BLADE OF THE 47 RONIN (2022) ** ½

I wasn’t a fan of 47 Ronin.  I found the mix of samurai action and fantasy elements to be clunky at best.  It was definitely one of Keanu Reeves’ weakest action efforts.  

Now, nine years later, comes the DTV sequel, Blade of the 47 Ronin.  If it didn’t have the words “47 Ronin” in the title, I probably would’ve never known it was a sequel.  The fantasy elements are a lot more subdued, it’s set in modern-day Budapest (!?!), and there are no dragons.  Bummer.  

Yurei (Dan Southworth) is an evil magician who is trying two reunite two magic swords in order to fulfill an ancient prophecy.  Naturally, one of the swords is in the possession of a street smart, wiseass American thief (Anna Akana).  The samurai brotherhood sends Kung Fu Master Shinshiro (Mark Dacascos) to protect her from Yurei’s army of Ninjas and prevent him from obtaining the blade.  

Blade of the 47 Ronin is better than the original, mostly because it’s a down and dirty Samurai vs. Ninja flick, and I’m a sucker for those.  It’s not a patch on the grandaddy of the genre, 1995’s The Hunted, but there is a good Samurai vs. Ninja battle on a subway car that echoes the train battle in that film.  The rest of the action is solid throughout, and the choreography and camerawork are better than you would expect from this sort of thing.  

The performances are pretty good too.  It’s nice to see Dacascos maturing into the “wise old master” phase of his career.  Akana makes for a likeable leading lady, and it was fun to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s Mike Moh as a young upstart ronin trying desperately to win the approval of his master.  

While this is a sequel to 47 Ronin, the main inspiration seems to come from another Keanu Reeves movie, John Wick.  The fight scenes are often bathed in neon purple and blue lights, the assorted samurai clans have distinct styles, and there’s a little bit of oddball worldbuilding (like, why are there samurai clans warring in modern day Budapest?).  One character even calls Dacascos a “John Wick fanboy”, which is funny because he had a supporting role in John Wick 3.

Ultimately, this is probably too long, with too many unnecessary characters and subplots to be truly effective.  Plus, all the plot twists seem to be there just for the sake of having plot twists.  It’s a DTV Samurai vs. Ninja movie.  You don’t have to try to pull the rug out from under us at the end of each act.  Still, as far as Universal’s DTV productions from their 1440 company go, you can certainly do a lot worse.

TUBI CONTINUED… L.A. AIDS JABBER (1994) ****

Well, if that title doesn’t draw you in, nothing will.  The crazy thing is this movie lives up to its jaw-dropping title.  It is without a doubt one of the scuzziest films I have ever watched.  It is depraved, demented, deplorable, appalling, foul, insidious, and disgusting.

After about five minutes, I wanted to take a shower.  After about ten minutes, I needed another.  After about twenty minutes, I wanted an enema for my soul.  

This movie makes Driller Killer look like Barney’s Great Adventure.  

If you can’t already tell, this movie is about a guy who finds out he has AIDS.  He’s already off his rocker to begin with, and the news sends him over the edge.  The unhinged psycho then sets out to get revenge on the people who wronged him by filling a syringe with his blood and jabbing them with it, infecting them with the deadly virus.

Make no bones about it:  This movie is in extremely poor taste.  That said, stuff like this has happened in real life.  Today’s audiences will likely be offended by this film, but if you weren’t there in the ‘80s, you wouldn’t know how scary the AIDS epidemic was.  A good horror flick reminds you of your fears.  A great one preys upon them.  L.A. AIDS Jabber is a case of the latter.

Granted, the stuff with the detectives investigating the Jabber isn’t nearly as effective as the Taxi Driver-esque scenes of him alone in his shithole apartment or the jabbing scenes themselves.  However, they offer the viewer a welcome respite for the overall air of grime and depravity.  When he is front and center, it’s truly skin-crawling.  

This is probably the best Shot on Video movie ever made.  It will not be for everyone.  Heck, the audience for it will be rather fucking slim.  If you aren’t the kind of person who would watch a movie called L.A. AIDS Jabber, then what the hell are you even reading this review for?  However, if you are the kind of person who would watch a movie called L.A. AIDS Jabber, it delivers exactly what it promises.  And then some.  I have to cut this review short.  I’ve got to take another shower.

AKA:  Jabber.

TUBI CONTINUED… IN SEARCH OF ALL AMERICAN MASSACRE: THE LOST TEXAS CHAINSAW FILM (2022) ** ½

In 1999, William Tony Hooper, the son of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre director Tobe Hooper, began filming All American Massacre.  It was to be a part-sequel, part-prequel to Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 focusing on the character of Chop Top, memorably played by Bill Moseley.  After months of on-and-off filming, the release date came and went, and fans have been wondering ever since why it vanished and remains unreleased.  This documentary sets out to find out what happened to the film and provide insight into what could’ve been.  

Right away, the filmmakers hit a roadblock when Bill Moseley declines to be involved with the production.  I know they probably weren’t going to score an interview with Buckethead (who played Leatherface in All American Massacre), but it’s a shame they couldn’t get Moseley.  They do track down the guy who played Grandpa in the movie, and his recollections and photographs at least give you a glimpse of what was like on set.  However, this really isn’t enough to base a whole documentary on. 

So, the filmmakers pivot and get more into the various conspiracies surrounding why All American Massacre was never released.  Honestly, the most obvious answer is that the studio/rights holder sent Hooper a cease-and-desist order.  All American Massacre more or less started as an effects reel to show off what Hooper could do before it grew to be something more ambitious.  It’s possible he gave up on the flick just because he didn’t want the hassle of a lawsuit.  That doesn’t stop the movie from spinning various unlikely scenarios as to why it was never completed. 

In Search of All American Massacre:  The Lost Texas Chainsaw Film is just over an hour long, so it goes down rather smoothly.  If you’re a fan of the series and the overall What If? factor of what could’ve been, you will get some enjoyment out of this, even if you probably know all this info already.  If you’re unfamiliar with the lost sequel, you may dig it too, although you could probably find out all you needed to know about All American Massacre from a YouTube video that’s a third the length of this documentary.  It also doesn’t help that they talk to the same five or six talking heads.  

It's clear director Edward Payson was passionate about this project and the subject.  I just think once he knew Moseley wouldn’t be interviewed that he should’ve packed it in and left the documentary unfinished.  Just like All American Massacre. 

JANUA-RAY: SINTHIA: THE DEVIL’S DOLL (1970) *

(Originally reviewed September 1st, 2021)

When Sinthia (Shula Roan) was just twelve years old, she caught her parents making love.  Since she had an unnatural sexual attraction to her father, she stabbed both of them to death and burned the house down.  Years later, a psychiatrist tries to help her before she gets married and potentially snaps again.  

 

Sinthia:  The Devil’s Doll was co-written and directed by one of my favorite cult directors, Ray Dennis Steckler.  After his career in campy B movies like The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies dried up, he was forced to make nudies like this.  At least his backyard bargain basement productions like Rat Pfink a Boo Boo had a certain charm about them.  This one is just torturous.  It’s not even fun in a cheesy way.  The repetitive scenes of Sinthia hysterically yelling, “Daddy.... Daddy… Daddy!” over and over again will be an endurance test for even the most jaded exploitation fan.

 

The poorly framed sex scenes make it hard to tell who’s doing what to whom.  Steckler also overdoes it on the psychedelic imagery, with all the blue, orange, and red lights only adding to the visual chaos on screen.  The long dream sequences get on your nerves too.  In most movies, they are usually there to help us understand the character’s psychosis, but here, it just feels like a cheap and easy way for Steckler (who was using his “Sven Christian” pseudonym, the tip-off that he was trying to pass this off as an “arty” Swedish movie) to pad out the running time.  (The repeated sequences are another tell-tale sign Steckler’s trying to milk the running time for all its worth.)  What’s worse, the constant roller rink music is enough to drive you certifiably insane.  There are also beach scenes that look like leftover footage from Incredibly Strange Creatures.  

 

We do get one good sequence where Sinthia goes to Hell and is forced to “love herself” and masturbates until she brings herself to a chest-heaving climax.  This scene is solid, but it’s way too brief, lasting only about a minute.  The other seventy-six minutes are often hellish.

 

AKA:  Where the Devil Tolls.  AKA:  Teenage She Devil.

JANUA-RAY NOTES:  

1) With Sinthia:  The Devil’s Doll, we have Ray Dennis Steckler’s first foray into the world of adult moviemaking.  He’s made just about every other kind of movie, so why not give skin flicks a try?  After this film, he would spend the next decade or so toiling away in the adult cinema scene.

2) I think some of the music in the opening scene was later used in Doris Wishman’s Love Toy.

3) Director’s Signatures:  A freak-out scene featuring people in red face paint (also a factor in The Incredibly Strange Creatures That Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies), dance numbers, beach scenes (Wild Guitar, Incredibly Strange Creatures), long chase scenes, long chase scenes on a beach, and like Rat Pfink a Boo Boo, there are scenes that are tinted different colors.

4) Steckler’s Stock Player Round-Up:  Gary Kent, Herb Robins (who also co-wrote the script), and E.M. Kevke (who played the Grasshopper in The Lemon Grove Kids).

5) At one point, a character says, “Oh, come on!  Let’s get this show on the road!”  I couldn’t agree more.  This is one slow, sluggish, and boring movie.  

6) Co-star Maria Lease went on to direct the XXX classics Expensive Tastes and Little Girls Blue.  

7) Seriously, how can you make a skin flick about incest and devil worshipping this damned dull?

8) This is the only dirty movie of Steckler’s I’ve seen so far.  They all can’t be this bad… Can they?

M3GAN (2023) ****

Thanks to some truly awesome trailers, M3GAN has arrived in theaters fully formed as the next great horror icon.  Before the film even premiered, the normally fickle horror movie community had embraced M3GAN as her dance numbers and catchphrases had gone viral.  Our household was no different.  We have been stoked to see it for months.  My daughter was so excited for it that she made M3GAN buttons for our family and friends to wear opening night.  

Let’s just say M3GAN did not disappoint.  In fact, it’s fair to say, it exceeded our already lofty expectations.  I already want to see it again.  

Right out of the gate, from the very first frame, director Gerard (Housebound) Johnstone had the sold-out audience eating from the palm of his hand.  I haven’t heard such rapturous applause from an opening scene since The Phantom Menace on opening night.  For the next hundred minutes or so, there were several instances of howling, laughter, screams, and clapping.  The movies are back, baby. 

Allison Williams stars as Gemma, a toymaker who must care for her orphaned niece, Cady (Violet McGraw).  Since she’s no good with kids, Gemma pawns off her latest creation, the eerily lifelike, artificially intelligent robot doll, M3GAN (herself) on the grieving kid.  Once they are paired, M3GAN exceeds the confines of her programming to terminate all those who may cause Cady harm, even if that means ripping ears off, power washing faces at close range, or chopping people up. 

M3GAN, like the titular character, is a movie that does everything it’s programmed to do and then some.  It very much knows what it is and has no qualms delivering exactly what its audience came to see.  It stays in its lane and keeps its foot on the gas the entire running time.  Plus, it doesn’t hurt that it has a wicked sense of humor to match its funhouse/rollercoaster-style thrills.  

Chucky better watch his back.

TUBI CONTINUED… CAPTIVE FACTORY GIRLS 2: THE REVOLT (2007) ***

The fact that I have not seen (or heard) of Captive Factory Girls did in no way stop me from checking out Captive Factory Girls 2:  The Revolt.  I mean, it’s called Captive Factory Girls 2:  The Revolt.  What more did you need to know?  

Luckily for me, things begin with a quick recap of the first movie.  It seems that women in prison are given work release at a steel factory where they are constantly groped by the scummy security guards.  As it turns out, the prisoners are unwittingly making parts for guns and weapons and shit.  

So, let’s see… we have girls… who are captive… in a factory… I guess we’re all up to speed on Part 1.  I’d lay even odds that in this one there will be a revolt of some kind (possibly in the last act).    

Anyway, a young girl is trying to pay off her boyfriend’s debt by working in a nightclub.  When she refuses to put out for a fat cat customer, she is sent to the steel factory to settle the debt.  There, she must contend with volatile co-workers and rapist guards.  When one of the girls escape, she leaves behind a detailed plan for the other inmates to follow.  But is it truly a way out, or is it a trap set by the sadistic warden? 

I appreciate when a Women in Prison movie tries to do something a little different than the typical genre flick.  Most likely, the filmmakers didn’t “TRY” to do anything different.  They probably couldn’t afford a prison location, so they settled on a steel factory instead.  

Captive Factory Girls 2:  The Revolt is just over an hour long, and it moves like lightning, which are both good things when you’re trying to watch 365 movies on Tubi in 365 days.  However, it kind of comes up short in the sleaze department, which is kind of essential in a Women in Prison flick.  Most of the titillation comes in the form of a lot of close-ups of workers’ heaving, sweaty cleavage as they toil away in the factory.  We also get a couple of shower scenes and hot tub sequences, although all the naughty bits are strategically covered up.  At least there is a decent wet t-shirt catfight. 

The big escape sequence is well-executed on a small budget.  It also manages to be rather exciting, given the limited means and locations at the filmmakers’ disposal.  It might not be a sterling example of a Women in Prison movie, but it distinguishes itself in enough ways to make it a worthy entry in the genre.

JANUA-RAY: BODY FEVER (1969) **

(Originally reviewed October 10th, 2021)

Ray Dennis Steckler stars as a down on his luck private eye who’s hiding out from finance companies coming to collect on his many debts.  He gets a job from some shady customers to find a cat burglar (Steckler’s real-life wife and frequent leading lady, Carolyn Brandt) who ripped off a sweaty underworld boss (Bernard Fein).  Once Steckler finally tracks her down, she offers to cut him in for half of the stolen loot.  

Body Fever resembles a “real” movie, which is more than I can say for many other Steckler joints.  However, that ramshackle homemade quality is usually the most endearing aspect of his films.  As it is, it’s a relatively straightforward, albeit completely forgettable throwback to the detective genre of the ‘40s and ‘50s.

Steckler must’ve thought his performance was noteworthy because he is billed under his real name and not his usual “Cash Flagg” pseudonym.  He is sorely miscast as a hardboiled private detective, but his goofy aloofness at the very least makes the cliched detective sequences watchable.  Al Adamson regular Gary Kent also appears as a tough guy, as does Coleman Francis, who has a bit part.  (Legend has it, he was added to the cast after production wrapped when Steckler found Francis lying drunk and broke in the gutter.)  

If anything, Body Fever is proof that Steckler could produce a competently put-together movie.  It’s just that without a Z grade premise or title (as was the case with The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies), it’s all rather forgettable.  The occasional glimpse of nudity portends Steckler’s eventual career turn into porn.  It definitely needed more than a few quick snippets of skin to elevate it into something recommended, but as far as Steckler’s films go, you can do a whole lot worse.

AKA:  Super Cool.  AKA:  Deadlocked.  AKA:  The Last Original B Movie.

JANUA-RAY NOTES:  

1) Body Fever is an atypical Ray Dennis Steckler movie, which, of course, makes it a typical Ray Dennis Steckler movie.  I appreciate the fact that Steckler dabbles in different genres from picture to picture (this time out, it’s an old timey detective story), but that doesn’t necessarily make it good.

2) Director Signatures:  Because this is a largely different Steckler film, his signatures aren't that overt, but we still see traces of an influence from TV’s Batman (Brandt’s cat burglar get-up is obviously inspired by Catwoman, just as Rat Pfink a Boo Boo were inspired by Batman and Robin), long chase scenes, and one character remarks Steckler looks like “the dummy from The Bowery Boys”, a nod to his role in The Lemon Grove Kids.  

3) Steckler’s Stock Player Round-Up:  Ray Dennis Steckler, Carolyn Brandt, Gary Kent, Coleman Francis, Herb Robins, Ron Haydock, Liz Renay, Brick Bardo, and Steckler’s daughters, Laura and Linda.

4) Shameless Self-Promotion:  A poster for Wild Guitar is seen hanging in Steckler’s office.

5) While Body Fever isn’t one of Steckler’s best, it is competently put together and holds your attention, even if it is missing the fun and camp of his earlier efforts.