CARTELS (2017) ** ½

Steven Seagal kills a drug lord named Salazar (Florin Piersic Jr.) during a raid on his palace.  As it turns out, Salazar was merely faking his death so he could be a rat for the FBI.  When Salazar’s pissed-off crew come after him, it’s up to Luke Goss and a team of U.S. Marshals to protect him.  Predictably, double-crosses on both sides ensue.

The framing device where Seagal interrogates Goss is mostly an excuse for him to sit down and not do a whole lot.  Although Seagal’s not front and center most of the time (Goss does a lot of the heavy lifting during the middle section), he’s in it more than you’d think. Seagal looks a little more portly than usual, but he appears to be in decent form whenever he’s in the thick of the action.  He even seems to be a bit more invested in his performance than usual, which is kind of surprising given his recent work.

This was the tenth collaboration between Seagal and director Keoni Waxman, who delivers a few crisp action beats.  The opening raid sequence gets things off to a decent start.  It’s here where Seagal gets a legitimately badass moment when a guy on fire is flailing about and Steve blows him away with a shotgun.  His final brawl with Georges St-Pierre (who plays Salazar’s right-hand man) is one of his best screen fights in recent memory.  Waxman also stages a solid motorcycle shootout in a parking garage, and the part where a bad guy gets his arm blown off during a gun battle was pretty gnarly.  All of this doesn’t make Cartels what we would traditionally call a “good” film, but it helps set it apart from many of Seagal’s latter-day DTV efforts.

The fact that this is a better than average Seagal DTV actioner is a bit of a mixed blessing.  It’s competent and watchable, and yet it lacks that certain goofiness that makes some of his flicks so endearing.  There is one truly chuckle-worthy moment though when Goss tells Seagal something he doesn’t like and Steve retorts with, “I WASN’T BORN ON A TURNIP TRUCK!”  I wish there were more choice dialogue like this to go around.  If that was the case, Cartels might’ve eked by with a *** rating.    

AKA:  Killing Salazar.    

CURSE OF THE BLIND DEAD (2021) ***

I’ve always been a big Tombs of the Blind Dead fan.  While the series never produced what you would call a horror classic, all of them have their moments and are loaded with creepy atmosphere.  Not to mention the fact that they boast some of the coolest monsters in horror history.  The shambling, blind zombie Templar Knights that hunt solely by sound have always been a favorite of mine, and for whatever reason, they never really caught on with mainstream modern-day audiences.  

Maybe all that will change with this reboot, Curse of the Blind Dead.

It starts in fine franchise fashion giving us another origin story of the scary sightless slayers.  This time, they are about to sacrifice a baby on a Satanic altar when they are ambushed by an angry mob of villagers who burn out their eyeballs before burning them alive at the stake.  Then, they pull the rug out from under us during the opening credits.  It seems that somewhere between the Medieval times and today, WWIII broke out and turned the world into a post-apocalyptic wasteland!  

I love shit like this.  It’s really ballsy when a franchise horror flick shakes the genre up a bit.  Chucky went to military school.  Jason went to space.  Setting The Blind Dead in the post-nuke subgenre was an inspired touch.

A father and his pregnant daughter are making their way to the woods when they are attacked by some nasty customers.  Some dudes with bows and arrows show up to save their bacon and welcome them into their commune of post-nuke survivors.  As it turns out, the compound’s leader, “The Maestro” has his own sinister intentions for the young girl.

While this blending of The Road and the Blind Dead doesn’t quite work, there’s enough potential here to keep you watching.  I’ve seen criticism that people were annoyed that it takes a long time for the Blind Dead to show up.  However, this is keeping with the old movies as they usually took their sweet time before the Blind Dead did their thing.

Once they do show up, the carnage is pretty sweet.  There’s multiple bloody birthing scenes, spine ripping, cheek hooking, stabbing, gut ripping, and face cracking.  I probably could’ve done with the part where the Blind Dead rip a baby in half, but I think they just put that in there to show these new Templar Knights don’t fuck around.  Honestly though, it was much faster paced than I was anticipating as the film pretty much doesn’t let up once it gets going.  The ending is pretty fucked up too.  I dug it.

I just wish the Knights retained the cobwebby look of the original Blind Dead.  These new guys just look like they’re wearing zombie masks from a Spirit Halloween closeout sale on November 1st.  Also, they pretty much drop the whole post-nuke theme once the Blind Dead are awakened.  Then, it becomes another running around a castle while zombies try to kill us movie.  Not hating, just stating.  

While they don’t take full advantage of the “be very quiet or they’ll get you” gimmick, they don’t exactly piss it away as there are a couple of good stalking sequences.  One dumb thing is that one of the Knights gets a blurry, black and white POV stalking shot.  I guess this guy isn’t one of the Blind Dead.  Maybe he’s Glaucoma Dead.  

Curse of the Blind Dead is not a classic by any means, but a good gory updating that fans will appreciate.  I’d say it’s about as good as the other sequels in the franchise.  What more could you ask for?  You’re either the kind of person who will fist-pump at the sight of the Blind Dead riding horses in super slow-motion or you aren’t.  I know what camp I fall into.  

AKA:  The Curse of the Knight Templar.

HIDEOUT IN THE SUN (1960) **

Hideout in the Sun was Doris Wishman’s first film.  Even though she was only credited with writing the story and producing, she also co-directed.  It has a few touches that would soon become her hallmarks, namely lots of nudity and tons of shots of feet, but other than being notable for her first feature, it’s not very good.  

Two thieves make a daring getaway after staging a bank heist.  When they learn the cops are watching their getaway boat, they decide to take a hostage and head to a nudist camp to lay low while the heat cools off.  While the one guy barks orders and worries about the cops, his partner and the hostage enjoy all the amenities the nudist camp has to offer.  

The first half hour or so is really slow going.  The cops and robbers stuff is a chore to get through.  The obvious Wishman touches aside, it’s dull and tedious.  Things improve once the action switches over to the nudist camp.  It’s here where things lighten up a little and the movie starts to have some fun with the silly premise.  

Among the nudist activities featured:  Swimming, volleyball, sunbathing, nature walks, picnicking, birdwatching, badminton, drinking from a water spigot, sitting in a fountain, sniffing flowers, and my favorite… NUDE ARCHERY!  Hawkeye, eat your heart out.

It’s easy to see why many nudist movies had as little plot as possible.  This one is so plot heavy in the early going that you might doze off even before you get to see one naked lady.  Credited director Larry Wolk was probably responsible for the dull stuff.  I can’t say that for sure, but I want to say it just because I’m a big Wishman fan.  So, if you can make it past the boring crime plot, the nudity in the second half is pretty much nonstop, so that’s something at least.

The title tune (sung by Ralph Young of Sandler and Young fame) is a straight-up banger too, which is good since they play it often.

AKA:  Beauties in the Sun.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #31: TOWER OF SCREAMING VIRGINS (1968) ***

(Streamed via Raygun)

Well, here we are.  I’m two months late, but I’ve finally come to the end of my thirty-one-horror-movie-watching project for the month of October.  Whenever I do these projects, I inevitably wind up watching a movie that looks like a horror flick but isn’t really.  Such is the case with Tower of Screaming Virgins.  As great as a title as that is, and the fact that it features murders aplenty, it is more like a gothic swashbuckling melodrama (?) sort of thing.  

The tip-off that it isn’t going to be a true-blue horror movie is in the opening credits where it is revealed that it is based on a story by Alexandre Dumas.  You know, the guy who wrote The Three Musketeers.  That also explains the scenes of our hero prancing around with a sword and sticking it to the authority figures.  Once the action switches over to the titular tower, things get a lot better.

The tower is the source of concern to the villagers in the surrounding area.  It seems young men are being lured there by a sexy Queen and either never return or are later found dead floating in the river.  Our hero winds up at the establishment and is happy to learn it is stacked to the gills with topless women.  He investigates and learns the luscious ladies are luring lads to an early demise at the behest of the Queen.  Since our hero and the Queen have a romantic history together, he decides to get involved in the palace drama.

The ladies of the tower look great, and I’m not saying that because they run around topless.  What I mean to say is that I admire their look as they wear a cool red mask to cover their face while exposing their body for God and everyone to see.  They might’ve been the inspiration for Kekko Kamen as their appearance is quite similar to that sexy Japanese crimefighter.  

Tower of Screaming Virgins is a lot of fun for an hour or so.  The odd scrambling of genres make it feel like an Errol Flynn movie directed by Jess Franco.  It’s in the third act where things settle down and it becomes more focused on swordfights and palace intrigue than topless women luring men to their doom.  At least the big twist ending is kind of sick and helps to tie everything together neatly.

AKA:  Tower of Sin.  AKA:  She Lost Her… You Know What.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #30: TERROR IN THE MIDNIGHT SUN (1959) *

(Streamed via Pub-D-Hub)

A meteor crashes in the snowy wilds of northern Sweden.  Some American scientists, including a horndog lothario geologist, investigate.  They eventually discover the meteor is actually an alien spacecraft.  Hopes of a peaceful first contact are dashed when the giant hairy alien stomps around, cause avalanches, kills people, and runs off with a pretty ice skating champ.    

Directed by Virgil (The Mole People) Vogel and written by Arthur C. (The Human Duplicators) Pierce, Terror in the Midnight Sun is jam-packed with a whole lot of nothing.  The non-stop padding includes a longwinded Swedish nightclub performance, stock nature footage of Sweden, and long sequences of people skiing, ice skating, and walking endlessly through the snow.  Whenever something threatens to happen, Vogel cuts away and gives us more dull scenes of people skiing.  

Some amusement can be had from the scientists debating about the meteor’s “skid marks”, but this is a fucking slog from start to finish.    While the monster is OK (it looks like a pig-faced Bigfoot), the forced perspective scenes that try to make him look towering are laughable and the avalanche scenes are phony as fuck.  These shoddy effects aren’t enough to make it worthwhile for even the most die-hard B-movie fan.

A few years after its initial release, Jerry Warren got his mitts on the movie, re-edited it, added new footage of his usual stock company (including John Carradine and Katherine Victor), and rereleased as Invasion of the Animal People.  Usually whenever Warren does this, the results are abysmal.  While I haven’t seen that version with my own eyes, one thing is for certain, Warren’s movie can’t be much worse than this one.

Despite the fact I have been showcasing various Roku channels for this column, I really haven’t gone into much detail about them.  One cool thing about this channel, Pub-D-Hub, is that they play trailers and drive-in intermission shorts before and during the movie.  The mid-movie break featuring old school commercials were certainly welcomed and helped alleviate some (but not all) of the boredom.  

AKA:  Invasion of the Animal People.  AKA:  Space Invasion of Lapland.  

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #29: ALPHA WOLF (2018) ** ½

(Streamed via Popcornflix)

Casper Van Dien and his wife Jennifer Wenger (his real-life wife) vacation in a cabin in the woods.  The couple is looking for a little R & R, but what they get is a big W & W.  And by that, I mean Were n’ Wolf.  Casper gets bitten and thanks to his aggressive nature, becomes a killer.  This makes him a threat to the other peace-loving werewolves in the area, and since there can only be one alpha wolf in the pack, they set out to put Casper down like a dog.

The werewolf is cheesy looking and resembles the Bigfoot from those “Snap into a Slim Jim!” commercials.  That kind of sums up the movie.  It’s cheesy, but it’s just dumb enough to leave a silly grin on your face.  

Van Dien is good as the obnoxious alpha male whose werewolf bite only increases his toxic masculinity.  Wenger also does fine work as his mate who takes no shit from him.  It was also fun seeing Van Dien’s Starship Troopers co-star Patrick Muldoon in a supporting role cast against type as their creepy neighbor.  

Some of the film’s attempts at humor are successful, like when Van Dien is not so subtly marking his territory in the front yard.  I also got a kick out of the in-joke character names, like the dog named “Larry” (after Larry Talbot).  Many horror flicks use the same gimmick, but Alpha Wolf’s references are subtler than your average horror movie, which is appreciated. For example, Wenger’s character is named Virginia.  (You know, as in “Virginia Woolf”.)   

I’m a sucker for a good werewolf movie.  Heck, I’m even a sucker for a not-so good werewolf movie.  Alpha Wolf kinda splits the difference between the two.  I liked the sequence where Van Dien stalks some horny campers, which kind of plays like a slasher flick, but with a werewolf, and the plot twist in the end is laughable too, although I enjoyed the silliness of it.  

Does Alpha Wolf have too many scenes of Van Dien and Wenger bickering?  Yeah.  Does the eighty-five-minute running time feel a tad padded?  Sure.  However, the emphasis on practical werewolf effects over CGI is endearing, and Van Dien’s tweaked performance helps carry it over some of the lulls.  

MIDNITE PLOWBOY (1971) **

A hayseed named Junior (John Tull) leaves the farm and heads to Hollywood to find his fortune.  He winds up getting a job at a house of ill repute where the ladies of the evening immediately take a shine to him and give him a gangbang on the house.  Before long, he’s driving a van for a pimp, which acts as sort of a bordello on wheels.  Predictably, Junior falls for the pretty young prostitute Bernice (Debbie Osborne), and they begin to plot a way out of the life.  

If you go in thinking this is going to be a softcore spoof of Midnight Cowboy, you’re going to be disappointed.  As it turns out, it’s just another dumb ‘70s skin flick from writer/director Bethel Buckalew.  If you’re familiar with his softcore country bumpkin comedies like Country Cuzzins, Sassy Sue, and The Pig Keeper’s Daughter, you might already know what to expect (and what not to expect).  I’m sure you’ll probably get about what you expected.  Probably a little less.  

The fish out of water comedy schtick is dumb, predictable, and unfunny (there’s a lot of jokes about Junior’s sheep back home) and the softcore scenes are hit and miss.  The opening sequence where Junior gets picked up hitchhiking by a couple and bangs the hot wife in the backseat while her husband drives and watches in the rearview mirror gets things started off on the right foot.  However, the group sex scenes suffer from crummy camerawork and poor lighting.  The scenes that take place in Junior’s fuckmobile are slightly better, although the cramped quarters of the van don’t make for the most optimal camera set-ups.  At least the lovemaking between Tull and Osborne is tender and engaging.  (I could’ve done without the folksy love song on the soundtrack though.)  If it wasn’t for their chemistry, Midnite Plowboy would be complete fertilizer.  

AKA:  Sunset Girls.