COLLEGE KICKBOXERS (1992) ** ½

On the first day of college, freshman James (Ken McLeod) immediately gets into a beef with his roommate Mark (Mark Williams).  They wind up settling their differences with an impromptu Kung Fu fight on the quad and become instant best buddies.  Their fight catches the eye of a racist gang leader named Tanner (Matthew Ray Cohen) who tries to get James to join his ranks.  When James refuses, Tanner’s gang jumps him after work, but his co-worker, a Chinese cook named Wing (Tang Tak-Wing) saves him.  James then tries to convince Wing to train him so he can win a big karate tournament and use the prize money to save Mark’s karate school. 

My main movie passions are cheese and sleaze.  There’s no sleaze here (save for a brief topless hot tub scene), but College Kickboxers has plenty of the former to make it a fitfully fun kickboxing time-killer.  It plays like a mash-up of The Karate Kid and No Retreat, No Surrender and while it’s nowhere near the classic those two films are, it has its moments.

McLeod kind of has a Thom Mathews quality to him.  The character of James has a good mix of conflicting character traits that make him a flawed hero.  Sometimes, he’s an endearing goofball.  Other times, he’s an upstanding citizen who drop-kicks racists.  He can also be a stupid lunkhead who thinks with his dick too much.  I liked the scene where his boss interrupts him while he’s talking to some girls at work and he instantly gets an attitude and says, “What’s the big idea? I’m trying to score!”  He eventually overcomes this character flaw with the help of Wing’s training. 

Since this is a kickboxing movie, there are a lot of training sequences and/or montages.  The most memorable scene has Wing making James train barefoot on a hockey rink.  I think this might be a Kung Fu first.  The most interesting aspect is when he teaches James acupuncture to take out his opponents using a dummy with all the pressure points mapped out.  Some of the training scenes are pretty silly though (like when they play the “Slap Hands” game).  It goes without saying that this movie has a training montage where the hero runs up and down the beach.  However, it also contains a montage of our hero… at a petting zoo?!?  That’s… different.

The fight scenes are decent for the most part.  I liked the scenes where Wing comes to James’ rescue and there’s a part where Mark and James fight the bad guys at the mall that I wish went on a bit longer.  Too bad the typical karate tournament ending offers no surprises whatsoever.  

College Kickboxers gives you 85 minutes of breezy, cheesy Kung Fu entertainment.   It’s goofier than your normal fare, although not enough to qualify it as a classic or anything.  Still, its heart is in the right place.  It won’t graduate Magna Cum Laude or anything, but College Kickboxers gets passing marks from me. 

AKA:  Trained to Fight.  AKA:  College Kickboxer.  AKA:  Full Contact Champ. 

PINOCCHIO (1971) ** ½

The softcore sex movie Pinocchio, more commonly referred to as, The Erotic Adventures of Pinocchio, boasts what is probably the greatest tagline of all time:  “It’s Not His Nose That Grows!”  I mean who wouldn’t want to see THAT?  Sadly, the film struggles to come close to matching that great bit of marketing.  It’s almost as if the filmmakers came up with the tagline first and immediately went into catch-up mode trying to make the picture match the promise of the poster.

The Fairy Godmother (Dyanne Thorne from the Ilsa movies!) takes off her top before telling the tale of Pinocchio.  The lonely Gepetta (Monica Gayle) yearns for a man, so she makes one out of wood.  She names him Pinocchio (Alex Roman) and when sex with her wooden man doesn’t go as planned (Pinocchio is kind of a creepy mannequin that talks with a spooky disembodied voice), she wishes he’d become a real man.  Luckily, the Fairy Godmother was listening, and grants her wish, but on one condition:  Pinocchio doesn’t use his sexual prowess indiscriminately.  Before he can even make love to Gepetta, he’s led astray by a pimp named Mr. Gorgio (Eduardo Ranez) who turns him into an oversexed, overworked gigolo.  The only problem is that the more Pinocchio uses his giant member, the bigger his dick gets, which causes him all kinds of grief.   

Like its main character, Pinocchio is too good-natured and naïve to be down and dirty fun.  It’s also not funny enough to work as a comedy and not campy enough to work as a cult item.  Even though it kind of falls through the cracks, it remains watchable throughout.  

The film has decent production values for this sort of thing.  The costumes and sets were better than I was expecting.  If only the sex scenes were up to task.  The standout sequence is memorable for all the wrong reasons.  I’m talking of course about the part when Gepetta bangs the wooden, lifeless Pinocchio while tears well up in her eyes.  I guess we’ve seen many movies about guys with lifeless sex dolls, so a gender reversal is only fitting.  

Thorne is the best thing about the movie.  She has a funny running gag where she waves her wand and accidentally makes her clothes disappear.  She also kind of stands in as the Jiminy Cricket character too, acting as his conscience when he’s at a moral crossroads (and is promptly ignored).  The legendary Uschi Digart also shows up for a bit part dubbed by a man.  

The behind the scenes talent is somewhat interesting.  This was the feature directing debut for actor Corey Allen, who later went on to helm the disaster picture Avalanche and none other than Ray Dennis (The Incredibly Strange Creatures That Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies) Steckler was the cinematographer.  Too bad the script (which was co-written by Allen) couldn’t live up to the tagline.

AKA:  The Erotic Adventures of Pinocchio.  

THE WOMAN HUNTER (1972) *

Barbara Eden stars as a wealthy socialite who was just involved in a terrible car crash.  She and hubby Robert Vaughn head down to Acapulco for a little R and R and escape some bad publicity.  They are followed by Stuart Whitman who charms the bored Barbara with his flagrant flirting.  She soon learns he’s obsessed with her, and has been spying, taking pictures, and keeping an extensive dossier on her.  Could he also be the murderous jewel thief that’s been preying on rich women?

The Woman Hunter is a languid and uninvolving TV movie (you can tell from the constant fade-outs that signal a commercial break and the fact Whitman is a “special guest star”) that hasn’t an ounce of suspense.  You can tell from the get-go where this thing is going right down to the predicable last-minute plot twist.  You can’t blame the three leads for grabbing a quick paycheck and a free trip to Acapulco but none of them seem particularly invested.  Director Bernard L. (Attack of the Giant Leeches) Kowalski is an old pro, yet he’s unable to breathe any life into the cliched script.  I mean Barbara’s character is named “Mrs. Hunter” and Whitman is hunting her, so the dual meaning of the title is the closest the bankrupt script comes to being clever.

The standout scene is when Barbara gets drunk at a party and has an extended dance number in front of the ogling tourists.  It’s kind of random, but at least it’s memorable.  Equally memorable is Vaughn’s eventual comeuppance.  There’s also a completely unnecessary scene of Larry Storch standing around, getting drunk, and telling lame jokes.  These fleeting moments barely register a blip of actual interest from the viewer and aren’t nearly bonkers enough to save this turd from being a total snoozer.

SORORITY BABES IN THE DANCE-A-THON OF DEATH (1991) ½ *

Sorority Babes in the Dance-A-Thon of Death is supposed to be a sequel to David DeCoteau’s immortal Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama.  DeCoteau even produced this mostly unwatchable shot on video mess.  It’s actually closer plot-wise to Nightmare Sisters, but either of those films would be preferable to this interminable bore.  

Five college girls open up their new sorority house and plan a pajama party. One of the girls buys a crystal ball from an antiques shop and brings it to the party. They get bored and perform a seance with the crystal ball, causing one of the girls to become possessed by a demon.

Sorority Babes in the Dance-A-Thon of Death is bad to be sure, but to make matters worse, none of the sorority babes get naked.  They do dance around a lot (and play Twister), albeit fully clothed.  I’m not saying it would’ve saved the movie if they had been naked.  It certainly couldn’t have hurt though.  You know it’s bad when the scenes of the old couple who are trying to recover the crystal ball are more entertaining than the stuff with the sorority girls.

All of this is sluggishly paced as it takes forever to get to the horror elements.  It’s only 69 minutes, but you’ll swear it’s twice that.  The sound is also poor in places.  Cheesy dialogue like, “She’s not our friend anymore.  She’s something else.  Something evil.” might’ve been good for a laugh if the sound had been properly recorded.  Despite that, you can actually hear the director yelling “Action!” and “Cut!” in some scenes.  

To top it all off, the video cinematography is horrible.  Much of the movie is hard to see, either because the picture is too dark or just plain blurry.  It almost seems like it was filmed on a fourth or fifth generation videotape.  Either that or someone tried to erase the tape and failed.  If that was the case, they should’ve tried harder.

THE DEVIL IN MISS JONES 4: THE FINAL OUTRAGE (1986) ***

Devil in Miss Jones 4 was shot back-to-back with Part 3, and without the credits and filler scenes from Part 3, it’s only an hour long.  They honestly would’ve worked just fine as one film as it picks up exactly where the last one left off.  I guess the world wasn’t ready for a two-and-a-half-hour porno in 1986.  I guess you can’t exactly blame the Dark Brothers for splitting it up.  Besides, why make money off one Devil in Miss Jones sequel when you can make it off two?

Before she can go any further in Hell, Miss Jones (once again played by Lois Ayres) has to give a blowjob to a weird dude who keeps repeating, “Suck me!” over and over.  She then proceeds room to room, watching various forms of taboo fucking, accompanied once again by her jive-talking tour guide (Jack Baker) who keeps trying to remind her she’s dead and this is indeed Hell.  Surely, this has to be just a dream.  Right?

There’s less plot than ever in this one.  Basically, Miss Jones just keeps stumbling upon more and more people balling while she looks on incredulously.  The talking head interviews are kept to a minimum this time out (there’s a literal talking head that pops up at one point, but never mind), which is much appreciated, so there’s less bullshit to get in the way of the fucking.  

The sex scenes are wilder too.  There’s a scene with Ron Jeremy (who was also in Part 2 playing a different role) in a diaper that has to be seen to be believed.  There’s also a “Taboo Room” where racists are forced to fuck minorities till the end of time.  It all leads up to a big incest scene with Miss Jones banging her father.  (“Can we play the naked fun game again, daddy?”)

Once again, the Dark Brothers up the ante on the bizarre lunacy.  While it functions just fine on the basest level of a down and dirty porno, they bring an anything goes vibe to the picture that makes it well worth watching on its own merits.  Sure, it’s not quite in the same league as the original, but there’s enough WTF moments here to make it a classic in its own right.   

BLACK BUTTERFLY (2017) *

Antonio Banderas stars as an author with a severe case of writer’s block who secludes himself in his remote cabin in the woods to work on his next book.  Through sheer boredom (I guess), he picks up a drifter (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and lets him stay at the cabin in exchange for some handyman type duties.  The drifter tries to help him work on the book and Antonio is perturbed when he suggests, “You should tell OUR story!”  Eventually, the dude goes nuts and holds Banderas and his realtor/girlfriend (Piper Perabo) hostage in the cabin.  

Black Butterfly features less movie in it than most movies I’ve seen in a long time.  If it was packed in a shipping facility, it would be 95% Styrofoam peanuts.  In fact, watching a box full of Styrofoam peanuts might be preferable to this stupefying, dawdling mess.  Heck, even the 5% of actual movie you do get is pretty crappy.  

No one acts like a real human being, which is the big problem.  Who would allow a total stranger (and a creepy one at that) that already displays a flair for having a hot temper to stay with you?  Even when he starts brandishing a shotgun, Banderas just kind of goes with it.  I mean, you find out the reason EVENTUALLY, but when you do, it’s just plain contrived.  Not to mention stupid.

You know, for a while I thought Black Butterfly was going for one of those Fight Club endings.  That was giving it too much credit though as the movie isn’t nearly that clever.  Wait till you see the ending they DID come up with.  Just when you think it can’t get any worse along comes the final twist that’s so infuriating, you’ll want to make like Rhys-Meyers and hold the writer of the film at gunpoint.  

IT CHAPTER 2 (2019) ** ½

It remains my favorite Stephen King book.  Because of that, the “half the story” bullshit It Chapter 1 pulled kind of stuck in my craw.  I mean if they were going to only go halfsies on the book, they could’ve at least kept the original structure, going back and forth between the young Losers and the middle-aged Losers as they do battle with the evil Pennywise the clown (Bill Skarsgard).  Now along comes It Chapter 2, which retains the structure of the book, keeping the young Losers around for flashbacks and/or repressed memories.  This is even more frustrating because… well… it works.  Why couldn’t they have just done this right from the get-go?  Maybe somewhere down the road director Andy Muschietti will re-edit both films to fit the book’s framework a la Francis Ford Coppola with The Godfather.  Till that day, both Chapters of It will be a near-miss for me.

The movie works up to a point, thanks to the expertly cast players, who do just as good of a job (if not better) playing the Losers as the young cast did in the first film.  James McAvoy makes for an ideal leader (thanks to his day job playing Professor X in the X-Men franchise), Jessica Chastain (who was also in Dark Phoenix with McAvoy) brings the same winning vibrance her younger counterpart (Sophia Lillis) brought to Chapter 1, and Bill Hader is the perfect match for Finn Wolfhard’s hilarious, foulmouthed Richie.  The only Loser who didn’t quite click for me was Isaiah Mustafa, mostly because I kept expecting him to jump into his role of the Old Spice guy at the most inopportune time.

The acting is top-notch, and Muschietti does a fine job making the town of Derry have a life of its own, but the overreliance shitty CGI monsters pretty much sinks every opportunity for genuine scares.  It doesn’t help that the monsters themselves (naked old women, eyeball bugs, clown spiders, etc.) are uniformly terrible.  Scenes that call more for atmosphere than computer trickery (like the bleachers scene or the mirror maze sequence) are far more effective.  The build-up to these moments is handled just fine.  It’s when the obviously phony monsters come lurching about, you just kind of shrug in indifference than recoil in horror.  Skarsgard’s performance is a bit of an improvement over the last movie (either he toned down the annoying clown voice or I’m just slowly becoming accustomed to it), although he’s far from what you would call scary. 

The worst bit comes during a blatant rip-off of one of the most iconic scenes from John Carpenter’s The Thing.  Except instead of the awesome practical effects of The Thing, they just use some more shitty CGI.  If you’re going to do a Thing homage, at least have the common decency to use practical effects.  Using CGI to recreate The Thing is downright blasphemous.  

The best scare comes early in the movie.  Usually in these films, they use a cat jumping into frame to give the audience a cheap jump scare.  In It Chapter 2, Muschietti trades the cat for… Peter Bogdanovich!?!  Let me tell you, purple ascots are scarier than red balloons any day.  

Speaking of cameos that immediately take you out of the movie, we also get a completely gratuitous cameo by the man himself, Stephen King.  This is King’s biggest role since Creepshow and while it’s kind of fitting, I guess, he’s not particularly good.  It’s not a patch on his fine performance in Maximum Overdrive, that’s for damn sure.  

There’s also a lot of meta commentary about how the endings of McAvoy’s stories always suck, which is a thinly veiled allusion to King’s endings.  It’s not so much as commentary now that I think about it. It’s more like the screenwriters were preparing you for the sucky ending they cooked up.  There are also more false endings here than in Return of the King.  To avoid that same mistake, I’ll quit this review while I’m ahead.