THE RETURN OF SUPERFLY (1990) ** ½

After the death of his friend Eddie, Priest (Nathan Purdee) returns home to the streets.  As soon as he gets off the plane, the cops instantly want him to turn snitch.  Meanwhile the new kings of the street are out to get him.  Priest then sets out to get revenge for Eddie by tainting the bad guy’s drug supply and busting up the operation from the inside out.  

By 1990, the Blaxploitation films of the ‘70s had already made a sizable impact on home video.  The Return of Superfly was an effort from Super Fly producer Sig Shore to revitalize the franchise.  It came and went with little fanfare, but it’s surprisingly enjoyable as far as seventeen-years-later sequels go.

The Return of Superfly was released at an interesting time.  It arrived shortly after the big action bonanzas of the ‘80s, but just before the wave of ‘90s African-American-led action flicks starring the likes of Wesley Snipes and Denzel Washington.  This was also a time when rap music was still mostly good (for me anyway), and you can hear guys like Tone-Loc and Ice-T on the soundtrack.  

Speaking of the soundtrack, Shore was also able to convince Curtis Mayfield to return as well.  His songs are decent for the most part, although they’re not quite up to the level of the original.  Still, they’re a nice counterbalance to the contemporary rap on the soundtrack.

I thought I’d miss seeing Ron O’Neal in the role of Priest, but Nathan Purdee does a solid job.  He has a quiet, but charismatic presence and carries the film with swagger.  He has enough machismo that when characters talk about him in awed, hushed tones, he lives up to the hype once we finally see him in action.  If the lack of O’Neal is what’s holding you back from seeing this, you really owe it to yourself to check it out.  Purdee is basically the George Lazenby of Superflies as he never got a fair shake in the role, mostly because he only got the one movie to prove his worth.

The supporting cast is a lot of fun.  The most notable is Samuel L. Jackson who plays Priest’s old pal who makes crack in coffee pots.  Tico Wells has some good moments as Priest’s militant friend who likes to blow up stuff a bit too much.  The best performance though comes from Leonard Thomas, who plays the whiny, twitchy, giggly villain.  Just hearing him whimpering and screeching uncontrollably is enough to make a lasting impression on you.

Shore’s style is about on par with your typical low budget action film of the time.  After a smashing start, things get bogged down once Priest starts pounding the pavement and shaking down various thugs and crooked cops for information.  It occasionally flirts with awesomeness but pulls back and becomes generic whenever it’s about to truly take flight (no pun intended).  There are just enough offbeat touches, violent outbursts (the bloody squib technician earned his paycheck at least) and laugh-out-loud moments here that it’s hard to completely dismiss it.  

One thing worth mentioning is that it ends on more of a hopeful note that the original did.  Too bad we never got a direct continuation from this plotline.  It would’ve been interesting to see where the series would’ve gone from here.  As it is, we at least have the excellent Superfly remake from last year (which you all slept on, by the way) to tide us over.

SNIPER: GHOST SHOOTER (2016) **

Chad Michael Collins returns for his third installment of the Sniper franchise as the son of Tom Berenger’s character in the first film.  (This is the sixth flick in the series overall.)  This time out, he’s paired with Billy Zane, who it would seem is alternating starring in Sniper sequels with Berenger now.  I’m not sure why the Sniper producers can’t get Tom and Billy in the same room at the same time, but that might be the only real reason to make another one of these things.

Zane and his team of snipers are given an assignment to protect a gas pipeline from being sabotaged by terrorists.  While on patrol, they are picked off one by one by a “ghost shooter”.  They come to suspect a mole is in their midst and have to work together to flush him out.

Directed by Don Michael Paul, a veteran of numerous DTV sequels (including the last Sniper movie, Legacy), Sniper:  Ghost Shooter is about what you’d come to expect from the series.  Paul goes from one skirmish to the other, offering up a hefty sum of sniping along the way.  It’s competently executed, but ultimately unmemorable.  (I can’t even remember who betrayed the team or why.)  

All of this is pretty interchangeable with what’s come before, but at least it’s gorier that expected.  Ghost Shooter provides the viewer with some bloody head shots and exploding bodies, which is appreciated.  I also must commend Paul for his restrained use of CGI blood during the various gunfights and sniper battles.

Zane is good, although there were times where I swore he was trying to do a Berenger impersonation.  Dennis Haysbert lends some weight to the proceedings as Zane’s boss, but he isn’t given a whole lot to do.  Collins unfortunately can’t carry the movie when either Zane or Haysbert are off screen.  Because of that, much of the middle section is sluggish.

Overall, Ghost Shooter is better than your average Sniper sequel, but not by a considerable margin. 

CARDIAC ARREST (1980) *

A serial killer is going around San Francisco cutting out people’s hearts.  A meek cop (Gary Goodrow) is on the case working every angle he can.  He thinks the murders may be linked to an organ harvesting ring and perpetually pesters a famous heart transplant doctor (Ray Reinhardt) about it.  Meanwhile, a rich woman (Susan O’Connell) in desperate need of a heart will stop at nothing to get a transplant.

I have a vivid memory of being in a video store and being scared by the video box of Cardiac Arrest as a kid.  From the box art, you’d think it was going to be a gory horror flick in the vein of Dr Butcher M.D.  However, I think this is one of those rare cases where the poster is gorier than the movie itself.  

In fact, it plays more like an overlong TV pilot for a police procedural show than the horror movie it was advertised to be.  The pacing is lethargic, the central mystery is boring, and I found myself nodding off more than a few times.  The banter between Goodrow and his partner is sometimes painful to sit through too.

The best part about the movie is seeing Fred Ward popping up in a small role.  He at least shows a spark of life, while everyone else just sort of goes through the motions.  Ward’s part is tiny, but at least he figures into the film’s climax.  I can’t guarantee you’ll make it that far though. 

In short, Cardiac Arrest is one thriller with no signs of a pulse.

BITE (2015) ***

Casey (Elma Begovich) goes to an island for her bachelorette party and is bitten by something in the water while swimming.  She returns home with a case of cold feet, a bad stomach bug, and ever-growing pus-filled sores on her bite.  Before long, she transforms into a slimy, disgusting monster, which is bound to put a damper on her wedding day.

I was a little nervous during the pre-title sequence as it was one of those Found Footage deals.  The scenes of the girls partying it up in clubs and on the beach were done shaky-cam style, which didn’t give me a lot of hope.  Thankfully, it switches over to a “real” movie shortly thereafter, with only a few snippets of the Found Footage clips used as flashbacks.  Once it settles down into its groove, Bite becomes one heck of a disgusting ride.

Begovich’s tour-de-force performance really catapults the film along.  She’s quite good in the early scenes where she’s dealing with the stresses of her upcoming nuptials, a fiancé that doesn’t quite have the same goals as her, and a royal bitch of a future mother in-law (Lawrene Denkers, in a fun performance).  As fine as she is in these scenes, Begovich really excels once the transformation takes hold, and she turns into a twitchy, wild-eyed, acid-spewing mutant.  

The ensuing Cronenbergian transformation takes some of its cues directly from his version of The Fly (right down to the fingernail scene), but that doesn’t mean it’s not effective.  Director Chad Archibald delivers the goods on all the gooey, gross, disgusting set pieces, and the third act is sure to make you squirm in your seat.  My favorite moment though was the grotesque dream sequence where Casey arrives at her baby shower and… I wouldn’t dream of spoiling it.

In addition to being a nauseating horror film, Bite also manages to be quite funny, especially once Casey’s friends react to her slimy condition.  Her interactions with her bitchy mother in-law are good for a few laughs too.  Sure, it may stumble out of the gate a bit, but by the time the showstopping FX-laden finale rolls around, I guarantee you’ll be grinning from ear to ear. 

PEPPERMINT (2018) *

If you think Peppermint is going to be Taken but with Jennifer Garner you are mistaken.  (Get it?  Ms. Taken?  Never mind.)  It’s really Soccer Mom Death Wish.  I can see why you thought that though, since it’s from the director of Taken, Pierre Morel.  However, it seems like Morel forgot everything he knew about directing revenge-fueled action movies.  I mean it’s pretty hard to screw these things up, but Pierre managed to make just about the worst revenge flick I’ve ever seen.

Garner stars as a mother whose family is murdered by the drug cartel.  She positively identifies the killers, but their lawyer tries to buy her silence.  The judge is crooked too, and the killers walk.  Knowing the system is broken, she disappears for five years and returns as an ass-kicking Lady Punisher seeking revenge.

Sounds promising, doesn’t it?  However, all this build-up leads to one big fat fizzle.  What does Garner do when she finally comes back home?  The men who killed her family are just found hanging from a Ferris wheel.  We never see what she did to them.  You’re watching a revenge picture because you want to see the satisfaction of your heroine giving the bad guys their just desserts.  Having their comeuppance occur offscreen is a gross miscalculation on the filmmakers’ part.

Also, we never see Garner’s transformation from soccer mom to badass.  It just sort of happens.  (Again, offscreen.)  It’s such a jarring change that the results are often laughable.

Man, I really wanted to like Peppermint, but it’s just so haphazardly structured and indifferently cobbled together that it’s often a chore to sit through.  The rhythms are all off.  For example, the subplot with the cops who visit Garner’s crime scenes seem to take up more screen time than the action itself.  I guess the movie tried to keep Garner out of the spotlight for much of the second half in an effort to build her up as this mythical force of nature.  Unfortunately, when she isn’t on screen, it all just grinds to a halt.  

Maybe it was the script’s fault.  Most of this is so slapdash that the plot feels more like a bunch of suggestions than an actual movie.  Much is made of the fact that Garner stopped taking anti-psychotic drugs after her family’s death.  Did the lack of prescription medicine cause her to go down the road of vengeance?  Is she truly psychotic?  Or is she merely doing what any mother would do?  We see glimpses of her dead daughter periodically throughout the film that suggests she may be psycho, but there’s no payoff or follow-through.  It’s just another half-baked, thinly-sketched revenge motif the movie brings up and then promptly casts aside in favor of another meaningless subplot.

I want to believe Garner can be a badass.  As someone who has watched Daredevil (and even Elektra) more times than he’d care to say out loud, I have to say it’s certainly possible.  It’s just that the movie is so incompetent you never believe it for a second.  It’s especially laughable when she becomes this folk hero urban legend. 

The problem is she’s just not given enough screen time to make it work.  In fact, Jen’s in this so little that it often feels like one of those Bruce Willis DTV movies where they only had him on set for a few days, so they fill in the plot with a lot of unnecessary side characters to beef up the running time.  There are times where it seems like she’s a supporting character in her own vehicle.

I haven’t even mentioned the action yet, mostly because it’s forgettable.  Only the piñata store shootout has any sort of semblance to a real action movie sequence.  Other than that admittedly crisply-filmed scene, Peppermint is totally devoid of flavor. 

TRUTH OR DARE (2017) **

I liked Would You Rather and Netflix recommended this to me, so I figured what the hell.  Like that film, Truth or Dare is about a killer version of a kid’s game.  It has a similar structure and set-up, but it’s nowhere near as effective.  

Eight friends go to a supposedly haunted house for a night of drinking.  Apparently, thirty years earlier, a group of teens died while playing a game of Truth or Dare.  They get the bright idea they should do the same thing.  At first, the dares are easy, but once an evil spirit takes control of the game, the challenges get more demented and deadlier as it goes along.  If the teens refuse to play and don’t do the dare, the vengeful entity makes sure “the dare does them”.  They then must learn to work together in order to survive the game.

This was adequate at best.  Director Nick Simon gets a moderate amount of efficiency from the (mostly) single location, simple premise, and low budget.  I can’t say it works particularly well as a whole, but it’s certainly watchable enough.  

It’s fun seeing A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Heather Langenkamp popping up late in the game as the sole survivor of the previous game.  Unfortunately, she isn’t given much to do besides provide a gratuitous exposition dump.  It is cool seeing her in Freddy Krueger-type burn make-up, which is a nice switcheroo.

Most of this is predictable and weak, but we do have a moment or two that prevents it from being totally forgettable.  The scene where the teens are forced to pull out their own teeth has an undeniable kick to it, as does the dare where they must hack off parts of their own body.  Say what you will about Truth or Dare, this is the only movie I can think of in which someone voluntarily cuts off their own elbow, so there’s that.  

DEMENTIA 13 (2017) **

Francis Ford Coppola’s Dementia 13 is in the public domain so virtually anyone with a video camera can remake it.  The same goes for Night of the Living Dead.  However, Night is kind of a sacred cow among horror fans.  Coppola’s film on the other hand had a fun twist, but overall was a tad uneven and frustrating.  In short, it was ripe for a remake.  While this version falls short in several departments, it honestly could’ve been a lot worse.

Members of the wealthy Haloran family congregate at their old lakeside gothic castle homestead.  Gloria (Julia Campanelli), the crazy matriarch, announces she’s giving their estate away to charity, which spins her conniving relatives off into devious directions.  They also contend with the possibility Gloria’s dead daughter’s ghost is haunting the premises.  To make matters worse, an axe murderer in a Japanese mask is also lurking about waiting to pick off the bickering family members.  

The movie keeps adding additional plot wrinkles into the mix (like a pack of thieves who come to the house looking to rob the place), all of which are half-baked and uneven at best.  Director Richard LeMay frantically tries to keep all the plates spinning at once and is only partially successful.  It’s almost as if the screenwriters knew there wasn’t much of a story to the original, so they toss in more and more subplots in an effort to spice things up.  Really, it would’ve worked better with a simpler, streamlined plot.

The big twist from the original happens right at the outset in this version, which in itself is a bit of a surprise.  (I can’t really justify giving you a spoiler warning since it occurs in the very first scene.)  From there on, the film becomes sort of a marriage of the original and You’re Next as the various unlikeable family members are singled out and killed by a mysterious masked figure.  To his credit, LeMay shows a knack for staging an axe murder, and the movie is slick looking and decently acted all around.  Just not enough to put it over the edge.  Dementia 13 isn’t exactly a bad movie, just an unnecessary and inessential one.