ABRAHAM LINCOLN VS. ZOMBIES (2012) ** ½

Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies was The Asylum’s obvious knock-off to Abraham Lincoln:  Vampire Hunter.  The curious thing is, it surprisingly does a better job combining history and horror than that film did.  Of course, its aim is much lower, but it also manages to be a lot more fun.  

As a boy, Honest Abe (Bill Oberst, Jr.) had to murder his own parents when they succumbed to a zombie bite.  Years later, during the Civil War, Lincoln learns of another zombie outbreak threatening an army base.  He then commissions a small band of soldiers and leads them into battle to stop the zombie plague once and for all.  

The secret to the film’s success is that it plays things deadly serious.  If Abe was busting out one-liners like “Four GORE and seven years ago!” it would’ve gotten old fast.  Sure, all of this is silly, but Oberst Jr. (who lends considerable gravitas to the role) solemnly believes it, so we should too.  While the supporting cast isn’t quite as adept at walking that line, they follow his lead well enough.  

This is an Asylum movie after all, but writer/director Richard (A Diva’s Christmas Carol) Schenkman does a good job at stretching the small budget.  (Much of this looks like Civil War reenactment mixed with a zombie pub crawl.)  However, it’s rather enjoyable.   The variations on the cliched zombie attacks are just different enough to feel somewhat fresh, and the Evil Dead-inspired make-up is well done.  

It kind of gets bogged down once Lincoln takes refuge with a group of disparate survivors (including Confederate soldiers, an old flame, and some soon-to-be-famous historical figures).  Still, it’s much better than I expected, even if it isn’t quite a home run.  Too bad it all fizzles out by the end.  After the climax, it continues on needlessly for an overlong coda.  Seriously, a movie called Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies didn’t need to run 96 minutes, but it’s a minor miracle it’s as good as it is for as long as it is. 

TRASHY LADY (1985) **

Harry Reems stars as a gangster who falls for the new cigarette girl (Ginger Lynn) at his nightclub.  He wants to show her off at the upcoming Gangster Brotherhood Ball, but he feels she’s much too shy and demure for his tastes.  Sensing her sexual inexperience, he gets a rival mobster’s moll (Amber Lynn) to show her the ropes of being a slut.  

All this seems to be leading up to a big Lynn/Reems scene that unfortunately never materializes.  I mean they spend all this screen time on Amber teaching Ginger how to be a big-time whore, but it ultimately goes nowhere.  We never really get to see her total transformation (besides a brief scene of her talking dirty at the ball), which is a major disappointment.  

I liked the attempts at recreating the Roaring ‘20s on a cheap budget.  The nightclub sets are well done and the costumes are about as good as you’d expect to see in an ‘80s porn.  Too bad the sex scenes are kind of rote and mechanical.  Even the usually vivacious Ginger Lynn seems bored.  I know her character is supposed to be a novice at screwing, but she doesn’t seem to work up much enthusiasm.  Amber Lynn seems engaged as the moll with moxie.  In one scene, she teaches Ginger how to suck a cock.  Somehow, even this seemingly can’t-miss scenario fizzles out.  Because of that, supporting players like Cheri Javiner (who gets double-stuffed by some boxers) and the vastly underrated Bunny Bleu (as a hot maid) wind up stealing the show.  

MONDO TOPLESS (1966) ***

After the one-two punch of Motorpsycho and Faster, Pussycat!  Kill!  Kill!, Russ Meyer went in the opposite direction with Mondo Topless.  While those films were hard-hitting and tightly wound, this one is carefree and formless (and kind of pointless).  Instead of being filmed in stark black and white, this is a full-color romp.  The biggest difference is that while Motorpsycho and Faster, Pussycat! were relatively tame and featured only the briefest glimpses of the female form, Mondo Topless is almost wall-to-wall nudity with some of the biggest bosoms ever to hit the silver screen.  

As the title suggests, it’s essentially a Mondo movie that features topless women.  (“The world’s loveliest buxotics!”)  It’s all showcased in Meyer’s typically rapid-fire editing style.  Women are seen gyrating, jiggling, and frolicking au natural.  We see them running wild in nature, in swimming pools, rolling around in the mud, driving nude through the streets of San Francisco, scuba diving naked, and even posing in a Wild West town.  While the girls undulate, we hear brief interview segments where they reveal a little bit about themselves as they reveal a LOT of themselves.  This often feels like a precursor to those old Playboy Channel shows.  

Of the cast, I must say I enjoyed seeing the familiar form of Pat (Orgy of the Dead) Barringer yet again.  I also loved the section on Lorna Maitland, complete with unabashed plugs for Meyer’s Lorna (1964).  And wait till you see Babette Bardot!  According to the narration, she’s “50/50 where it counts!”  (Speaking of which, the bombastic narration is often hysterical.)    

Some segments go on too long.  Others feel rushed.  On the plus side, there is never a shortage of boobs.  It often borders on incoherence, and yet it moves like lightning, so it’s hard to complain.  Sure, all of this may feel like overkill, but what a way to go!

You may call Mondo Topless a minor work from Meyer.  However, the narration sums the movie up best when it calls itself “A swinging tribute to unrestrained female anatomy!”  In that respect, it comes as advertised and as a result, is fairly critic proof.  

AKA:  Mondo Girls.  AKA:  Mondo Top.

LUST AND MURDER ON THE LAS VEGAS STRIP (2004) **

Flanagan (John McLaughlin) is a wealthy laundromat owner whose getting hit hard by the IRS.  Meanwhile, his philandering wife Kathleen (Ghoulies 4’s Barbara Alyn Woods) continues to blow money at the casino, which threatens to put him deeper in debt.  He pays a gangster to rough up his wife’s boyfriend up a little, just to teach him a lesson.  Unbeknownst to Flanagan, a crew of kidnappers has just grabbed the guy and they’re expecting a hefty ransom.

Lust and Murder on the Las Vegas Strip is moderately well done on a low budget.  The cast, which consists of actors with just familiar enough faces, and some not-bad amateurs and/or local talent, is certainly game.  Ron (The Fugitive) Dean in particular commands the screen as the one kidnapper who’s on his last job.  Woods has a lot of presence as well and shares a few good scenes with Hillary Tuck, who plays her suspicious stepdaughter.  It was also nice seeing Poltergeist’s Zelda Rubinstein popping up at the end as an IRS agent. 

The cast’s noble efforts are ultimately for naught as they are let down by the predictable script.  Writer/director Tom Whitus was also unable to make the tension pop as the various shootouts and plot twists fall flat.  It’s especially telling that the scenes of the kidnappers sitting around and busting each other’s balls while playing poker is a lot more engaging than the rote scenes of them double-crossing and shooting at one another. 

AKA:  The Wild Card.

CAPTAIN MARVEL (2019) ***

Captain Marvel does not deviate from the tried-and-true Marvel formula.  It tells a predictable, well-worn superhero origin story with just enough flourishes to make it still feel somewhat fresh.  The big difference is that it’s a woman in the cockpit this time out.  The fact that Brie Larson arrives locked and loaded, ready to rock, kick ass, and takes names certainly helps.  She was already a star and an Oscar winner, but if this doesn’t put her over the top, nothing will.

Larson is an amnesiac Kree solider fighting in the ongoing intergalactic Kree-Skrull War.  While hunting a green-faced war criminal (Rogue One’s Ben Mendelsohn), she winds up crash landing on Earth in the mid-‘90s.  S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) gets swept up in her pursuit for the shapeshifting villains and tries to help jog her memory for clues to her past. 

Some of this is predictable and rote.  The seams are starting to show on the whole amnesiac hero plot and the big villain turn at the end of the second act will come as a surprise to no one who has ever seen a comic book movie.  However, it’s the way directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck color outside the lines that makes Captain Marvel soar. 

Brie carries the film with charm and swagger and makes it all look easy.  She finds a great partner in the (two-eyed) Jackson.  Their banter is often very funny, but it’s her pet cat, Goose who winds up stealing the movie.  In an age where nearly every comic book character gets their own spin-off, Goose is about 90% more deserving than most.

Speaking of the ‘90s, the nostalgia factor is high.  As someone who lived through the ‘90s, I can say they were pretty much accurately represented.  The good-to-bad ratio for song choices was about 50/50, which isn’t too shabby as far as these things go.  (If anything, the box office success of Captain Marvel will lead to a resurgence in the popularity of Elastica.)  Naturally, all this only served to make me feel old. 

There are also some great Easter eggs for the fans.  I won’t spoil how it all connects back to the other films, but it’s most satisfying.  We also get what is probably the best Stan Lee cameo of all time, which takes some of the sting out of his recent death. 

The action is kind of spotty.  The various car chases and fight scenes feel a tad familiar.  However, once Captain Marvel realizes her true power and singlehandedly takes on a fleet of alien warships, it’s one of the best sequences of carnage we’ve seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Luckily, we don’t have to wait very long to see Captain Marvel kick ass again as Avengers:  Endgame is a mere seven weeks away.

Marvel Cinematic Universe Scorecard:

Avengers:  Age of Ultron:  ****
The Incredible Hulk:  ****
Iron Man:  ****
Thor:  Ragnarok:  ****
Ant-Man and the Wasp:  ****
Spider-Man:  Homecoming:  ****
Iron Man 3:  ****
Captain America:  Civil War:  *** ½
Ant-Man:  *** ½
Guardians of the Galaxy:  *** ½
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2:  *** ½ 
Avengers:  Infinity War:  *** ½
Black Panther:  *** ½ 
The Avengers:  ***
Captain America:  The First Avenger:  ***
Captain America:  The Winter Soldier:  ***
Captain Marvel:  ***
Thor:  ***
Thor:  The Dark World:  ***
Iron Man 2:  ***
Doctor Strange:  ** ½ 

2019 Comic Book Movie Scorecard:

Alita:  Battle Angel:  *** 
Captain Marvel:  ***

DOOMED! THE UNTOLD STORY OF ROGER CORMAN’S THE FANTASTIC FOUR (2015) *** ½

Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four is an immortal bad movie.  So bad, the legend goes that it never saw the light of day.  Some claim it was never intended to be shown anyway.  It was locked away in the vaults (or presumably burned) and soon became the stuff of legend.  Luckily, SOMEONE made a copy of it somewhere and it became a fixture on the bootleg market.  That meant fans who wanted to see it finally could.  

Knowing that the movie was made long before a “Marvel Cinematic Universe” only existed in a fanboy’s wet dream makes Corman’s version an interesting curio.  (Trust me, it’s only worth watching as a curio.)  As bad as it is, it’s only marginally worse than Josh Trank’s version.  Anyone who always wondered how Corman’s film came together (and subsequently fell apart) will want to seek Doomed! out.

Many of the principal actors, crew members, and even Corman himself are interviewed.  We get a few interesting details on the pre-production (some of the names of actors who auditioned for the Four will be familiar) and get a good idea of what filming was like.  Even as someone who has seen the movie and thinks it sucks, I still admire the spunk of the cast and crew.  They kind of had an inkling it was going to suck, but they all put forth their best effort.  There’s a lesson there.  It’s easy for someone like me to make fun of the shitty effects.  Once you realize how bad the production got conned by the shady backstage machinations that were beyond their control, and the fact that many of the crew members and technicians put their own money into the film, you sort of how a new appreciation for it.  (It’s still terrible though.)

As a fan of Marvel movies, Corman’s Fantastic Four, has always been an interesting what if.  Many interviewees assert that maybe it was better like this.  Perhaps it will have a longer shelf life as an underground bootleg flick than as a legitimate production.  No one is going to be tape-trading for Trank’s version any time soon, that’s for sure.

THE DEVIL’S ROCK (2012) **

Ben (Craig Hall) and Joe (Karlos Drinkwater) are two Kiwi soldiers who sneak onto the beach at Normandy to make preparations on the eve of D-Day.  While scouring the underground tunnels, they discover many German corpses and stumble upon a cult of Nazis who are ready to unleash a demon on the world.  Ben also finds his wife (Gina Valera) chained up in the catacombs.  The only problem, she’s been dead for a few years.

Nazi horror is a durable genre.  I’m not saying it always works, but the horrors-of-war motif certainly has a kick to it.  I mean, ever since Raiders of the Lost Ark, filmmakers have been combining Nazis and the occult to varying degrees of success (there’s even a Lost Ark reference here).  The Devil’s Rock is among the middle rungs of the ladder.  

The set-up had potential.  However, after the soldiers make their way into the bunker it becomes one of those slow burn deals.  That wouldn’t have been a problem if the burn hadn’t been so damned slow.  (Things get awfully talky in the middle section.)  Director Paul Campion (who got his start at Weta Workshop) does a good job stretching out the low budget (filming in a dark catacomb with only a handful of actors will do that), but he ultimately can’t pull it off.  

Another problem is Valera’s performance.  She’s just a little too wholesome to be an effective temptress.  She fares slightly better when playing the red-faced demon.  (She kind of looks like something Darkness from Legend would’ve saw on Demon Tinder and immediately swiped right on.)  Without a sizzling central performance, The Devil’s Rock sort of crumbles.

If anything, the gore is solid.  Even if the film isn’t entirely successful, the red stuff flies freely.  I mean any movie in which a guy’s guts are collected off the floor with a shovel is OK by me.  

AKA:  Nazi Bitch:  War is Horror.