve played this nothing role.  (He spends most his screen time standing in front of a police peg board talking to Christopher McDonald and trying to figure out Modine’s next move.)

If you haven’t already guessed, this is one of those Grindstone Entertainment movies in which the filmmakers get a big name star to work a day or two, then they build a plot around them that only makes occasional use for their character.  I’m not a fan of this filmmaking process, but we are treated to a funny shootout scene in the end where Sly is never in the same frame as the guys he’s shooting.  Obviously, they filmed the bad guys getting shot on one day and the scenes of Sly firing the gun was added in later.

I could’ve enjoyed all this if the film had more of those corny touches.  However, the annoying shaky-cam scenes of Modine clutching his temples and trying to remember something during a blue-tinted flashback really tested my patience.  The action isn’t bad either, but it’s limited to the opening and closing scenes, which makes the second act a bit of a chore to sit through.  

In short, you may need some of Modine’s super memory drug by the time all is said and done, because Backtrace is thoroughly forgettable.

AKA:  Flashback.  AKA:  Amnesia.

THE ICEMAN (2013) ** ½

The Iceman tells the true story of Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon), the notorious hitman known as “The Iceman”.  Kuklinski goes from working as a porno editor to performing hits for the Mob virtually overnight, thanks to his coldblooded demeanor.  Despite his callous brutality, he’s also devoted family man who sees murder as a way to put food on the table and provide for his wife (Winona Ryder).  Naturally, he never tells her what he does for a living, and resorts to leading a double life. 

Usually, when you have a such a coldblooded character at the center of your picture, it’s hard to make him someone the audience can care about. Luckily, Shannon’s poker face is a lot more interesting and expressive than most actors who are acting their heart out.  Sadly, despite Shannon’s cool and calculated performance, the film itself is a bit of a misfire.

Shannon always holds your attention, but the movie itself stops short of drawing you in.  The message of the film is a bit muddled too.  The big takeaway here isn’t so much “crime doesn’t pay” as it is “don’t hide shit from your wife”. 

While The Iceman is absorbing in the early going, it sort of loses its way once Shannon becomes excommunicated from the Mob and takes up with a freelance hitman who works out of an ice cream truck.  This is the kind of role someone like Sam Rockwell or Nicolas Cage could’ve excelled in.  Instead, we get Chris Evans, who is sorely miscast and looks laughable in his bad wig, grungy goatee, and gaudy sunglasses.  He tries way too hard to unsuccessfully shed his Captain America image and winds up coming off more like a lame Saturday Night Live character in the process.  

The good news is the cast is filled top to bottom with some great actors in small parts.  While Ryder is kind of wasted in a thankless role, Stephen Dorff, James Franco, and Robert Davi make memorable impressions in their brief screen time.  Ray Liotta has some excellent scenes too as Shannon’s harried boss.  It’s enough to make you wish he had a bit more to do because whenever he’s onscreen, The Iceman briefly heats up.

TEENAGE JUNGLE (1959) **

A stern-faced District Attorney (Herbert Heyes) calls the parents and guardians of various juvenile delinquents into his office and chastises them for their lack of parental supervision.  We then see flashbacks of a teenage party being raided by the cops where two delinquent car-thieving brothers are arrested.  More flashbacks of other juvenile delinquents, hard-luck gamblers, and assorted underworld types follow.  All these characters are connected in some way to Jim Murray (Wheeler Oakman) a gangster, who after a long prison stretch, now wants to set his wayward son (Johnny Duncan, Robin from the old Batman and Robin serial) on the straight and narrow. 

Teenage Jungle is a cut-and-paste Juvenile Delinquent movie.  The wraparound footage with the D.A. is new, but the long chunks of flashback footage is from Gambling with Souls and Slaves in Bondage.  The effect isn’t exactly convincing to begin with, and the editing only gets worse as it goes along.  (Things get particularly choppy in the last act.)  The cinematography between the three films doesn’t match either, which only adds to the cobbled-together feel. 

Teenage Jungle works up to a point.  The early dance sequences are good for a few laughs.  I mean, nothing says “Juvenile Delinquents” like a pair of twins doing gymnastic dance numbers in someone’s living room.  The Gambling with Souls scenes play out rather well in their condensed form too.  The fact that the running time is less than an hour certainly helps as well. 

The problem is this thing was a half-assed, re-edited attempt at a Juvenile Delinquent movie.  Instead of catering to the genre demands, the narrative is filled with scenes from old “Scare Pictures”.  In lieu of things like hot-rodding teens, bobbysoxers, and malt shops, we get a lot of baloney about the dangers of drinking, gambling, and crime.  In the process, the film falls somewhere in between a scare picture and an honest to goodness Juvenile Delinquent pic, and winds up failing to hit the highlights of either genre. 

The highpoint of the movie is Oakman.  He also appeared in Gambling with Souls and Slaves in Bondage and seeing him turning up in all three sections of Teenage Jungle gives it a bit of consistency.  (Even if he is called by three different names.)  It’s kind of a kick seeing the slightly older and wiser Oakman trying to repent for his past sins in the other films.  In a way, it’s kind of like Boyhood, as you see the character gradually age before your very eyes.  That doesn’t exactly save the flick, but it is pretty neat.

AKA:  Teen Age.

DUSK TO DAWN DRIVE-IN TRASH-O-RAMA SHOW VOL. 3 (1996) *** ½

Something Weird’s nearly two-hour collection of grindhouse and exploitation trailers is a must for genre buffs.  95% of the trailers included are full-length, but I did enjoy the string of thirty-second ads and/or TV spots that were wedged in there too.  It features a good blend of subgenres, some great-looking rarities, and a few undeniable classics.

Among them:  Horror High, Revenge of the Cheerleaders, The Blood Spattered Bride, Don’t Look in the Basement (which rips off the Last House on Left advertising campaign with its famous tagline, “To Avoid Fainting Keep Repeating, It’s Only a Movie!”), The Dorm That Dripped Blood, The Van, Hot Summer Week!, Black Eye, Class of ‘74, The Teasers, Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw, Madhouse, Creatures the World Forgot, Thumb Tripping, Satan’s Cheerleaders, The Female Butcher, Goodbye Emmanuelle, Dr. Tarr’s Torture Dungeon, Deadly China Doll, Caged Heat, The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, Pussycat Pussycat I Love You, The Yum Yum Girls, Commuter Husbands, Carry on Emmanuelle, Angel Angel Down We Go, Bad Georgia Road, High Wild and Free, Ruby (with its great tagline:  “Christened in blood... raised in sin... she’s sweet sixteen... let the party begin!”), The Legend of the Wolf Woman, Cheerleaders’ Beach Party, Superchick, The Mini-Skirt Mob, Deranged, Summerlust, Blood of the Dragon, The Fountain of Love, The Loners, Shame of the Jungle, Trouble Man, The Savage Seven, Dirty O’Neil the Love Life of a Cop, Angel Unchained, Maid in Sweden, The Swinging Barmaids, Tomcats (“They’re up your skirt before you can flirt!”), The Hard Ride, Super Stooges vs. the Wonder Women, Seven Blows of the Dragon, A Long Ride from Hell, They’re Coming to Get You (AKA:  All the Colors of the Dark), The Three Fantastic Supermen, Sadismo (a crazy looking Mondo movie about sadism around the world, Bogard (AKA:  Black Fist), Black Samson, Black Shampoo, Dr. Black Mr. Hyde (“Don’t give him no sass or he’ll kick your ass!”), Destroy All Monsters, Night of the Lepus, Frogs (“Today the pond!  Tomorrow the world!”), The Last Porno Flick, Scream Blacula Scream, and City on Fire. 

Overall, there are plenty of terrific trailers here.  Caged Heat, Ruby, and Tomcats were among my faves.  Having a heavy concentration on cheerleader movies, biker flicks, and Blaxploitation actioners didn’t hurt either.  At 110 minutes, it’s a little on the long side and kind of stalls out near the home stretch, but of all the trailer compilations I’ve watched recently, this one is my favorite.  

ORLOFF AGAINST THE INVISIBLE MAN (1970) ** ½

Dr. Garondet (Francis Valladares) is summoned to the castle of Dr. Orloff (Howard Vernon) to treat a mysterious patient.  When he arrives, he is given the cold shoulder by all the servants who try to impress upon him his services are not required.  Garondet does some snooping around the castle and eventually learns Orloff has created an Invisible Man who has sinister, lusty urges. 

This was the fifth of seven Dr. Orloff movies and only one of two that weren’t directed by Jess Franco.  In his place, we have Pierre (Panther Squad) Chevalier, and he does a competent enough job.  (He delivers at least one genuinely spinetingling shot of a funeral procession walking past a lake.)  I suspect Franco would’ve ratcheted up the sleaze factor a bit more, but Orloff Against the Invisible Man is a decent enough slice of exploitation hokum.

The set-up is extremely sluggish though.  Valladares’ dull performance doesn’t especially help to perk things up.  However, if you’re patient enough, you’ll be treated to an atmospheric flashback sequence involving a pair of horny grave robbers.  This stretch of the film is a lot of fun, and taken on its own terms, would’ve made a great chapter in an anthology horror movie.  

The Invisible Man effects are surprisingly well done.  There aren’t many of them, and they are all rather brief.  However, there aren’t any visible strings when books and food trays and what-have-yous are floating around in thin air.  The invisible rape scene isn’t a patch on the one found in The Entity, but it does feature a woman writhing naked on a bale of hay while the camera zooms in and out awkwardly to simulate the invisible thrusting, so it has that going for it.

All this seems like your typical invisible rapist movie until the finale when the Invisible Man gets hit with a bag of flour and you can at last see what he really looks like.  I wouldn’t dream of spoiling his appearance, but the big reveal retroactively adds another uneasy layer to the film’s overall sleaziness.  I will spoil the fact that the title is misleading as Orloff doesn’t fight the Invisible Man.  I have to deduct a Half Star from any flick that promises the sight (heh) of Howard Vernon air wrestling an alleged Invisible Man and then doesn’t deliver.   

AKA:  Orloff and the Invisible Man.  AKA:  The Invisible Ghost.  AKA:  Love Life of the Invisible Man.  AKA:  Dr Orloff’s Invisible Monster.

FANTASTIC MOVIE TRAILERS HD 3: THE DOMINATION (2017) *** ½

Montreal Film Studio returns with another installment of trashy trailers of grungy grindhouse favorites (not to mention a few intermission ads thrown in there for good measure).  They loaded this thing from top to bottom with a bevy of different genres.  From slasher to Blaxploitation.  From Kung Fu to biker movie.  Any exploitation fan worth their salt should get a kick out of this collection. 

Among the trailers featured are Curtains, Honky, Deranged, The Lawyer, Kenner, The Raiders of Atlantis, The Tongfather, The Deadly Spawn, Savage!, The Grim Reaper, Eunuch of the Western Palace, Dixie Dynamite, Lola’s Mistake, Doctor Butcher M.D., The Electric Chair, The Last of the Secret Agents?, Eye of the Cat, The Minx, Flesh Gordon, The 44 Specialist, Penitentiary, The Evil, The Pom Pom Girls, The Man from Hong Kong, Who Saw Her Die?, Boss, The Northville Cemetery Massacre, Supermanchu (“Rated R for ‘Righteous!’”), Amazing Grace, The Green Slime, Act of Vengeance, Dead End Drive-In, Mark of the Witch, and Maid in Sweden.  

There’s a nice balance of obscure-o titles sprinkled in with the time-tested perennial classics.  As much as I enjoyed seeing some of my favorite trailers again (particularly Deranged, The Deadly Spawn, and Doctor Butcher M.D.), it was the oddball movies that really got my blood pumping.  I had never seen many of the trailers featured in this compilation.  Heck, there were a lot of movies here I never even heard of.  Because of that, Fantastic Trailers HD 3:  The Domination has a real sense of discovery about it that its predecessors just don’t have.  I’ve added many of the films here to my “Must Watch” list because of this compilation, which is about the highest praise you can bestow on something like this.  I mean how can you not want to see a flick with a title like Eunuch of the Western Palace?  

FANTASTIC MOVIE TRAILERS HD 2: YOUTUBE BOOGALOO (2016) ***

Here’s another fun trailer compilation from the folks at Montreal Film Studio.  It’s not quite as entertaining as the previous installment, if only because I was a lot more familiar with the films featured in this collection and have seen many of these trailers before.  Then again, I watch an awful lot of these things, so that criticism may not mean much to you if you just want to spend 82 minutes in the presence of some classic grindhouse and exploitation trailers.

The trailers this time around include:  Don’t Answer the Phone, Rolling Thunder, Force:  Five, Teenage Mother (which has one of the greatest taglines of all time:  “Teenage Mother means nine months of trouble!” and it remains one of my favorite trailers, even in its edited form), Black Samson, Argoman the Fantastic Superman, Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die, The Dungeonmaster, The Babysitter, Hells Angels on Wheels, Amin:  The Rise and Fall, They Call Her One Eye, Black Samurai, The Devil’s Nightmare, Golden Needles, The Undertaker and His Pals, The Pink Angels, Helga (which features a lot of man-on-the-street interviews and like Teenage Mother, promises to show the birth of a real baby), Dark Star, Deadly Blessing, The Italian Stallion, Welcome Home Brother Charles (AKA:  Soul Vengeance), Stunt Rock, Mr. Billion, the immortal trailer for the double feature of Women and Bloody Terror and Night of Bloody Horror (which offers to pay you $2000 if you die of fright while watching it), The Scaremaker, Van Nuys Blvd., Skatetown USA (a repeat trailer from the first volume), The Mutations, They Came from Beyond Space, Wicked Wicked (filmed in “Duovision”), and H.O.T.S. 

I’ve seen many of the movies showcased in this collection (as well as their trailers), so this compilation lacked a bit in the way of discovery for me.  That said, this is a solid collection of trailers (and intermission ads).  There’s a good amount of variety here (although there are a lot of Crown International titles this time out), and it’s certainly never boring, which means any fan of trailer compilations should enjoy it heartily.   

ROCKETMAN (2019) *** ½

Rocketman is an enjoyable, sometimes exhilarating celebration of the life and music of Elton John.  Even for someone like me, who isn’t a huge John fan, it was easy to get swept up in seeing his life portrayed in such a theatrical, over the top manner.  One could criticize the film for being all broad strokes and containing way too many scenes that are on-the-nose.  Then again, no one ever accused Elton John of being subtle. 

The film follows John’s rags to riches story.  He goes from living with an unloving family to being an overnight sensation with legions of adoring fans.  Troubled by unhappy relationships, and his repressed sexuality, he delves deeper and deeper into drug and alcohol abuse. 

The musical numbers aren’t the studio versions you’ve heard on the radio for the past five decades.  Instead, they are done like a musical, with the numbers woven into the narrative.  Taron Egerton is magnetic as John.  More impressive is the fact that he does his own singing.  He doesn’t try to imitate John.  He allows the emotion of the scene to inform his musical performance, which sometimes leads to wildly different interpretations of the songs, but that’s kind of what I liked about it.  Egerton embodies John so well that you often forget you’re watching an imitator. 

Director Dexter (Eddie the Eagle) Fletcher does a fine job on the musical numbers and offers us some truly surreal moments.  My favorite scene is John’s first performance at The Troubadour when the power of his music literally lifts the audience off the ground.  It’s touches like this that help set the film apart from so many other stale biopics.

There are times when Rocketman feels like the It’s a Small World ride set to Elton John music. Some may gripe about the frantic pacing as the narrative sometimes feels like it's rushing from one milestone to the other.  However, the hectic pace highlights the fact John is often a passenger in his own story as he is perpetually imprisoned by his self-loathing, stifling relationships, and drug use.  I’m sure there were more aspects of John’s later life they could’ve translated onscreen, but the film suitably ends when he is finally able to take control of his own story.  There’s something touching and empowering about that. 

FANTASTIC MOVIE TRAILERS HD! (2016) *** ½

2020 hit us all hard.  There’s no real way of escaping it.  We all have our ways of coping to get us through the dark times.  For me, watching compilations of exploitation and grindhouse movies trailers have always been a form of visual comfort food.  There’s no plot to follow.  There’s no attention span required.  Just bite-sized shots of exploitation goodness, great voiceovers, and sleazy tag lines. 

Fantastic Movie Trailers HD! gives us a good mix of exploitation subgenres.  There are a lot of action, horror, blaxploitation, and sexploitation titles, many of which were released by AIP.  Many of the movies featured are bad, but the trailers themselves are often a thing of beauty.  We also get some fun intermission shorts and, strangely, a pocket calculator ad.  (“$345 complete!”)  While I’ve seen a few of these trailers in other compilations, there are a few films here that I never heard of, which is something I always appreciate from a trailer compilation.

The films include:  Mitchell, Super Fuzz, Sister Streetfighter, The Dark, Savage Sisters, Spy in Your Eye, Delinquent Schoolgirls, Dr. Tarr’s Torture Dungeon (“The Edgar Allan Poe film that is so shocking, it will never appear on television!”), Voyage of the Rock Aliens, Sugar Hill, I, a Woman (“In the great tradition of Scandinavian realism!”), Born Losers, Shoot, Ms. .45, Rabid, Force Four (starring Warhawk Tanzania), Matango (“Fear the ogre of death!”), Werewolves on Wheels, Inframan (“6 million light years beyond believability!”), The Guy from Harlem, Mr. No Legs, Thunder Cops, The Bullet Machine, the classic ad for the I Dismember Mama & The Blood Spattered Bride double feature, Skatetown USA (“The greatest story ever rolled!”), Nightmare Honeymoon (“Please don’t see it with someone you love!”), The Crippled Masters, The Teacher, The Evictors, and When Women Had Tails. 

Fantastic Movie Trailers HD! was produced by a Canadian company called Montreal Film Studio.  They’ve released countless trailer compilations on DVD, but this one is available to watch for free on YouTube.  If the selection of trailers on those sets are as good as the ones featured here, I’ll definitely be adding those to my collection sometime soon.  There are two sequels on their YouTube channel as well, and I plan to watch them ASAP.

HEIST SCHOOL (2006) *

I can honestly say I haven’t seen very many Turkish movies.  That’s not a slight against the country or their cinematic output.  It’s just that their films aren’t the sort of things that pop on my radar.  Unless they have Captain America and El Santo teaming up to fight an evil Spider-Man (as was the case with the Turkish classic, 3 Giant Men), I don’t usually intentionally seek out Turkish cinematic delights.

Heist School doesn’t sound like a movie I would watch, even if it was in English.  It’s basically the Turkish version of The Perfect Score.  Five teenagers panic when they learn the government are rolling back college scholarships.  They then set out to steal the answers to a big college entrance exam in order to get accepted to a fancy college.  

Granted, it’s not the worst idea for a movie.  It’s just that it’s extremely slow moving (the long scenes of the kids sitting in class seemingly play out in real time), there’s way too many characters, and the heist scenes lack anything approximating suspense.  The faux film breaks, and random use of filters quickly get annoying too.

Great directors would struggle to keep us engaged for ninety minutes of this.  Unfortunately, this one clocks in at a whopping two hours.  The editor could’ve cut whole chunks out of the picture and no one would’ve noticed.  It also doesn’t help that none of the young performers are particularly likeable or memorable either. 

The only reason I watched Heist School was because Jean-Claude Van Damme was in it.  Unfortunately, you have to wait till the last twenty minutes before he shows up.  He makes a big superstar entrance deboarding a private plane, which makes me think the production company just filmed him arriving at the airport.  Basically, his character, a supposed master criminal who—get this—looks like Jean-Claude Van Damme (that’s the level of humor we’re dealing with here) is only there to help the kids plan their heist and give them a pep talk.  Van Damme does give the movie a brief shot in the arm, but he’s given too little to do in too little time to make much of a difference.  (The lame part where he intimidates a bully is as close as the film comes to having an action scene.)

Awhile back when I was on Ty and Brett’s Comeuppance Podcast, we talked about our Top 5 Best and Worst Van Damme movies.  This would definitely go on my list of Top 5 Worst list.  I guess I could cut it a little slack because it’s not exactly a Van Damme vehicle as his role is little more than an extended cameo.  That said, his participation (however brief) is the sole reason anyone would want to watch it to begin with.  Whenever he isn’t on screen, Heist School flunks out.

NINJA TERMINATOR (1986) ***

Richard Harrison and his two Ninja buddies steal “The Golden Ninja Warrior” (it looks like a fucking paperweight) from their power-hungry master.  They split the golden knickknack into three parts and go their separate ways.  The master then sends out a bunch of Ninjas to get the trinkets back. 

Since this is a Godfrey Ho mix ‘n match movie, there’s another plot from an entirely different film going on.  In this part of the flick, a guy named Jaguar Wong (Jack Lam) goes around Kung Fuing the crap out of anyone who gets in his way.  Eventually, he is also tasked to retrieve the piece of Ninja bric-a-brac.  

Because this is a Ho film, the plot is really secondary, and rarely makes sense.  Ho does deliver on the Ninja action though.  There are scads of scenes of Ninjas hopping around via jump cuts, tossing out Ninja stars, and getting into swordfights.  There’s even a nutty bit where one Ninja shoots flames out of his hands while his rival combats the blast by shooting freezing spray from his fist (it looks like someone stuck a fire extinguisher up his sleeve).    

Lam has plenty of opportunities to kick ass throughout the picture.  He’s always running into guys in parking lots or on top of parking garages who want to kill him for some reason or another and he more than gladly takes them down a peg.  Among Lam’s highlights are the scene where he uses a baseball to beat some thugs up and a part where he fights a guy while keeping his hands in his pockets.

It’s Harrison though who makes the movie.  Whether he’s fighting guys in his camouflage Ninja outfit or saving his girlfriend from a random crab attack, he’s always a blast to watch.  His best scene is when he delivers a stern message while talking on his Garfield phone!  Nothing to me says “deadly Ninja” more than a guy who uses a Garfield phone.  (This scene was so iconic that Ho had Harrison use the phone again in Diamond Ninja Force.) 

God, and I haven’t even mentioned the hilarious sex scene that’s framed so poorly that you can’t tell whose body is whose.  Or that when the woman climaxes, the camera cuts to a blooming flower!  I didn’t even bring up the jaw-dropping scene where a kid’s windup toy robot enters a room under a cloud of ominous smoke to deliver a message from the evil Ninja empire.  Or the villain who wears a hilarious blonde He-Man wig.  

On top of all that, there are even more gratuitous sex scenes, unrelated action, and random fights.  Other subplots that involve drug dealing and torture are also tossed in there, although by that point, the movie has started to feel overcrowded.  I don’t presume to understand what was going on half the time.  Then again, it didn’t really matter when you’re getting three movies for price of one.  Sure, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but let’s face it, you’d be disappointed in a Ho flick if it did.  

Ninja Terminator just may be proof you can have too much of a good thing.  Just when you think it’s over, it keeps going.  Ho pitches the movie at such a frantic rate that it quickly becomes numbing.  Still, with so much awesomeness packed in one place, it’s virtually critic-proof.  You’re either the kind of person who wants to see Ninjas that use Garfield phones, or you aren’t. 

HAVE A GOOD TRIP: ADVENTURES IN PSYCHEDELICS (2020) **

Have a Good Trip:  Adventures in Psychedelics has an interesting premise.  Celebrities (mostly comedians) describe what it was like (for them) to trip on acid and mushrooms.  We then see animated re-enactments and/or live-action recreations of their hallucinations.  While this could’ve been an intriguing look at casual drug use among celebrities, it quickly reveals itself to be a half-baked idea.

The best stuff is the clips from old anti-drug films from the ’60 that occasionally pop up, usually as a counter to what is being said by the celebrities.  Some of the interviews are enlightening.  The scenes with Sting, Carrie Fisher, and Ben Stiller are particularly memorable.  In fact, the film would’ve been fine if it was just the interview segments.  

It’s when the movie goes for cheap laughs that it completely falls on its face.  The scenes of the various trips feel like something from a shitty sketch comedy show.  Nick Offerman’s host segments (which are a parody of the old government films) land with a thud, as do the After School Special parodies starring Adam Scott.  It’s also unfortunate that some of the most entertaining guys (to me at least), like Will Forte, Marc Maron, and Donovan don’t get their own segment and only appear briefly, which is frustrating.  

Ultimately, the big problem with Have a Good Trip:  Adventures in Psychedelics is that it all feels kind of square.  I mean why spend ninety minutes listening to people TALKING about doing drugs when you could go out and do them yourself?  (Please don’t, at least not on my account.)  It’s kind of like being stuck in a room with a hippie.  By about the fourth time you hear, “Hey man, did I ever tell you about this time I was high on acid…”, you start wishing the ‘60s never happened.  

MANOS RETURNS (2018) **

If it wasn’t for Mystery Science Theater 3000, the 1966 low budget horror oddity, Manos:  The Hands of Fate would’ve faded into obscurity.  Thanks to a pair of wisecracking robots, Manos was resurrected and brought back into the pop culture consciousness.  Well, at the very least, the pop culture consciousness of people who like bad movies (like me).  

Manos Returns must set some kind of record for the longest gap between a movie and its sequel, especially for one that stars the same cast members from the original.  (Fifty-two years, to be exact.)  The good news is it looks exactly how you would expect a fifty-plus years later sequel to Manos to look.  It was shot on video, features minimal location work, and is packed to the gills with bad dialogue and amateurish acting.  It also cannily reuses the same music from the first film (including some covers), and recycles a lot of the same dialogue and situations.

I have to admit, it’s a lot of fun seeing the old cast again.  It’s also kind of neat to revisit this world and seeing how things have changed in the years since the original.  Like the old saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same. 

This time out, it’s four friends who get lost on the highway during a vacation, instead of a family.  They make a wrong turn and wind up at a rundown old house where they meet the weirdo groundskeeper Torgo (Steven Shields), who “takes care of the place while ‘The Master’ is away”.  Eventually, after a lot of stumbling around the house, the friends find themselves in the grips of the dark power of Manos.

Manos Returns is at its best when its following in the original’s footsteps.  It’s kind of refreshing to see what a halfway capable director (in this case, Tonjia Atomic, who also has a supporting role as one of the Master’s wives) can do with the material as there are moments here when the whole thing threatens to actually work.  (It’s certainly more competent and watchable than the original, that’s for sure.)  It’s less successful however when it's making its own (unfunny) comedic commentary on the proceedings.  There are times when the characters make jokes at the movie’s expense; almost as if they’re trying to beat Mystery Science Theater to the punch.  (There’s even a thinly veiled reference to one of the riffs from the MST3K episode.)  The discussion the characters have about bad movies in the beginning is a bit too on-the-nose too. 

It was good seeing The Master (Tom Neyman) again.  Unfortunately, he died before it was released.  At least he had one more opportunity to wear the Manos robe.  Debbie (Jackey Neyman Jones) and her mother (Diane Mahree Rystad) also make a welcome return, although to say any more about them would get into Spoiler territory.  It must be said that the new Torgo isn’t a patch on John Reynolds’ definitive interpretation of the character in the original film.  I did find it refreshing that the Master added some plus-sized girls to his stable of wives though. 

There are some odd new touches to the Manos lore that feel a bit half-baked, like the lost souls (I think that’s what they are) who are still stuck inside the house.  The ending is okay, I guess, and we get one decent bloody scene.  On the plus side, it’s only an hour long.  I can’t quite call it “good”, but I admire the fact that it knew when to quit. 

Overall, Manos Returns is better than the original.  That wasn’t difficult to do I’m sure, but still.  It may have its share of flaws, but it’s about as good as a fifty-two years later sequel to one of the worst movies of all time could be.

EXTRACTION (2020) * ½

If you’re wondering why this movie is called Extraction, it’s because the filmmakers have somehow managed to extract all the charisma, charm, and personality from Chris Hemsworth.  That’s no small feat, let me tell you.  He stars as a merc who gets sent to rescue a crime lord’s kid.  It’s based on a comic book I’ve never heard of, but it feels more like a video game I’ve never played.  There’s no real “plot” either.  Just a series of objectives.  The dialogue scenes are more like cut scenes from a video game that set up action too.  It also doesn’t help that Hemsworth is totally miscast as a burned out alkie commando. 

Produced and written by the Russo brothers (who also made the Avengers movies with Hemsworth), Extraction is a joyless, generic, and forgettable affair.  It’s especially dire whenever first-time director Sam Hargrave tries to get arty.  The one-take Children of Men-inspired scene is particularly forced, and the obvious seams in the action only call attention to the fact that it’s a series of smaller shots held together with some not-so clever editing tricks.  If anything, it’s only purpose is to reinforce the “Let’s make an action flick that feels like a video game” aesthetic.

I guess I have to bring up the fact that Hemsworth’s character is named Tyler Rake.  That really wouldn’t matter except that there’s a scene early in the movie in which he kills someone with a rake.  I guess this would’ve been cool if he had said, “That’s why they call me ‘Tyler Rake’” afterwards, but he doesn’t.  It just takes you out if the scene when you realize the filmmakers are too dumb to acknowledge this bit of symmetry with a quip or a one-liner.  Also, why would a rake be in a living room?  If this scene happened in a garden or shed, I could understand why a rake would be there, but a living room?

Another thing that took me out of the movie was the scene where the bad guys bribe the police into closing all the bridges in the city so Hemsworth can’t escape.  I mean, isn’t that the same exact plot of 21 Bridges, which the Russos also produced?  Are they already running out of ideas for their non-Marvel films?  

The villain is really bland too.  The only memorable part is when he sends a bunch of street kids out to kill Chris.  If you always wanted to see Thor kick the shit out of some snot-nosed kids, here is your chance.  

David Harbour shows up late in the game in an extended cameo as Hemsworth’s pill-popping compatriot, but he doesn’t stick around long enough to resuscitate the movie.  Oh, and the ending really sucks too.  I can’t go on record by saying Extraction is the worst flick of the year, but it’s definitely the most forgettable. 

AKA:  Tyler Rake.  AKA:  Out of the Fire.

RAVEN (1997) **

Burt Reynolds stars as Raven, the leader of “Raven Team”, a special unit of soldiers who do dirty jobs for the government.  Their latest assignment:  Steal a top-secret decoder.  Raven knows the government is just going to hand it over to the Iranians, so he goes rogue and steals it himself.  His shellshocked second in-command, “Duce” (Matt Battaglia, who also starred with Burt in those Universal Soldier sequels around the same time this was made) calls it quits after their last mission and walks away in possession of a vital piece of the decoder.  Raven will stop at nothing to get it back, even if it means stabbing his former friend in the back.

Raven feels like it might’ve been a pilot for a TV show that didn’t get picked up.  (The action is very reminiscent of those old “Action Pack” TV shows from the ‘90s.)  It kicks off with a lot of action, gunplay, and explosions, but the staging is rather uninspired.  (It also looks as if some of the explosions may have been taken from other movies.)  Unfortunately, it almost immediately settles down and gets pretty dull, pretty quick.  We then have to sit through a lot of talk, plotting, and double crossing.  This wouldn’t have been so bad if the rest of the action was up to the caliber of the beginning of the film.  However, the bulk of picture is light on action, and the finale is a big fat bust.  

On the plus side, Raven does deliver three completely gratuitous sex scenes, which does help alleviate the boredom.  The fact that two of the scenes feature Emmanuelle in Space’s Krista Allen as Battaglia’s hot girlfriend certainly was enough for me to put this in the “watchable” category.  If director Russell Solberg (who got his start as a stuntman, which is probably what put him on Reynolds’ radar) had tossed in a couple more of these scenes, he might’ve had a halfway decent Skinamax flick on his hands.  As is, there’s just not enough action or skin here to make it worthwhile. 

Reynolds is OK as the baddie, but he really needed more to work with if he was going to emerge from this one unscathed.  Battaglia, on the other hand is thoroughly awful in the lead.  He pretty much singlehandedly sinks it with his braindead line readings and laughable emoting.  During his big emotional scene on the battlefield, it’s hard to tell if he is experiencing PTSD or if he’s wondering if he left the iron on.  

AKA:  Raven Team.

DANGEROUSLY CLOSE (1986) ** ½

A group of fascist hall monitors called “The Sentinels” rule their school with an iron fist.  They claim they’re reducing crime and vandalism on campus, but in reality, they’re targeting lower class, minority, and punk students in the name of vigilante justice.  Randy (John Stockwell, who also co-wrote the script), the leader of The Sentinels, reaches out to Danny (J. Eddie Peck), the editor of the school newspaper, in hopes he will write a favorable article about the group.  Danny, a lower-class kid (who also cleans Randy’s pool), is lured by the promise of popularity, and is drawn into the world of The Sentinels.  When students begin turning up dead and/or missing, Danny discovers The Sentinels may be the ones responsible, and he sets out to bring the group down.  

I’m not sure why this was called Dangerously Close.  Maybe because it was one of the few Albert Pyun movies that came dangerously close to being good.  It’s far from perfect, but as far as Pyun’s work goes, this is one of his best.  (Although let’s face it.  He’ll never come close to matching The Sword and the Sorcerer.) 

I’ll admit, it’s a little clunky in the early going.  Once the film finally unfurls its premise, it slowly begins working.  Think Class of 1984 Meets The Lords of Discipline by way of John Hughes.  However, the wheels start coming off as it enters the home stretch.  While the twist ending is decent enough, the editing in the third act is often choppy, with the final shot being especially perplexing.

Despite its flaws, the film certainly has a strong cast for this sort of thing.  Stockwell (who also was in Pyun’s Radioactive Dreams) is solid as the slick, persuasive preppie villain.  Peck (three years away from starring in Curse 2:  The Bite) makes for a likeable lead.  It helps that he has qualities of both a cool guy and a dork, which kind of makes it uncertain what side he’ll remain loyal to.  Carey Lowell (three years from starring as a Bond girl in Licence to Kill) makes a memorable impression as Stockwell’s bored girlfriend, who naturally begins to have eyes for Peck.  It was also fun to see Pyun regular Thom Mathews and Miguel A. Nunez being reteamed once again a year after they starred in Return of the Living Dead.

AKA:  Campus.  AKA:  Campus ’86.

GRETA (2019) **

There’s been a lot of talk about “elevated horror” lately.  Greta is an example of an “elevated thriller”.  It features a good cast (Chloe Grace Moretz and Isabelle Huppert) being guided by a prestige director (The Crying Game’s Neil Jordan) through a thoroughly predictable plot, but since it’s got a good cast and a prestige director, we’re supposed to think it’s hot shit.  In this case, Jordan is barely able to disguise the fact it’s nothing more than a weak rehashing of the ‘90s “From Hell” genre.   Despite the fact that Jordan has directed some well-regarded films in the past, there’s little here to distinguish this one from the likes of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Single White Female, and The Temp.  (Or the dozens of similarly themed thrillers that Lifetime has been cranking out for the past decade, for that matter.) 

A Good Samaritan named Frances (Moretz) finds a purse on the subway.  Instead of keeping the money inside, she returns it to its owner, Greta (Huppert), an older lonely woman.  Frances feels sorry for her since she herself recently lost her mother and needs an older woman’s guidance.  She finds out much too late that Greta’s an obsessive psycho.

There are one or two moments here that prevent Greta from being completely dismissible.  The turn that sets up the second act is well executed by Jordan.  He also delivers a fine sequence that unfortunately, and infuriatingly, turns out to be one of those “It was all a dream” scenes.  In fact, it turns out to be an “It was all a dream within a dream” scenes, which makes it twice as infuriating.

However, the other notes are struck with rote indifference.  The scenes of Moretz going to the police about Huppert’s behavior, while necessary, stops the film dead in its tracks, mostly because we know the cops won’t do anything about her.  (If they did, the movie would be over.)  Jordan also drops the ball in the third act as the tension pretty much dissipates by the hour mark.  If Jordan leaned into the more horrific elements of the screenplay, it might’ve worked.  As it is, he’s too busy trying to make the flick respectable that he forgets to have any fun with it.

The performances can’t be faulted.  Moretz is good as kind, but gullible heroine, and Maika (It Follows) Monroe breathes a little life into the film as her spunky roommate.  Huppert’s performance is pretty much the whole show though as she chews the scenery with aplomb.  While it’s not a patch on her mesmerizing turn in Elle, her efforts alone make Greta watchable. 

A FIELD IN ENGLAND (2013) **

Soldiers fighting in the English Civil War split from the battlefield and take off in search of ale.  Along the way, they get waylaid by a deranged alchemist who coerces them into finding his lost buried treasure.  Eventually, the cowardly lot find their courage and decide to fight back. 

I was a fan of director Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise and Free Fire, so I figured I would give A Field in England a chance.  Even though Wheatley made it two years before High-Rise, it feels like it was made a decade earlier.  Because of the low budget, hammy acting, and bland black and white cinematography, it often feels like the work of a first-time director.  I will say that Wheatley does a good job during the battlefield sequences with very little at his disposal.  He’s able to suggest a much larger battle than the one that’s shown by strategically placing the camera, cleverly utilizing well-timed flying dirt, and adding in the sound of gunfire and thundering hooves. 

Unfortunately, the bulk of the movie is devoted to long scenes of men walking around aimlessly.  This section of the picture is rather lifeless and dull, and the addition of the annoying alchemist character does little to liven things up.  The long, draggy middle section almost makes it feel like a short film that was expanded to feature length.  

Still, there are flashes of brilliance here that suggests what Wheatley can do even with the limited resources he was given.  There’s a funny impromptu medical examination scene, and some solid gore as well.  The highlight is the great, trippy scene near the end that feels like a mix of David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, and Alejandro Jodorowsky.  These moments taken on their own merits are quite impressive, but overall, there’s just not enough of them to make A Field in England worth recommending.

AKA:  English Revolution.

PARASITE (2019) ***

Ki-Woo (Choi Woo-Shik) lives in a crummy basement apartment with his family, who are barely able to eke out a living folding pizza boxes for a local pizza parlor.  When a job tutoring a rich girl falls in his lap, Ki-Woo charms his way into her family’s heart.  Ki-Woo and his scheming family then ingratiate themselves into the rich people’s good graces.  One by one, using false names and credentials, they take on household servant roles, and before long, they are comfortably nestled inside the luxurious home (not to mention rolling in the dough).  Eventually, they learn they can’t keep up the charade forever. 

Parasite made a big splash when the film and its director, Bong Joon Ho won four Oscars, including Best Picture.  (It was also the first foreign language film to win Best Picture.)  It’s thematically similar to Ho’s Snowpiercer, although it’s not quite as daring and provocative as that movie.  This is only the third Ho picture I’ve seen (the other two being Snowpiercer and The Host), and for me, it’s my least favorite of the trio.  That said, it’s still a strong feature, even if it kind of loses its way in the second half.

The first act is a dizzying high wire act as Ho deftly balances the darkly comic tone with the increasingly desperate actions of the poor family.  It’s enormously successful until the twist that sets up the second half causes the film to take a sharp turn.  This section of the movie (which I won’t spoil) is interesting as it forces us to reexamine the characters (and forces the characters to reexamine themselves).  However, the pacing dawdles too often during this stretch, and the sequence where the family become imprisoned inside the home runs on too long.

Despite that, the finale makes it worth the wait.  Unfortunately, after that stellar sequence, the film doesn’t know when to quit as it suffers from a few too many false endings.  Still, this is probably the most atypical movie to ever win Best Picture, and for that, we all should be grateful.  I mean, did Green Book end with a birthday party massacre?  Didn’t think so.

TERMINAL JUSTICE: CYBERTECH P.D. (1996) **

Lorenzo Lamas stars as a cop (who is also a veteran of the “Russian Cartel Wars”) in the far-off year of 2008 where Virtual Reality sex is all the rage.  His next assignment is acting as bodyguard to the world’s hottest Virtual Reality starlet, played by Kari Wuhrer.  Chris Sarandon is the tech kingpin who is bored with making Virtual Reality video games that are so real that they actually kill people.  His new racket is cloning women to be used as sex and murder slaves.  With the help of nutzo doctor (Peter Coyote), they have just begun rolling out the initial test models.  When Lamas’ partner is killed in the line of duty, he teams with a tech nerd (Tod Thawley) to bring down Sarandon.

Directed by Rick (Kickboxer 3:  The Art of War) King, Terminal Justice:  Cybertech P.D. is intermittently amusing, if only to see how the screenwriters thought the future would look.  They rightly predicted the uptick in VR sex, as well as the use of a robot voice to control the lights in your home (although her name is Ludmilla, not Alexa.)  They kind of missed the mark with having cops that have night vision and infrared scopes embedded in their eyeballs though. 

There are admittedly some cool ideas here.  I liked how Lamas could study a crime scene through Virtual Reality.  We also get an odd sequence where Lamas does battle with a killer remote-control helicopter in a fancy restaurant.  I even found myself enjoying the scenes where Lamas is fighting for his life inside a Virtual Reality video game.  The oversaturated backgrounds give a nice sense of something that is both real and unreal at the same time.  Too bad these scenes end before they can gather any real momentum.

The film also brings up an interesting point late in the game about the legality of clones.  Is it legal to murder a clone if they are technically classified as “genetic material”?  Can you even prove a clone was murdered if the original donor is still alive and walking around?  Unfortunately, it is handled in a rather clunky manner and the climax is wrapped up way too abruptly to make for any sort of satisfying conclusion.  

Mostly, Terminal Justice:  Cybertech P.D. feels like three scripts stitched together.  We have the “Avenging the Partner” plot, the “Virtual Reality Remake of The Bodyguard” plot, and the “Law and Order:  Clone Victims Unit” plot.  A movie about any one of these things would’ve worked.  Having all three plots fighting for supremacy just falls flat.  (The fact that the title is comprised of two titles is the tip-off the filmmakers couldn’t decide which movie to make.)  If I had my pick, I would’ve stuck with The Bodyguard rip-off, but that’s just me.  

Lamas is usually enjoyably goofy in something like this.  Here, he doubles down on the dramatic aspects of his character’s plight, and tries to really emote, especially during the scenes where he is coming to grips with his PTSD.  He doesn’t do a bad job.  I just wish he didn’t spend the movie whispering like Clint Eastwood.  Wuhrer handles her role decently enough, despite the fact that she and Lamas have no chemistry together.  Sarandon is kind of wasted, but Coyote is fun to watch as the clone doctor who takes maybe too much pride in his work.

For every interesting and/or potentially cool thing Terminal Justice:  Cybertech P.D. had going for it, there was something wrongheaded or lame that held it back.  Still, it’s not a total loss or anything.  I just can’t bring myself to recommend it though.  Ultimately, I guess I’ll file it under “Watch It If You Ever Wanted to See Lorenzo Lamas Kick Peter Coyote in the Face”.  I mean few films can deliver on that promise.  This is certainly one of them.  When you’ve seen as many bad VR-themed action movies as I have, you have to embrace the ones that try to offer something unique, like Peter Coyote getting kicked in the face by Lorenzo Lamas.  

Lamas gets best line of the movie when he reminisces about the war and the effects of being on a drug that amplifies a soldier’s killer instinct:  “It was better killing through chemistry!” 

AKA:  Terminal Justice.  AKA:  Cybertech.  AKA:  Cybertech P.D.  AKA:  Police Future.