FEMALE SLAVES’ REVENGE (1997) * ½

Right from the get-go, you know you’re in for… something.   Director Ted V. Mikels appears on screen to introduce the movie, stating:  “This film is about man’s inhumanity to man!”  Then we get a long scene of wildlife footage superimposed over a globe.  After that, there’s an even longer opening crawl set against some cheesy CGI flames that sets up the premise. 

A slave revolt in an unnamed African nation leads to a decree that says all white plantation owners must flee and relinquish their land to their servants. A white landowner played by Mikels, in what is probably his biggest role, refuses to leave and continues to treat his servants cruelly.  Before long, they capture him and put him on trial (in his living room) for his assorted injustices. 

Female Slaves’ Revenge is thematically similar to Mikels’ The Black Klansman, but it’s sorely lacking the gut punch fun (not to mention basic competency) of that film. There’s so much whipping, bondage, and trampling going on here that you have to wonder if the movie was just an excuse for Mikels to act out his kinky fantasies on film.  The chintzy on-screen titles and crappy camcorder cinematography makes it feel more like a cheap bondage video than a real motion picture.  A cheap bondage video with an anti-apartheid message that caters to the white guilt race play market.  That is one very specific kink.

Mikels also throws in a lot of random cutaways to a torrential downpour that’s occurring around the property.  I don’t know why it’s important to let us know it’s raining every five minutes.  The footage is so gratuitous, it makes me suspect Mikels took an old video of flood damage he made for insurance purposes and edited it into the movie. 

All this goes on for an excruciating 83 minutes.  It might’ve sneaked by with a ** rating, but the long vote-casting scenes when the women decide Mikes’ fate go on forever.  Still, if you’ve sat through as many bad Mikels movies as I have, you might enjoy seeing him being whipped and abused.  

As bad as Female Slaves’ Revenge is, I don’t think anyone else could’ve made it.  It’s distinctly Mikels in just about every way.  If that isn’t a sign of a true auteur filmmaker, I don’t know what is. 

AKA:  Apartheid Slave-Women’s Justice.

T2: TRAINSPOTTING (2017) **

After seeing Ewan McGregor in the decades-too-late sequel to a classic, Doctor Sleep, I figured I’d watch him in another decades-too-late sequel to a classic, T2:  Trainspotting.  Far be it from me to give anyone career advice, but Ewan McGregor needs to stop starring in decades-too-late sequels to classics.  He needs to stick to what he does best:  Starring in decades-too-late prequels to a classic.

McGregor yet again plays Renton, the role that made him a star.   He returns home after twenty years to make amends with the friends he left behind.  Broke, and with nothing better to do, he winds up helping his pals in their latest get-rich-quick scheme of building a brothel.

Despite the presence of all the original cast members and the return of director Danny Boyle and writer John Hodge, T2 is kind of a hollow, soulless affair.  It almost plays more like a filmed class reunion than an actual movie.  There doesn’t seem to be much drive to the plot or motivation for the characters to even warrant a sequel.  It also takes an inordinate amount of time to get going, and when it runs out of gas (which is often) Boyle falls back on scenes that echo (or just blatantly rip-off) the original.  All he succeeds in doing is reminding you how fresh and vibrant the first film was.  This one just feels sad and tired.  

I don’t know.  Maybe that’s the entire point.  Maybe Boyle and company are saying it’s better to burn out than fade away.  Jonny Lee Miller’s Sick Boy says a line about the dangers of nostalgia and “being a tourist in your own youth”.  Maybe that’s the message.  Maybe we should look forward and not backward.  Too bad the movie didn’t heed its own advice. 

MOTHER, MAY I SLEEP WITH DANGER? (1996) ** ½

Ivan Sergei bludgeons his girlfriend to death with a cutting board.  He then skips town under an assumed name and instantly falls in love with a college student with an eating disorder, played by Tori Spelling.  She doesn’t seem to mind his controlling ways at first, even when he starts to try to make her over like his dead girlfriend.  Once he kidnaps her and tries to keep her all to himself, her frantic mother (Lisa Bane) sets out to save her.

I hate the term “guilty pleasure”, but I will say that I have a certain weakness for a good (or bad) Lifetime movie.  Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? is one of the rare Lifetime Originals that has gone on to have a second life as a cult classic.  It’s easy to see why as the hysterical acting is often priceless.  Spelling is overwrought as the college student in peril, Sergei is hilarious as the overbearing and overprotective psycho boyfriend, and Bane is over the top as Spelling’s bitchy mother.  It also has the benefit of some serious ‘90s nostalgia as the fashions and hairdos are very of the time.

Other than the amped-up performances, there’s not a lot here that sets it apart from any other Lifetime film.  I mean the opening scene is campy, and the finale (which manages to rip off not only The Shining, but Friday the 13^th) is kind of fun.  However, all the stuff in between is thoroughly middling.  (The scenes of Bane playing junior detective as she tries find Spelling slow things down considerably.)  Still, for someone who enjoys these kinds of things, I was reasonably entertained.

James Franco (of all people) remade it twenty years later. 

AKA:  The Stalker.

DOCTOR SLEEP (2019) **

I’ve liked every Mike Flanagan movie I’ve seen so far.  Yes, that includes Ouija:  Origin of Evil (mostly).  I particularly enjoyed his Stephen King adaptation, Gerald’s Game.  When he was announced as the director of Doctor Sleep, the sequel to King’s The Shining, I thought he’d be the perfect choice.  I guess I was wrong.  

Flanagan excels when he’s given a small, claustrophobic setting.  Oculus, Hush, and Gerald’s Game really show what the man can do with a smallish budget and a single location.  I think maybe Doctor Sleep was a little too sprawling for him to handle as it takes place in multiple states, crisscrossing around the country.  He also uses a multitude of special effects to show the use of the characters’ various extrasensory powers.  These range from hokey (like the Peter Pan flying scenes) to mildly effective, but the spirit-eating sequences just get too repetitive for their own good.  

I think the biggest problem is that Flanagan wants to serve two masters.  He wants to appease the fickle King who famously lambasted Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 version of his novel.  He also wants to worship at the altar of Kubrick, staging recreations of that film’s most iconic set pieces in almost a slavish manner.  Unfortunately, he never figures out whose dick he wants to suck; King’s or Kubrick’s.  Instead, he tries to service both cocks by going back and forth.  In doing so, all he succeeds in doing is jerking the audience off for nearly three hours.  

I want to state for the record that there are flashes of what could’ve been.  Ewan McGregor is excellent as the now-grown Danny Torrance, the young survivor of the first film.  The best scenes are of him sobering up and wrestling with the metaphorical demons of his past.  (The worst ones are when he wrestles with them literally.)  

The stuff with the caravan of gypsy astral-projecting, soul-sucking psychic vampires led by one of the members of 4 Non Blondes is… OK… I… guess?  I mean King had FORTY YEARS to come up with a sequel to The Shining and THIS is what he came up with?  It’s like he waited to the last minute of his deadline and wrote it on the car ride to his publisher like a kid turning in his homework on Monday morning.  Still, Rebecca Ferguson has an odd energy about her that makes her character, Rose the Hat a formidable villain.  

The film semi-works to a point.  Once it goes to The Overlook, it all goes downhill in cringe-inducing fashion.  That’s mostly due to Flanagan’s need to constantly remind viewers of how great The Shining was.  I mean most of the final act feels like a Parade of Homes version of The Overlook.  I mean there’s one scene where the elevators open up and the blood comes cascading out, and a character walks by, sees it, and kinda shrugs like, “Oh yeah.  That,” and keeps walking.  

What’s worse are the recreations of Kubrick’s 1980 film.  I know the de-aging CGI is a bit spotty nowadays, but I would’ve gladly taken some video game-looking footage of Jack Nicholson than the shit we get here.  I don’t want to spoil anything for you, but… HOOOOOOOOOOO BOY!  Is it ever bad.  Hell, I would’ve taken Steven Weber from the fucking TV remake version of The Shining than the shit Flanagan hands us.  

Fuck it.  Imma spoil it.  Leave now before the spoiling starts.  Okay, so when Danny goes into the Overlook Bar, he runs face to face with the Bartender, who is no longer the character Joe Turkel memorably played in the original, but… Jack Torrance.  The problem is, the role of Jack Torrance is one that very few people could fill, especially seeing as Jack Nicholson gave one of the all-time great performances in the 1980 original.  Instead of relying on CGI, or heck, letting Nicholson essay the role playing his age, they went out and got… HENRY THOMAS.  Elliott from E.T.?  Let me tell you, on a short list of people to inherit the role of Jack Torrance, Henry Thomas would be about my 675^th choice, right between Shaquille O’Neal and Steve Guttenberg.  

Plus, it doesn’t even make any fucking sense.  I mean, why would he be the bartender?  Yes, I know he’s just there to make Danny fall off the wagon by offering him booze, but shouldn’t he really be THE CARETAKER?  I mean, he’s ALWAYS been the caretaker, remember?  Did they forget about that shit?  

Is it my fault?  Am I holding the movie version of The Shining in too high of a regard?  Maybe my expectations are too high.  Thinking anyone could ever come closing to matching the brilliance of Kubrick is dumb of me, I know.  In fact, the stuff with the psychic vampires, bizarre as it is, was acceptable, mostly because, at the very least, it was giving Danny a chance to pass the torch to the next generation of Shiners while still allowing him to confront the trauma in his past.  However, tacking on a film student version of The Shining with a community theater-level set of players while trying to cram in shit that Kubrick (wisely) left out of King’s book doesn’t do anyone any favors whatsoever.   All it does is show (once again) that Kubrick was right and King was wrong when it came to what should and should not be on screen.  The fact that Flanagan tries to ape Kubrick so hard in the end just about singlehandedly derails the whole movie.  You also get a sense that no one would’ve dared done this when Kubrick was alive.  I mean, it’s one thing to wear grandma’s jewelry after she’s dead.  It’s another thing to fuck her corpse.

It kind of reminded me a little of another sequel to a great Kubrick classic, 2010.  That movie is a lot of fun when it’s doing its own thing and propelling the story forward.  When it’s gratuitously playing homage to the original, it just grinds to a fucking halt.  The only thing is, 2010 is a lot more entertaining than Doctor Sleep.

Another problem is that there are just too many subplots that gum up the works.  The shit with Danny getting sober and guiding dying old folks through to the other side in a hospice center are just fine.  The shit with the little psychic girl Abra (Kyliegh Curran) playing detective aren’t bad either, although some of her psychic shenanigans get to be a bit repetitive by the end.  Rose is a memorably weird character, but she gets way too much screen time, which ruins a bit of her mystery.  We honestly didn’t need to know all the ins and outs of her recruiting people to her ranks.  (They could’ve easily cut out all the shit with “Snakebite Andi’ and her indoctrination into the tribe and not missed a single beat.)

I can’t say I hated Doctor Sleep.  Ewan’s too good to completely dismiss it, even when it all turns to shit in the third act.  I just don’t thing I’ll be chopping down the door to see it again.  

TERMINATOR: DARK FATE (2019) ***

Terminator:  Dark Fate is basically The Force Awakens… but with Terminators.  It’s the same shit, new generation.  It really doesn’t offer die-hard Terminator fans anything we haven’t already seen before.  Well, except that the new Terminator (Gabriel Luna) looks like shit.  I don’t mean that in a derogatory manner.  I mean it literally looks like shit.  Like the T-1000 in T2, it squirts, leaks, and drizzles around, but instead of being a cool silver color, it’s diarrhea black.   The Terminator’s target, Dani (Natalia Reyes) isn’t much different than the Sarah Connor of old, and her protector, Grace (Mackenzie Davis) is only a slight variation on Sam Worthington’s character from Terminator:  Salvation. 

The one thing we haven’t seen in a Terminator flick happens early on.  I won’t spoil it, but it’s a pretty ballsy move.  Too bad that’s about as ballsy as the movie gets.  From then on, it just becomes another retread.  An entertaining retread, to be sure, and yet the feeling of déjà vu is still unshakeable.

It’s just so good having Linda Hamilton back as Sarah Connor that it’s easy to overlook some of the film’s flaws.  She’s been away for a while, but she hasn’t lost a step as she immediately shows she can still kick major ass.  There’s enough built-in goodwill from her presence alone to carry Dark Fate over its clunkier passages.  

The movie, unfortunately, has a few of those.  The good news is, it picks up considerably once Arnold finally shows up, and when he does, he steals the show.  You wouldn’t guess what he’s been up to all those years and I wouldn’t dream of spoiling it for you.  All I’ll say is that his present vocation makes for some of the biggest laughs in the entire film.  His tense scenes with Hamilton give Dark Fate an edge the last few sequels have sorely lacked.

The problem is, like The Force Awakens, the new characters aren’t nearly as endearing as their elders.  I guess it doesn’t help that they spend most of their time running around.  Still, Michael Biehn did the same thing back in ’84 and he managed to give us a fully fleshed-out character you could root for.  

As portrayed by Luna, the new Terminator lacks the menace of the previous incarnations.  Grace does what she can with her underwritten role and handles herself just fine in the action sequences.  Likewise, Reyes makes for a serviceable lead, even if her big change of character feels a bit rushed in the finale.

I know we’ve waited a long time for James Cameron to come back to the franchise.  Unfortunately, what he has to offer are only tweaked reworkings of not only his films,  but the sequels he had nothing to do with.  Then again, maybe that’s the point.  Because of its very nature, the Terminator timeline is doomed to keep repeating itself again and again.  The alternate timelines will keep skewing further and further into the future until everyone involved with the original is long gone.

There’s a good chance of that happening too as there’s enough rousing moments here to remind us there’s still some life in the long-running franchise.  While Dark Fate lacks the wham-bam action of T3, the grittiness of Salvation, and the sheer goofiness of Genisys, it has its own identity, even when it’s recycling bits from the previous films.  Despite his abbreviated screen time, Arnold still gets some good lines and kicks ass (albeit belatedly), and for many Terminator fans (or at least me), that’s ultimately what matters most. 

SUBSTITUTION (1970) ***

Meek radio salesman Henry (Chuck Sailor) is perpetually flustered by his co-workers’ low-cut tops.  After a hard day at work, he comes home to his nagging wife Alice (Patrice Nastasia) who complains about their nonexistent sex life.  Henry’s pal advises him to visit a sex guru to help with his problems.  He teaches Henry the art of “cosmic substitution” in which he can imagine his wife as any woman he wants.  

Substitution is the debut film from Walt (Evil Come Evil Go) Davis.  It has your typical nudie-cutie set-up, but what makes it interesting is that it spends more time with his characters than most softcore films of the day.  You really get to know Henry and sympathize with his plight before he goes off on his wild sex adventure.  The film makes some pointed, funny, and still relevant observations about married life too.  It also contains some very big laughs (like Henry’s misadventures at the beach).  Because of that, it’s much better than your average grindhouse flick.  

Some scenes go on a bit too long (like when Alice goes lingerie shopping and receives a mini-fashion show inside the store), and the whole thing gets a bit repetitive near the end.  It also takes quite a while before the softcore action kicks into gear.  However, since it works on levels that most skin flicks don’t even attempt to operate on, it’s an acceptable trade-off.  Not only that, but some scenes flirt with XXX as there are some near-hardcore close-ups that add to the overall titillation factor.

Naturally, it all ends in a predictable fashion.  I’m sure you probably already guessed how Henry will receive his eventual comeuppance.  The surprising thing is, Davis still manages to make the final punchline funny, even when you know exactly where’s it going.

In short, there’s no substitute for Substitution.  It is truly a lost gem.  I think viewers that normally would steer clear of early ‘70s sexploitation would even get a kick out of it.

BLUE DEMON: DESTRUCTOR OF SPIES (1968) ***

A mad villain kills a noted professor and steals his secret formula for a lethal gas, which he intends to turn loose on the entire world.  Meanwhile, some bad guys pay off Blue Demon’s opponents to kill him in the ring during a tag-team match.  Naturally, he gets the upper hand and handily defeats them.  He is then recruited by a duo of spies to help them take the megalomaniacal villain down.  

Blue Demon:  Destructor of Spies is a groovy Bond-influenced Lucha Libre movie.  It features plenty of cool gadgets you’d expect from a ‘60s spy flick.  There’s a false tooth that contains microfilm, a killer television set, a trumpet that shoots poisoned darts, and a flamethrower ring that also appeared in the sequel, Passport to Death.  I also liked the scene where the bad guy’s henchmen were running around in wetsuits, making them look like Diabolik rip-offs.  

There’s also plenty of Mexican wrestling to go around as Blue Demon has no less than three wrestling matches.  As with most of these films, the bad guys send an assassin to kill Blue Demon in the ring, not once but TWICE.  What makes one assassination attempt different than your typical Blue Demon flick is that the assassin uses a blow dart this time out instead of a sniper rifle.  The fights that take place outside the squared circle occur at a steady clip too (my favorite being the brawl in a funeral home), so there’s plenty of action to go around.

We also get FOUR completely unnecessary musical numbers.  Most of them feature a Beatles knockoff band that pays back-up to the lead singers.  Far and away the most bizarre dance sequence involves two Asian women in gold lame dresses dancing with a booty-shaking marionette.  It’s this level of WTF nuttiness that keeps me coming back to these Mexican wrestling flicks time after time.

It’s not all great.  Whenever Blue Demon isn’t on screen, the picture tends to drag a bit.  At least the scenes with the fetching Maura Monte provide enough eye candy to prevent the doldrums from setting in.  Still, as far as Blue Demon’s solo adventures go, this is one of his best outings.

AKA:  Blue Demon, Spy Smasher.