THE DARKNESS (2016) *

Kevin Bacon and Radha Mitchell are a couple who go hiking in the desert with their special-needs son in tow.  He wanders off and winds up falling in a hole where he befriends a Native American spirit named “Jenny”.  Jenny follows the family home and it isn’t long before she’s leaving dirty handprints everywhere.  It soon becomes apparent she has sinister plans for the family.

Usually, Bacon has a good track record for this sort of thing.  I mean take a look at Friday the 13^th, Stir of Echoes, or heck, even Hollow Man.  He equips himself well enough here, and Mitchell once again proves to be one of the more underrated actresses around. 

Unfortunately, if I had known ahead of time this was a Greg McLean movie, I wouldn’t even have bothered.  It’s another one of those Wolf Creek deals where you have to wait forever for something to happen.  When it finally does, it’s nothing more than water spickets running by themselves.  Or handprints appearing from out of nowhere.  Or strange noises coming out of the walls.  You know, nothing remotely scary whatsoever.

In fact, the whole thing doesn’t rate above a Lifetime movie.  It’s full of ominous portents and stinging music cues, but no real scares or atmosphere.  Although the leads do what they can (I did like seeing Paul Reiser popping up as Bacon’s asshole boss), they are unable to salvage this dreary, listless excursion through all-too familiar territory.  Ultimately, it’s nothing more than an amalgam of haunted house movies and creepy kid flicks.  The shitty CGI and gratuitous Native American mumbo jumbo don’t do it any favors either. 

Wait till you get a load of the crappy ending that shamelessly rips off Poltergeist.  Not only does a little old lady try to cleanse the house of evil spirits, there’s even a scene where the father crosses over to the other side to find his child.  The finale is laughable, and the piss-poor effects almost feel unfinished. 

In short, The Darkness should’ve never seen the light of day.

AKA:  6 Miranda Drive.

REPRISAL (2018) **

Frank Grillo stars as a bank manager who is held at gunpoint and forced to participate in a robbery.  Since the thief wiped all the security footage, it seems that the Feds have reason to believe Frank was somehow involved.  With his job and credibility on the line, he teams up with his ex-cop neighbor (Bruce Willis) to stop the thief’s next robbery and clear his name.  

Reprisal is another EFO production directed by Brian A. Miller and starring Bruce.  He doesn’t do a bad job with his minimal role and seemingly short shooting schedule.  Some of his briefing scenes with Grillo get a tad repetitive (he says, “Walk me through it” a lot), but at least he puts forth some effort.  

Grillo makes for an ideal lead.  He is always invested and carries the film with a modicum of swagger.  Although it’s low budget and relatively light on action (there’s a motorcycle chase that’s shoddily put together), it still keeps your interest for the most part.

Would it surprise you that Johnathon Schaech is in this?  Probably not.  He makes for a fine villain though and gets a little bit of a backstory that helps give him a shading of a personality.  

You have to give Miller credit for keeping things moving at a healthy clip.  Unfortunately, you’ve got to suffer through the gratuitous daughter with diabetes subplot that eats up a lot of screen time.  (Try to keep track of all the times Grillo reminds her about properly dieting.)

With Reprisal, Bruce Willis is at a point in his career where he can be a direct to video action hero...’s neighbor.  A solid set-up notwithstanding, the third act is kind of a joke.  It seems more like the set up to an action-packed finale than an actual action-packed finale.  The scene where Bruce awkwardly swoops in to save Frank’s daughter (not to mention stop the bad guy) is just plain weird, especially considering he’s… you know… the hero’s neighbor.  So why is Grillo even there?  Mostly so Bruce doesn’t have to run around?  So that way all Bruce has to do is stay in the basement talking to him on the phone while Frank does all the heavy lifting?  Your guess is as good as mine. 

STRAY CAT ROCK: DELINQUENT GIRL BOSS (1970) **

Ako (Akiko Wada) is a tough biker chick who gives a seemingly innocent girl named Mei (Meiko Kaji from the Lady Snowblood movies) a ride on her motorcycle.  Mei’s destination happens to be an all-girl gang rumble and Ako decides to join the club.  Together, they get mixed up in a scheme involving a crooked boxing match and begin a bitter feud with a rival male gang.  

Not to be confused with the similarly titled Delinquent Girl Boss franchise, this first in a series of five Stray Cat Rock films suffers from a meandering pace and some serious lulls in between the thrills.  Sure, there’s one great moment involving a girl getting a blowtorch to the boob, but moments like this are few and far between.  The action is sparse for the most part too.  There’s a protracted motorcycle vs. dune buggy chase scene that begins with promise, although it’s much too leisured paced (both in that the editing is unrushed and that the vehicles are slowly moving) to gather much excitement or momentum. 

In the meantime, you can be content with some chintzy footage of the girls attending garish go-go clubs where they hear non-stop shitty music.  (The film is only eighty minutes, but the musical performances help to heavily pad out the running time.)  Heck, Wada even gets to belt out a number.  Probably the biggest blunder is that the usually magnetic Kaji isn’t given very much to do.  Instead, Wada is given the bulk of the movie to carry on her shoulders, although she’s not quite up to the challenge.

Director Yasuharu Hasbe later directed the nutty Assault!  Jack the Ripper.

AKA:  Female Juvenile Delinquent Leader:  Stray Cat Rock.  AKA:  Stray Cat Rock:  Woman Boss.  AKA:  Alley Cat Rock:  Female Boss.

DOUBLE AFFLECK TRIPLE DOUBLE FEATURE

TRIPLE 9  (2016)  ** 

Chiwetel Ejiofor runs a crew of bank robbers whose line-up is packed to the gills with dirty cops and ex-soldiers.  A Russian mob boss (Kate Winslet!) coerces them into pulling not one but two elaborate capers.  The first job isn’t exactly a cake walk, but the second is going to be damned near impossible.  Ejiofor finally decides the only way to distract the cops long enough to pull off the job is to kill one of their own.  That way, while the fuzz is out searching the streets in full force for a cop killer, the crew can be quietly pulling off their heist.

Triple 9 is buoyed by a great cast, but it’s completely undone by the lethargic pacing, unpleasant characters, and muddled plotting.  It tries to be this multilayered character piece sandwiched inside of a gritty caper movie, but it’s much too murky to really come together as such.  At times, it almost feels like the first draft of the screenplay was used.  While director John (Lawless) Hillcoat gets all the story beats down, he never takes the time to create realistic characters we care about.  Instead, we just get a bunch of terrific actors (including Anthony Mackie, Gal Gadot, and Clifton Collins, Jr.) stuck reciting plot-heavy dialogue.  

Casey Affleck does what he can with his underwritten role of the cop who is targeted for assassination.  Unfortunately, he’s never given an opportunity to become a character you can root for.  He’s just another pawn in the crew’s scheme.  

The unrecognizable Kate Winslet is a hoot as the Russian baddie.  She really sinks her teeth into the role.  Admittedly, there’s not a lot to chew on.

Woody Harrelson is the most fun as a wily, seasoned detective on the case. He gets along by acting as if he’s in an entirely different movie than the rest of the cast.  He’s so good, you’ll wish you were watching the movie he thinks he’s in. 

Harrelson gets the best line of the movie when he tells a bank manager “The monster has gone digital.  Beware what you Insta-Google-Tweet-Face.”

TRIPLE FRONTIER  (2019)  * ½ 

Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, and company are ex-military grunts with no discernable retirement plan.  Together, they pull a job down in South America to ice a bad guy and steal millions in cash.  Like every other robbery in movie history, it does not go as planned.  Soon, their greed gets the best of them and they wind up having to make their getaway across the Andes mountains with their stolen haul rapidly dwindling.

Despite a sturdy premise, Triple Frontier is curiously inert, shallow, and uninvolving.  It makes all its points without nuance or subtlety (Would it surprise you that there’s a scene in which the thieves become stuck in the freezing wilderness and have to burn the money to keep warm?) and takes its sweet time doing so.  In the right hands, this could’ve been The Treasure of the Sierra Madre for the PTSD era.  As it is, director J.C. (A Most Violent Year) Chandor approaches the material without much enthusiasm, and as a result, the plot never gains much traction or momentum.  The reveal of the money’s hiding spot is well done, but that’s about the only bright spot in an otherwise murky movie.

The film’s biggest sin is that it wastes a good cast who are saddled with underwritten characters.  Affleck and Isaac are able to briefly shine through on occasion, but the rest of the grunts are wholly interchangeable and unmemorable.  Even then, Affleck is underutilized, and Isaac looks bored some of the time.

The action is unsatisfying too.  One scene in particular features some dodgy CGI helicopter effects.  That sort of thing wouldn’t have cut the mustard on a theatrical release.  Since this went straight to Netflix, I guess they thought no one would notice.

VICTORIA’S SHADOW (2001) * ½

In the black and white prologue, Victoria (Brinke Stevens) is bitten by a one-eyed vampire (Joe Schofield) in a graveyard.  A century and change later, Victoria’s ancestor, Max (Bill Rodd) finds a diary detailing her demise.  It also tells where the family jewels are squirreled away. Thinking he can use the loot to pay off a loan shark, Max proceeds into the tomb with his goofball buddy Carl (Matt Oppy).  There, they find Victoria’s preserved body with a jewel-encrusted stake stuck through her heart.  Naturally, the idiots remove the stake, and she goes around sucking people’s blood.

Directed by Grant Austin Waldman (who also directed the much better Teenage Exorcist starring Brinke), Victoria’s Shadow is often a chore to sit through.  You know you’re in trouble during the sluggish prologue.  Afterwards, we’re treated to an even slower exposition scene that basically recaps everything we just saw moments ago.  It’s totally uneconomical.  Waldman should’ve cut one of these scenes.  Having both just needlessly clutters the narrative early on. 

The acting is painfully amateurish.  The scenes of the hapless grave robbers standing around and talking about family curses, fencing jewelry, and busting each other’s balls is downright painful.  The performances by Rodd and Oppy will grate on your nerves something fierce.  They have no screen presence whatsoever and are impossible to take seriously with their loopy line deliveries. 

Some parts are too dark, while others make good use of colorful lighting.  The shots utilizing pink and green lights in the background look pretty cool, even if they kind of overdo it with the fog machine sometimes.  The gore is OK, but the ending is rushed and anticlimactic.  

Brinke is the only selling point.  Her best scenes come when she’s walking around in a see-through nightgown searching for victims.  I don’t know if Victoria’s Shadow shopped at Victoria’s Secret, but Brinke sure was looking good.  

AKA:  Bitten:  Victoria’s Shadow.  

WEDDING SLASHERS (2006) ** ½

Jenna (Jessica Kinney) watches in horror as her boyfriend is chainsawed up by a psycho in a gas mask.  She eventually moves on and five years later gets engaged to her boyfriend Alex (Ross Kelly).  On their wedding day, her long-lost killer “family” show up at the church to hunt her down and murder the wedding guests.  It’s then up to Alex to protect his bride to-be from her insane incestual clan.

Most low budget filmmakers come up with a great title and forget to make a movie that lives up to it.  I can’t quite say director Carlos Smith accomplishes that with Wedding Slashers but be thankful it’s as good as it is.  Overall, it rates just above your average Troma flick in terms of acting and gore.  It also earns points for getting the show on the road in an expedient manner.  It kind of spin its wheels a bit too much in the third act, but the abundance of gore keeps you watching.

I’ve always been of the mind that if you don’t have the budget to spring for good cameras or decent lightning equipment, at least put the money towards the special effects.  The makers of Wedding Slashers share my sentiment.  There’s a ton of bloody kills in this thing, including a pretty cool decapitated head gag, a gnarly hacked-up face, chopped-off fingers, eyeball plucking, gut ripping, a knife to the head, and so much more.  The killers each have their own bizarre mask and get-up, which looks cool, although none of them really develop much of a personality.  

Iconic Skinamax Siren Maria Ford has a small part as a doomed bride to-be.  Too bad she doesn’t get naked.  Heck, she doesn’t even last past the opening scene.  Genre favorite Richard (Invasion U.S.A.) Lynch also shows up briefly as Kinney’s lecherous “Daddy”.  If only they were utilized more because the amateurish cast can’t quite carry the picture all the way through to the finish line.  Still, there’s enough plucky spirit and gallons of gore to make you want to R.S.V.P.

TOAD WARRIOR (1996) *

You’ve got to hand it to Donald G. Jackson.  He doesn’t always make good movies, but he can sure come up with great titles.  Toad Warrior is one of the funniest titles I’ve heard in a long time.  Too bad it’s nothing more than a crappy, low-budget shot-on-video sequel to his magnum opus, Hell Comes to Frogtown.  Even with its crappy cinematography and shoestring budget, it still manages to be marginally more entertaining than the dreadful Frogtown 2.

The guy they got to play the hero (who I guess is supposed to be the brother of “Rowdy” Roddy Piper’s character in the original) is a joke.  He’s no Piper, I know that.  If you thought Robert Z’Dar was bad in Frogtown 2, just wait till you see this dude.  

The plot has a samurai named Hell fighting mutant frog men in the desert.  Apparently, the evil O’Malley (Joe Estevez) wants to turn what humans who are left in the wasteland into frogs.  Or something.  It completely falls apart by the end, so it’s hard to tell. 

Overall, Toad Warrior isn’t quite as bad as Jackson’s Roller Gator, it’s but still pretty crummy.  The action isn’t the worst I’ve seen.  It’s just the shitty shot-on-video look doesn’t do it any favors.  The frog man masks are well done, although the cheap samurai and Ninja costumes are pathetic.  The sets are incredibly slapped-together too.  When we see Estevez sitting on a throne it’s painfully obvious it’s just a chair with a black blanket thrown over it.

There’s one character named “Humphrey Bullfrog”, which is kind of funny I suppose.  He’s a frog man who dresses like a ‘40s detective.  Too bad his voice is so modulated it’s hard to understand what he says.  

The cast is about as amateurish as the rest of the production.  Estevez kind of embarrasses himself while barking orders and cracking shitty jokes on his throne.  At least porn star Jill Kelly’s cleavage helps to make her scenes bearable.  Too bad she’s not in it a whole lot.  

Plan 9 from Outer Space’s Conrad Brooks also turns up.  It’s kind of cool because he’s playing the same character from Roller Gator.  Even Baby Gator shows up for a brief cameo, which sort of makes this a half-assed interconnected Jacksonverse.  Say what you will about Toad Warrior, but Donald G. Jackson was doing the whole Cinematic Universe thing long before Marvel.

Toad Warrior is only 79 minutes long, but don’t let that fool you:  It’s a long movie.  There was a moment I thought everything was wrapping up, only to hit the DISPLAY button on my DVD player and discover I had 35 minutes left to go.  The last act is especially dire (the scene where Hell gives the same speech three times to three different women is particularly gratuitous).  The complete non-ending concludes with the old “To Be Continued…” ploy which further frustrates the situation and is downright infuriating.  

The surf music soundtrack isn’t bad though.