HUNTER’S BLOOD (1986) ***

Sam Bottoms, Clu Gulager, and his hunting buddies take city boy Joey Travolta out into the woods on a deer hunting trip in this entertaining Deliverance clone.  Along the way, they anger some local rednecks in a bar and get into a brawl.  Once in the woods, they are attacked by a tribe of inbred hillbillies who use the woods as their private poaching ground.  They try to pick the hunting party off one by one until Sam digs deep and turns the tables on those backwoods loonies.

Hunter’s Blood suffers from some erratic pacing and deliberate stalling tactics.  However, the cast is so great that you can easily savor their presence even when the movie is spinning its wheels.  The villains are especially well-cast.  Any inbred crew that contains Billy Drago, Bruce Glover, and Mickey Jones is one to watch out for.  We also have the great Charles Cyphers as the ringleader who works at a meat packing plant, and there’s even Billy Bob Thornton making his film debut in a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance. 

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Joey Travolta.  He should’ve been at least half as huge as his brother John.  He delivers a great performance as the clueless city putz who’s in way over his head. 

Sure, it may be a tad overlong, but the deaths are pretty gruesome.  Some moments resemble an Italian cannibal movie are there are severed heads, skinned bodies, and a great exploded head gag.  The scenes of Sam Bottoms going all kinds of Rambo on a bunch of character actors in the wilderness are enormously crowd-pleasing too.

Besides, how many times do you get to see Clu Gulager defending Joey Travolta’s honor from the likes of a horny Billy Drago?

Also noteworthy:  The soundtrack, which is composed by Hamilton, Joe Frank, and… uh… Weber?  Remember Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds of “Don’t Pull Your Love” fame?  Well, Reynolds must’ve pulled his love out on the band by this time in their career as he’s nowhere to be found.  Let me tell you something:  Weber is no Reynolds.  I guess Hamilton and Joe Frank COULD’VE gone on as a duo, but they realized they were nothing without that third name on the marquee.

Although the cast is packed with lots of big names, it is Ken Swofford who has the best line of the movie.  While pontificating on the importance of hunting and masculinity, he says, “A man’s gotta feel his balls!” 

WOLFMAN (1979) * ½

Colin (Earl Owensby, who also produced) receives word his long-estranged father has died.  He returns home to get his deceased dad’s affairs in order.  While staying in the house, a Satanic priest (Ed Grady) curses him to become a werewolf.  The poor dope then goes around during the full moon, changing into a wolf and killing people before eventually he and the sinister priest tangle mano y wolf-o. 

Wolfman seems like a low budget, regional, American attempt to do the same thing Paul Naschy was doing with his Waldemar Daninsky werewolf movies.  It’s a period piece with old school werewolf make-up and transformation scenes.  This wouldn’t be the worst idea if it wasn’t so fucking dull. 

The make-up design is decent.  It resembles Naschy’s werewolf, except the hair is a bit more trimmed and slicked back.  The transformation scenes aren’t bad either, but they do feel a bit rushed, so you can’t really savor them.  The attack scenes are OK too. 

So, what’s the problem?  It’s extremely slow moving.  While the wolfman shenanigans are kinda fun, they are a long time coming.  The droning soundtrack and the long-winded dialogue scenes will probably put your ass to sleep long before Owensby starts sprouting hair. 

In the meantime, you have to deal with a lot of amateurish acting.  Owensby is particularly bad in the lead.  He seems more like a slow-witted county bumpkin than a lycanthropic leading man.

Not only are the transformation scenes rushed, but so is the climax.  The big confrontation takes place in an attic where the werewolf and evil priest square off.  Naturally, the idiot chose to go toe to back paw with the guy just as the moon is on the rise.  Adding insult to injury is the fact that the moon is played by a spotlight in this scene.  You know a werewolf movie is cheap when they can’t even afford to put the actual moon in there.

Writer/director Worth Keeter (who collaborated with Owensby several more times) later went on to direct erotic thrillers like Illicit Behavior and Snapdragon.

AKA:  Wolfman:  A Lycanthrope. 

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: VALLEY GIRL (2020) **

Valley Girl is one of my favorite ‘80s teen comedies of all time.  When I heard there was going to be a musical remake, I wasn’t surprised.  I mean, that shit has been going on since Hairspray.  What I didn’t realize until I started watching it was that it doesn’t contain any original music.  Instead, the cast sing ‘80s songs that have been shoehorned into the narrative.  I guess that would be okay if it all didn’t look and feel like an overlong Old Navy commercial.

Even though it’s set in 1983, the attempts to make it feel like a period piece are generic and/or just plain wrong.  Having the movie take place the same year the original film came out was a nice touch (there’s even some brief footage from the original if you know where to look), but how come nearly half of the musical selections are from 1984 or later?  There’s even a scene where the asshole boyfriend of the piece tries to woo the Valley Girl (Jessica Rothe, from Happy Death Day) by doing a “promposal”, which if anyone who lived through the decade can attest, definitely wasn’t a thing in the ‘80s.

Also, about halfway through the movie, the songs become more and more infrequent.  It’s almost as if you can spot the exact moment the music royalties budget ran out.  It’s a shame too because when it shifts gears back into a rehash of Valley Girl, it’s nearly impossible to care about the characters since up until this point they have been portrayed with about as much depth as people in an ‘80s music video.  What made the original work so well was the colorful characters.  Here, the only thing that’s colorful about them is their wardrobe.

The plot is the same.  High school Valley Girl Julie falls for a Hollywood punk rocker named Randy (Josh Whitehouse).  Even though they are from two totally different social scenes, they manage to make their relationship work.  Eventually, peer pressure threatens to tear them apart.

One thing I did like about this version was when they sing “I Melt with You”, the theme song from the original film.  The performers are adequate, but pale in comparison to Nicolas Cage and Deborah Foreman.  Speaking of which, it was nice seeing Foreman, along with a few other stars of the original popping up in cameos.  (No Nic Cage though.)

Ultimately, it just doesn’t work.  I mean are we expected a punk rocker would sing a Madonna song at a club?  Give me a break. 

Another tip-off that the filmmakers have no idea to properly make an ‘80s movie right:  They hired Alicia Silverstone to play the all-grown-up Julie in the framing scenes.  I mean, I like Silverstone as much as the next guy, but c’mon!  She’s best known from Clueless, a film that came out in ’95.  You can’t mix ‘90s nostalgia and ‘80s nostalgia willy-nilly.  

Like, totally gag me with a spoon!

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: GUNS AKIMBO (2020) **

Skizm is the latest craze.  People watch online as two contestants battle it out to the death.  Miles (Daniel Radcliffe) is a meek internet troll who spams the Skizm message boards with comments condemning the sport.  The leader of the organization, Riktor (Ned Dennehy) tracks Miles down and forces him to be Skizm’s latest contestant by bolting guns to his hands.  To make matters worse, if Miles doesn’t kill his competitor (Samara Weaving) in twenty-four hours, Riktor will off his girlfriend (Natasha Liu Bordizzo). 

The first twenty minutes or so had me ready to abandon ship.  I have seen some annoying camerawork and erratic editing in my time, but this might’ve been the worst.  Seriously, it was like the cameraman got jacked up on Red Bull and tried to out-Sam Raimi Sam Raimi.  Meanwhile, the editor got blitzed on chocolate and Mountain Dew and cut everything to ribbons, rendering the already chaotic action sequences nearly impossible to watch. 

Thankfully, things settled down once the film entered the second act, and the rest of the action sequences were much more tolerable.  In fact, there were stretches where I thought Guns Akimbo was actually going to overcome the first act handicap and find its stride.  That was mostly due to Radcliffe’s inspired harried performance.  Unfortunately, things got increasingly dumb as the movie went down the homestretch. 

The plot (which is essentially The Running Man Meets Upgrade Meets Nerve) is already thin, and the points writer/director James Lei (Deathgasm) Howden makes are obvious at best and painfully stupid at worst.  It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t been so in your face with the camerawork and editing.  The sequences where Howden tries to make the action resemble a video game are particularly idiotic and look like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World remade as a shoot ‘em up. 

I wanted to like it, but it was just ultimately too dumb for its own good.  How dumb?  Well, at one point, when a bad guy threatens Weaving with a hammer, they play “Super Freak” on the soundtrack.  I mean, shouldn’t they be playing “U Can’t Touch This” (you know, “Stop!  Hammer time!”) and not the song it sampled from?  That’s just a sterling example of how fundamentally misguided the whole thing is. 

THE INVISIBLE ASSASSIN (1965) **

The Invisible Assassin was written by the dynamic team of Rene Cardona Sr. and Rene Cardona Jr., with Sr. handling the directorial duties.  As much as I like the Cardona family, this is not up to snuff with their nuttier works.  It was released in America as Neutron Traps the Invisible Killers, but it doesn’t feature the character of Neutron at all.  Instead, we have “The Golden Mask”, an obvious attempt to cash in on El Santo, the Silver Masked Man if there ever was one.  It’s as if you can hear Cardona saying, “Hey son, why should we have a silver masked man in our film when we can have a GOLDEN masked man?”

A scientist invents an invisibility ray.  A madman uses the ray on himself, kills the doctor, and uh… disappears.  He then goes on a crime spree, robbing banks, stealing cars, and generally causing mayhem wherever he goes.  Eventually, he sets his sights on stalking a sexy nightclub singer.  With the police powerless to find the invisible killer, the Mexican wrestler The Golden Mask arrives on the scene to lend a hand. 

The Invisible Assassin feels more like a vehicle for Ana Bertha Lepe, who plays the nightclub singer (and is apparently playing herself) than a Mexican wrestling movie.  Cardona unwisely concentrates just as much on the nightclub performances as he does the plot.  Lepe’s song and dance numbers eat up a lot of screen time and get in the way of the Mexican wrestling and sci-fi elements.  Of the SEVEN musical numbers, the only dance sequence that’s really memorable is the one where Lepe does a seductive dance in her home.  (She even has a stripper pole installed in her living room!)

Part of the problem is The Golden Mask isn’t given much to do.  You know it’s a shame when the Mexican wrestler has to compete for screen time in his own Mexican wrestling movie.  Another problem is that the part is played by an actor (Jorge Rivero, from Werewolf) and not a real luchador.  That might explain why The Golden Mask is in only one of the three wrestling matches in the film.

The effects are low-tech, but they are surprisingly solid.  The best bits include a POV shot of the invisible man waving a gun at a teller, using lipstick to write a message on a mirror, and removing our hero’s mask when he sneaks into the ring during a wrestling match.  These moments help to keep this otherwise dreary flick from being totally forgettable.  It’s a shame that the ingenuity that was put into the special effects was absent throughout the rest of the movie. 

AKA:  Neutron Traps the Invisible Killers.  AKA:  Man in the Golden Mask vs. The Invisible Assassin. 

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: THE RHYTHM SECTION (2020) ***

Blake Lively (desperately trying to shed her good girl image with no make-up, ratty hairstyle, and English accent) stars as a woman who becomes a drug-addled sex worker after her entire family dies in a terrorist bombing.  As luck would have it, a dogged reporter (Raza Jaffrey) has found the man responsible for building the bomb that murdered her family.  She tries to execute the terrorist herself, but when she fails to pull the trigger, the reporter winds up dead.  A disgraced secret agent (Jude Law) then kidnaps her and trains her to become a hitwoman so she can finally seek revenge (and find peace).

The same week the James Bond producers pushed back No Time to Die (again), they put this on Amazon Prime for free.  Like No Time to Die, its release was pushed back several times.  When it finally came out earlier this year, it was a flop.  That’s probably due to the title, which makes it sound like a fucking cello movie or something.  Unlike Bond, it’s a smaller, more personal thriller.  It’s also surprisingly tough and mean-spirited, and unexpectedly focuses just as much on grief and trauma as it does vengeance and kicking ass. 

The Rhythm Section is unassuming and easy to underestimate, but it’s got it where it counts.  That’s fitting because the heroine is the same way.  The film belongs in one of my favorite subsects of the revenge genre where the character isn’t very good at getting revenge, but slowly becomes more capable thanks to raw determination and a little luck.  You wouldn’t think Lively could pull a role like this off.  However, she equips herself nicely and has you rooting for her by the end.  The fight scenes are messy, and there’s a pretty good chase scene done in one continuous take (although the seams in the editing are quite obvious).

I could’ve done without the on-the-nose needle drops of ‘60s tunes during some of the major sequences.  They really call attention to themselves and kind of run against the grain of the film’s serious tone.  Still, The Rhythm Section has plenty of rhythm as it moves along at a steady clip and kicks plenty of ass.  Too bad it flopped.  I wouldn’t have minded seeing Lively in a sequel.

SANTO VS. DOCTOR DEATH (1973) **

A thief sneaks into a museum and vandalizes a valuable painting.  An expert is brought in to restore the work of art and deems it to be a fake.  In reality, he’s in league with the ring of thieves who plan to sell it on the black market and make a fortune.  Stymied, Interpol brings in El Santo to bring the thieves down. 

I tend to find El Santo’s non-horror and sci-fi films to be among his lesser work, and despite the great title, Santo vs. Doctor Death has only the slightest horror trappings.  The scenes of sexy women in flimsy negligees walking down hidden passageways and catacombs are about all we get.  The movie is particularly sluggish whenever our masked hero isn’t on screen.  The art heist stuff is well-filmed, but mostly dull.  The same goes for the stuff with the Interpol agents.  We do get a pretty good car chase and the helicopter vs. boat finale is well done, although it is ultimately too little too late.  The ladies in the cast are all easy on the eyes though. 

Santo vs. Doctor Death is one of the few movies El Santo made away from his native Mexico.  It is also the only film he made in Spain.  The change of scenery is a bit of a mixed blessing.  While it may be a tad on the slow side, it is one of his best-looking flicks.  The cinematography is excellent and there are moments that look like they would be right at home in a Bond rip-off.  However, El Santo is usually at his best when he was working with guys who really knew how to utilize his talents, and this Spanish crew just can’t seem to do that.

The three wrestling scenes are OK.  Like the rest of the movie, they look slicker than usual.  The bulk of them are filmed in an empty auditorium, which is surprisingly effective.  Seeing the matches taking place in a mostly black void (complete with obviously phony canned crowd sound effects) is just odd enough to make them memorable. 

AKA:  Santo Strikes Again.  AKA:  Masked Man Strikes Again.  AKA:  Dr. Death.  AKA:  The Saint vs. Dr. Death.