COCAINE BEAR (2023) ** ½

Syd (Ray Liotta in his final role) is a drug dealer who loses a shit ton of cocaine in the middle of the wilderness.  A bear eats a mess of it and pretty soon, it starts mauling people left and right.  When her daughter is abducted by the bear, a concerned mother (Keri Russell) must do whatever it takes to get her back.

A movie about a bear high on cocaine seems like a can’t miss proposition.  Somehow, director Elizabeth Banks manages to miss just as much as she connects.  I will say that when Cocaine Bear hits the sweet spot, it’s a damned good time.  However, every time the film manages to hit a… er… high, it’s usually short-lived.  

The problem is the inconsistent tone, which often changes from scene to scene.  Reactions to the Cocaine Bear alternate from, “Ha, ha, that bear is high on cocaine” to “Aww, look how cute that bear is on cocaine” to “RUN!  THAT FUCKING BEAR IS HIGH ON COCAINE!”  Had the movie been comprised of mainly the latter reaction, it could’ve been a party.  

Banks never decides how to approach the film.  Parts feel like a foulmouthed version of a ‘90s Amblin movie.  Other parts feel like a Coen Brothers crime comedy.  The best parts feel like a SYFY Channel (or maybe even a Tubi) Original.  That is to say, the bear attack scenes.

Even then, the bear attack scenes are uneven.  There’s nothing here that manages to reach the heights of Grizzly.  Heck, there’s nothing here that manages to reach the heights of Grizzly 2!

Banks does give us one terrific sequence that almost (but not quite) makes up for the lapses elsewhere in the film.  It comes when the bear takes off in pursuit of a speeding ambulance.  There are some gruesome moments and fun action beats to be had here.  It’s just a shame Banks couldn’t pepper the rest of the film with the same kind of kinetic kick.  

The cast is also a mixed bag.  Alden Ehrenreich is great as the drug dealer with a conscience.  He’s had the misfortune of starring in a couple of box office misfires, so maybe this flick will help put him back on the map.  O’Shea Jackson Jr. is pretty good too as his partner in crime and Margo Martindale is fun as a trigger-happy park ranger.  Although it was nice seeing Liotta one last time, he isn’t given a whole lot to do.  Russell in particular is left out to dry essaying the generic mom role.  

Overall, Cocaine Bear is fun in fits and starts.  Most of the time, it feels like Banks is holding back as the gore isn’t quite as nasty as it could’ve been, given the premise.  Hopefully, somewhere down the road we’ll get a release that’s totally, ahem, uncut.

FRANCO FEBRUARY/TUBI CONTINUED… CROSSOVER: DOWNTOWN HEAT (1994) * ½

Maria (Josephine Chaplin) is a cop looking for the man who murdered her husband.  Tony (Steve Parkman) is a jazz musician searching for his girlfriend’s killer.  They learn the same man, a Mob boss named Don Miguel (Craig Hill) is responsible.  Maria and Tony team up with a tough American cop (Mike Connors from Mannix) to bring the Don down.  They even stoop to the gangster’s level by kidnapping his daughter and forcing him to play hardball.  

Downtown Heat finds Jess Franco working a bit out of his comfort zone.  He’s not the world’s greatest action director, so he’s not really the best man to helm a generic cop thriller.  In other hands, it might’ve worked, but then again, the action, plot, and drama are so dull that it makes it hard to care either way.  Maybe if Jess tossed in some of his patented sleaziness, we might’ve had a winner.  Still, it’s hard to say if anything could’ve saved this slow-moving bore.

The movie does momentarily come to life in the third act when the cops realize the only way they can catch the bad guy is to stop playing by the rules.  This blurring of morality is interesting, but it occurs too late in the game for the message to have its intended impact.  While this part of the film is mildly entertaining, it’s not nearly enough to salvage the dreary first two acts.  

Connors is top billed, but he doesn’t even show up until about the halfway mark.  Even if he is a little long in the tooth for a role like this, he at least seems to be having fun.  Lina Romay injects the movie with a little spark as a punk rock gang leader who turns her back on her fellow druggies to help the cops.  Naturally, it doesn’t end well for her.  It’s a shame Romay wasn’t in it more because when she’s on screen, Downtown Heat does have a little bit of sizzle.  

As for touches only Franco could bring to a motion picture, he gives us yet again his trademark lazy camera zooms.  This is also another Franco movie (like Death Whistles the Blues) where one of the characters is a jazz musician, and there’s a jazz performance to pad out the running time.  And like Commando Mengele:  “Angel of Death” and Esmerelda Bay, everything ends with a big helicopter explosion.  As for Franco repeat offenders in front of the camera, we have Romay, Hill, and Robert Foster all popping up yet again. 

FRANCO FEBRUARY: THE HOUSE OF LOST WOMEN (1983) *** ½

A family lives alone on an island like a horny version of the Swiss Family Robinson.  Father (Robert Foster) is a former actor hiding from the spotlight.  Since they are all alone on the island, there is nothing for them to do except masturbate and fuck.  Mother (Carmen Carrion) is a pent-up dominatrix who whips her daughters, Desdemona (Lina Romay) and the mentally challenged Paulova (Susanna Kerr) whenever they get out of line.  The dynamic on the island soon changes when a poacher (Tony Skios) shows up and lights a fire in the ladies’ panties.  

The first fifteen minutes of Jess Franco’s The House of Lost Women is fantastic.  First, Lina walks around the beach naked.  Then, she comes home and starts playing with herself.  Next, she lights a cigarette and smokes it with her pussy.  Finally, she fucks a bowling trophy.  

No wonder Jess Franco took one look at her and thought, “Marriage material.”   

Other everyday household objects that are used as masturbatory materials:  Decapitated doll heads and sliced oranges.  I guess if you’ve been alone on an island for twenty years, you’re bound to try just about anything once.  

Now, the first fifteen minutes may be some of the greatest shit Jess ever committed to celluloid, but the rest is a little on the uneven side.  While there is no doubt some good shit here (like the scene where Carrion goes to town on Kerr with a bullwhip), it still lacks the charm and thrill of the first reel or so.  The film also loses a little spark once Skios enters the fray.  That said, there is plenty here to enjoy.  I mean Lina Romay smokes a cigarette with her pussy.  What more can one ask for?

Of the Franco signatures, there are of course, many lazy camera zooms and pans, several of which occur during a gorgeous sunset.  His penchant for shooting Romay in the nude (half his filmography is devoted to it) crops up again as well as his use of a traditional family dynamic being shown as a hotbed for perversion and sadism (see also Sinfonia Erotica and countless others).  As for his stock players, Romay and Foster are frequent Franco flyers, Carrion was in The Sexual Story of O, Kerr also appeared in Black Boots Leather Whip, and Skios was in Franco’s Sex is Crazy.

AKA:  Perversion on the Lost Island.

FRANCO FEBRUARY/TUBI CONTINUED… CROSSOVER: ESMERALDA BAY (1990) *

Traditional action has never been Jess Franco’s strong suit.  Esmeralda Bay more or less sinks because the action is so lousy.  The opening action sequence is so dark that it’s hard to tell what’s going on, the slow motion is often laughable, and there’s a car crash and explosion that has got to go down as the worst in screen history.  What’s worse is that the finale is a non-stop barrage of stock footage taken from various decades, wars, and sources, rendering the last battle scene virtually incomprehensible.  It’s enough to make Ed Wood’s use of stock footage look downright competent.  

There’s a lot of stuff going on in this movie, but never ever happens.  Fernando Rey is the President of a small country who is under the thumb of his war-happy Colonel, played by Robert Forster (seven years before revitalizing his career in Jackie Brown).  Ramon Sheen (from Franco’s Night of the Eagles) is a revolutionary who buys weapons from an arms dealer (George Kennedy).  There are setbacks, betrayals, and double-crosses, but most of it is too dreary to even care.  

Forster’s performance is kinda fun.  There’s a scene where he gets a new gun and goes running all over the house pretending to shoot it like a kid with a BB gun.  This was made during the time he was still stuck playing ethnic villain roles (see also The Delta Force, which also coincidentally featured Kennedy).  He shouldn’t be confused with Franco mainstay, Robert Foster, who also appears as a priest.  

Speaking of other members of Franco’s Stock Company, Craig Hill and Daniel Grimm were also in Night of the Eagles.  Rey was also in Commando Mengele:  “Angel of Death”, and it looks like they once again shot all his scenes at his home.  Oh, and Franco’s muse, Lina Romay has a small role as a madam too.  

The only worthwhile part in this boring mess is the final scene when Kennedy goes mano y mano with a helicopter.  I won’t tell you if he wins or loses, but I will say that when the scene was all over, I laughed for about three straight minutes.  That amazing minute of insanity is not enough to make anyone sit through the other ninety-four minutes of Esmeralda Bay.  However, the scene taken on its own accord, is a ripe slice of WTF cinema. 

AKA:  Countdown to Esmeralda Bay.  

FRANCO FEBRUARY/TUBI CONTINUED… CROSSOVER: NIGHT OF THE EAGLES (1989) *

The same year Harrison Ford fought Nazis in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, his Star Wars co-star, Mark Hamill starred as a Nazi in this dull WWII drama directed by Jess Franco.  Yes, you read that right.  Mark Hamill starred as a Nazi in a Jess Franco movie six years after Return of the Jedi.  Read it again.  Mark Hamill stars as a Nazi in a Jess Franco movie.  You might as well read it again, because the fact that Mark Hamill starred as a Nazi in a Jess Franco movie is about the only memorable thing this boring ass turd has going for it.  

I guess if Hamill starred in a Jess Franco movie that was more… Jess Franco-y, it might have worked.  I mean, Jess has made countless Nazi flicks, so what could go wrong by bringing Luke Skywalker into the mix?  Unfortunately, Jess was going for a prestige picture with Night of the Eagles.  Instead of Nazi sex, Nazi experiments, and Nazi sex experiments, we get a boring love triangle between Mark Hamill and Ramon Sheen.  

That’s right.  Ramon Sheen.  They couldn’t even get Charlie Sheen, let alone Emilio Estevez for this thing.  Heck, even Joe Estevez wouldn’t have been caught dead in this.  

They might not have been able to get Joe Estevez for this thing, but lo and behold, Luke Skywalker was ready and willing.  This has got to be his all-time worst.  Man, if you thought Time Runner was bad, wait till you see this one.  

Hamill kind of phones it in, and I guess I can’t blame him.  He sort of hides inside his Nazi uniform, thick glasses, and oversized hat.  He’s probably hoping Indiana Jones doesn’t punch his lights out.  His awful deathbed marriage scene has to be his career low point.  

I think the biggest problem (aside from… well… EVERYTHING) is that Franco completely misread the audience.  Does he really think we’d want to see a Nazi love triangle movie?  Especially one that fails so spectacularly at being “respectable”.  At least Franco’s Naziploitation flicks had some stripping and whipping.  This feels like a bad Masterpiece Theater episode, but… you know… with swastikas.  

There are ways this resembles other Franco movies.  Chief among them is the recycling of footage.  This time, the action and battle scenes come from other (much older) war movies and the seams are obvious as the film grain, vehicles, and uniforms don’t really match the new material.  Franco’s use of the slow, lazy zooms and camera pans are kept to a minimum this time out (again, he was trying to be “respectable”), but he does give us a lot of padding in the form of nightclub numbers.  

At least the participation of Franco stalwart Christopher Lee prevents it from being a total debacle.  He plays a sad banker who is devastated when his daughter (the object of the love triangle) enlists in the Third Reich.  He gives a fine performance, which is easily the best thing about the movie.  Honestly, the only thing of note here is, of course, LUKE SKYWALKER STARRING AS A NAZI IN A JESS FRANCO MOVIE.  I guess if they knew Lee would go on to become Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels, they could’ve had them do a Jedi battle or something.  As it is, they share no scenes together, which is a shame.  Oh well.  

Sheen (who looks and sounds like his old man), along with co-stars Robert Foster, Daniel Grimm, and Craig Hill all reteamed with Franco for Esmerelda Bay the next year.

AKA:  Fall of the Eagles.

FRANCO FEBRUARY/TUBI CONTINUED… CROSSOVER: COMMANDO MENGELE: “ANGEL OF DEATH” (1985) ***

I’ve been running a bit behind on posting reviews for both the Tubi Continued… and Franco February columns, so I figured I would kill two birds with one stone and check out a few of the Jess Franco movies Tubi has to offer.  He only co-directed this one as he apparently quit before filming was complete.  The producers brought in Andrea Bianchi, the madman who gave the world Burial Ground, and the results are a bit of a mess, but it is a fun, and sometimes surreal mess.  

Fernando Rey and Jack Taylor are Nazi hunters looking for the vile Nazi Josef Mengele (Howard Vernon) in South America.  Robert Foster’s girlfriend gets killed by the Nazis who patrol Mengele’s fortress, and he teams up with her best friend (Suzanne Andrews) to get revenge.  The Nazi hunters accept them into their fold with the provision they gather evidence to bring Mengele to trial, but he decides to blow him the fuck up instead.  

Here's the thing, though.  Mengele isn’t exactly hiding.  I mean his guards patrol his fortress wearing red armbands in broad daylight and fly around in helicopters with “4R” painted on the side of them.  (You know, for “Fourth Reich”.)  It’s shit like this that endears crappy movies like this to me.  

Even if you didn’t know the behind the scenes drama, Commando Mengele:  “Angel of Death” looks like a cut-and-paste affair.  (I mean, the title has two titles for God’s sake.)  There are scenes that are played silently while narration tries to explain what’s going on, the same random insert shots of Andrews’ shocked face are reused a couple of times, and some plot points (like Andrews being artificially inseminated by Mengele) are haphazardly (or never) resolved.  However, when it’s Franco doing the cutting and Bianchi doing the pasting, the results are entertaining more often than not.  

This movie has a lot of movie for your movie dollar.  It has Chris Mitchum sleepwalking through his performance as Mengele’s top bodyguard who walks with a limp, but can still snap into action for slow-motion, echoey Kung Fu fights.  Foster’s “Dirty Dozen” style team are also a lot of fun (even though there are only four of them).  There’s a Bud Spencer looking guy who uses knives and crossbows, an acrobat, a computer geek, and a Kung Fu master who’s always exuberantly practicing his karate chops and kicks in the background (who also gets his share of slow-motion, echoey Kung Fu fights).  Then, of course, there’s Howard Vernon chewing the scenery like only Howard Vernon can as Mengele.  I think my favorite moment came when he shows Andrews his big experiment and it’s nothing but a room with a monkey lying in bed next to two half-human/half-monkey freaks.  Most movies would make this a major plot point, but for Commando Mengele:  “Angel of Death”, it’s just a random WTF throwaway scene.  

Speaking of which, the final siege on Mengele’s fortress is a head-spinning onslaught of “…HUH?!?”  There’s badly choreographed action (including more slow-motion, echoey Kung Fu fights), bizarre plot twists, and one of the worst model explosions of all time.  I think I laughed six times and said, “Wait… WHAT?” at least twice in the last three minutes.  A lot of the movie never comes close to matching the weirdness of the final reel.  There are a few moments along the way though that flirt with being totally bonkers, but ultimately wind up being completely bananas.  And I’m not saying that because of the scene where the monkey and its half-human brethren are liberated by the Nazi hunters.  

It's kind of easy to tell what scenes Franco was responsible for thanks to the slow zooms and pans.  Also, the flick is chockfull of his regular stock players like Taylor, Foster, Vernon (the De Niro to Franco’s Scorsese), and Mitchum.  I’m not sure if he was responsible for the monkey business (pun sorta intended), or if that was Bianchi’s doing.  All I know is that when the WTF is flying freely, Angel of Death is heavenly.  

AKA:  Angel of Death.  AKA:  Commando Mengele.  

TUBI CONTINUED… CAROUSHELL THE 2ND (2021) ** ½

Duke, the killer carousel unicorn (voiced by Steve Rimpici) returns in this uneven, but sporadically hilarious sequel.  This time out, he learns he has a half-human son named Robbie (B. Barnabei) that he never knew about.  Duke tries to put killing behind him in order to make up for lost time with his son, unaware that the Nazis who created him during WWII are hunting him.  When they learn Duke has a son, they kidnap Robbie to ensure his cooperation.  Of course, that just makes Duke even madder, and he goes after the Hitler-loving bastards.

The addition of Nazi villains seems a little desperate.  It’s like the filmmakers are trying to do the Don’t Breathe 2 thing where they take the series’ bad guy (or in this case, unicorn) and make him a de facto hero by pitting him against a more sinister evil.  I guess it might’ve worked had the Nazis not been so overly cartoonish.  They make the Nazis in Hogan’s Heroes look like the Nazis in Schindler’s List by comparison.  I mean the sight of a talking (and killing) carousel unicorn is already WTF enough.  We really didn’t need a bunch of comic relief Nazi villains constantly mugging and shit.  

Fortunately, the rest of the film is just as funny as the original.  The father/son bonding scenes with Duke and Robbie hit the sweet spot between absurdist humor and Z horror moviemaking at its finest.  These scenes almost play like a surreal version of an After School Special.  If there was more of this sublime silliness throughout the rest of the picture, it might’ve been a classic.  As it is, it falls just short of the inspired zaniness of the original.  Even if CarousHELL the 2nd was a bit spotty in places, I am still anxiously waiting to see Duke’s next go-round. 

AKA:  CarousHELL 2.