ANGEL OF VENGEANCE (1987) * ½

Tina (Jannina Poynter) goes to a cabin in the woods where she is harassed by the rapey Manny (Macka Foley).  Manny belongs to a group of trigger-happy survivalist nut bags who are stationed nearby.  These half-assed militants have a run-in with a biker gang, which leads to a shootout.  They then execute the remaining bikers and take the lone female captive.

I guess I should say a word or two about these bikers, so you can completely get the picture.  This gang isn’t the usual Harley-riding guys in leather jackets.  They’re just regular-looking bozos on dirt bikes.  That’s right, dirt bikes!  They even wear T-shirts with their gang name on them.  (“The Thrill Killers.”)  

Anyway, later, Manny goes back, catches Tina, and kidnaps her too.  He ties her up and the men have their way with her.  The survivalists eventually decide to turn her loose, but it’s merely a ploy.  They really want to hunt her in the woods. 

It’s here where the film turns into a half-assed hodgepodge of The Most Dangerous Game and First Blood.  The scenes of the survivalists tracking Tina through the woods are largely interminable, but there are a few highlights here.  The big moment comes when Tina shoves sticks into an assailant’s eyes, although really, it’s too little too late. 

Angel of Vengeance isn’t nearly as exploitative as it could’ve been.  During the rape scenes, director Ted V. (Astro-Zombies) Mikels fades to black before you see anything.  I guess he should be commended for his restraint, but aside from the aforementioned eyeball scene, there’s very little here that would jump out at exploitation movie fans. 

I guess Angel of Vengeance is more memorable for its behind the scenes drama.  Filming began with Ray Dennis (The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies) Steckler as director.  Three days into production, he was fired and replaced by Mikels.  That at least explains two things.  First, it explains why it has none of the oddball charm of most Mikels movies as he was essentially a gun for hire.  The second, it explains the T-shirts, which was clearly a nod to Steckler’s 1964 opus, The Thrill Killers.

AKA:  War Cat.  

THE VEIL (2016) **

Sarah (Lily Rabe) is the sole survivor of a Jonestown type mass suicide.  Years later, a filmmaker (Jessica Alba) convinces her to return to the abandoned compound with a film crew for a documentary.  There, they find lost footage of the deranged cult leader (Thomas Jane) using a serum to bring his followers back from the “veil” of death.  

Man, I didn’t know how much I needed Thomas Jane as a Jim Jones inspired cult leader in my life.  He’s positively magnetic and is almost as good as Powers Boothe was when he played the real Jones in Guyana Tragedy.  Unfortunately, we only see Jane in flashbacks preaching to his congregation and performing miracles.

Once the film crew arrives at the compound, things degenerate quickly.  The dynamite setup gives way to thoroughly generic scenes of people splitting up and being picked off one by one.  It also suffers from being way too dark.  The daytime scenes have a cool, washed-out, desaturated look that almost looks like a black and white movie.  These early sequences are atmospheric, but the bulk of the second half is bathed in so much darkness that a lot of the action is just plain hard to see. 

The Veil comes to us from the odd pairing of director Phil (Heaven’s Prisoners) Joanou and writer Robert Ben (Night at the Museum) Garant.  They do a good job at setting the mood, but the second and third act are mostly reserved for endless jump scares, dream sequences, and long scenes of people watching creepy videotapes.  The ending is crummy too.

Another problem is that the characters never rise above their potential victim status.  Even the usually engaging Alba seems pretty lost.  Rabe does what she can, but her predictable character arc doesn’t do her any favors.  

Jane is awesome though.  His scenes set the bar so high that the rest of the movie never had a chance to catch up.  With his crusty swagger, odd accent, and big ass sunglasses, he’s so charismatic that it’s easy to see why people would want to follow him to their death.  Hell, I followed him till the end of the movie, which is kind of the same thing. 

TOP FIGHTER (1995) ***

Top Fighter is one part Kung Fu documentary and one part chopsocky compilation clip show.  It begins with the history of martial arts in China as a monk from India brings over his unique form of Buddhist teachings, which lays the groundwork for the Shaolin Temple.  All of this is played out using clips from various Kung Fu flicks.  Hey, if you’re going to give a history lesson, you might as well show a bunch of guys getting their ass beat.

From there, the film turns its attention to Kung Fu movies.  Various martial arts screen legends are interviewed and/or profiled.  Gordon Liu talks about the challenge of accurately relating his Kung Fu knowledge to the screen.  Jet Li deals with enormous success and a rabid fan base.  Jimmy Wang Yu’s quick-fisted persona spills into his personal life. 

One of the longest segments is devoted to the impact of Bruce Lee.  Several of his students including Leo Fong and Joe Lewis are interviewed.  His untimely death is also discussed, which naturally slides into a segment on Bruce Li.  Li is very forthcoming and honest in his interview saying that producers gave him the name Bruce Li against his wishes.  (“I can act him, but I can’t be him!”)  Other imitators (like Larry Lee) are profiled, but honestly, I wish this segment was longer. 

Jackie Chan gets the most interview time.  He talks about his dedication to doing his own stunts and his past in Chinese opera school.  This is a perfect set-up to give his classmates and longtime friends Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao their own segments.

There are a lot of lesser known names who are brought up in passing.  Some of these guys I never heard of, but it was good seeing time spent on the likes of Casanova Wong and Hwang Jang Lee.  While I’m sure a few of the more obscure stars could’ve been edited out, there are still enough nuggets of knowledge dropped (like the revelation that John Liu beat Chuck Norris in a tournament) to make it worthwhile.

During the segment on Bolo Yeung, they show the trailer for Chinese Hercules in its entirety.  It’s really cool and makes you wish there were more trailers throughout.  Jean-Claude Van Damme’s former trainer is interviewed, and he shows lots of pics of JCVD as a kid.  We also see clips from No Retreat No Surrender and Monaco Forever, but it’s the behind the scenes footage from Universal Soldier that’s the most interesting.  The final segment focuses on Blaxploitation stars such as Ron Van Clief and Jim Kelly, but honestly, this section could’ve been a lot longer and more in-depth.

I guess I could complain about some aspects of Top Fighter.  It’s overlong, uneven, and they don’t always use the best clips for their featured star.  Still, there’s enough variety and insider info here to make it worth a look for Kung Fu fans.

MAY THE DEVIL TAKE YOU (2018) ** ½

A bankrupt man resorts to having a mystic do an incantation to reverse his fortunes.  The ritual is successful, but as time goes by the man becomes ill and falls into a coma.  After visiting him in the hospital, his family returns to his old, rundown house.  While cleaning up, they disturb a restless spirit which tries to possess and kill the family.

The specter sort of looks like something out of a Japanese horror movie.  Pale face, messy hair, the whole nine yards.  There are even scenes of characters being forced to eat hair and/or hair attacking people, which are big in those kinds of films.  Despite that, the ghost has a funky, unique vibe to it that helps separate it from other similar spirits we’ve seen.  

Writer/director Timo (The Night Comes for Us) Tjahjanto gives us a lot of Sam Raimi-inspired shots of possessed people floating, puking blood, and attacking loved ones in gory ways.  There’s even a book of creepy drawings just like the Necronomicon.  In fact, the beginning has a Drag Me to Hell feel to it, which makes me think May the Devil Take You would’ve never existed had it not been for Raimi's influence.

It’s sort of more fun picking out where Tjahjanto steals his inspirations from than anything.  I mean you’ve got to do something to help you get past the overlong running time and deliberate pacing.  The family drama stuff isn’t all that involving either and seeing how the whole thing hinges on their dislike and distrust of each other makes the various backstabbing (and frontstabbing) lose a little of its bite.  

There are just enough gruesome moments here to qualify it as a near miss.  The face-ripping gag alone is enough to earn the film an extra ½ *.  I just wish that some of the voodoo doll-centric kills weren’t so cartoony.

KISS OF THE TARANTULA (1976) ** ½

Susan (Suzanna Ling) is a little girl who dotes on her mortician father (Herman Wallner) and has an unnatural love of spiders.  When she overhears her spider-hating mother (Beverly Eddins) plotting to murder her father, she unleashes her killer tarantula on her.  Susan soon grows up and learns the best way to deal with people who mistreat her is to sick her killer pets on them.

Kiss of the Tarantula is a fitfully amusing, sporadically effective Willard knockoff.  It starts out in fine fashion as the scene of little Susan killing her mother is a lot of fun.  My favorite sequence though is when she gets revenge on the assholes who stomped on one of her spiders.  She follows them to a drive-in where she turns a bunch of tarantulas loose inside their car.  The best part is that the people die not from the spiders, but because they panic inside the car and wind up killing each other in various Final Destination-esque sorts of ways.

After that great sequence, it sort of goes downhill from there.  The subplot with Susan’s lecherous uncle (Eric Mason) covering up her crimes and blackmailing her is decidedly less successful than all the spider shenanigans.  His final comeuppance is certainly novel, although it feels like it came from an entirely different movie.  It’s also novel that Susan (spoiler) lives and gets off scot free (I guess they were hoping for a sequel), but the drawn-out (and spider-less) conclusion winds up feeling a tad anticlimactic.

One subplot that should’ve been beefed up:  Susan’s father’s career shift.  As the film goes on, he becomes more and more invested in a political career.  Not many people could go from mortician to politician and make it work.  

AKA:  Shudder.  

MISTRESS OF THE APES (1979) ** ½

Pictures of an ape man surface from a remote jungle.  Susan (Jenny Neumann from Stage Fright) goes along with the expedition hoping to find her lost scientist husband.  Little does she realize the assholes who run the expedition murdered her husband and are now trying to put their paws all over Susan.

At first glance, Mistress of the Apes looks like your standard jungle picture.  Let it marinate a while because it soon proves to be exactly the kind of oddball Larry (Creature of Destruction) Buchanan movie that I find so fascinating.  It begins with a really involved and detailed set-up chronicling Susan’s unfortunate miscarriage.  It feels gratuitous and in poor taste but stick with it.  You won’t believe how Buchanan pays it off.

Mistress of the Apes is a good vehicle for the lovely Jenny Neumann.  She has a strong screen presence, holds her own against the grubby male cast, and looks great during her various topless scenes.  Her best scene though comes after the only female ape woman is killed and she suckles the ape baby to gain the tribe’s trust. She even partakes in ape man sex and winds up getting pregnant to keep the bloodline going!  Insane. 

The supporting cast is solid too.  Stuart (Faster, Pussycat!  Kill!  Kill!) Lancaster is a hoot as a grizzled poacher with his sights on getting back at Neumann.  Vampirella herself Barbara Leigh also provides some eye candy as a member of the expedition who is targeted by Lancaster and his rapist cronies. 

The tone of this thing is all over the place.  In addition to the aforementioned miscarriage scene, there’s a nasty sequence in which Leigh is raped, tied up, and has the crotch cut out of her pants.  This is immediately followed by a montage of Neumann cavorting around with ape men and fellating a banana set to the tune of a hilarious song called “Ape Lady” by a band that sounds like a bad Dr. John rip-off.  (The title tune is almost as funny.)  What did you expect from a Larry Buchanan movie?

There’s one way Mistress of the Apes doesn’t feel like your typical Buchanan picture:  The special effects are surprisingly well done.  Then again, it shouldn’t be surprising once you learn they were done by Greg Cannom and a young Rob Bottin.  In fact, they probably look a little TOO good because they lack the goofy charm of the monsters from Buchanan’s other movies. 

SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (2018) ***

Spider-Man:  Into the Spider-Verse is a feast for the eyes.  The vibrant animation is nothing short of dazzling.  The inventive use of color, comic book panels, and word bubbles makes the film feel like a living, breathing comic book.  Some sequences harken back to the days of ‘60s psychedelia, while others carry the flavor of pop art kitsch of the ‘70s.  

The trade-off is that the plot, characters, and action don’t quite measure up to the film’s ambitious style.  I guess that shouldn’t be surprising that the rest of the moving parts are busy playing catch-up with a movie that looks this great.  Still, it’s excusable, mostly because it’s so much fun.

Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is a teenager who gets bitten by a radioactive spider.  Thanks to a cataclysmic event, there is a rift in the universe and his world is invaded by Spider-Men from various alternate realities.  Among them:  Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), a down and out, slightly older and overweight Spider-Man.  Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), a ‘40s style detective Spider-Man.  Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), a girl power version of Spider-Man played by his original true love.  By far my favorite is Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), a cartoon pig who practically steals every scene he’s in. 

Despite the eye-popping visual style and the wonderful, colorful, and funny Spider-Man variations, the villains are woefully lackluster.  The design on some of them (especially Kingpin) are flat-out terrible.  The movie goes out of its way to stress that this takes place in an alternate universe, as if to let itself off the hook for some of its odd embellishments.  (The dragon-like Green Goblin is just plain stupid.)  However, I can’t help but think the film would’ve been better if it had one finely drawn (in both senses of the word) villain.

Another stumbling block is that Miles just isn’t as compelling a character as Peter Parker.  I mean when Peter got bit by the radioactive spider, it was during a trip to a science lab.  Miles gets bit while spray-painting graffiti.  It just doesn’t have the same pull.  I did however like the twist on the typical Uncle Ben character.

That’s sort of the point though.  Miles is in over his head and needs help from the other Spider-Persons (and Pigs) to save the day.  By the end of the movie, he’s ready for his own solo adventure, but getting there is sort of rocky.  

Spider-Man’s motto has always been, “With great power comes great responsibility”.  Miles’ motto is “Anyone can wear the mask.”  Again, it doesn’t have the same ring to it, but there’s enough of that old Spider-Man charm to go along with the new flavor to make it work.  It must be said, the whole “it takes a village” motif of the heroes banding together was played out much better in The LEGO Batman Movie.

Johnson makes for a great Spider-Man.  I can’t help but think he would’ve made a great live-action Spider-Man.  Same goes for Cage as the wily private eye Spidey inspired by Humphrey Bogart.  The movie really belongs to Mulaney.  Spider-Ham needs his own solo series like yesterday.  Also, be sure to stay after the credits because if THAT is where they’re going with the sequel, then we’re in store for something truly special in a few years’ time.  (I don’t want to spoil anything.  All I’ll say is THAT guy playing THAT guy is perfect casting.)

Speaking of casting, having Lily Tomlin play Aunt May was another sheer delight.  Why didn’t anyone think to cast her as Aunt May sooner?  She’s absolutely perfect and should’ve been playing the role since day one.

Oh yeah, and this is the first Marvel movie with a Stan Lee cameo after his passing and… yeah… it kinda got to me.

Spider-Ham gets the best line of the movie when he says, “I frolic.  I dance.  I do this in my pants!”