LE CERCLE ROUGE (1970) **

Director John-Pierre Melville reteamed with his Le Samourai star Alain Delon for this stylish but dull caper thriller.  Although that flick is highly esteemed in the film snob circles, it sort of left me cold.  This one left me even colder. 

Delon stars as a thief who is sprung from his cell early by a crooked prison guard who coerces him into committing a robbery.  He reluctantly pairs with hotheaded criminal Gian Maria (A Fistful of Dollars) Volonte against his better judgment.  Realizing they can’t pull off the caper without a third man, they enlist the help of a sharpshooting junkie ex-cop (Yves Montand).

Most French New Wave crime movies were aloof versions of American B genre flicks, but with a ton of unnecessary pretension thrown in there to make them more… you know… Frenchy.  This one was made a bit after the initial New Wave boon, but the principal is still the same.  It feels like Melville was trying to take a sturdy pulpy concept and drain all the life (and fun) out of it just so he could appeal to the arthouse crowd. 

Delon was a cool customer in Le Samourai, but here, he is saddled with a bad mustache that kind of makes him look a little dopey.  Add to that the fact he looks half asleep most of the time.  (In fact, that’s how I looked by the end of the movie.)  At least Volonte adds a little life into the proceedings, although he isn’t nearly as memorable as he was in Dollars. 

The American translation for Le Cercle Rouge is The Red Circle.  That’s fitting because it goes around and around way too much.  The film is slick looking, I’ll give it that.  I also dug the scene where Montand gets a wicked case of the D.T.’s and starts seeing snakes, rats, and other assorted icky animals slithering all over his body.  The heist is well done too.  It’s just that after the sluggish start and plodding middle section, it comes up short.

AKA:  The Red Circle.

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: VFW (2020) ***

A new street drug called “Hype” has turned ordinary citizens into crazed junkies, and a once thriving city is now in squalor thanks to the rampant trafficking of the illicit substance.  A few old-timers are able to get away from the troubles of the decaying city at their local V.F.W. where they sit around drinking beer and swapping war stories.  When a young girl (Sierra McCormick) is chased into the bar by a bunch of drug-crazed loonies, the tight-knit group of veterans led by the bartender Fred (Stephen Lang) fight off the junkies, leading to several members on both sides being killed or wounded.  One of the dead happens to be the brother of the local drug kingpin (Travis Hammer) who declares open season on the veterans, causing hundreds of “Hypers” to converge on the V.F.W.

VFW is a love letter to John Carpenter, specifically Assault on Precinct 13.  Everything from the set-up, to the camerawork, to the music features his distinct cinematic DNA, and you can tell director Joe (Bliss) Begos is having fun walking in the Master’s shoes.  (Begos’ first film, Almost Human owed a lot to Carpenter’s The Thing too.)  There’s also a bit of a Walter Hill vibe as co-stars William Sadler and David Patrick Kelly frequently worked with Hill. 

It’s also a love letter to the great character actors that populate the cast.  These guys have been the backbone of some of your favorite movies from the past forty years, usually in support of other, bigger name stars, and it’s nice to see them all getting their moments to shine.  I’m a fan of all these guys (including Fred Williamson, Martin Kove, and George Wendt), so just seeing them all under one roof was a lot of the fun for me. 

The expeditious set-up is appreciated too.  So is the film’s lean and mean three-chords attitude.  There’s no real fat on the movie to speak of.  The actors are all able to string together nice little moments throughout the siege.  Things move so fast that we learn more about the characters through their actions in battle, and their interactions with one another.  This works much better than listening to gobs of exposition (although there is some of that). 

The great cast may be the main draw, but the big drawback is the lighting in the bar, which is so dingy that it makes some of the carnage hard to see.  I don’t know if this was a stylistic choice or if it was purposefully done to obscure some of the more gruesome moments to secure an R rating (which it did not receive).  Whatever the reason, it’s quite annoying at times.  Still, I have to give the movie bonus points for having a character say, “Hindsight is 20/20”, which is important when you’re writing a column called Hindsight is 2020.

Despite the shitty lighting, VFW offers the viewer some choice gory bits.  Begos is the kind of guy who says, “Why should we just use one squib when a guy is shot?  Why can’t we just explode him from the waist up and call it a day?”  It’s that kind of enthusiasm that endears a director to me.  I can’t wait to see what he does next.

THE ONLY HOUSE IN TOWN (1971) **

A group of horny hippies break into the home of a beautiful woman.  She tries to hide from the insatiable intruders, but they eventually find her, wrestle her to the floor, and force her to participate in an impromptu orgy.  Then one of the sexpots (Uschi Digard) talks to the camera, and there are flashbacks to her various other orgies and sexual rendezvous.  

The Only House in Town was one of the final films directed by the legendary Ed Wood.  Unlike Take It Out in Trade and Necromania:  A Tale of Weird Love, there aren’t any of Wood’s usual cinematic fetishes to be found, which is kind of disappointing.  Because of that, it’s probably the weakest movie of his that I have seen. 

Wood is usually cited as the world’s “worst” director.  Yes, many of his films were technically inept, but he almost always imbued them with his unique style and deeply personal vision.  I can’t say the same for this one.  It at all times looks and feels like a bad ‘70s smut flick. 

Some of the technical shortcomings are good for a laugh.  You can hear Wood in some scenes giving direction to the actors, and sometimes they look visibly puzzled.  It’s no Bat Pussy or anything, but then again, what could be? 

Then there are Digard’s dramatic interludes where she addresses the camera.  I never turn down an opportunity to see Uschi in the buff, and the prospect of her and Wood working together was promising.  However, between her thick accent, the shitty sound, and Wood’s longwinded script, it’s hard to comprehend what the hell she’s going on about.  The musical selections that accompany the sex are also wildly inconsistent and rarely fit the action on screen.

Even as a die-hard Wood fan, I was hard pressed to get through this one.  The fifty-three-minute running time felt like double that (apparently there’s a longer, hardcore version that is unfortunately lost) as the orgy scenes drone on and on and on.  I usually find something fascinating about Wood’s films, even his late-era skin flicks.  Unfortunately, you can easily skip past The Only House in Town.

AKA:  The Only House.

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: AMITYVILLE WITCHES (2020) ***

If you’ve ever wondered what ‘90s Skinamax siren Kira Reed (now Lorsch) is up to nowadays, she’s apparently starring in this Amityville cash-in that I’m guessing is also trying to rip-off Robert Zemeckis’ remake of The Witches.  Or maybe that new reboot of The Craft.  Or possibly even try to ride the coattails of the inexplicable resurgence of Hocus Pocus.  There are also moments that gleefully crib from Suspiria (both versions). 

Reed was always one of my favorite goddesses of late-night cable, so checking out Amityville Witches was going to be a forgone conclusion for me.  Much to my surprise, her performance, along with the capable direction by Rebecca (Pet Graveyard) Matthews kept me engaged.  I’m just as shocked as anyone that I enjoyed an unrelated Amityville movie this much.  Maybe those witches cast a spell on me or something. 

A student named Jessica (Sarah T. Cohen) goes to an all-girls school which she quickly learns is owned by an evil witch named Dominique (Amanda-Jade Tyler).  She plans to sacrifice Jessica to a demon in exchange for untold power.  Luckily for Jessica, a trio of sexy witches (Reed, Donna Spangler, and Brittan Taylor) arrive on the scene and rescue her.  It’s then up to our three witches to not only protect Jessica, but to train her to unlock her hidden witchy powers in order to fight Dominque and slay the demon. 

Amityville Witches is as good of a movie as you could possibly make that has the word “Amityville” in the title but has nothing to do with The Amityville Horror.  The opening sequence, set in Amityville in 1602, isn’t bad, and I kind of got a chuckle from the early scene where the three witches use their powers to stop a duo of home invaders.  I also enjoyed the fight scenes where they perform Jedi power battles by holding their hands in the air while colored lights and chintzy special effects fill the screen. 

Cheesy visual effects aside, the chemistry between Reed, Spangler, and Taylor is genuine.  Even more surprising is the fact that the villainess shows tinges of humanity which makes for a strong three-dimensional character.  In a year full of weak villains, Tyler is one of the best.

The finale even flirts with a bit of the old Val Lewton school of filmmaking as it effectively suggests more than it actually shows.  When most modern-day horror movies do this, it usually falls flat, but this is one of the rare cases when it works.  The eventual appearance of the demon is very well done too.  The makeup is excellent, as the special effects team have taken an unexpected approach to creating something unique and interesting rather than your typical cinematic demon.  

Sure, the third act is a tad rushed.  Yes, the budget constraints often show.  However, this is way better than it had any right being.  There’s even a Marvel-style set-up for a sequel in the end, which (witch?) I would be totally down for provided the main stars all return. 

AKA:  Witches of Amityville.  AKA:  Witches of Amityville Academy. 

SWEET REVENGE (1987) ** ½

Nancy Allen stars as a reporter named Jillian Grey who is doing a story on sex traffickers.  While trying to get her scoop, she winds up kidnapped by the white slavers along with two wannabe models (Michele Little and Gina Gershon).  Together, they make a daring escape from the clutches of the villain, Cicero (Martin Landau) with the help of Boone (Knots Landing’s Ted Shackleford), a shady, but loveable black marketeer.  When Cicero kidnaps Jillian’s daughter, the team join forces to get her back. 

Sweet Revenge is a silly, uneven, but mostly entertaining adventure picture.  It suffers from an identity crisis as it can’t seem to make up its mind whether it wants to be a sexploitation flick or a cheap Indiana Jones rip-off.  Shackleford is especially entertaining as the ne’er-do-well adventurer who finds himself in one precarious situation after the other.  He has a good chemistry with Allen, who kind of feels like she’s acting in an entirely different movie sometimes.  Gershon also steals scenes as one of her tough but spunky pals.

Sweet Revenge sometimes feels like an early Jim Wynorski movie.  There’s even a completely gratuitous nude scene featuring Little and Gershon under a waterfall that only feels like it was there to earn the silly film an R rating.  Director Mark Sobel (who spent much of his career working in TV) pretty much throws everything at the wall and sees what sticks, and thankfully, things stick more often than not. 

This could’ve worked as a sleazy exploitation flick about escaping white slavery, but it often pulls its punches in favor of the Indiana Jones-style Saturday Matinee last-minute rescues.  The action also fluctuates wildly as some scenes feel like your generic DTV actioner while others feel like something out of a big budget production.  (The extended helicopter raid looks like outtakes from Apocalypse Now.)  The cheesy performance by Landau also kinda runs against the grain of Allen’s more serious take on the material.

Because of all this, the film never quite gels as a satisfying whole.  You’d think the seventy-nine-minute running time would suit the material, but it's such a hodgepodge that it feels a lot longer due to fact the movie is constantly shifting between subgenres (and tone).  Still, Sweet Revenge is sweet enough to make for an undemanding night of B Movie cheesiness. 

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: WEREWOLF ISLAND (2020) ***

Ben (Dennis Marin) and Lilly (Kara Joy Reed) sneak onto a supposedly haunted island for a secluded romantic getaway.  After doing the deed, they are attacked by a beastly woman and barely escape with their lives.  Ben’s Uncle Mike (Michael Alexander, who also wrote and directed) is a detective, and he steps in unravel the mystery of their attacker, the seemingly supernatural “Dog Lady”.  He consults a historian (Dan Zarembski), a local authority on the island, who is all too eager to tell him about its sordid past.

Werewolf Island is the sort of the movie Charles B. Pierce used to make as it mixes fact with fiction.  The film’s original title, The Legend of Dog Lady Island, even has that old timey Pierce feel to it.  (The poster art is even reminiscent of ‘70s regional drive-in fare.)  Like Pierce’s work, it is filled with flashback vignettes and recreations of crimes that happened decades ago.  The first flashback takes place during the French and Indian War, the second finds a gangster attacking a family in their home in the ‘20s, and the final one is about a gang of bikers assaulting a family in the ‘70s. 

For the kind of budget they were working with, the flashbacks are surprisingly strong.  The French and Indian War sequence (which features T.J. Storm as a Native chieftain) is ambitious and works a lot better than you might expect.  The acting is a tad on the amateurish side during the present-day scenes, but the actors in the period sequences manage to effectively portray their characters in a genuine fashion.  Because of that, it never feels like we’re watching a bunch of actors playing “dress up”, as is often the case in this sort of thing. 

I usually grade low budget, regional horror movies on a curve, and even then, they usually don’t get high marks.  What is genuinely surprising about Werewolf Island is that it manages to take its mythology very seriously, while still having moments of occasional levity.  While there are a few choice gory scenes, Alexander favors suspense over cheap shocks.  He also takes the time to create atmosphere and gives us characters we care actually about, rather than handing us a bunch of annoying characters that are little more than potential victims.  He even manages to inject a bit of tragedy into the proceedings, which I wasn’t expecting.   

I have a feeling there will be a great many who will write Werewolf Island off just on the grounds that the werewolf is not your traditional cinematic lycanthrope, but rather a woman who is possessed by a Native American spirit.  I for one appreciated the twist on the usual legend.  Seeing Native American folklore being used instead of the usual Hollywood version made for a nice change of pace.

I can honestly say Werewolf Island is one of the best surprises of 2020.  It’s the rare low budget horror flick that actually delivers the goods.  Even if it doesn’t have a legitimate werewolf, I can overlook that because the rest of the movie is so well done.  Alexander shows he is a talent to watch.  Not only did he create a few genuinely atmospheric sequences, he also wrote some pretty choice dialogue; my favorite line being:  “It was a gnarly, unreal entity!”

 AKA:  The Legend of Dog Lady Island.

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: ROGUE (2020) *

Early in Rogue, the following exchange is made:

Mercenary #1:  This is stupid. 

Mercenary #2:  We do stupid very well. 

Oh, if only that were true.

Rogue is stupid.  I mean any movie that asks us to believe that Megan Fox is the leader of a hardass group of mercenaries is bound to be stupid.  As a fan of Fox, it could’ve been just as fun as it was stupid.  However, the filmmakers went for the wrong kind of stupid. 

Fox and her team of soldiers go to Africa to liberate some kidnapped girls from a band of degenerate sex traffickers.  While making their escape, they run afoul of a killer lion that’s gone rogue.  It then proceeds to pick off the team one by one until Fox and company make their final stand against the marauding maneater. 

Rogue is kind of like Predator meets Ghost and the Darkness on a Syfy Channel budget.  The CGI on the lion is especially weak as it often looks like a video game.  We also get a random crocodile attack that utilizes just as shoddy effects as the ones found on the lion.

The action is about on par with what you’d expect from a Grindstone Entertainment DTV flick.  It was directed by M.J. Bassett, who was also responsible for the instantly forgettable Solomon Kane and Silent Hill:  Revelation.  Bassett has exactly one trick up her sleeve:  Someone stands around an open doorway or an empty hallway for maybe a second too long before the lioness leaps from just off camera and pounces on them.  This bit gets run into the ground in no time at all and only slight variations on the scenario are offered up throughout. 

Fox is so miscast that when she first opens her mouth, it very nearly sunk the whole enterprise right then and there.  She’s so miscast that it isn’t even bad enough to eke out a few unintentional laughs.  It’s just bad.  The role really required someone like Zoe Bell or Gina Carano to pull it off convincingly.

Even then, the pacing is so lethargic that the film fails to generate any momentum or suspense.  The military action at the front end of the movie is completely generic too, and it takes too long for the flick to finally settle into man-eating lion mode.  Add to this, the long, boring stretches that occur in between the lion attacks and you have yourself a recipe for one dull, shitty picture.

I’d be lion if I said I enjoyed it.

AKA:  Mercenaries.