MONDO FREUDO (1966) ** ½

Mondo Freudo is director Lee Frost’s rip-off of Mondo Cane.  Like its follow-up, Mondo Bizarro, it takes the hidden camera approach, catching unscripted moments as they happen.  Most of it, of course, has all been staged for your amusement, although the segments themselves are hit and miss at best. 

The hidden camera spies on a couple making love on the beach at night, teenagers cruising up and down Hollywood Boulevard, slave trading in Tijuana, and a Japanese club that specializes in S & M floor shows.  The most interesting segment is on strip clubs that skirt past local obscenity laws to show nudity, like the totally nude underground club in London, and the club for “junior executives” and the topless Watusi bar, both in San Francisco.  Meanwhile, lesbian prostitutes are interviewed in London, an artist performs nude body painting, and prostitutes work the streets in New York.  (The familiar voice of the producer, Bob Creese is heard as the john in this scene.)  My favorite sequence is the final piece on German mud wrestlers.  (Patrons of the bar sitting ringside are given ponchos so they don’t get muddy!)

Mondo Freudo is noticeably less racy and tamer than its sequel Mondo Bizarro.  (Frost even takes to using footage from his previous film, Hollywood’s World of Flesh for padding.)  I give him credit for trying to make some of this seem believable, but that sort of takes away from the fun.  It’s sort of telling that the most memorable sequence is the most phony-baloney.  Of course, I’m talking about the scene involving a witch holding a black mass.  The fact that other segments feel like they could possibly happen makes this stretch seem even more fantastic.  Frost, who directed everything from biker pictures (Chrome and Hot Leather) to Blaxploitation (The Black Gestapo) to straight-up porn (A Climax of Blue Power), found a much better (and consistent) tone for Mondo Bizarro, which I think is overall the better of the two.  The surf rock theme song is excellent though. 

MONDO BIZARRO (1966) ***

Four years after they made the incredible horror-themed nudie-cutie, House on Bare Mountain, director Lee Frost and star Bob Cresse collaborated on a one-two punch of Mondo movies.  Mondo Bizarro was the second film of the pair.  It follows a “hidden camera” format that allows the audience to peer into places like a lingerie shop in Chicago where we spy on women in dressing rooms, a voodoo ritual in the Bahamas (the ceremony is fake but the animals that are sacrificed are very real), and massage parlors in Japan while a solemn narrator intones wisdom like, “The cadaver is infinity!” 

Most of this is as phony as a three-dollar bill (the way the filmmakers try to preserve the subject’s “anonymity” via negative scratches over faces, license plates, and pubic regions was a nice touch though) and some bits are more amusing than others.  Interestingly enough, the sequences that feel the least staged are the most effective, like the behind the scenes look at the inner workings of Frederick’s of Hollywood.  Compare that to the silly scene of the restaurant that serves broken glass for the patrons to eat.  It’s painfully obvious it’s fake from the start and goes on much too long.  The sequence about a Nazi sex play almost seems like a warm-up for Frost’s Love Camp 7 too. 

The prolonged scene set in LA works best.  It mixes in everything from male hustling to the obscenely overpriced art scene to Vietnam protests.  It’s then ironic that for a Mondo movie about oddities across the globe, the filmmakers find their most interesting subjects in their own backyard. 

Like any Mondo movie, it’s bound to be uneven.  There are some queasy moments (like when the guy jabs a needle through his cheek and forearm) and scenes that feel more like padding than anything.  (The extended preparations for the Lebanese “slave auction” eat up precious screen time near the end of the film.)  However, while the overall quality of the individual segments varies, the film itself is consistently entertaining throughout.  If you’re a Mondo movie fan, you’re sure to enjoy this one. 

SURF NAZIS MUST DIE (1987) ***

Very few movies with amazing titles can actually live up to their promise.  Even certified classics like The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies somehow fall short.  Troma’s entire brand seems to be built around impossibly cool sounding movies that never match the title’s hype.  In fact, Troma seems to spend more time coming up with a title than they do making the film.  Because of that, it’s a small miracle that Surf Nazis Must Die manages to be a minor classic. 

After a major earthquake in California, surf punks now rule the beaches.  The Surf Nazis led by (who else?) Adolf (Barry Brennan) takes control of the gangs and terrorize tourists.  When Adolf kills a jogger named Leroy (Robert Harden), his Mama (Gail Neely) goes out for justice. 

Surf Nazis Must Die has a unique and strange vibe.  The tone may be out of whack, but that just means you’re never quite sure what’s going to happen next.  Director and co-writer Peter George wisely makes the Nazis a legitimate threat, and while they are outrageous and colorful, they are still extremely dangerous.  The scenes with them building their empire have a very artsy look.  Some scenes even have sort of a Michael Mann influenced feel to them. 

The scenes with Mama on the other hand are much more over the top and feel more like a typical Troma movie.  Neely is very good and is equally fun to watch as either as a pistol packing mama on a death wish or as a comedic foil.  Bobbie (Mausoleum) Bresee is also funny as the mom of one of the surf punks.  It’s also cool seeing Haunted Garage’s Dukey Flyswatter as Mengale, one of the slimy Surf Nazis.  Mr. Deadly Prey himself, Ted Prior, also pops up in a bit role as a surfer. 

The pacing is about as uneven as the tone.  Even though it’s only eighty-two minutes, it feels much longer.  However, whenever the film hits the sweet spot between arty action and down and dirty Troma flick, Surf Nazis Must Die is a hoot. 

THE HOUSE THAT BURNS AT NIGHT (1985) ***

Rene Cardona Jr.’s The House That Burns at Night is in the running for best opening credits sequence of all time.  Before we even get to see the title of the movie there have already been two stripteases.  If you think that’s awesome, get a load of this:  A junkie stripper (Sonia Infante) stabs a pimp in the groin before the screenwriters have been listed on screen.  And I’m not talking like a short stabbing scene that leaves everything to your imagination.  I mean like full on arterial spray of penis plasma gushing in slow motion.  But wait, there’s more.  Then two paramedics take turns banging her in the back of their speeding ambulance (complete with high five when they swap places).  The ambulance, it should be noted, drives right past a sign that says (I shit you not) “VAG TRANSPORT”! while an EMT is getting some OPP.  Now, I know this is a Spanish language film, so the pun may have been unintentional, but it was downright hysterical to me. 

What I’m getting at here is we are granted seven minutes of pure cinema right off the bat courtesy of Mexican movie maestro Rene Cardona Jr. 

Infante (who also produced this sucker) stars as Alazana, the stripper on the run who settles into a swanky South of the Border brothel to lay low.  Seeing an opportunity, she gets the decrepit madam Esperia (Carmen Montejo) hooked on dope and tries to steal the old bag’s boyfriend Eleazar (Salvador Pineda).  Alazana soon engages in a power struggle with the two lovers for control of the house of ill repute. 

There’s no shortage of female flesh on display here as we see the sex workers stripping, turning tricks, taking bubble baths, getting into water fights and being allergic to clothing in general.  The brothel set itself has a lot of personality as it is almost like a mash up of Wild West saloon, Chinese restaurant, and disco.  The Altmanesque way Cardona captures the action is reminiscent of a Tinto Brass movie as the camera kind of wanders around looking for people who are getting it on.  The film also has a surprising amount of queer content as there are several gay and trans sex workers who ply their trade in the brothel. 

While the film is consistently involving throughout, it really can’t live up to its epic first reel.  The love triangle plot line begins to spin its wheels by the time the third act rolls around.  Cardona does pepper some great bits of cinematic gymnastics (like when he intercuts Pineda blowing away a cop in slow motion a la Sam Peckinpah with shots of Infante entertaining a client) in with the scads of skin, which is more than enough to prevent doldrums from setting in.  The strangely existential ending is really something too. 

The reason to see this though is for Infante.  She’s plenty hot and has several great nude scenes as well.  Whenever she’s on screen, The House That Burns at Night sizzles. 

S.O.S. OPERATION BIKINI (1967) **

Julio Aleman stars as secret agent Alex Dinamo.  When we first see him, he’s fighting bad guys who are smuggling drugs inside of bananas!  He’s out to stop S.O.S., the “Secret Organizational Service”, a crime syndicate run by Madame Bristol (Sonia Furio) who uses her fashion empire as a front for her arms dealing operations.  She holds a bikini convention in a luxurious hotel and Dinamo decides to check it out.  When one of the bikini models is murdered, Dinamo sets out to bring Bristol down. 

Although Aleman is a bit weak in the lead, the ladies in the cast make this otherwise uneven spy caper watchable.  Furio is a solid villainess and even gets to sing a nightclub number in a skimpy evening gown.  (There’s another musical number by a rock combo, but it’s hard to hear the music from the horribly canned-in crowd noise.)  Sonia Infante is also quite the looker as Dinamo’s sexy girlfriend.  We also have Batwoman herself, Maura Monti and Isla (Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia) Vega in the mix as S.O.S. agents. 

Like most ‘60s spy flicks, there are plenty of gadgets to go around.  There’s a lighter that’s also a camera and cigarette cases, books, cameras, pens, and even high heels that double as guns.  Despite that, Dinamo still takes to pressing an old-fashioned stethoscope against a wall to listen to the bad guys in one scene.  The fight scenes aren’t bad either as they are full of Judo tosses and karate chops.  The highlight is the karate catfight between Monti and Infante. 

All the ingredients are there (including a swinging ‘60s score) and the film has a sense of humor, which is appreciated, but for whatever reason, director Rene Cardona, Jr. isn’t quite able to bring all the elements together.  The biggest issue with S.O.S. Operation Bikini is the fact that too much of the movie revolves around Dinamo hanging around the resort.  Even the weakest spy pictures can get by from showcasing exotic locales, but the film rarely ventures outside the hotel once the plot kicks in.  And when it does, most of the time the action still takes place on the grounds of the resort.  (There are a couple of rooftop chases.)  Cardona lets the camera linger on the one exploding car in the flick for so long that you have to wonder if that’s where the entire budget went.  We also get a From Russia with Love-inspired boat chase that serves as the finale.  Even this comes up a day late and a dollar (or I guess in this case, peso) short. 

Another sign of the measly budget:  In one scene I thought I saw a henchman lurking behind a lamp.  Turns out it was just a crew member!  Also, while there are a fair number of hot women in bikinis for our hero to ogle, there’s not as many as you might expect, given the title.  However, if you enjoy your espionage en Espanol, then you may dig it. 

Cardona and Aleman returned two years later with a sequel, Danger Girls. 

FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES (2025) ***

Final Destination:  Bloodlines is a solid entry in the durable horror franchise.  As far as sixth entries in horror franchises go, it’s pretty darn good.  As far as sixth entries that were made fourteen years after the fifth one, it’s a minor miracle that it’s any good at all. 

A college student named Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) is plagued by bad dreams involving her grandmother, who narrowly avoided death as a young woman.  After Nana croaks, her curse is passed down to the family and it doesn’t take long for her descendants to start buying the farm in disgusting ways.  It’s then up to Stefani to find a way to reverse the curse. 

If there is a problem with this one, it’s that it’s way too long and has too much plot.  (Okay, that’s two problems.)  The scenes of the dysfunctional family trying to protect one another just doesn’t have the same effect as the other movies which relied on friends and/or total strangers coming together to defeat “Death”.  If it’s one thing that we really don’t need in a Final Destination movie, it’s a plot.  And if it’s anything that we don’t need in one of these things is a running time that flirts with two hours.  Other than that, I liked it just fine. 

The important thing is that the kills are there.  We get at least three or four quality death scenes here, which is about the best you can hope for.  There’s a fun bit involving a lawn mower and another in which someone inadvertently winds up in a garbage truck.  The highlight is a hilarious sequence where someone meets a gruesome end inside an MRI machine.  The opening accident scene, set in the ‘50s atop a Space Needle-style restaurant, is a lot of fun too.  There’s even a callback to one of the series’ most iconic deaths, which I’m sure fans will enjoy. 

It was also good to see Tony Todd in one of his last film appearances.  He’s been a mainstay in the series, and the film was able to give him a nice little send-off.  Too bad the rest of the cast (aside from Richard Harmon as the foulmouthed tattoo artist) is bland and unmemorable. 

CARNIVAL IN RIO (1983) ***

Arnold Schwarzenegger stars in this hour-long special about Carnival that premiered on The Playboy Channel.  Now, back in 1983, you probably knew him as Mr. Universe, the guy from Pumping Iron, or as Conan.  This was a year before The Terminator, and he was just on the cusp of being the Arnold Schwarzenegger we all know.  That’s what makes this tape so fascinating.  This was made in a small sliver of time when Arnold (who was always conscious of his public image) would actually agree to appear in something like this.  I’m sure this tape was brought up more than a few times when he was running for governor. 

Anyway, Arnold heads down to Rio during Carnival to soak up the sights and sounds of the local customs and culture.  Mostly though, he just ogles, gropes, and kisses scantily clad and topless women, who look visibly nervous or downright uncomfortable.  He attends an ass-shaking samba competition (“My favorite body part!”) and winds up getting on stage and making a fool of himself.  The next morning, he takes in a capoeira martial arts demonstration before dressing in a native headdress and face paint for a Carnival costume ball where he dances (badly) and runs into Bond girl Ursula Andress.  The following day, Arnold works out on the beach before meeting up with a sexy blonde who gets a soft-focus topless sunbathing sequence alongside a brunette who frolics in the surf.  Then, it’s time for the big Carnival parade.  But enough of that crap.  Soon after, Arnold is cornering the poor brunette and forcing her to give him “language lessons”.  Predictably, he learns just enough so that he can sexually harass women in Portuguese.  The tape ends with Arnold taking the ladies (and one random dude) out for milkshakes before dancing with kids in the streets. 

There are enough picturesque landscapes, scenes of local color, and pseudo-informational tidbits for Carnival in Rio to function as a travelogue.  But let’s face it.  Even with the participation of Arnold, this was only made as an excuse to show some T & A. 

Overall, this is a fascinating time capsule.  Arnold fans will no doubt enjoy seeing a side of him you’re not generally used to seeing.  Some of his antics are truly jaw-dropping.  In short, this is a priceless artifact.  Don’t miss it.  

AKA:  Party in Rio.

MITCH APPEARS ON THE DTVC PODCAST!

I was fortunate enough to once again be a guest on Matt’s DTVC Podcast.  In this episode we dive into not only the Reb Brown classic, Space Mutiny, but also its iconic appearance on Mystery Science Theater 3000.  You can check it out here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dtvc-podcast-211-space-mutiny/id903755371?i=1000709212216

Or as Reb would say, “MOVE!  MOVE!  MOVE!  MOVE!”

BORDERLINE (2025) **

Paul (Ray Nicholson) is an obsessive fan of a pop singer named Sofia (Samara Weaving).  One night, he shows up on her doorstep and stabs her bodyguard (Eric Dane), which gets him thrown in the booby hatch.  Months later, he escapes and sneaks into her mansion where he intends to “marry” her.  Paul then takes Sofia’s entourage hostage and forces them to participate in their nutty nuptials. 

Weaving is one of those actresses I’ll watch in nearly anything and Nicholson has been steadily racking up memorable turns in the past couple years.  Even their combined talents can’t seem to breathe much life into this uneven misfire of a comedy thriller.  The script by first time director Jimmy Warden, who is in real life married to Weaving (and also wrote Cocaine Bear) is loosely based on a stalker Madonna had in the ‘90s, hence the title. (Jimmy Fails’ flamboyant basketball player character is an obvious stand-in for Dennis Rodman, who Madonna briefly dated.) 

It might’ve worked had Warden found a consistent tone.  There are some random bits of goofiness that are entertaining (like the cop who spends his stakeout practicing for a song and dance audition), but for the most part, the humor feels strained or worse, falls flat.  Also, the film often stalls when it turns its focus away from Weaving and her stalker.

For a movie directed by her husband, the star isn’t given much of a spotlight.  Weaving’s character is paper thin, and her deadpan reactions lack the spark of something like Ready or Not.  If anything, it’s more of a showcase for Nicholson, who once again delivers a fun performance and has a few amusing moments.  Dane is also quite good as Weaving’s loyal bodyguard. 

Borderline is one of those movies that’s better in theory than execution.  The fact that everyone treats Nicholson with empathy, even though he’s potentially violent, is intriguing, but it sort of hamstrings the potential suspense.  Nicholson’s commitment to the part is admirable, but the script doesn’t give him much to work with.  The movie also peters out way before the wedding finale, which like the film itself, has a much better set-up than payoff. 

The Flaming Lips’ cover of the title track is very good though. 

DEN OF THIEVES (2018) ***

Den of Thieves plays like a low rent version of Heat.  It has lofty, ambitious aims that sometimes act as a hindrance.  (There’s no reason this thing needed to be nearly two and a half hours.)  However, when it hits the sweet spot between trashy potboiler and well-oiled thriller, the results are often electric. 

Gerard Butler is the disheveled and slimy head of the Los Angeles Major Crimes Unit who is trying to nab a crew of elite bank robbers.  He’s able to get to O’Shea Jackson, the gang’s getaway driver, and force him to turn stoolie.  Meanwhile, the head of the gang (Pablo Schreiber) is setting his sights on robbing the Federal Reserve.  It’s then up to Butler and his crew to take them down. 

The film sometimes feels like an assembly cut as there are subplots and scenes that really don’t need to be there (like the scene where 50 Cent uses the crew to intimidate his daughter’s prom date and/or all the stuff with Butler’s messy personal life).  I’m not saying these scenes are bad or anything, but they get in the way of the cops and robbers hijinks.  That said, there still are plenty of good individual scenes in the midst of the action.  I especially liked the part where Butler and Schreiber silently intimidate one another while at a shooting range. 

Butler is a lot of fun to watch as he goes all in on the character’s grimy persona.  Jackson fares well too as the young criminal in over his head.  Schreiber kind of looks like Matthew Fox’s evil twin and delivers a strong turn as the ringleader of the gang.  50 Cent isn’t given a whole lot to do as Schreiber’s second in command, but his presence alone gives the film a boost. 

The final robbery and shootout scenes are solid.  The big Keyser Soze twist is maybe less so.  However, nitpicks aside, Den of Thieves is a winner. 

AKA:  Criminal Squad.

FIGHT OR FLIGHT (2025) ****

The Hartnettaissance is upon us.  Even though the movie as a whole was a misfire, his performance in Trap showed that there was more to Josh Hartnett than previously thought.  Now, with the enormously entertaining action comedy, Fight or Flight he doubles down on the near Nicolas Cage levels of thespian hijinks and turns in a career-best performance in one of the best movies of the year. 

Hartnett stars as a disgraced Secret Service agent (his backstory is the same as Bruce Willis’ in Last Boy Scout) drinking himself to death in Bangkok who is offered a shot of redemption if he can board a plane to San Francisco, find a passenger who is a most wanted hacker, and bring them to justice.  The only problem is that nearly everyone on the plane is an assassin who also happens to be looking for the hacker.  And Hartnett. 

Fight or Flight is kind of like Bullet Train on a plane.  Or maybe Snakes on a Plane but with assassins instead of snakes.  It builds slowly and sprinkles in occasional dollops of crazy fight sequences here and there while keeping a relatively straight face.  (I’m thinking of the scene where a heavily drugged Hartnett battles Marko Zaror in the bathroom.)  Things get increasingly looney as they go along, to the point that when three women dressed like killers from a ‘70s Shaw Brothers movie show up, no one blinks an eye.  The gore is solid too, with a champagne flute to the eyeball being an especially gnarly bit of carnage. 

Things quickly escalate in the third act.  It’s here where Hartnett inadvertently takes a mess of toad venom, begins tripping balls, and proceeds to carve up trained assassins with a chainsaw all the while Elvis Costello sings “Pump It Up” on the soundtrack. 

In a word, cinema. 

Hartnett was really good in the first two acts, but it’s here during this prolonged sequence where he really endeared himself to me.  It was almost as if the toad venom acted like the mushroom in Super Mario Bros. and turned him into Super Hartnett.  If he can bring that same level of demented glee to his next few pictures, I’ll be sure to check them out. 

What separates the film from so many others of its ilk is its sly sense of humor and the crispness of the fight choreography.  The camerawork is excellent during the close-quarters battles, and the editing is concise and effective.  The dialogue has some real howlers too.  My favorite line comes when Zaror tries to drug Hartnett and it doesn’t quite work, leading Josh to quip, “I guess you can’t pickle a pickle!”

ANOTHER SON OF SAM (1977) *

The film kicks off with a century’s worth of data about mass murders.  The dates and kill totals of everyone from Jack the Ripper to Son of Sam are splashed on the screen before the opening titles.  Then our story begins. 

A psycho kills an orderly and assaults his doctor before escaping to a nearby college campus.  It doesn’t take long before the nutzo is terrorizing college co-eds.  A detective, who also happens to be the boyfriend of the injured headshrinker, sets out to capture the escaped looney. 

Another Son of Sam is only seventy-two minutes long, but it is often a chore to sit through as it feels much longer than the seemingly brief running time suggests.  It contains way too many freeze frames, unnecessary slow-motion shots, POV scenes of the killer lumbering around the campus, and close-ups of his bugged-out eyeballs.  In addition to the pre-title crime statistics, the film is also padded with a long and unintentionally hilarious lounge singer act.  (“Johnny Charro”.)  It should be said that this is the only real “so bad, it’s good” moment as the rest is the movie is just “so bad, it’s… well… bad”. 

Directed by former stuntman David A. (Grizzly) Adams, Another Son of Sam is shockingly low on chills, thrills, or basic competency.  I mean, sure it’s low budget and all, but it could’ve at least been… you know… entertaining.  The body count is low too (there’s a throwaway line about it being Spring Break as the reason why there’s only three girls in the entire college) and the kills are weak. 

Another sticking point:  The killer is just some escaped mental patient with a mother fixation.  He really isn’t “another” Son of Sam.  Because of that, some true crime fans will be angered at the bait and switch title.  Besides, it’s one thing to produce a movie that exploits real life violence to turn a buck.  It’s another when the filmmakers don’t even attempt to live up to the title.  I mean, if you’re going to exploit something, made a God’s honest exploitation flick and deliver on the sex, blood, and violence fans of that sort of thing expect.  Don’t turn it into a painfully dull and woefully inept police procedural. 

AKA:  Son of Sam.

MALEVOLENCE (2004) ***

Bank robbers go on the lam after a heist leaves some of their crew dead.  The loose cannon of the group takes a mom and her little leaguer hostage and holes up in an abandoned farmhouse.  Before long they are confronted by a knife wielding slasher.  When the rest of the crew shows up to split the loot, the killer begins stalking them too. 

This almost has kind of a Charles B. Pierce feel.  It starts off as sort of a true crime sort of deal before the killer shows up.  His appearance certainly seems inspired by Pierce’s The Town That Dreaded Sundown too. 

Likewise, the scenes with the thieves have the flavor of one of those Tarantino knockoffs from the late ‘90s, especially when they argue about who gets to wear what mask to the heist.  The lone woman on the team bitches, “I wanted to be Snow White!” and the leader scolds, “You’re the Wolf Man!”  In fact, the sudden switchover from crime flick to horror is reminiscent of From Dusk Till Dawn now that I think about it. 

This ultimately winds up being closer to Pierce than Tarantino.  Like Pierce’s ‘70s output, there are long lulls in between the good stuff.  When the good stuff finally does come around, it’s a bit restrained, albeit reasonably well executed.  Writer/director Stevan Mena does a fine job in the third act when he begins pouring on the slasher cliches.  (He delivers at least one solid jump scare too.)  The score is quite good as it is clearly reminiscent of the slasher movies of old, especially Halloween and Friday the 13th.  (The killer bears a more than passing resemblance to Jason in Part 2.)

For something that’s essentially a low budget genre mash-up, Malevolence works more often than not.  Any time you put two different genres together, the results are bound to be uneven.  Fortunately, it remains watchable throughout, even if Mena never quite hits it out of the park.  (It also runs on about ten minutes too long to boot.)

Two sequels followed. 

UNDER SIEGE (1980) ***

A gang of thieves pull off a daring heist in a casino and the chief Inspector (Stuart Whitman) sends police Captain Sylvester (Hugo Stiglitz) to go after them.  While they’re on the lam, the thieves split up and go their separate ways.  One group is killed by the cops, and the other breaks into the house of a wealthy family and takes them hostage.  They demand a plane to make to their getaway, and the Inspector eventually relents.  Predictably, things don’t go as planned. 

Not to be confused with the Steven Seagal flick of the same name, this surprisingly sturdy action thriller from Mexico’s master of exploitation, Rene (Night of 1000 Cats) Cardona, Jr. sort of plays like a South of the Border variation on Desperate Hours.  It’s one of those movies that’s a bit better than expected at every turn.  Cardona gives us lots of scenes of controlled chaos as there are tons of shootouts (including a brief gun battle in a movie theater) and foot, car, boat, and plane chases aplenty.  The scenes inside the home are appropriately suspenseful, and the interactions between the thieves and the hostages are legitimately tense.  The finale is equally strong as the film sort of morphs into a mini-disaster movie when one of the family members is forced to land the plane when the pilot gets shot by the kidnappers. 

Whitman spends most of his screen time sitting behind a desk smoking a stogie and barking orders while Stiglitz does a lot of the heavy lifting.  Hugo even gets his own Dirty Harry rip-off scene where he jumps aboard a hijacked school bus.  The gory way the hijacker gets dispatched in this sequence was worth an extra Half Star in my book.  Both stars are quite good and Francesco (Sorcerer) Rabal, Marisa (Diabolik) Mell (who has a couple of brief nude scenes), and Antonella (The Gates of Hell) Interlenghi, who play members of the kidnapped family, do fine work too. 

Whitman starred in the awful Guyana:  Cult of the Damned for Cardona the previous year. 

AKA: Panic Makers. AKA: Hostages!

BEAKS (1987) **

Michelle (Waxwork) Johnson is a reporter who is tired of getting shitty assignments.  Along with her cameraman boyfriend (The Blue Lagoon’s Christopher Atkins), she goes to Spain to cover a story about chickens who turned on their owner.  They soon learn it is but one of a series of bird attacks that have been happening around the globe.  While they try to figure out why the birds have gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, the birds attack a vacationing family and a kid’s birthday party. 

Director Rene Cardona Jr. delivers a solid opening sequence where some eagles attack a couple of hang gliders.  If anything, it’s impressive from a staging standpoint.  I’m not sure how long it took the eagle wrangler to get the birds in the same shot as the hang gliders, but I respect that it was done for real.  Nowadays, they would’ve used CGI for that shit.  That doesn’t mean it’s particularly exciting or suspenseful as Cardona uses way too much slow-motion.  Not to mention the fact that I’m pretty sure PETA would have something to say about the way the bird was dispatched. 

Such scenes of cruelty to birds (often shown in slow motion) mean it won’t take long before you start rooting against the humans.  That may have been Cardona’s point all along, but he makes his points much too crudely for it to work as a social message.  Still, the bird attacks manage to have a kick to them as the close-ups of eyes gouged out and faced being pecked are nice and juicy.  Because of that, Beaks very nearly skates by thanks to those scenes alone. 

This was a multinational film production.  You can tell from all the countries listed in the credits and by the fact that every time it cuts back and forth from Spain to Italy to Peru to Mexico, there’s a little title card where the action is taking place.  I don’t think that was so much for the benefit of the plot, but to impress the audience how far and wide the film was filmed. 

Honestly, there was just too much filler in between the good stuff to make it worthwhile.  Cardona also relies way too heavily on slow motion.  In fact, the film probably could’ve been a good fifteen to twenty minutes shorter had he allowed those scenes to play at normal speed. 

Atkins looks like he may have been drunk or high (or both) but Johnson (who used an obvious body double for her nude scenes) is pretty good.  I can’t fault either performer as a trip to travel around the globe must’ve been pretty tempting, even if they had to star in a crappy killer bird movie in order to do so.  Gabrielle Tinti also pops up as a survivor of a bird attack, unfortunately without his usual co-star (and wife) Laura Gemser by his side. 

If there’s middle ground between The Birds and Birdemic, this is it.  As trashy and overlong (100 minutes) as it is, it’s still better than The Birds 2.  (Coincidentally, this was sold in some markets as The Birds 2.)  Or Zombie 5:  Killing Birds, for that matter

Suggested Drinking Game:  Take a shot every time you see a flock of birds take to the skies in slow motion.  (You’ll get drunk pretty quickly as this movie has more shots of doves flying in slow motion than John Woo’s entire filmography.)

AKA:  Beaks:  The Movie.  AKA:  Birds of Prey.  AKA:  Evil Birds.  AKA:  Beaks:  The Birds 2.

APARTMENT 7A (2024) ***

Apartment 7A is a prequel to Rosemary’s Baby.  I like that when Paramount decides to fiddle with a classic of that stature, they confine it to television (which is more than I can say for Warner Bros. and their uneven string of theatrically released Exorcist sequels).  First, there was the dreadful Made for TV sequel, Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby (starring Patty Duke!) and then the miniseries remake (which I still haven’t seen).  Now comes this, which went straight to Paramount+. 

Julia (The Wolf Man) Garner stars as Terry, a dancer who breaks her ankle and struggles to find work on Broadway. The Castevets (Dianne Wiest and Kevin McNally) are a kindly old couple who help her get back on her feet by letting her stay in their spare apartment.  One night, Terry has drinks with the producer of the show (Jim Sturgess) and wakes up pregnant.  Pretty soon, she begins getting everything she wants, including the lead in a Broadway show.  She eventually realizes the devilish plans the seemingly benign couple has in store for her. 

The dancer Garner portrays is a minor character from Rosemary’s Baby.  If you’re familiar with that film, you probably already know she comes to a gruesome end.  Garner is fine in the lead, but it’s Dianne Wiest who steals the show.  She is a hoot in the role originated by Ruth Gordon, who won an Oscar for her work in the original.  She sinks her teeth into the scenery like a pit bull and devours everything in sight. 

Director Natalie Erika James is smart enough not to try to ape Roman Polanski’s style.  She does a good job at playing within the beats of Rosemary's Baby and letting the movie do its own thing within the confines of that film’s structure, without exactly replicating it.  I’m thinking specifically of the scene where Rosemary is drugged and impregnated.  Since Garner is a dancer in this one, the dream morphs into a Satanic Busby Berkeley dance sequence, and I must say, it is one of the best Satanic Busby Berkeley dance sequences on record. 

As far as 2024 prequels to horror classics go, it’s not a patch on The First Omen, but it works surprisingly well.  As with that film, the director is using the bones of a durable horror franchise to make statements about women’s rights, and the mix of social commentary and chills works more often than not.  While the pace threatens to peter out in the third act, the finale is decent enough to make up for the wait.  Thanks to James’ efforts, Apartment 7A feels like a genuine continuation of the original, and not just a typical made-for-streaming cash grab. 

ICED (1989) **

A mentally unbalanced skier flips out when his girlfriend makes time with a hot shot competitor.  He gets so mad that he commits suicide by skiing off a mountain.  Four years later, the now married couple go on vacation to a ski lodge where they rent a time share with a group of friends.  They get worried when someone doesn’t show up, and as the group splits up, a killer wearing snow goggles picks them off one by one. 

Iced is a lukewarm skiing themed slasher that has found something of a cult following over the last couple of years.  That’s probably due to people being nostalgic about it from renting it back in the ‘80s.  If you’re like me and missed out on it back then, there’s honestly not a whole lot here to recommend.  It’s mostly dull for the first hour or so as the killer waits an exorbitant amount of time before he starts racking up bodies.  The murder sequences include death by snowplow, ski pole, icicle, hot tub electrocution, bear traps, and good old-fashioned stabbing.  Too bad just see the aftermath most of the time. The POV shots from inside the killer’s cracked snow goggles are pretty cool though. 

Debra (Dr. Caligari) De Liso makes for a solid Final Girl, all things considered.  You’ve got to respect any actress who spends much of the third act running around in the snow in her underwear.  I do have to take points off for the laughable scene where she discovers the bodies of her friends and calls not the police, but her time share representative!  What?  Did she think because her friends were slaughtered, he was going to give her a discounted rate?

The completely random and fairly graphic sex scenes help somewhat.  It’s also fun seeing little Wednesday Addams, Lisa Loring all grown up and playing the sexpot of the group.  She has a couple of nude scenes that are altogether ooky.  

Even with a handful of highlights, Iced is still bound to leave you cold. 

Director Jeff Kwitny made Beyond the Door 3 next. 

AKA:  Blizzard of Blood.

IN THE LOST LANDS (2025) **

Well, they tried to slip a post-apocalyptic witchy werewolf western movie starring my girl Milla Jovovich under my radar.  As with anything tangibly Milla related, I try to stay on top of these things the best I can.  They almost snuck it by me.  Almost.  This one was (surprise) directed by her hubby Paul W.S. Anderson and is based on a story by none other than Game of Thrones’ George R.R. Martin.  (What’s with all the double middle initials?)

Milla is a witch with a tattooed face named Gray Alys (What’s with Anderson having Milla play characters named Alice?) who ventures into the “Lost Lands” at the behest of a Queen (Amara Okereke) who wants her to steal a shapeshifting spell from a werewolf.  She gets a burly cowboy (Dave Bautista) to act as her guide and together, they try to stay one step ahead of “The Church”, who want to execute Alys for her witchy ways. 

This is one of those hodgepodge movies that borrow liberal doses from other movies without finding a unique voice of its own.  It has cowboys and witches and werewolves and knights from the Crusades, and yet it just feels like it’s making shit up as it goes along.  Milla’s witch powers are often inconsistent and sometimes downright lame.  The human villains are paper thin and forgettable too. 

The effects are lackluster as well.  Often times, it just feels like the actors are standing around on a greenscreen soundstage while 95% of everything around them is CGI.  (And not particularly good CGI either.)  It’s like watching a demo for After Effects or something.

The action is a mixed bag.  Anderson’s most successful action sequence is when Milla and Dave fight off mutants in a burned-out nuclear power plant.  That’s mostly because it feels like leftovers from one of their Resident Evil sequels. 

Milla looks good though in a black cloak and wielding two little scythes.  Bautista has a look that says, “Gee, I thought my career was in a better place than this”.  Neither performer phones it in, but it’s not exactly their best work either. 

As far as Jovovich and Anderson collaborations go, this is on the lower end of the spectrum.  That said, you’re either the kind of person who will watch a movie where Milla Jovovich sports silver Wolverine-style claws and fights hand to hand with a werewolf or you aren’t.  Despite flashes of this kind of enjoyable nuttiness, In the Lost Lands ultimately feels like a lost cause. 

SLAYERS (2022) ½ *

Slayers is a vampire movie.  It wants to be a horror comedy, but it fails miserably on both counts.  I will give it this:  It is (technically) a movie, and it does have vampires.  That’s about all I can say for it though. 

Thomas Jane stars as a grizzled vampire hunter with a Santa Claus beard.   When a group of social media putzes (I refuse to call anyone with a video blog an “influencer” because most of the time the only two things they influence are Jack and shit and Jack left town) get lured by a vampire to his mansion under the guise of using their social media platforms to roll out a new “vaccine”.  Naturally, the serum turns humans into vampires and it’s up to Jane to stake them before everyone likes and subscribes. 

Slayers goes so wrong so fast in so many ways it will make your head spin.  From the cringe worthy narration to the annoying YouTube and Tik Tok style videos to the video game graphics title cards, it is a fucking mess from top to bottom.  All this plays out like one long ADHD fever dream by a Mountain Dew-addled iPad kid who lost his last brain cell watching Skibidi Toilet. 

I guess the whole Tik Toker thing may have been borderline tolerable if the film was actually satirizing these sorts of individuals.  Instead, they’re thrown in there almost as a selling point.  Some fun may have been had watching these nimrods get slaughtered wholesale.  Heck, it might’ve even been watchable had the editor not chopped everything to bits and the graphics guy didn’t throw every chintzy title trick in the book onto the screen.  Not to mention all the stupid asides that would only make the most inebriated of souls chuckle.  (Example:  There’s a shot of some owls and their hooting is translated into English via subtitles.)

Near the end, the film uses clips from public domain movies like Nosferatu, Horror Express, and Silent Night, Bloody Night as flashbacks.  Seriously, don’t put clips of better movies into your shitty movie.  It will only make the audience want to watch those films instead. 

The sad thing is that Slayers manages to waste a solid cast.  Jane, Abigail Breslin, and Malin Ackerman are lost at sea with the limp material.  In fact, being a fan of the cast kind of makes it worse because you know they all deserve so much better (especially Ackerman). 

Considering Slayers is basically one long anti-vaxxer statement makes it especially hard to take.  Couple that with the fact it was filmed during the pandemic, which makes you think it honestly believes its convictions.  That sentiment right there is the final nail in the film’s… ahem… coffin. 

PLANET DUNE (2021) * ½

It’s been a while since I watched a “Mockbuster” from The Asylum.  Naturally, Planet Dune is The Asylum’s version of Dune, but done on a budget that wouldn’t even cover the catering cost for that movie.  It’s rare when they can get an actor to star in one of these things that’s tangibly related to the blockbuster they are mocking.  It’s kind of funny/sad that Sean Young, who starred in the 1984 original, agreed to appear in this.  In every scene, she has a look about her that says, “So… it’s come to this, huh?”  She gets through her dialogue scenes with all the energy of an actor who is getting paid just enough to leave their trailer.  You almost get the sense she gave the directors one take and one take only.  It’s enough to make her performance in Ace Ventura:  Pet Detective look dignified and thoughtful by comparison. 

A hot shot space pilot (Emily Killian) disobeys orders and is sent to prison.  There, she must fly freighters at the ass end of the galaxy on a desert planet.  When her mission goes sour, she and her crew are left stranded on the planet where they must contend with giant sandworms.  With no hope for a rescue, the crew tries to work together to survive.  

This is less a riff on Dune and more like a space version of Tremors.  That said, there is a scene where some characters ride on the back of a worm, so maybe this was one of those cases where The Asylum tried to get as close as they could to their inspiration without being sued.  The CGI sandworms themselves are pretty shoddy.  They look like The Langoliers with giant tails.  The spaceship effects are much better though, and while they aren’t exactly Industrial Light and Magic, they look more sophisticated than your typical Asylum joint. 

Too bad the movie itself just kind of sits there.  It would be one thing if it moved at a decent pace or had a sense of humor, but unfortunately that’s not the case.  Overall, it’s mostly forgettable and lame. 

Co-director Glenn Campbell also helmed the amusing Shark Side of the Moon. 

HOUSE OF DARKNESS (2022) ** ½

For a while there, Neil LaBute was the hottest name in the independent film world.  His first three movies, In the Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbors, and Nurse Betty really announced him as a unique voice in cinema.  After his much maligned (but I liked it a lot) Wicker Man remake, his output became a bit spotty as he began mixing Hollywood fare like Lakeview Terrace with lots of television work.  House of Darkness finds him veering back into the horror territory of The Wicker Man.  While it’s not nearly as much fun as that flick, it certainly has its moments. 

Justin Long picks up Kate Bosworth at a bar and takes her back to her place for a night of fun.  The first sign that something is up is she lives in a castle that would look right at home in a Hammer movie.  Just when they are about to get down to business, they are interrupted by her spooky sister (Gia Crovatin) who wants to hear a ghost story. 

What’s unique about House of Darkness is that it finds LaBute exploring a lot of the same themes he dealt with in his early films (namely the power dynamic between women and men) but firmly set in the horror milieu.  Since the bulk of the movie is just Bosworth and Long (who were both in Barbarian the same year) talking, it often feels like a play.  Fortunately, both performers are quite good, and they hold your attention as they have genuine chemistry together.  Long (who has slowly become a horror mainstay in the last decade or so) is especially good as the womanizing philanderer who slowly begins to realize he’s in over his head with the sinister sisters. 

All of this is successful for a while.  It’s just that the deliberate pacing doesn’t do the movie any favors.  LaBute also waits far too long to play all his cards.  The twist ending is predictable and slight, which makes the film feel more like a shaggy dog story than a gothic horror campfire tale.  This kind of twist may have worked as a short story in an anthology horror flick.  As far as a full-length feature goes, it’s ultimately too little too late. 

HAVOC (2025) ***

Gareth Evans hasn’t made a movie in a while.  That’s mostly because this flick has been in limbo more or less since the pandemic.  Now that it’s finally arrived on Netflix, I can honestly say that while it is far from his best work, there are enough glimmers of gruesome action carnage here to make it worthwhile. 

Tom Hardy stars as a dirty cop in a dirty city run by a dirty mayor (Forest Whitaker).  When the mayor’s son (Justin Cornwell) winds up in the middle of a triad gang war, Hardy makes a deal with Whitaker to bring his son home.  In return, his debt to Whitaker will be erased.  That doesn’t sit well with Hardy’s even dirtier cop buddies, led by Timothy Olyphant, who want the kid dead for putting one of their own in the hospital.  Things get complicated when the triad shows up looking for retribution. 

Well, they all can’t be The Raid.  Hell, they all can’t even be The Raid 2.  While it takes a long time for Havoc to muster up some momentum, things perk up nicely during an epic nightclub brawl that features flashes of Edwards’ patented brand of cinematic violence.  Hardy takes on a bunch of meat cleaver and machete-toting gang members, and the ensuing gory geysers of gurgling blood would make your typical horror flick blush.  The finale, set at a snowy cabin in the woods, isn’t quite as frantically choreographed, but it does have a showstopping moment involving a speargun. 

Hardy brings the same kind of twitchy intensity he brought to the Venom movies.  Sometimes he slides into Nicolas Cage-style theatrics and over the top line readings (“I’M A FUCKING COP!”), which add to the fun.  Olyphant is quite good too as the slick, steely-eyed villain. 

Evans is one of the best action directors working today.  The one-two-three punch of Merantau, The Raid, and The Raid 2 was about as close as anyone’s come to replicating John Woo’s trifecta of A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, and Hard Boiled.  That said, Havoc is a good-not-great action flick that lacks the sustained intensity of Evans’ previous work.  Then again, it’s a bit unfair to compare it to those action classics, even if it is a bit uneven.  At any rate, it’s definitely well-worth checking out, especially for fans of bloody action brutality.