THE MYSTIC (1925) ***

Michael Nash (Conway Tearle) is a conman who joins up with a sexy sideshow medium named Zara (Aileen Pringle) and her loyal band of gypsy performers to create a phony mystic grift.  They soon set their sights on a wealthy heiress (Gladys Hulette) with the intent of bilking her of her father’s fortune using methods they’ve perfected in their stage act.  Problems arise when Nash begins to develop a conscience, and the woman starts seeing her father’s ghost “for real”. 

Directed by Tod (Dracula) Browning, The Mystic is thematically similar to both his Freaks and The Unholy Three (which was released the same year).  It’s a rather straightforward crime melodrama, but there are plenty of unique touches here to help make it memorable.  The idea of mediums using trickery to defraud people was a hot topic at the time of release, so it makes for an ideal framework for a thriller.  Browning brings a spine-tingling atmosphere and a legitimate sense of spookiness to the seance sequences.  The effects are well done too as disembodied arms float around in mid-air and write letters and ghosts dance about.  

Aileen Pringle is the standout among the cast as the shady spiritualist Zara.  She’s equally alluring whether she’s dressed to the nines in her seance scenes or when she’s scheming to get her hands on Hulette’s loot.  Hulette is quite good too as the naive mark and she has a nice chemistry with Tearle, who is also strong as the crooked conman with a heart of gold. 

While The Mystic might not be as iconic as some of Browning’s best-known stuff, it remains a crackling little thriller all the same. The final act may be a tad predictable, but everything preceding it is entertaining and fun.  Minor quibbles aside, it’s worth a look just for the uncanny atmosphere alone.  

BALLERINA (2025) *** ½

When Eve (Ana de Armas) was a little girl, she saw her father murdered by the sinister “Chancellor” (Gabriel Byrne). Winston (Ian McShane), the owner of the Continental Hotel, takes pity on the orphaned girl and sends her off to be trained as a ballerina.  Since this is “The World of John Wick” we’re talking about here, not only does she learn to dance but she is trained to become a ruthless assassin as well.  Years later, Eve gets a line of the gang responsible for her father’s death and winds up trying to save a little girl from their clutches. 

Apparently, this was a troubled production.  The studio didn’t like the movie director Len (Underworld) Wiseman delivered so they had producer Chad Stahleski reshoot the majority of the film.  Wiseman is still credited, but if reports are to be believed, much of what he shot was scrapped.  Fortunately for the audience, you wouldn’t know any of that from looking at the picture as it plays like a well-oiled machine. 

De Armas is excellent in the lead.  She has a real spark about her and is wholly believable in her fight scenes.  I particularly liked the scene when she beats an assassin with a remote control, and it kept changing channels TV every time they got hit in the face. 

While the set-up is a tad longwinded, the action is aces all the way through.  We get an excellent training montage and a fun sequence where de Armas uses a LOT of grenades to blow the competition into smithereens.  Another amusing bit is de Armas’ fight with a waitress where they repeatedly bash each other over the head with dinner plates, Three Stooges-style. There’s also a badass moment where she MacGyvers herself a gun knife. 

The last act of Ballerina features some of the most deliriously entertaining action of the 21st century.  It contains what is possibly the first ever shootout involving flamethrowers.  Somewhere, John Woo is smiling.  Sure, some of the action suffers from noticeable CGI enhancements, but it’s not too distracting all things considered.

Overall, I thought this was about on par with the first John Wick.  Speaking of which, Keanu Reeves shows up as Wick for an extended cameo and he does a solid job lending support to de Armas without stealing spotlight from her.  (They were also in the awesome Knock Knock together.) 

AKA:  From the World of John Wick:  Ballerina. 

THE PRIMEVALS (2024) ***

The Primevals was a passion project for director and stop-motion animator David Allen.  Sadly, the production was shelved in the late ‘90s and Allen passed away before he could complete the effects.  After three decades, producer Charles Band finally was able to assemble a team to finish the film as close to Allen’s original vision as possible. 

A yeti is killed in Nepal and put on display in an American college.  An expedition led by Juliet (Beyond the Door) Mills then return to Nepal to find a live specimen.  There, they enter a cave and when they come out the other side, they find a hidden jungle where ape men live in villages.  Along the way, they also discover mysterious cylinders that may portend an extraterrestrial presence.  Ultimately, the intrepid explorers find themselves facing off against the yeti inside an alien arena. 

The Primevals is consistent with the kind of stuff Full Moon turned out in the ‘90s.  In fact, it probably could’ve been released through Moonbeam Entertainment, their kid friendly line of pictures.  It’s a throwback to the fantastic movies of yesteryear, and its unabashed reverence for those kinds of films is its chief asset. 

Each act plays like a love letter to a different subgenre of Sci-Fi flick.  The first act involving the search for the yeti is obviously inspired by King Kong (the stop-motion effects for the monster are great).  The second act veers into Jules Verne territory and the third dives right into straight-up UFO shit.  Because of that, it often feels more like a greatest hits collection of Sci-Fi cliches than a cohesive film.

That said, it’s easy to see why Allen would want to make it as it is an ideal platform for him to show off his skills.  The yeti is extremely well done as Allen imbues him with a lot of personality.  You even feel a tinge of pity for him by the end of the movie.  The lizard men alien warriors have an old school charm about them, and the gladiator pit battle with giant monsters is fun too. 

That’s the key word here.  Fun.  I’m sure you could nitpick the flick to death if you really wanted to, but I’m just glad Band was finally able to follow through and complete the movie.  While It’s not a lost classic or anything, it makes for perfectly suitable rainy day entertainment. 

TRAVELIN’ (1974) **

Travelin’ kicks off with what is possibly the shortest sex scene in recorded history.  A guy tells a woman, “Let’s do it,” and they bang in the middle of a field.  She is understandably perplexed when he cums almost immediately, gets dressed, hops on his motorcycle, and then heads on down the road.  Girls, it be like that sometimes. 

After riding around for a bit, our hero finally stops off on the side of the road where he watches a couple fuck in broad daylight.  This guy, while no means the world’s greatest lover, lasts way longer than our hero.  He then stumbles upon a “stud farm” where a bunch of horny hippie chicks hang around and wait for guys to bang them.  Once the biker gets his nut, he heads on down the highway once again. 

All of this is shot with the same cinematic flair of the Zapruder film, and it’s just about as sexy too.  Directed by “Bob” Insert, Travelin’ is shoddy and cheap in just about every way.  It doesn’t help that most of the women in the cast are less than photogenic and the print is extremely jumpy. 

It’s possible to make a decent biker porno with little to no money.  (Just check out Teenage Bikers.)  However, Insert never really makes full use of the motorcycle gimmick.  On the plus side, we do get some truly awful, poorly dubbed dialogue (“That’s a fucking cute clit you’ve got there, my dear!”) that’s good for a laugh or two.  There’s also one funny scene where a fly keeps interrupting a couple while they’re fucking and a dubbed voice says, “Hey, get that fly off my ass!”

Fortunately, it’s only forty-six minutes long and it’s pretty much over before it really gets going.  If you like outdoor sex scenes, you may enjoy it as most of the action takes place in the desert or in the middle of a field.   There’s also a heavy concentration of oral scenes, if that’s the sort of thing that floats your boat.  Most of the time though, Travelin’ really doesn’t go anywhere. 

TALK TO ME (2023) **

Talk to Me is an Australian horror flick that acts as a sort of allegory about the perils of teenagers trying stupid viral internet stunts.  Because of that, it’s certainly timely.  However, it’s much too uneven to really click. 

Teens get in on the latest internet craze of filming themselves while performing an occult ritual where they hold a severed hand and say, “Talk to me”, which allows a spirit to possess them.  The only rule is you can’t let the ghost in for longer than ninety seconds.  Things end tragically when a chick’s younger brother plays the game and winds up permanently possessed.  After he is hospitalized, the friends sneak into his room and try to find a way to reverse the curse. 

The scene where our heroine volunteers to be a part of the ritual is fairly strong.  The game itself is kind of like a supernatural version of the Tide Pod Challenge as the possessed teens contort and twitch while their friends stand around laughing and filming everything with their phones.  There’s also a weird scene where the spirit of an old woman sneaks into the bedroom and starts sucking on a guy’s foot. 

The first half-hour is engaging and entertaining, but it quickly goes off the rails in the second act.  Despite strong individual moments, the lows ultimately outweigh the highs.  It doesn’t help that the whole thing plays like a short film that’s been padded out to feature length.  The subplot where the dead mother of our heroine tries to warn her from the other side kind of reinforces that idea as it feels like it was only tacked on to beef up the running time.  The abrupt ending is also the sort of thing that would work in a short film but when viewed as the finale of a feature, it kind of leaves you pissed off.  It’s a shame too, especially when the first half hour or so held so much promise. 

EAT AT THE BLUE FOX (1983) **

Ron Jeremy runs a strip club called The Blue Fox in a sleazy border town.  When he’s unable to make payoffs to the local police, the greedy sheriff has the place shut down.  Eventually, Ron reopens the joint with a new angle:  A live sex show.  The sheriff once again sets out to ruin Ron’s livelihood, but he makes a play to get rid of the crooked copper once and for all.  

Ron Jeremy’s performance is pretty much the whole show in this one.  He appears in most of the sex scenes and his stand-up act eats up a lot of screen time too.  I’m a fan of Ron (his recent legal troubles notwithstanding), but this is really far from his best work.  His usual mugging can’t save the rather tepid sex scenes, which are mostly forgettable and interchangeable; nor can it liven up his unfunny stage show. 

The other attempts at humor are pretty dire, like when the evil sheriff feeds the nightclub patrons chili, which makes them all shit their pants.  Actually, the biggest laugh comes from the opening titles that humorously misspell the word “beginning”.  That pretty much is the tip-off that this one is going to be a dud.  The total non-ending doesn’t really help matters either. 

Also on hand is Herschel Savage, who plays a good ol’ boy who double teams a hooker in one scene.  Pamela Mann looks pretty hot as Jeremy’s former flame/lady of the evening, but her sex scenes are rather ho-hum.  The most memorable moment comes from Kitten Natividad as the cigarette girl who says, “For $200, you can shit on my face!”  It’s a shame her role is basically a cameo because she really brightens up the movie whenever she’s on screen.  Oh, and to add insult to injury, she doesn’t get in on the bedroom antics (and she remains fully clothed to boot).

So, if you have an appetite for a fun ‘80s porno, then you may want to skip Eat at the Blue Fox. 

HERETIC (2024) *** ½

Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) are two hot Mormon missionaries going door to door and spreading their gospel.  They meet a seemingly kind man named Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) who is anxious to hear about their religion and invites them into his home for pie and spiritual discussion.  Slowly, it becomes apparent that he has not been entirely truthful and is using his religious debate as a pretext for something diabolical.  Before long, he puts their beliefs to the test as he forces them to participate in a deadly game. 

Grant deftly warps his rom-com leading man persona into something sublimely sinister in Heretic.  He channels his typical stuttering deference into a superficial facade that makes his usual Cheshire Cat grin feel vaguely threatening and creepy.  His performance is among the many joys of the film. 

Thatcher is the hottest actress in horror right now after starring in this, The Boogeyman, and Companion in the span of three years.  She turns in yet another fine performance here as she is fun to watch as the skeptical missionary.  East is quite good too as the more polite and mannered sister of the pair. 

Heretic was the brainchild of writers/directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods.  I run hot and cold on their stuff.  While I pretty much despised Haunt, I found their cheesy Sci-Fi flick 65 to be semi-amusing.  I’m happy to say that this is their best effort yet.  The claustrophobic setting paired with Grant’s dynamic performance makes for a truly captivating film.  I especially like the way Grant arced his religious thesis into an all-encompassing message about pop culture as he compares various religions to different iterations of Monopoly board games and covers of rock songs.  Although it kind of runs out of steam in the third act and has a predicable conclusion, the set-up is aces and the cast is terrific. 

In short, Heretic was good enough to make me a believer.