CLASH OF WARLORDS (1984) ****

Few movies straddle the line between inept garbage and cinematic masterpiece like Clash of Warlords.  When the film in question begins with the title over a still image of an explosion that remains on screen for over two minutes with no other credits, text, or well… anything, you know you’re in for something special.  The fact that they forgot the “the” to make it Clash of THE Warlords is just icing on the cinematic cake.

In the post-apocalyptic future, a warlord kills Rex’s wife and forces him to fight in his arena.  Rex eventually escapes and joins up with a band of freedom fighters living in the woods.  When the warlord’s men attack the peaceful village, Rex leads an army to get some payback. 

Like… that’s just the broad strokes.  I mean, I could tell you what HAPPENS in this movie, but you wouldn’t believe it.  It seems the costume department raided the wardrobes of every popular movie at the time.  Characters look alternately like extras from The Warriors, Mad Max, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, and Sinbad.  Heck, there are even characters that look like Solid Gold dancers. 

Likewise, the plot cherry-picks everything from Spartacus to Robin Hood and in the film’s jaw-dropping finale, Star Wars as there’s even a poorly rendered lightsaber duel that makes the one in Starcrash look like the freezing chamber duel in The Empire Strikes Back.  I mean what’s Lucasfilm gonna do?  Sue?  Honestly, the whole thing is better than The Force Awakens if you ask me. 

I mean, did The Force Awakens have guys brandishing spears that shoot arrows from their tips?  Or a villain who wears half a waffle iron over his face and gets so twitchy during the full moon he’s got to be tied down and half his face melts off?  (The best part of this scene is when his underlings snicker at the whole ordeal and make fun of him behind his back.)  Not to mention the fact that every third extra looks like a Filipino Burt Reynolds.  Or that everyone in the future pronounces “arena” as “REEN-AH!”  (And it gets funnier every time someone says it.)

There’s probably more hilarious shit I missed since I was too busy doubled over in laughter half the time.  Make no mistake.  Clash of Warlords is fucking terrible… and I loved every second of it.  Those seeking actual quality will want to look elsewhere.  You’re either the sort of person who wants to see a lightsaber duel in a cheap Filipino post-nuke action flick or you aren’t. 

Also, I love the fact that this is such a blatant Mad Max copy that one of the alternate titles is “Mad Warrior”.  All they did to come up with the title was swap out words from the first two Mad Max movies.  It’s a shame we never got a follow-up called “Road Max”.

AKA:  Clash of the Warlords.  AKA:  Mad Warrior.  AKA:  Mad Destruction.

DEEP WATER (2022) *** ½

Ben Affleck stars as Vic, a well-to-do family man whose sexy alcoholic wife, Melinda (Ana de Armas) likes to sleep around.  When her latest boy toy is being less than secretive about their relationship, Vic boasts that he killed the last guy who banged her.  Others pick up on the comment and think it’s a morbid joke.  However, Melinda isn’t laughing when another one of her conquests winds up dead in the pool and soon, Vic becomes the prime suspect. 

Deep Water is anchored by Affleck’s quiet, but blandly menacing performance.  He seems to be having fun playing the guy you thought his character was in Gone Girl.  He probably thought if his buddy, Matt Damon could play a sociopath in an adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel, so could he.  De Armas is sexy as ever and is quite good as using that allure to mask sadness, suspicion, and shame.  Their love scenes together are more of married couple variety, except for that one where she makes Ben kiss her ass, literally.  That’s fine though because director Adrian (Fatal Attraction) Lyne (helming his first movie in two decades) is going more for intimacy than titillation, which works as there’s plenty of chemistry between the two stars.  (Who were an item offscreen shortly before J.Lo came back into Affleck’s life.) 

Lyne was one of the architects of the erotic thriller genre with Fatal Attraction.  Since Lyne was at the helm, and the fact that the sex scenes were hyped up may give you the impression it will be your typical erotic thriller.  However, if you go into the movie expecting Skinamax-style thrills, you may be a tad disappointed as the film is more of a portrait of a troubled marriage with subtly sinister undertones than your average late-night cable flick.  It may be called Deep Water, but it’s what’s bubbling just under the surface that makes it crackle. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN (1977) ** ½

FORMAT:  4K UHD

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on August 9th, 2016)

The Incredible Melting Man is kind of hard to pin down, and I don’t mean just because of his inherently slippery exterior. The movie flirts with working here and there (mostly whenever the slimy, globular main character is front and center), but the rest of the time it’s pretty much a bore. Still, the film is JUST bad enough to be sporadically amusing. From the odd music and sound effects on the soundtrack to the perplexing compositions of shots to the wooden acting, there is just enough here to keep you amused. Well… almost.

The plot has an astronaut (Alex Rebar) returning home from a space mission with a chronic case of the melts. When he wakes up in the hospital, he kills a fat nurse and then goes around murdering more people. It’s then up to one of his colleagues (Burr DeBenning) to find him and stop him.

The Incredible Melting Man himself is pretty cool. He’s a nifty creation of Rick Baker (just a few years away from winning an Oscar for An American Werewolf in London) as he just oozes and drips and sloshes around for 90 minutes. The rest of the film is not so nifty. It’s basically a throwback to the old ‘50s sci-fi films, except with a better monster. Too bad the acting and filmmaking techniques were better in the ‘50s.

There is one scene though that cracked me up. That of course is the scene where the two old people go out fooling around in the woods and become fodder for the Melting Man’s ire. In actuality, this scene runs on far too long and is fairly stupid, but I liked the fact that writer/director William (Galaxina) Sachs opted to use an old couple as victims. I mean the monsters can’t ALWAYS kill teenage couples in these movies, now can they?

It has its faults to be sure, but The Incredible Melting Man is the only movie I can think of in which the monster gets mopped up by a janitor at the end, so that is worth something at least.

QUICK THOUGHTS:

I’ve seen this on television many times (with most of my viewings coming from Mystery Science Theater 3000), but I’ve never seen it in its uncut glory.  It’s funny, because the MST3K version showed all the gore (including the hilarious slow-motion plunge of the severed head going over a waterfall), but the scene with drive-in starlet Cheryl “Rainbeaux” Smith was removed. 

Sure, the stuff with Dr. Ted “HOTCHKA!” Nelson still drags like a sumbitch, but whenever the titular man is wasting away before our eyes, it’s fun. 

4K UHD NOTES:

You guessed it, it’s another terrific transfer from Vinegar Syndrome.  The movie hasn’t looked this good since it played in drive-ins back in the ‘70s.  The blacks are deep and dark, and the nature scenes look great in 4K.  In fact, it looks so good that the contrast between the film and the crummy stock footage during the opening outer space sequence is kind of jarring.  There’s also some obvious wear and tear during the famous super-slow-motion scene of the nurse running away from the Incredible Melting Man, but that’s to be expected, I guess.

Speaking of Melty, his slimy Day-Glo color scheme really pops in 4K.  Smith also looks terrific in HDR too, which obviously stands for “Hot Damn, Rainbeaux”!

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: CEMETERY MAN (1996) ****

FORMAT:  4K UHD

ORIGINAL REVIEW:  

(As posted on July 17th, 2007)

This is the best Italian zombie movie of the ‘90s.  Rupert (My Best Friend’s Wedding) Everett stars as a caretaker for a ramshackle cemetery where the dead come back to life after seven days.  Since he would lose his job if anyone found out about the zombies (or “Returners”), he takes to shooting them in the head and reburying them with the help of his bald mute assistant (who keeps his true love’s severed head alive in his television).  Director Michele (Stagefright) Soavi’s macabre humor and Everett’s deadpan performance make this a classic.  Any movie that features zombie Boy Scouts, nuns, and bikers (that come out of the ground on their Harley) is an automatic must-see.  

AKA:  Dellamorte Dellamore.  AKA:  Demons ’95.  AKA:  Of Love and Death.  AKA:  Zombie Graveyard.  AKA:  Of Love, of Death.

QUICK THOUGHTS:

This is one of those movies that get better with age.  The older I get, the more the line, “At a certain point, you know more dead people than living”, resonates with me, and the more I appreciate the melancholy passages in between the zombie carnage.  The last of the great Italian zombie films, Cemetery Man is the final word on the genre and a fitting coda.  It is also one of the funniest zombie comedies this side of Dead Alive.

Rupert Everett gives his career best performance as Dellamorte.  His deadpan delivery of even the smallest line often generates big laughs.  I can’t imagine why I never mentioned Anna Falchi in my original review as she is rather incredible in this.  She’s easily in the Top Ten babes of all time, and her love scene in the graveyard was one of the most rewound sequences in my household back in the day.  Does the movie kind of threaten to go off the rails near the end?  (Especially when Dellamorte goes on his shooting spree.)  Perhaps, but then again, that just cements its anything-goes freewheeling status. 

4K UHD NOTES:

Severin has done another wonderful job with their transfer.  I’ve only seen this in on old pan-and-scan VHS and grainy DVD copies, and this looks about a hundred times better than either of those.  The opening shot in particular looks great, and the dark color palette in the numerous nighttime scenes lend considerable atmosphere.  Of course, the best-looking thing in High Def is… you guessed it… Anna Falchi. 

Growl.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: HELLCATS IN HIGH HEELS (1997) ** ½

FORMAT:  VHS

This odd shot-on-video softcore tape feels like if Michael Ninn tried to remake Rock Video Girls with a camcorder.  It’s nothing more than a series of pointlessly arty sequences of porn stars and nude models engaging in softcore activity set to a rock soundtrack and edited like a music video.  I can’t say it works, but it’s got a lot of naked women in it. 

The only names I recognized were Nikki Sinn and Melissa Monet and the only band I’ve heard of was David Allen and The Arrows.  I don’t know if that is exactly a “criticism”.  I just wish the music was better.

The tape begins a with a quote from Judy Garland (!), then the softcore sequences begin.  In the most interesting scene, a model is covered in black latex and when it hardens, she does a striptease by peeling the latex from her body.  All this might’ve been erotic if it wasn’t for all the Hollywood Squares camera effects.  Next up is a scene where a woman in an equestrian outfit and a topless chick in a bridle engage in some “pony play”.  Like the first segment, it has a good idea at its core, but the camera effects get in the way of the fun.  (In this case, too much “Negative Vision”.)  Then Nikki walks by a bunch of erotic art while smoking.  This scene is kind of pointless as it features no nudity aside from what’s featured in the artwork.  Next, we have a series of biker babes performing stripteases.  This is followed by a lesbian softcore scene that features some bootlicking, which is kind of hot… if you’re into that sort of thing.  Then, a quartet of babes in ‘50s attire shake their goods in front of classic cars while Allen plays guitar.  A disagreement breaks out between two of the gals, and things erupt into a hair-pulling catfight.  Even though there’s no nudity in this segment, it’s probably the most fun.  This is followed by a nude body painting scene that might’ve worked if the body art didn’t make it look like Venom puked tribal tattoos on the models.  Next, the girls get naked and shake and shimmy for the camera before engaging in a five-way lesbian fuck fest.  If you make it past the credits, you’ll be treated to a trailer for Part 2, which looks like more of the same.  

Hellcats in High Heels was directed by porn star-turned-photographer Justice Howard, who appeared in a handful of hardcore movies (including… uh… More Than a Handful).  Her only directing credits were the films in the Hellcats in High Heels trilogy.  I will say this for her:  She knows how to showcase silicone boob jobs, blonde dye jobs, and body piercings.  All this kind of made me nostalgic for edited-for-cable adult content of the ‘90s, like the Playboy Channel and Spice Channel, but it wasn’t exactly titillating. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: ACT OF WAR (1998) **

FORMAT:  DVD

The opening of Act of War is kind of amusing.  Jack Scalia arrives at a swanky embassy party in Russia.  When his credentials are denied, he tips the cabbie to ram the gate.  The taxi winds up going beyond the gate and crashes through the front door and right into the main ballroom.  Talk about crashing the party!

After that fun sequence, I was up for a good time.  Unfortunately, that’s about where the fun stopped as the film became increasingly generic after the smashing opening.  About a third of the way in, Act of War turns into yet another Die Hard clone where soldiers, led by a crazed military dude attempting a coup, storm the party and take everyone hostage.  Naturally, it’s up Jack to save the day. 

Look, I enjoy a good Die Hard in a… movie as much as the next action fan, and I’ll admit, some amusement can be had seeing how the filmmakers crassly steal from the Die Hard formula (right down to the slimy Ellis character, the revelation that the coup is merely a glorified robbery, and Scalia’s sweaty undershirt).  However, it ultimately feels more of a filmed checklist of Die Hard cliches than an actual film.  It’s a shame too especially when you consider the most novel part (the opening) was the most fun.  

Part of the problem is the setting.  It’s just a mansion out in the middle of nowhere.  Die Hard in a… movies should have at least a memorable setting (think the plane in Passenger 57 or the train in Under Siege 2) that enhances the story.  Then again, the original Die Hard took place at a party, but at least the skyscraper brought an element of peril to the proceedings.

Scalia’s handsome charm certainly carries the film further than you’d expect.  Just imagine what he could’ve done if the script gave him some memorable dialogue and or funny one-liners.  While Act of War is certainly watchable, it’s just that at the end of the day it’s nothing more than a mediocre action flick with little to offer to anyone other than die-hard fans of Die Hard rip-offs. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: CRAZY SIX (1998) * ½

FORMAT:  DVD

After the fall of Communism, Eastern Europe became a haven for criminals and is now known as “Crimeland”.  A crackhead thief named Crazy Six (Rob Lowe) and his crew rip off a gangster played by Ice-T. Naturally, that makes them wanted men. 

Directed by Albert (Mean Guns) Pyun, Crazy Six has a surprisingly sturdy cast.  You’ve got to hand it to Ice-T.  Whether he’s in superior action pictures like Surviving the Game, a Leprechaun sequel, or a dreary Albert Pyun movie, he always brings his A-Game.  Likewise, Burt Reynolds lends the only real spark to the film as an American lawman in a cowboy hat.  He classes things up a bit and gets the best line when he says:  “I wouldn’t trust him if his balls were on fire and I had a bucket of water!”  The supporting cast is populated with Pyun regulars like Thom Mathews as Lowe’s best friend and Norbert Weisser as Reynolds’ partner.   

It’s just a shame that Lowe is such a washout as the eponymous character.  He mumbles, sports long, scraggily hair, and a big handlebar mustache.  That suggests to me he’s either hiding under his character or hiding from the audience in embarrassment.  Mario Van Peebles is also around as a rival gangster, but he doesn’t have much to do other than speak in a thick Jamaican accent and sit around and pet his chihuahua.

Pyun stacks the film with long, insufferable nightclub acts that are cut together like a bad music video.  That’s the big issue:  The editing.  The film is so overedited that even the simplest scenes feel confusing, or at the very least, clumsy.  (Speaking of editing, notice how Burt never appears in the same shot as anyone else in the finale.)  The dialogue is almost as bad.  In one scene, there’s an awkward discussion about Kool-Aid that sounds like a third grader trying to sound like Tarantino.  

Plus, Pyun bathes every scene in neon.  I think he was going for a comic book effect, but the whole thing comes off looking garish and ugly.  So… you know.  It looks like your typical Pyun joint.