BLOOD MONEY (2017) **

Lucky McKee is one of my favorite modern horror directors.  Sure, he may make a misstep or two (like All Cheerleaders Die), but then again, so does anyone.  He teamed up with John Cusack for this flick and it’s an interesting pairing.  When Cusack is on his A game (which is becoming increasingly erratic nowadays), he can bring a weird vibe to just about any project he chooses.  That vibe alone is not enough to save Blood Money.

Three friends go out into the woods for some rafting and camping.  They happen to find eight million in cash hanging out in the wilderness and decide to take it for themselves.  Cusack is the thief who comes looking for the loot and is fully prepared to kill anyone who gets in his way. 

This is a routine thriller in just about every regard.  There is at least one interesting wrinkle revolving around one character who does a complete 180 and becomes a conniving, money-hungry charlatan.  That’s the sole memorable turn in an otherwise predictable plot.

Another problem is that it’s hard to muster any sympathy or enthusiasm for the characters.  The younger cast members are all fine, although they aren’t especially exemplary.  Cusack stands out because of the matter-of-fact way he portrays his character, but even then, he’s not exactly the kind of guy you love to hate.  

McKee’s horror background comes in handy during one scene in which a character who was presumed dead suddenly reappears.  Other than that, it’s a rather workmanlike directorial effort.  It’s not bad or anything, but the prolonged tunnel sequence in the third act is so darkly lit that it’s hard to tell what the hell is going on for most of it.  

Overall, there isn’t a whole lot wrong with Blood Money.  It’s just that it never quite grabs you the way a good thriller should.  It’s especially disappointing if you’re a fan of McKee.  As far as Cusack’s DTV efforts go, you can definitely do worse.

AKA:  Misfortune.

PORTRAIT IN TERROR (1965) * ½

Patrick Magee stars as a thief who gets a line on a valuable painting.  In order to steal it, he has to kill the rightful owner.  When Magee discovers it’s a forgery, he goes after the victim’s only living relative (William Campbell) to find the real McCoy.

While it’s good to see the stars of Dementia 13, William Campbell and Patrick Magee together again, Portrait in Terror is a slow-moving and dull thriller.  The only scene with any sizzle is the opening sequence.  A sexy nightclub dancer moseys up next to Magee and he pulls out a switchblade and cuts her top off.  He then gets into a brawl with some sailors over her affections.  This scene is the only unpredictable one in the film and it’s all downhill from that point on.

Magee is kind of miscast as the devious thief, but the film is at least tolerable whenever he’s front and center scheming.  It’s a shame that he pretty much disappears halfway through.  When he does, so does the fun.  (The long underwater sequences of scuba divers swimming around endlessly are sure to put you to sleep.)  The Spaghetti Western-style shots of him pulling his gun are rather stylish though.

Portrait in Terror would make a good double feature with Dementia 13.  In addition to the stars, it also contains a sequence where someone tries to dispose of a body that is very similar to that film.  If such a double feature existed, a smart person would probably leave after Dementia 13 and skip this dull mess.

Craving more horror reviews?  Well, I just wrote a new book chockful of them.  The Bloody Book of Horror contains over 150 reviews you won’t find anywhere else.  You can get your copy through Amazon here:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/1542566622/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520113366&sr=8-1&keywords=mitch+lovell

IFO: IDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT (1987) ½ *

A nerdy dork gets picked on by his sister, bullies, cops, and just about everyone in his small town.  He discovers a secret military hanger out in the desert and starts snooping around.  It seems the scientists there have created a remote-controlled artificially-intelligent helicopter that’s become self-aware, not to mention crazy.  While they sit around and figure out what to do with it, the kid sneaks in and brings the helicopter home.  He sends the robo-copter on a test flight and it goes out to get revenge on the scientists who wanted to terminate it.

In the right hands, this could’ve worked.  Think Christine meets Blue Thunder with a healthy dose of E.T. to go around.  (There’s even a scene where the kid puts the helicopter on his bike just like in E.T.)  Unfortunately, it was directed by Ulli Lommel

Now, Lommel did a fine job on The Boogeyman.  No argument there.  However, when it comes to a movie about a boy and his psycho robo-copter, he is totally out of his element.

Never mind that the script is often just too goofy for words.  We can accept a plot about a RC helicopter that talks.  What is unacceptable is the fact that it can control people’s minds and make them act like complete nincompoops.  (You have to wonder if the helicopter was controlling the filmmakers’ minds too.)

It also doesn’t help that our hero is such a dork.  I mean we’ve seen some real dopes in these movies before, but this guy takes the cake.  In some parts, he makes his entrance by literally falling face first into the scene.

The acting is atrocious too.  Get a load of the scene where the scientists are scared by the helicopter.  It’s pathetic.

Most of this is unbelievably dull.  Incredibly enough, Lommel finds new ways to make it even more boring.  The long scenes of the remote-controlled helicopter flying around are unbearable enough (although the actual aerial footage is pretty good), but by adding terrible synth music on the soundtrack (which sounds alternately like sideways rewrites of The Greatest American Hero theme song and “Into the Wild Blue Yonder”), it just makes you want to fall asleep.  The droning synth notes combined with the long takes of landscapes serenely passing by will make this the perfect cure for insomnia.

The scientists call the helicopter “Rem”.  It’s supposed to be short for “Rembrandt”.  They should’ve called the movie “Rem” because that’s the cycle of sleep you’ll be in by the time it’s over.

AKA:  Defense Play.  AKA:  REM 1 Experiment.

HATCHET 3 (2013) **

Hatchet 3 isn’t as blatant or over the top as the last two films in the series.  Adam Green didn't direct this time out, for whatever reason.  Maybe new director B.J. McDonnell didn't have the same more-is-more sensibilities as Green.  Maybe Green’s script was purposefully more straightforward.  As horror sequels go, there’s still plenty of gore to be found.  It’s just not nearly as much fun as its predecessors.

We pick up where we left off, with Marybeth (Danielle Harris) killing the unkillable Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder).  She gets blamed for his latest crime spree by the sheriff (Zach Galligan), who puts her in jail.  Meanwhile, Crowley regenerates and starts killing even more people.  A SWAT team is sent into the swamp and get picked off one by one by Crowley.  A journalist (Caroline Williams) visits Marybeth in jail and pleads with her to return to the swamp to end his curse once and for all.  

The cast seems like they filmed their scenes while on a break from signing autographs at a horror convention. Galligan fares best as the sheriff.  Williams is kind of grating and Harris isn’t given much to do outside of the opening and climactic scenes.  I did like seeing Derek Mears (as the head of the SWAT team) getting killed by Kane Hodder, which means you get to see Jason kill Jason. 

Little touches like this makes Hatchet 3 tolerable for horror fans.  I also liked that it poked fun at the other films in the series.  The kills are juicy, but they’re not quite as inventive as what came before.  It also takes forever to get into gear.  While it’s only 81 minutes, it feels like it's almost over before it even gets going.

AKA:  Butcher 3.

Craving more horror reviews?  Well, I just wrote a new book chockful of them.  The Bloody Book of Horror contains over 150 reviews you won’t find anywhere else.  You can get your copy through Amazon here:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/1542566622/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520113366&sr=8-1&keywords=mitch+lovell

SEX, MARRIAGE, AND INFIDELITY (2014) ½ *

Emily (Brooke Pascoe) catches her husband Charles (writer/director Richard Finger) cheating on her with his secretary (Alana Jordan).    To get back at Charles, she starts her own affair with a coworker (Charlie O’Connell, Jerry’s brother).  

This might’ve been worth a damn if anyone got naked, but they don’t.  You can only stand watching people TALK about sex without doing it for so long.  It’s all tease, no please.

The amateurish actors just aren’t strong enough to pull off all of Finger’s psychobabble dialogue.  When they speak, it never feels like real people having a conversation.  The stilted performances make the dialogue even more cringe-inducing.  The longwinded narration is so wordy and chockful of needless over-psychoanalyzing that it’s almost good for a laugh, if it wasn’t so dull that is.  

Speaking of which, the comedy is the weakest aspect.  It’s one thing to have the characters endlessly talking about their sex life through boring monologues.  When they try for laughs, the punchlines land with a thud.  The running joke where characters keep saying, “Everyone has herpes” is especially unfunny. The fantasy sequence where Pascoe imagines herself turning into the Wicked Witch of the West and poisoning her hubby is the only true random WTF moment that’s memorable.

It seems like Finger was going through some sort of mid-life crisis and put all of his sexual neurosis into a script.  In his defense, making a movie was probably cheaper than the inevitable therapy bills.  I just wish he had some actual talent.

Things get particularly boring once the movie becomes a how-to manual of how to lawyer up after your secretary files sexual harassment charges against you.  While we’re on the subject of the secretary, I can’t understand why all the characters talk about her boobs, but they never show them.  What a rip-off!

The biggest name in the cast is Shannon Tweed, who plays one of Pascoe’s girlfriends.  She’s sadly only in one scene and easily outshines the rest of the cast.  Her daughter, Sophie also has a small role.  Neither of them is given enough to do to save this boring, unfunny, and forgettable mess.

MIDNIGHT MADNESS (1980) * ½

Midnight Madness plays like a Disney version of a Crown International teenage comedy.  Since it contains teens drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, saying the word “virgin”, and playing Peeping Tom (although no nudity is ever shown), it must’ve felt like real risqué stuff to the Disney suits.  Fans of the genre will be severely disappointed as its way too tame for its intended audience.  Fans of Disney children films will likewise be disappointed as it’s mostly boring and contains very few laughs.

The plot revolves around an elaborate college scavenger hunt.  Various teams must race around from one Los Angeles landmark to another finding clues.  Each clue gives them another riddle to solve, and they must race against the clock to make it to the finish line, learning assorted life lessons along the way.

There are five teams in all.  That right there is the problem.  There’s just too many people to keep track of.  The directors Michael Nankin and David Wechter try to give the characters equal screen time and as a consequence, it jumps back and forth a lot.  None of the characters are exactly likeable either, which is another problem.  The only team we really root for is David Naughton’s, mostly because he was so awesome in An American Werewolf in London and because Michael J. Fox plays his brother.  

The scenes of the teams stumbling around and searching for clues gets repetitive and aren’t funny.  The humor is lame too.  It might’ve been okay if the crude humor was… you know… crude.  Look Disney, just because you put in an occasional joke about a woman’s “melons” doesn’t exactly make it Porky’s.  

Midnight Madness just goes on way too long (nearly two hours) and there are precious few worthwhile gags in between.  (The kids have stupid names like “Barf” and “Armpit”, which gives you the level of humor we’re working with here.)  You know you’re in trouble when the funniest gag is nothing more than David Naughton drinking a Dr. Pepper.

It does have a good cast though.  In addition to Naughton and Fox, we have Stephen Furst, Eddie Deezen, and Paul Reubens.  Even without funny jokes and hilarious sight gags, the actors make it at the very least watchable.  Now imagine this cast with a script that was worth a damn (and maybe some gratuitous T & A) and you have yourself a movie! 

AMBUSHED (2013) **

You know you’re in for it when the names Dolph Lundgren, Vinnie Jones, and Randy Couture appear above the title on the DVD box and none of them are the star of the movie.  

Instead, it’s some guy named Daniel Bonjour.  He plays a nightclub owner with delusions of grandeur who kills two mid-level drug dealers and rips off their coke.  He hopes to flip the drugs for cash, so he can move to the country with his girlfriend (Cinthya Carmona) and retire.  In doing so, he draws the ire of a drug kingpin (Jones) who orders him to sell off a major shipment in two days.  Lundgren is the DEA agent who investigates the murders and tries to bring Bonjour down.

If you’re interested in action, you’ll be gravely disappointed in Ambushed.  It’s more of a One Last Score deal.  The biggest drawback is that the names in the cast are largely absent for most of the movie.  (There's a 30/70 split of Dolph to drug dealer drama.)  The problem is that the drug-dealing “hero” isn’t likeable in the least.  The filmmakers ask us to sympathize with Bonjour, mostly because he has a hot girlfriend.  However, since he lies, cheats, and kills to achieve his goals, it doesn’t exactly endear him to the audience.

Dolph has the best scenes.  He’s especially good while showing concern for his ex, who is deep undercover.  It's a small scene, but it’s well-acted and makes you wish their relationship was fleshed out more.  He also has a tense scene where he confronts Couture (who plays a dirty cop).  Too bad their final fight is so haphazardly filmed.  The great Benny “The Jet” Urquidez was the fight choreographer, although his work is ruined by the shitty camerawork and editing.

Dolph’s role is smallish and he was never given enough screen time for my liking, but one thing is for sure, the film certainly brightens up whenever he’s on screen.  Jones seems to be having fun as the maniacal villain and it’s a shame that he pretty much unceremoniously disappears.  Couture handles his scenes quite well, although his character isn’t given much to do until the very end.

AKA:  Thrill to Kill.  AKA:  Hard Rush.  AKA:  Raging Cops.