TEEN LUST (1978) * ½

Teen Lust plays like a loose assemblage of subplots that only serve as an excuse to show off some ‘70s T & A.  I don’t think director James Hong (yes, THAT James Hong) is to blame for the patchwork nature of the film.  I think that falls on the producers. 

It’s my theory that the producers concocted four or five different subplots so that they could retitle and rerelease the movie several times, each time focusing on a different aspect of the plot in the trailers.  The fact that the film goes by five different titles is my smoking gun, but here’s the complete rundown.

Title #1:  High School Teasers:  There is a subplot involving the town slut De De (Lee Ann Barnes) trying to hook up with Terry (Perry Lang), who just so happens to be the boyfriend of goodie-two shoes Carol (Kristen Baker from Friday the 13^th Part 2).  I’m sure whoever cut the trailer could make it look like De De was the main character and put all of the footage of her sexual escapades in one two-minute reel.

Title #2:  Police Girls Academy:  This one focuses on the plot line where Carol and her gal pal Neely (Leslie Cederquist) get a summer job working as police trainees.  You could play up the police training sequences in the trailer and sell it as a Police Academy rip-off.  There’s even an icky sequence where Carol’s brother inadvertently picks her up.  Yuck.

Title #3:  The Girls Next Door:  Since Carol is a homely girl-next-door type, you could prominently feature her in the ads and sell it as a coming-of-age movie. 

Title #4:  Mom Never Told Me:  This is where things get weird.  There’s a subplot about Carol’s drunk mother (Dalene Young) trying to fix her up with a rich (but slow-witted) neighbor.  The mother sequences also include a subplot-within-a-subplot about her seducing the plumber (George “Buck” Flower).  There’s an even stranger subplot-within-a-subplot about Carol’s lecherously over-affectionate father (Stan Kamber) NOT being her father (so that makes his advances… OK?!?!) because… well… Mom Never Told Me.

Title #5:  Teen Lust:  With this preview, you can include the head-scratching scene where a gang of little kids jump Carol and try to rip her clothes off while the theme to the People’s Court plays?!?! 

Quite honestly, the police academy stuff works best.  However, there’s just too many weird subplots fighting for supremacy, and as a result, it all goes nowhere fast.  The bizarre family sitcom scenes are especially ill-fitting and the stuff with the philandering boyfriend trying to fend off the advances of the town slut are far from erotic.  None of it meshes. 

It’s particularly hard to take when it tries to get serious.  The mother is portrayed as a comic drunk most of the time, but halfway through, Carol stages a one-woman intervention that just doesn’t fit with the goofy shit elsewhere in the film.  Baker, bless her, thinks this is her shot at an Oscar and even says, “You’re tearing me apart!” like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause!  I mean, how are we supposed to care about her mother when just moments earlier, she was dry humping Flower on the floor?  Or how about the scene where Carol finds out she’s adopted?  Baker just seems to be acting in an entirely different (and probably better) movie than everyone else.  (Where’s movie title #6 when you need it?)  You know it’s thrown up its hands and given up when the final two scenes are a pie fight and a wedding.

Flower and Hong were both in John Carpenter movies in the ‘80s, which makes me wonder if Carpenter’s seen this.

AKA:  High School Teasers.  AKA:  Police Girls Academy.  AKA:  The Girls Next Door.  AKA:  Mom Never Told Me. 

BLISS (2019) **

“I hate to advocate alcohol, drugs, violence, and insanity, but they’ve always worked for me.”

This Hunter S. Thompson quote rattled through my head throughout most of Bliss.  I don’t know if it was intended as a metaphor for how substance abuse influences art or what.  I’m not sure the filmmakers knew, to be honest.

Dezzy (Dora Madison) is an artist who is struggling artistically and financially.  So, she does what anyone would do (or at least druggie painters) and goes out, gets drunk, and buys some weird new street drug called “Diablo”.  This potent pharmaceutical gives her the “bliss” she’s been missing, but it also causes her to occasionally lose track of time and wake up in mysterious places… sometimes covered in blood.  Oh well, who cares?  Especially when whatever she’s doing is causing her to finally put a brush to canvas again so she can finish her masterpiece.

Bliss feels like a horror anthology short that has been expanded to eighty minutes.  (The fact that it revolves around a painting means it could’ve easily been part of a Night Gallery reboot.)  There’s nothing here that couldn’t have been done in half (make that a quarter) of the time.  The big problem is the early scenes of our heroine getting high do very little to endear us to her character.  Imagine being stuck at a party listening to an annoying wasted chick yammer on and on and that might give you an idea of what you have to put up with.  At least she gets naked a few times (once during a three-way sex scene), which takes some of the sting out of it.

Once we finally learn what the drug has transformed her into, it’s a bit of a letdown.  I won’t spoil what happens, but I will say that director Joe (VFW) Begos brings nothing new to the subgenre.  Maybe it was the slower-than-slow burn that came before that soured me on the lackluster conclusion.

Also, I thought it was odd that before the movie began, there was a warning stating that the flashing lights could affect some photosensitive viewers.  However, there is no motion sickness warning for the scenes where Begos strapped a GoPro onto Madison and let her fly around the room, effectively giving the audience vertigo.  He really piles them on too in the final act, and the overall effect is just nauseating.  I guess he thought if the bloodletting wouldn’t sicken the audience, the camerawork would.

UNCUT GEMS (2019) ****

The secret behind Adam Sandler’s success as a dramatic actor is that the characters he plays aren’t too far removed from the ones that come out of his Happy Madison production house.  With a few tweaks here and there, the character of Howard Ratner in Uncut Gems could’ve been your typical loud, abrasive Sandler character.  However, you channel that energy into an absorbing storyline that features some terrific writing and exhilarating direction, and Sandler pulls it off effortlessly.  Compare that to someone like Jim Carrey.  When he tries to do a complete 180 from his usual persona in his dramatic roles like The Number 23, it sort of all falls apart. 

Like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love, The Safdie Brothers’ Uncut Gems understands how to take the bare bones of an Adam Sandler vehicle and graft it onto an arthouse approach.  In both cases, they elevate Sandler’s game, not only by the writing and directing, but by carefully choosing the supporting cast.  Lakeith Stanfield, Eric Bogosian, Judd Hirsch, Idina Menzel, Julia Fox, and some surprising guest stars playing themselves, all lend Sandler fine support. 

To describe the plot would be a disservice to a potential viewer.  All I’ll say is that Sandler plays a jeweler up to his eyeballs in gambling debts who is trying to duck some very dangerous loan sharks and leave it at that.  The way the Safdies continuously up the ante and raise the stakes (gambling pun not intended, but what the hell) is a marvel of cinematic plate-spinning.  Imagine the last act of Goodfellas throughout the entire movie.  (Which is fitting, since Martin Scorsese was one of the executive producers.)  That’s the level of escalating intensity we’re talking about.  By the finale, your heart will be in your throat as the anxiety reaches its apex. 

This is some bravura filmmaking.

Gambling is another form of addiction, plain and simple.  As someone on the outside looking in, it is the filmmakers’ job to put the audience in the character’s shoes to show them the unfathomable lows and the stratospheric highs that come along with such an addiction.  Rationalizing that the reason everything is going wrong is because your big bet hasn’t paid off yet, so you continue to make bet after bet, hoping for a big payday.  Naturally, the euphoria that comes along with that giant windfall of cash is short lived as the gambler is all-too eager to bet it once again on a “sure thing”.  As an audience member, we are along for the ride as Howard wins, loses, and loses some more, and it is a rollercoaster.

Uncut Gems is a true gem of a movie.  It’s a pure shot of cinematic adrenaline.  Even those wary of Sandler should give it a whirl.  I think he will surprise you. 

STREET GIRLS (1975) ***

When the directors of Silent Rage and Diner team up to make a smut movie, they really bring the smut!  That’s right, Street Girls was directed by Michael Miller, who co-wrote the script with none other than Barry Levinson!  It’s sort of patchy and uneven, but it’s a lot better than Toys.

A good girl named Angel (Christine Souder) quits college and goes behind her father’s back to become a dancer at a topless club.  Before long, she’s graduated from dancing to turning tricks for a pimp and eventually gets hooked on heroin.  Her father (Art Burke) finally comes looking for her and teams up with Angel’s co-worker Sally (Carol Case) to find her.  Once he learns the two are actually lovers, the uptight dad rejects her help.  Trouble brews when Sally learns Angel’s pimp intends to sell her on the white slave market. 

The pendulum of quality swings wildly back and forth throughout Street Girls’ seventy-minute running time.  However, the sheer abundance of nudity is enough to propel it along.  These girls are naked onstage, backstage, in the bedroom, in the bathroom, on the street, and in the sheets.  The wildest moment is when an auto mechanic john wants Angel to take a golden shower.  (At least he provided her with a pair of goggles.) 

Despite the overall grim tone and grimy nature, the film still manages to show sensitivity towards its gay characters and their relationships.  Yes, there are some gratuitous stereotypes on display.  However, Street Girls pays more attention to their relationships more than a lot of the smut films of the era. 

The good performance by Carol Case (in her first and only role) as the likeable Sally certainly bolsters the movie whenever it starts to veer off course.  She sort of resembles Cybil Shepherd and has a lot of screen presence.  Souder (again, in her only film role) is also memorable as the little girl lost, Angel.  The male cast members aren’t nearly as convincing though.

The weakest scenes involve Angel’s father on his quest to find his lost daughter.  These scenes play as sort of a forerunner to Hardcore (but not nearly as good) and honestly, bog the picture down.  Luckily, he doesn’t hog the spotlight too much.  Whenever the film focuses on Angel’s slow descent into the scuzzier aspects of her profession, it’s damned fine ‘70s sleaze.

Oh, and did I mention the great blues soundtrack, performed by none other than Muddy Waters!

Angel’s pimp gets the best line of the movie when he tells Sally, “Turn that holy-hole into a money hole!”

AKA:  Crackers.

PERSONAL SHOPPER (2017) *

Before the movie begins, there’s a little title card stating that it won the Gran Prix at Cannes.  Well, it sure as shit didn’t win the Gran Prix at Monaco!  Man, this is one slow moving flick!  Halfway through, the going got so rough that I began getting a little antsy.  I was so tired of waiting for something to happen that I had to play the movie on 1.5x speed.  Much to my surprise, the thing actually started moving SLOWER.  What the hell?

Kristen Stewart stars as an American working in Paris as a personal shopper for a rich woman.  When she isn’t busy shopping, she’s trying to communicate with the spirit of her dead brother.  Something threatens to actually happen when she starts receiving strange text messages from an unknown caller.  Could it be a wrong number?  Or could they be coming from her dead brother?  Will you care? 

Slow burn thrillers are not my favorite, but I can usually stomach them if they eventually catch fire.  Personal Shopper on the other hand is one wet matchstick of a movie.  Every now and then, there’s some Paranormal Activity-level stuff with Stewart stumbling upon a spirit.  Mostly though, it’s just a collection of long scenes of her sitting around and looking at her phone.  Which is weird, because so was I by the time the film was over.

If you thought K-Stew’s Twilight movies were bad, wait till you see this one.  It’s one of the most half-assed horror flicks ever made.  I should’ve known this was going to be bad because it was from the director of Boarding Gate, Olivier Assayas.  Did he want to make an indie drama about class division?  Or did he want to make a ghost story?  Or did he just have two different ideas and decided to cobble something together and pass it off as “art”?  Who the fuck knows. 

K-Stew probably took this job to broaden her indie cred and help shed her Twilight image.  Luckily for us, she also sheds her clothes in two scenes, and has an OK masturbating scene too.  Those brief moments are the only reasons you’d ever want to watch it.

DARK RIDER (1991) **

A small desert town is on the verge of becoming “the next Las Vegas”.  A shady businessman named Sandini (Joe Estevez) comes into town and offers to buy up several local businesses.  When the store owners refuse, they are murdered by Sandini’s thugs.  The sheriff (Doug Shanklin) does what he can, but without proof, he is unable to touch Sandini.  But as a black-clad motorcycle-riding vigilante, he can do plenty to thwart his schemes.  

Dark Rider is one of those movies that is just too low budget to adequately pull off what it’s trying to do.  I admire some of the quirky touches and more outlandish moments, but it almost always comes up short from really delivering, due to the meager finances behind it.  I mean you know you’re in trouble when the sheriff character just has a little tin star pinned to his shirt the whole time and always wears K-Mart brand clothes instead of a policeman’s uniform. 

One of the things I liked about it was that it was a shamelessly modernized western.  Instead of the railroad coming through town, it was the prospect of gambling that caused the money-grubbing villains to stick it to the townsfolk.  Instead of wearing a Lone Ranger mask and riding a white horse, our hero wore a helmet and rode a motorcycle.

There’s an occasionally clever bit here and there, but for the most part, Dark Rider is slow moving.  The action gets repetitive in a hurry and the plot chases its tail for most of the running time.  Because of that, it feels more like a TV pilot than an action movie.  (The toxic waste subplot that crops up late in the game feels like the second “episode”.)

Estevez equips himself as well as can be expected in the villain role.  He’s not exactly menacing or anything, but he certainly tries.  The big problem is that Shanklin makes for a dull hero.  He kind of looks and acts like a less charismatic version of Swayze… Don Swayze.  Probably the best performance comes from Pulp Fiction’s Duane Whitaker who briefly shows up as a crazed motorist who has a run-in with the sheriff in the opening scene.  This sequence has some spark to it, and the rest of the film struggles to recapture that sense of fun.  When it relies heavily on the cat-and-mouse between Shanklin and Estevez, Dark Rider runs out of gas. 

CALIGULA REINCARNATED AS HITLER! (1977) ***

This has always been one of my favorite Naziploitation flicks, mostly because of the title.  It was originally called The Gestapo’s Last Orgy, but it was retitled to cash-in on Tinto Brass’ head-spinning hedonistic hardcore epic Caligula.  No, Caligula doesn’t appear.  Nor does he become reincarnated as Hitler.  However, it’s sort of accurate if you imagine that the same zany spirit the classic Caligula had has been transferred over to your typical Nazi flick.  In fact, I think it’s an overall “better” film than Caligula and certainly one of the most lurid exploitation movies of its day. 

After WWII, Commandant von Starker (Marc Loud) is exonerated for his war crimes and allowed to go free.  His lover, Lise (Daniela Poggi) wants to go on a romantic walk to the place they first met… a concentration camp!  As they walk through the ruins, they reminisce of their first meeting and all the atrocities that occurred there.

Such atrocities include:  Gynecological examinations, orgies, incinerations, menstruating women being fed to dogs, cannibalism, human lampshades, pegging, BDSM, women hung over a pit of hungry rats, a quicklime Slip n’ Slide, and forced felatio on a gun.

The love story angle at the heart of the film is what makes it interesting and memorable (and disgusting).  For me, it works much better than say, The Night Porter.  It certainly helps to grab your attention and announce that this won’t be your average Naziploitation potboiler.  That said, there is plenty of disgusting, depraved lunacy here, so fans of the genre won’t be disappointed.  The framing device works pretty well too, especially once the purpose of their little visit is revealed.  The performances by Loud and Poggi are quite good, but it’s Maristella Greco who steals the movie as Alma, von Starker’s perpetually horny second in command.

If there is a flaw, it’s that the ending is way too rushed.  There’s about twenty minutes of plot crammed into the last two minutes.  The movie is already pretty strong as it is, but I can’t help but imagine how much more powerful it would’ve been if the director Cesare (A Man for Emmanuelle) Canevari hadn’t allowed the final scenes to play out at such a breathless pace.  Still, the final moments are quite shocking and help make Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler! a classic of the genre (even if neither Caligula nor Hitler show up).

AKA:  The Gestapo’s Last Orgy.  AKA:  Last Orgy of the Third Reich. 

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (2020) * ½

Sonic the Hedgehog is exactly the kind of movie you think it’s going to be.  It’s innocuous and harmless to the point that it’s almost insulting.  It’s as if the barest minimum effort was put into every creative decision, which is funny because the filmmakers had to change their release date to fix the special effects once fans derided Sonic’s appearance in the previews.  They should have demanded the screenplay be overhauled too. 

This is one of those movies that milk an IP where you have to wonder if the creative forces behind it ever played a single Sonic game.  Like Masters of the Universe and Howard the Duck, it starts off on the main character’s home planet before finding some bullshit excuse to send them to Earth on an adventure.  You know, because it’s a lot cheaper to film on Earth than another planet. 

Sonic is a speedy alien hedgehog who is trying to find his rings so he can move on to another world.  He enlists the help of a small-town cop (James Marsden, who deserves better) who eventually agrees.  Meanwhile, an evil scientist (Jim Carrey) is hot on their trail as he wants to dissect Sonic and uncover the secret of his power. 

Would it surprise you if I told you this is a road movie?  Or that our heroes get into a bar fight with some bikers?  Or that Marsden has to choose between life in the big city and his small hometown?  If you thought Sonic was fast, you should see how quickly all the cliches pile up.  Even the scenes of Sonic’s fast-motion shenanigans have a feeling of déjà vu about them as they are basically a mash-up of the bullet time sequences of The Matrix and Quicksilver’s antics in the X-Men movies.

This was something of an attempted comedic comeback for Carrey.  I think if this was made in ’94 when he was at his zenith, he could’ve made it work.  As it is, his whole performance sees a bit tired (at least for him) and uninspired.  It doesn’t help that he has virtually no zingers to work with.  In fact, Sonic’s jokes are weak too.  They feel more like filler lines that were put there temporarily until the writers could find something better to write in later… but they never thought of anything.  The guy they got to voice Sonic is pretty terrible too.  He gives Sonic zero personality and strangely, he winds up being the most forgettable thing about his own movie. 

I guess it would help if I actually had any nostalgia for Sonic the Hedgehog.  I’m not saying Sonic was after my time, but he came along just as my time was coming to a close.  Heck, I was always a Nintendo guy anyway.  (In fact, I think this is even worse than the Super Mario Brothers movie.)

THE AGFA HORROR TRAILER SHOW: VIDEORAGE (2021) *** ½

This was a bonus feature on the Blu-Ray for The AGFA Horror Trailer Show.  Like the bonuses found on the Drive-In Delirium trailer compilation series, it is a collection of trailers cobbled together from home video previews.  Many of them are for shot-on-video crap or low budget regional films I have never heard of.  I know when I review these trailer compilations, I usually complain that I’ve seen a lot of the trailers on other collections.  I can’t say that this time around.

That’s not to say they are all obscure.  You’ll also find some of the classics of the SOV horror genre.  Or at the very least, the most well-known.  (The Abomination, The Ripper, and The Dead Next Door among them.)

Things start with a cool bumper for a fake TV station before the transmission is taken over by the “Demon of AGFA”, a hooded horror host, who introduces a deluge of SOV horror trailers.  The full collection includes:  Spiritual Challenge, Horrorscope, Blood Cult, Catacombs, A Night to Dismember, The Burning Moon, Forever Evil, Death Nurse, Enjoyment in Hell (“Go Get UR Copy!”), Mr. Ice Cream Man (which hilariously uses James Horner’s score from Aliens), Jeffrey Dahmer:  The Secret Life (which actually looks disturbing), Evil Island, The Demons in My Head, Evil Night, Blood Massacer (sic), The Long Island Cannibal Massacre, Terror at Tenkiller, and Cannibal Campout.  Then, there is a brief intermission containing some cool horror-themed regional commercials.  (My favorite was a very well-done Night of the Living Dead-inspired commercial for a pizza place.)  The second half then kicks off with The Abomination before being followed by The Battle of the Gods, Woodchipper Massacre, Death Metal Zombies, The Ripper, Hauntedween, Science Crazed, Demons in the Land, Bloody Anniversary, Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell (a Japanese remake of The Evil Dead), The Last Slumber Party, The Dead Next Door, Revenge, Things, Fungicide, Haunted (starring Press Your Luck’s Peter Tomarken!), The Night Marchers, Disembodied, Violent Shit, Zombie 90:  Extreme Pestilence, Things 2, Holla If I Killed You, and Holy Moly.

A common theme is that many of the trailers feature narrators who hilariously over-explain every little blessed plot detail (like A Night to Dismember).  I’m sure if you’ve seen some of these trailers, there’s no point of sitting down and watching the actual movie (although you can say the same thing for a lot of trailers, really).  The most entertaining trailers are the ones for the Nigerian horror movies.  I don’t know where AGFA found them, but they are some absolute gems.

Hopefully, this will be the start of a new tradition for the folks at AGFA.  I’d really love it if they came out with new trailer collections on a yearly basis.  I’d definitely pick up the next compilation if and when they release it. 

THE AGFA HORROR TRAILER SHOW (2021) *** ½

Few outfits have done more for the preservation, restoration, and celebration of exploitation than the American Genre Film Archive.  So, when they release a trailer compilation, you know you’re in for a treat.  The fun begins with a series of great vintage drive-in ads, including commercials for light-up footballs and flea markets.  There’s even the famous short subject, Bambi Meets Godzilla to cap off the pre-show festivities. 

Then, the trailers take center stage.  There are ads for Nightmare Weekend (“You’re about to enter the 21^st century… of TERROR!”), Witchcraft ’70, The Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary (much better known as The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies), Fear No Evil, a triple bill of The Corpse Grinders, The Undertaker and His Pals, and The Embalmer (which makes viewers sign a “Certificate of Assurance” to enter the theater), Scalps, a double feature of Carnival of Blood and Curse of the Headless Horseman, Massage Parlor Murders, Hobgoblins, an awesome double bill of The Vampire’s Coffin and Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy, Splatter University (“Prepare to be pulverized, traumatized, and hospitalized!”), The Velvet Vampire, Magdalena-Possessed by the Devil, Meat Cleaver Massacre (introduced by Christopher Lee!), and an amazing Spanish language trailer for an insane looking movie called Terror Sexo y Brujeria.  Then, we get a short break full of old drive-in intermission ads.  The second half of the show includes the tried and true trailer for the double feature of Blood Spattered Bride and I Dismember Mama, The Slayer, The Brainiac, Drive-In Massacre, Future-Kill, Lurkers, a double feature of I Drink Your Blood and I Eat Your Skin, The Manson Massacre, Three on a Meat Hook, Final Exam, Body Melt, Lucifer’s Women, Demonoid:  Messenger of Death, Demon Wind, Blood Hook, The Man with 2 Heads, Prey, Evil Laugh, Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman, Psychos in Love, The Worm Eaters, and Old Dracula.  (“If you loved Young Frankenstein, you’ll adore Old Dracula!”)

If you’re a fan of Vinegar Syndrome and/or Something Weird, many of these trailers will be familiar to you as both companies have released a lot of the movies featured here.  The best ones are for the double and triple features.  I also really enjoyed the trailers for black and white movies that have been tinted green or purple to give the illusion they are actually in color. 

If you’ve watched as many trailer compilations as I have, you’ve seen more than a few of these trailers before.  That kind of goes with the territory.  What really counts is the number of oddball, obscure, and just plain weird trailers they have dug up.  Also, it clocks in at under eighty minutes, so it moves at a steady clip.  In short, any trailer compilation fanatic will want to add this one to their collection. 

MAYHEM (2017) ** ½

Mayhem covers a lot of the same ground that The Belko Experiment (which came out right before) did.  Both films take place inside an office building on lockdown and feature employees that begin offing their co-workers.  The difference this time is that it is a virus that causes everyone to turn on the guy in the next cubicle and not an overly aggressive psychological experiment.  Another difference is that the office building in Mayhem is a law firm, so there’s a bit of the old anti-lawyer sentiment in there as well. 

Both films are a commentary on the “Dog Eat Dog” mentality of corporate America.  You know, except that the backstabbing co-workers will really stab you in the back.  Neither one of them truly milk their premises for all they are worth, but they at the very least remain diverting entertainment. 

While The Belko Experiment hued closer to Saw, this is more like 28 Days Later.  The infected office workers get a “Red Eye” virus that causes one eyeball to turn red.  It also causes their id to go out of control, which leads to the victim either going kill-crazy or becoming a sex maniac.  Unfortunately for us, 98% of them are of the kill-crazy variety.  I guess if director Joe Lynch went all-in on the sex crazed angle, we might’ve had a movie that was like They Came from Within Meets Disclosure.  As much as I’d like to have seen THAT version, I have to review what we ultimately wound up with… but oh boy, what could’ve been!

Anyway, a lowly employee (The Walking Dead star Steve Yeun) is fired via some cut-throat office tactics.  As he is about to be escorted out by security, there is a viral outbreak of Red Eye, and the government quarantines the building.  He then flies into a killer rage and teams up with a client (Samara Weaving) who also seeks revenge on the suits in the boardroom, and together they make a truce to take down the bigwigs who made their lives miserable.

There is an interesting ticking clock scenario at play as the virus’ effects only lasts eight hours (appropriately enough, the same length of a work day).  Not only that, but Yeun’s character was instrumental in finding a loophole to get a Red-Eye-infected client off who was accused of murder (because it was the virus’ fault, not his).  Since there is a legal precedent set, that means any infected person can’t be held accountable for their actions.  It’s a clever way to get around having the audience root for its main character to become a workplace mass murderer.

While the film works for the first half or so, it quickly becomes repetitive once it starts down the homestretch.  The scenes in which Yeun needs to acquire a series of key cards to gain access to the top floor feel like quests from a video game, and the superiors he has to outwit feel like end level bosses.  Another problem is that even when he’s infected with id-destroying rage viruses, Yeun just seems too nice of a guy to believe as a cold-blooded killer.  I know the point is that he’s the little guy who’s been pushed too far, but even after he’s been pushed, he doesn’t quite pull off the transformation. 

Luckily, Weaving is a lot of fun to watch as his partner in crime.  In fact, you’ll probably wish she was the sole heroine and not just the tagalong female lead/random romantic interest.  She perks up the movie, even when it’s spinning the wheels and once again shows she is one of the most engaging actresses of our day.  She definitely deserved a promotion if you ask me.

NECROPOLIS: LEGION (2019) ***

Necropolis:  Legion is a sequel to 1986’s punk rock witch movie, Necropolis.  It was part of Charles Band’s “Deadly Ten”, a series of films (many of them sequels) crowdfunded by fans and produced by his Full Moon company.  As far as low budget thirty-three-years later witch sequels go, it’s not bad at all. 

An old farmer (Joseph Lopez) finds out his sexy wife Eva (Ali Chappell) is really a witch who likes holding human sacrifices at the local church.  He disrupts her witchcraft ceremony and vanquishes her, but the town continues to feel her evil presence for centuries.  Flash-forward to the present day when an author named Lisa (Augie Duke) comes to the down to write a book on the town.  She goes to stay on the farm where Eva once lived and winds up reawakening her (in a manner cribbed from Hellraiser). 

In the first movie, the witch had six boobs and let zombies suckle curdled milk from them.  In this one, the witch has mouths for nipples, which she uses to munch on sexy sacrificial babes.  There’s one amusing moment where the tit-mouths are slack-jawed and their long, skinny tongues dangle down.  Admittedly, they are not as cool as the monster boobs from Mausoleum, but hey, monster boobs are monster boobs.  We also get a scene that manages to one-up the suckling scene from the original.  I won’t reveal how exactly it raises the bar, because it’s the highlight of the movie!

Even though it runs a little over an hour, Necropolis:  Legion still falls victim to some serious padding.  There’s a long opening credits sequence, a scene where Duke wanders around the farm that goes on forever, flashbacks to shit that just happened ten minutes ago, and the obligatory dream sequences.  Since some of the padding revolves around Duke writhing around the farmhouse in a see-through tank top, I can’t really get too up in arms about it. 

Besides, it’s hard to completely hate any movie that manages to rip off Hellraiser, Mausoleum, Repulsion, AND The Evil Dead.  There are some moments that are reminiscent of Jean Rollin too.  It’s easily one of Full Moon’s best recent offerings.

That said, you could’ve easily cut thirty minutes out of this thing and made a killer half-hour segment of a horror anthology.  Still, there’s plenty to like, even if it isn’t exactly a home run.  Despite the limited budget, director Chris (Female Werewolf) Alexander manages to squeeze a surprising amount of atmosphere from the material. 

The ladies in the cast leave their mark on you too.  Duke makes for a likeable heroine and I enjoyed seeing Lynn (I Drink Your Blood) Lowry as a local who gives Duke the strength she needs to fight the witch.  The movie really belongs to Chappell as the sexy, seductive, and sinister Eva.  She fills her character with a real sense of menace and makes for a formidable foe.  Plus, she rocks a set of monster boobs like few in the business.  I’d let her take a bite out of me any day.

KRAKATOA: EAST OF JAVA (1969) *

Krakatoa:  East of Java was kind of like a precursor to the disaster movies that were so popular the ‘70s.  It features an all-star cast, a big budget, and was filmed in Cinerama, which was sort of the ‘60s version of Imax.  In fact, the cast squares off against not one, but TWO natural disasters in the film (a volcano and a tsunami).  Too bad it’s boring as all get-out.

Maximillian Schell stars as a captain who sets sail to find a sunken ship containing a cache of pearls.  He sets a course for Krakatoa, and if he was using the movie’s title for navigation, he would never get there because Krakatoa is actually WEST of Java.  That’s the first sign you are in trouble with this bloated mess:  The filmmakers didn’t even bother to fact-check where the hell Krakatoa was.  In fact, once they discovered their error, they had already printed up the ad campaign and it would’ve been too costly to recall all the posters, so they just left it.  Good gravy.   

Just as much care went into the script, as it is a mishmash of subplots including the obligatory shipboard romances, double-crosses, and father/son bonding.  All this stuff does is get in the way of the treasure hunt.  Even then, the scenes of hot air ballooning and underwater diving slow things down even further. 

All of this is a slog to get through, but the film does come to life near the end once the volcano finally erupts.  The special effects are pretty good for the time (although some of the shots are obviously repeated).  That shouldn’t come as a surprise since they were done by Eugene Lourie, a man who’s no stranger to special effects epics, having directed The Giant Behemoth.  (There’s another movie with an incorrect title.  A giant is a behemoth, and a behemoth is a giant.  To call something a “giant behemoth” is just redundant.)

It doesn’t help that Schell is totally miscast as the captain.  He’s much too suave and good looking to buy as a crusty seafarer.  Brian Keith, who plays the terminally ill deep-sea diver, would’ve been a much better choice.  All in all, the geographical errors, sluggish subplots, and bad casting help to ensure Krakatoa:  East of Java goes up in smoke.

AKA:  Krakatoa.  AKA:  Volcano.

HANZO THE RAZOR: SWORD OF JUSTICE (1972) ***

After playing the heroic blind swordsman Zatoichi over two dozen times, Shintaro Katsu must’ve been worried he’d be typecast as a goodie-two shoes.  As Hanzo the Razor, he is a total lout, and a truly sick, twisted, and perverse individual.  This Hanzo is my kind of guy. 

Hanzo is a policeman who’s supposed to take a blood oath to uphold the law and accept no bribes.  However, he refuses to go along with it on the grounds that the system is so corrupt that it would make him a hypocrite.  He then sets out on the trail of a killer and encounters corruption, murder, and deceit along the way.

Hanzo is a total masochist too.  In one scene, he literally beats his meat.  I don’t mean he chokes his chicken.  This guy literally hammers his cock.  This might also be the only movie I’ve ever seen in which the hero makes love to a bag of rice.  Then there are the insane scenes where he “interrogates” woman suspects until they are on the brink of ecstasy and can’t help but confess in order to achieve orgasm.  That’s not even mentioning the POV shots of Katsu’s dick going in and out of the suspects, which are artistically superimposed over the woman’s face. 

Folks, I’ve seen some shit in my time, but I ain’t seen that.

If you liked Katsu in the Blind Swordsman movies, you may be in for quite a shock as he is a complete bastard in this.  He’s definitely closer to Sonny Chiba in The Streetfighter than the Katsu of Zatoichi.  I especially liked the cool opening sequence where he struts down the street to a funky beat that feels like it could’ve easily come out of a Blaxploitation flick of the same era.

Hanzo the Razor:  Sword of Justice contains some jaw-dropping stuff early on.  However, the fun sort of dries up in the third act as the plot begins to meander and the weirdness starts to subside.  Still, there’s plenty of wacky shit here for me to wholeheartedly recommend it.

AKA:  Fang of the Official.  AKA:  The Razor:  The Sword of Justice.  AKA:  The Sword of Justice. 

JOY OF FLYING (1977) ** ½

Corrine Cartier stars as Silvia, an unhappily married woman stuck with a husband who is uninterested in sex.  She reads a book on sexual promiscuity called Joy of Flying and begins to have sexual dreams.  Her girlfriend tells her, “The cure for the thing that ails you is a good fuck!”  Silvia finally takes her advice and begins having casual encounters with strange men.  When she begins an affair with a nude photographer named George (Gianni Garko), she thinks she’s finally found the one for her.  Silvia soon learns that George is unable to keep it in his pants.  Once he winds up in the bed of Maria (Olivia Pascal), a horny teenager who can only get off by doing it in risky places, Sylvia takes off with a dune-buggy riding artist to make him jealous.

I guess the title of this German sex comedy was supposed to be a mash-up of The Joy of Sex and Fear of Flying.  Then again, it doesn’t really matter what it’s called as long as the T & A is prominently paraded around.  As far as the genre goes, Joy of Flying certainly delivers on that end of the bargain, even if the laughs are nonexistent.  The scene where Garko gets a massage from two bathing beauties is probably the highlight, but we also get a fun gymnasium sequence that includes a nude stationary bike ride, skinny-dipping, and a solid underwater sex scene. 

The film has a fine set-up, but it starts to wander once the focus shifts to Garko’s character.  While it’s cool to see the star of so many Italian gialli and Spaghetti Westerns turning up in a German sex comedy, I can’t say he’s particularly well-utilized.  It’s not that his scenes are bad.  In fact, his moments with Pascal are rather amusing.  It’s just that it comes at the expense of Cartier’s storyline.  As an audience member, we’d much rather see her having fun while she embraces her sexuality.  Garko’s constant philandering kind of gets in the way of that.  The trailblazing trans exploitation star Ajita Wilson also has a small role as Garko’s rich client. 

Even if the film comes with some major reservations, it’s still worth watching just for the goofy atmosphere.  I mean it’s not every day you see two women discussing their sex life while playing foosball.  Besides, the theme song is great, and the song, “Do It” is even better.  Even if Joy of Flying doesn’t get your blood pumping, it will at least leave you tapping your toes.

AKA:  Erotic Ways.  AKA:  Sex at 7,000 Feet.

THE INTRUDER WITHIN (1981) **

Chad Everett stars as the head “tool pusher” on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean in this Made for TV Alien clone.  Head geologist Joseph Bottoms forces Chad and his crew to work day and night.  After all that constant drilling, they eventually dig up a slimy eel creature who bites and kills one of the workers.  Later, an old timer cuts himself on one of the creature’s eggs and goes nuts and kills himself.  Another guy gets infected and rapes a co-worker and she gives birth to a big monster that terrorizes what’s left of the cast.

The Intruder Within is an early ‘80s Made for TV Movie, and as such, it falls victims to the sluggish plotting and pacing inherent in one of these deals.  (We also get a lot of camera push-ins and fade-outs that signal where the commercial breaks should go.)  I will say the rape scene, though quite tame, must’ve been kind of shocking for an ‘80s Made for TV Movie.  It’s in scenes like this where you can tell the film wants to be a bit schlockier and nastier than your typical Move of the Week, but the standards and practices office just wouldn’t allow it. 

I’ve always liked Chad Everett, and he does a solid job here.  If you’re gonna have a monster running loose on an oil rig, he’s as good a guy as any to be at the helm.  It’s also good to see Rockne (Black Samson) Tarkington in a sizeable role. 

Despite being a bit grungier than your average TV horror flick, The Intruder Within is boring for the most part.  The final reel has a little bit of pep in its step, but it’s kind of a slog to get to that point.  At least it was made before the likes of the similarly themed Leviathan and Deepstar Six.  The monster is pretty cool though.  It kind of looks like a variation on one of the monsters from Humanoids from the Deep, but with a big shit-eating grin.  If only he inhabited a R-rated flick, he could’ve really done some damage. 

LADY PSYCHO KILLER (2018) ***

Lady Psycho Killer is sort of like a college coed version of American Psycho.  A teenage girl (Kate Daly) snaps and decides to rid the world of scumbag men.  (Like Patrick Bateman, our psycho girl narrates constantly and even keeps a little notebook of all her grisly murders.)  I know, I know, they did that already.  It was called American Psycho 2, and it was terrible.  Don’t worry though, because this is a whole lot better.  (Although, quite honestly, about 99% of every movie ever made is better than American Psycho 2.) 

I think the filmmakers were trying to use serial killing as a metaphor for a young girl’s coming of age.  While that angle of the movie isn’t entirely successful, it does have a surprise or two up its sleeve and is a little better at every turn than you’d expect.  The best stretches of the film play out like a drama you’d see on the CW, except… you know, with a serial killer. 

All this could’ve quickly devolved into sophomoric drivel, but the fine performance by Daly anchors the film and makes it more than a sum of its parts.  She does an admirable job in her first (and as of this writing, only) role as she balances her character’s girl-next-door charm with her over the top psychotic tendencies.  I’m not sure why she hasn’t made any other movies because she’s a lot of fun to watch here.

The great supporting cast also helps.  We have Ron Jeremy as a strip club owner, Malcolm McDowell as a creepy neighbor, and Daniel Baldwin (who’s only in it for like thirty seconds) as a victim.  Michael Madsen seems like he’s having the most fun as he is amusingly miscast as a psychology professor.  At all times, he just looks and acts like Michael Madsen, and only occasionally reminds you he’s supposed to be a scholarly professor when he puts on a pair of reading glasses.  It’s pretty great.

Lady Psycho Killer isn’t a classic or anything, but I had quite a bit of fun with it.  While it doesn’t always work, it’s only eighty-one minutes, moves at a brisk pace, and doesn’t have any wasted scenes or superfluous moments.  When you watch as many movies as I do, you come to appreciate things like that. 

BACK IN BUSINESS (1997) **

Former football-player-turned-action-star Brian Bosworth starring in a DTV action movie from Phillippe Mora, the man who gave the world Howling 2 and 3?  What could go wrong?  Plenty!

The Boz stars as an ex-cop who now works as an auto mechanic.  His former partner (Joe Torry) ropes him back into action, asking for his help on a big-time undercover sting operation.  After a lot of rigmarole, they find themselves in a Shelby Cobra filled with heroin and have to find a way to outsmart the dirty cop villains. 

Back in Business (which was passed off in some territories as a sequel to The Boz’s classic Stone Cold, even though they are completely unrelated) is scattershot at best and slipshod at worst.  Things just sort of happen at random as the script feels more like it was recycled from parts of other (better) movies and Scotch-taped together.  It’s disjointed, sure, but it’s sporadically amusing. 

Most of the humor comes from Bosworth’s attempts to work on his anger issues.  Throughout the film, he constantly calls a radio show therapist to discuss ways to apply his anger management techniques.  Most of this isn’t exactly laugh-out-loud funny, but the scene where he smashes up a yuppie’s car for condescending to him is worthy of half a chuckle. 

Bosworth looks like he’s having fun.  You just wish he had better material to work with.  He’s not bad during his solo scenes, but the movie doesn’t really work when he’s teamed with Joe Torry.  I think they should’ve teamed The Boz up with former Yankee manager Joe Torre instead.  Just think!  It could’ve been a titanic pairing of two sports legends.  Alas, it was not meant to be.  We do get a scene where The Boz plays basketball with Torry in his boxer shorts, so… there’s that.  However, this seemingly inconsequential scene goes on so long that you have to wonder if it was secretly a test pilot for a White Men Can’t Jump TV show. 

Torry is more annoying than funny, unfortunately.  He has a bit of chemistry with Boz, but again, his dialogue just isn’t sharp enough to elicit laughter from the audience.  At least Brion James is on hand to essay the villain role, and we get a bit by a young Michael Clarke Duncan as a henchman.   

AKA:  Stone Cold 2:  Heart of Stone.  AKA:  Heart of Stone. 

POSSESSOR (2020) **

Director Brandon Cronenberg tries to show he can be a chip off the old block with the icky, moody, but empty Possessor.  Like his old man, David Cronenberg, he has a way with throwing the red stuff around.  He even uses some of the same motifs that his father trademarked throughout his career.  (There are bits that will remind you of Existenz, Videodrome, and Scanners.)  Unfortunately, just like Daddy Cronenberg, Brandon’s ice-cold aloof approach really keeps the audience at arm’s length from the characters.

Andrea (Mandy) Riseborough is an assassin who works for a mysterious organization.  During a job, her mind is connected to a random average citizen and she uses her mental energy to force them to kill her targets.  Her latest thought-controlled assassin (Christopher Abbott) doesn’t like having his noodle scrambled, so he fights back and sets out to turn the tables on Riseborough for messing with his noggin.

I like the idea of Possessor more than I liked the execution.  While the film is often gorgeous to look at (it reminded me of a Denis Villeneuve movie in some stretches), the pacing is stagnant, and the characterizations are almost non-existent.  The first act is the best as we get to learn the ins and outs of how the mind-control technology works.  Once Riseborough hops into Abbott’s body, things go out the window fast.  That’s mostly due to Abbott’s awful performance.  I know he’s supposed to be acting as if someone else is at the controls, but he at all times looks like a mannequin who just came to life.  (It doesn’t help that his character has about as much depth to him as a mannequin.)

Another issue is the subplot with Riseborough’s family.  We never really get to know them, which really takes the air out of the final scenes.  Imagine if we actually cared about any of the characters and we might’ve had a winner on our hands. 

Cronenberg does show us some quick glimpses of extreme gore here and there to justify Possessor’s existence.  The print I saw was the “Possessor Uncut” version, which adds in a couple shots of erect penises.  However, all the cocks I saw were clearly circumcised.  So much for being “Uncut”.

AKA:  Possessor Uncut. 

UNDERCOVER BROTHER 2 (2019) ** ½

The world wasn’t exactly clamoring for a seventeen-years-later DTV sequel to Undercover Brother, but we got one anyway.  Despite having some major reservations about the whole enterprise, it didn’t turn out too bad all things considered.  While there are some huge missed opportunities here, I found myself laughing consistently throughout, and the social satire worked as well as could be expected. 

Shortly after the events of the first movie, Undercover Brother (Michael Jai White) and his younger brother Lionel (Vince Swann) go to stop the evil Mr. White (Barry Bostwick) in his mountaintop lair.  He gives them the slip, causes an avalanche to disguise his getaway, and the two brothers wind up frozen in the ice for sixteen years.  Lionel eventually thaws out, and since Undercover stuck in a coma, he sets out to make his brother proud by stopping Mr. White’s son (Steven Lee Johnson) from taking over the world via his chain of coffeeshops.

The big stumbling block here is the casting of Michael Jai White.  I’m not saying it was a bad idea.  I’m not saying he does a bad job.  What I am saying is that with his big afro, retro wardrobe, and badass demeanor, the whole things feels like the filmmakers wanted to do Black Dynamite 2, but couldn’t get the rights, so they just settled on making Undercover Brother 2 instead.  The fact that he spends most of the movie in a coma is another rotten choice.  It’s even more perplexing since he occasionally pops up as an Obi-Wan-style ghost to give his brother motivation.  I’d much rather have seen him kicking ass than dispensing pep talks in a ghostly form.  Don’t get me wrong.  Swann does a decent job in White’s stead, but I can’t help but imagine how great this could’ve been if White had been in the driver’s seat the whole time. 

The surprising thing about Undercover Brother 2 is that it contains a fair amount of laughs, so it’s not too hard to overlook some of its shortcomings.  The biggest laugh comes when White learns his brother has been “cuttin’ bitches” and then we see him at work as a dog groomer.  The social commentary is also fairly strong as the villain’s big plan is to control the world with a drug called “Woke” that causes its users to become overly socially conscious.  Subtle?  No, but it works.  I mean the satire isn’t exactly Swiftian, but for a movie called Undercover Brother 2, it’s got more on its mind than you’d expect.

HAVEN (2006) * ½

Haven tries for the whole Pulp Fiction-style gimmick of having three interconnected stories of various lowlifes and criminals.  It even has a pretty stacked cast of hungry up-and-comers, veteran character actors, and pretty boys trying to flex their acting muscles.  While the cast is strong, the writing is weak.  You know your characters are paper-thin when a cast this talented is unable to breathe any life into them. 

All three stories revolve around various criminals in the Cayman Islands.  The first centers on Bill Paxton, who plays a white-collar thief who escapes to the Islands with his troublesome daughter (Agnes Bruckner) in tow.  The second tale involves a beach bum (Orlando Bloom) who deflowers Zoe Saldana and must face the wrath of her angry brother (Anthony Mackie).  The final story is about Paxton’s banker (Stephen Dillane) who tries to cut a deal with the cops and escape the island with a cool million. 

The stories amble on without much urgency or drive.  The first story in particular is a total waste of Bill Paxton as he is given virtually nothing to do.  The scenes of Bruckner getting involved with some hoodlums at a drug-fueled party are pretty unpleasant too. 

The part where Mackie throws acid in Bloom’s face is shocking though.  Not because seeing the usually handsome Bloom being disfigured is shocking.  It’s more because we’re shocked that something actually happened in the movie.

It’s all pretty laughable though because after Orlando Bloom has acid thrown in his face, he looks… well… just like Orlando Bloom. 

The stories eventually intersect and overlap, but it seems more like an excuse to reuse footage to pad the running time.  I get what writer/director Frank E. Flowers (who hasn’t made a movie before or since) is trying to do.  He wants to contrast the white-collar criminals who come to the island to the street-level ones who inhabit it year-round.  It’s just that it’s clunky and not thought out very well.

I did think it was funny that so many characters called each other “pussyhole” though. 

SPY (2015) ***

Melissa McCarthy and director Paul Feig return for their third collaboration in this solid spy spoof.  McCarthy stars as Susan, a CIA desk jockey who uses spy satellite footage to help guide secret agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law) through his dangerous missions.  (She’s kind of like a combination of Miss Moneypenny, Oracle, and Debbie, your Time-Life operator.)  Fine’s latest mission is to stop a rich heiress (Rose Byrne) from selling nukes to terrorists.  The mission winds up being a complete failure, resulting in Fine being killed in the line of duty and the identities of all the CIA’s field agents being compromised.  Susan’s boss (Allison Janney) has no choice but to send her into the field to observe and report, but naturally Susan gets in way over her head. 

McCarthy does a fine job for the most part, especially early on playing a likeable underdog character.  She only delves into her usual grating persona when she goes undercover as Byrne’s gruff bodyguard.  Even then, her antics aren’t enough to derail the movie. 

It also helps that the solid line-up of supporting players deliver some pretty big laughs.  Allison Janney is a lot of fun as Susan’s bitchy boss, Miranda Hart has a few choice moments as her best friend, and Byrne is winning as the foulmouthed villainess.  It’s Jason Statham though who steals the movie.  He is clearly having a ball sending up his tough guy image as the badass spy who joins McCarthy in the field.  The highlight comes when he lists a number of reasons of just how badass he is, each one being more improbable than the last.

The action is so-so for the most part.  That’s really no surprise considering the focus is on the crude comedy, but there is a funny bit involving a chase through wet cement that is good for a laugh.  At least Feig gets a lot of mileage from spoofing the James Bond franchise.  The biggest laughs come from the scene inspired by Bond’s gadget maker Q.  When Susan goes to receives her gadgets, they are… well…  Let’s just say James Bond wouldn’t be caught dead using any of them.

Overall, this is one of McCarthy’s best.  It’s certainly more fun than Ghostbusters and has a lot more laughs than The Heat.  I still think Bridesmaids is my favorite McCarthy flick, but this one is a fine showcase for her talents.