MonsterHunter

There’s a lot of stuff in Angel Town (directed by Eric Karson of Black Eagle fame) that doesn’t seem to go anywhere. Olivier Gruner’s presence at Southern California University is good for about two scenes and nothing else. There’s some talk about Gruner training the Olympic team or something. There’s the flashbacks he has to his youth in France where he was treated poorly. And best of all, there’s the scene at the beginning of the movie when Gruner was still in France and a woman screws him in a cemetery! And he still decided to go to America! Read More »

Here’s a movie that’s going to satisfy that contingent of gladiator fans that like watching old, short guys near the end of their life strapping on the Roman soldier outfit and battling a bunch of guys half his age and still come out on top. Sure, in the end both of his brothers are killed in the battle, his sister commits suicide, and his father has been accusing him of being a coward and a traitor for most of the movie, but other than that, he came out on top. Read More »

I think Opie (Ron Howard) missed an important life lesson from his experiences with his magic dog named Smoke. I know Smoke was magic because every time he finished eating, he would stick his paw out for some dummy to shake. Most dogs would have gone back to eating your mom’s crusty panties after dinner, but not the super duper Smoke! Of course, he wasn’t exactly magical when he was getting his ass whipped by a couple of coyotes, but I mean Smoke was only twice their size, so what chance did he really have? But back to that bit of wisdom that Opie conveniently overlooked while he was becoming a “man” by saying hateful things to his mom and running away from home. What Smoke showed Opie, but Opie was too busy pouting to see, was how you shouldn’t trust anybody and that when you are literally a red-headed step-child like Opie was in this movie, you’re best friend will ditch you as soon as he has the chance. Read More »

When you see that this movie is a co-production between Spain and West Germany, it begins to dawn on you that what you are about to see isn’t so much a movie about Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster whupping up on each other, but an experience in awful editing, bad dubbing, non-existent acting, and a storyline that vaguely calls to mind the all-star Godzilla opus, Destroy All Monsters. Of course, this movie isn’t going to be executed anywhere near as skillfully as the surprisingly lackluster Destroy All Monsters. The Spanish and German peoples aren’t very well known for making monster tag-team efforts. The scariest part of all this though is that Dracula vs. Frankenstein is the fourth in a series of nine movies starring Paul Naschy as a werewolf named Waldemar Daninsky, a film character almost as well known as German legends Perry Rhoden and Dr. Mabuse. Read More »

Were this any other horror movie where the characters stood around and unconvincingly spewed forth lines and plot points while periodically swiping haplessly at oversized rubber bats suspended on wires as visible as in any Godzilla movie, I would complain about problems involving bad acting, unimaginative direction, a barely explained villain, and an actor playing the villain with such laughably exaggerated gestures and mannerisms that you wonder if he thought this was a Mel Brooks comedy and file it away as just another low budget terror flick that had neither the talent nor the inclination to be anything else. Read More »

You don’t have to go any further than the opening credits of this one to know that it’s one of the titans of film noir. Based on a novel written by James M. Cain ( The Postman Always Rings Twice), the film was directed by Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard) with a screenplay by Wilder and Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep). The only thing you may wonder about is that it stars Fred MacMurray. If you only remember Fred from his days inventing Flubber and advising My Three Sons what to do about their gender confusion, you’ll be pleasantly surprised that Fred makes a very convincing murderer, schemer, and dude who was a little too smart for his own good. Read More »

I don’t know where all the flying brains were in this movie. If you’ve got yourself an early 1950s movie about a killer brain, it either ought to fly around or have grown to gargantuan size, preferably both. The only thing the brain in this one does is sit in a bunch of dirty water in a fish aquarium! Read More »

In spite of the cool painted movie poster that this one features with its team of female commandos in form-fitting uniforms leading an assault on enemy troops while stuff is blowing up in the background and an evil looking guy looks on indifferently, I put off watching this one due to the fact that the front of the DVD proclaimed it not simply The Doll Squad, but as Ted V. Mikels’ The Doll Squad. Read More »

For those of us that grew up with a pet seal, this movie is like a welcome trip down memory lane! All of us remember the cans of salmon pilfered from the pantry. Those nights long ago when we would hook up an impromptu shower in the tool shed for our slippery friend seem just like yesterday! And I still can’t play a game of checkers without thinking about how my pet seal would always know the best move to make! I guess all that fish really is great brain food! Read More »

Back in the days before there were television miniseries that stretched out over the course of several nights, the only way to tell a really long, bloated story was to make a really long, bloated movie. These movies were called epics and they ranged from the very good like Ben-Hur, to the really awful, like Hawaii. Doctor Zhivago falls somewhere in the middle of the pack, in spite of what all the Zhivago zombies will tell you. It’s a good movie, but not great. Read More »

D.O.A. takes on its subject matter with a stark straightforwardness that literally shows the protagonist as a walking dead man. Frank Bigelow gets poisoned by some slow acting stuff that allows him to run around California for a week before croaking, all in an effort to find out who was behind his impending death. Is there a gimmick in the movies (well, short of 3-D or anything William Castle dreamed up) better than this? Shoot, is there a better metaphor for the futility of life than this? Even if the hero triumphs by solving the case, he still loses by ending up dead! All life is pain and suffering and this movie crystallizes the fact that even if you figure out why, it still doesn’t matter! You’re just as screwed! I suppose the case can be made that this movie shows us that its the struggle to understand things that is really the important thing, but I always got the impression that Frank was aggressively pursuing this case (instead of just loading up on chalupas, ice cream and Vanilla Coke until dying like I would have done) because he was pissed that someone messed up his San Francisco vacation. Read More »

It’s a tale as old as time itself! British kids are out on the marshes playing with a scarecrow when one of them puts a magic top hat on him and the next thing you know, he’s come alive, dancing and singing! Scarecrow then leads his merry band of kids on numerous adventures, teaching them valuable lessons along the way about loyalty, doing what’s right, and how to smuggle the King’s brandy without hanging for it! But alas, all good things must come to an end, and so it is with Scarecrow once spring arrives and he melts all over the swampy marshes! Or am I thinking about somebody else? Read More »

And the winner for the Medalla Sitges en Oro de Ley Award at the Catalonian International Film Festival in Sitges, Spain for Best Director of 1974 is Robert Fuest for his malpractice on the deformed sequel to The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Dr. Phibes Rises Again. In reviewing the DVD box, I note that MGM did not see fit to trumpet this triumph of Mr. Fuest. I hope that their failure to mention this award was because they knew he didn’t deserve it instead of the award being too long to fit on the back of the DVD case or simply because they had never heard of this award. And what was with this award being handed out in 1974? The movie came out two years before that! These are the laziest awards I’ve ever heard of. What’s next? Best Special Effects of 2004 to God for creating the world in seven days? Read More »

You know, I can never get enough of these movies about deranged Hong Kong taxi cab drivers banging corpses. There’s just something life affirming about knowing that our country is not the only cesspool capable of producing these animals. Besides, with China’s birth control policy, the population over there has become unbalanced, leaving lots of deranged taxi cab drivers whose best bet for a date is the streetwalker-fare they just strangled to death in the back seat of the cab. “Mother is the invention of opportunity” is probably how the rudimentary English subtitles would no doubt put it. Read More »

Dr. Jekyll And Sister Hyde is a Hammer Films remake of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic about a doctor that goes and drinks some of his own bilge water in an attempt to do some kind of experiment. Obviously, I have never read the book because, well, it’s a book, but do I have a little experience with some of the themes in this movie. I’ve watched Abbott & Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde so I think I can safely say that I’m well versed enough in the story to qualify as a “film scholar” on the subject. Read More »

The story goes (according to the two minute interview on this disc) that Franco Nero and his good buddy Nello Rossati were in Columbia shooting Alien Terminator together when they decided they should do a sequel to his classic spaghetti western Django. This must have come as a surprise to Sergio Corbucci, who made the original and wasn’t invited to join in their reindeer games, but who am I to begrudge Franco the chance to cash in on the name of Django when every single other person in the Italian film industry had already done so years ago? Read More »

Django is widely regarded as the other movie that kickstarted the entire spaghetti western genre. Coming out about two years after Clint Eastwood’s and Sergio Leone’s A Fistful Of Dollars, Django somehow was the one that actually caught on in a huge way in the foreign market (though it remained virtually unseen in America for years) and caused not only every Italian guy with access to a camera to make a new-style western, but also caused them to put Django’s name in every one of their titles whether it was actually about a guy named Django or not. Read More »

If you’re tired of Italian movies about zombies, cannibals, ancient Greeks, and cross-dressing slashers, Dial: Help provides some welcome relief in that it strives to achieve something just a little different . Striving to achieve something isn’t exactly the same as actually achieving something since the little twist put on things here is that instead of a fashion model being harassed by a guy in a wimpy beard or demented family member, she is being stalked by her telephone! Read More »

When this was released in the U.S. it was retitled The Devil’s Bride, probably because The Devil Rides Out really doesn’t make any sense, but there wasn’t any bride the devil was trying to get either. Oh, there was some wimpy looking girl that the bad guy constantly harassed but I never got the feeling that he was after anything other than just another disciple. In fact, the title is really the only lame part of this film from Hammer starring Christopher Lee. Read More »

Anytime I watch a movie and the opening credits roll by saying that it is based on a play, I cringe. If you’ve ever been to a play (and really, why would you if have anything resembling a life?) the one thing that is the hallmark of the form is that the characters talk and talk and talk some more. Read More »

When you have a successful film franchise and you’ve already churned out about fifty sequels, you want to keep it going, but you need to do something to make it seem new and exciting. I can’t believe people ever tire of seeing Godzilla laying the smack down on some lackluster monster every other year, but somebody decided the series needed a kick in the green, scaly tail because it’s time for the “all star team-up” movie. Read More »

Hundreds of years from now Earth has been devastated by an atomic war! Mutant cavemen roam the planet’s surface at will, enslaving the humans still living in the open, while the technologically advanced humans cower underground! Even worse, a gang of toughs appear, call out the underground dwellers for being the pussies they are, steal their surprisingly sexy broads, and force the pansy men to build weapons for them! Then these toughs take their keg party up top and blast the piss out of the cavemen before the head bad boy kills the leader of the cavemen, thus cementing his position as King Bad Ass! Read More »

Surprisingly, Roller Blade is not the first post-apocalyptic roller skating movie. Skatetown, U.S.A. and Roller Boogie both preceded it by a decade. And if you don’t think either of those films qualifies as post-apocalyptic, I don’t know what else you’d call one movie starring Linda Blair from the director of Truck Stop Women and another featuring (deep breath!) Patrick Swayze, Flip Wilson, Ruth Buzzi, Horshack, Marcia Brady, Scott Baio, and some chick from Little House On The Prairie! Read More »

Is there anything better in life than watching scrappy American G.I.s outwit bumbling Nazis in WWII? Outmanned and outgunned against the German war machine, only unshaven dogfaces stand between freedom and a world where everyone would have to speak the ugliest language on the planet. Besides, can you imagine the humiliation of being ruled by the Italians of all people? Read More »

I don’t talk about it much because it’s pretty sacred and all, but I’m part Indian. And let me tell you, that part of me loved every minute of Desert Kickboxer! The alternately touching and thrilling story of Indian half-breed Joe Mullethawk grabbed me by the hair, threatening to scalp my very head with its doublecrosses, flashbacks, fighting, and yes, it’s loving! Writer/director Isaac Florentine (Savate, Cold Harvest) knows that no man is more manly than when he’s being haunted by the demons of his kickboxing past! Or when he’s using the tale of his haunted past to bang some purty squaw who’s on the run from a drug kingpin! Read More »

The venerable Demons series of movies reaches the much sought-after milestone of numero six with this entry in a series of movies that are related only in that they are all really awful movies from Italian gore directors. I think it’s safe to assume that your reaction to a Demons 6 movie is the same as mine was when I hungrily plunked my $25 down to Midnight Video for this wholly “unofficial” DVD-R release: uh, so I guess this means that somewhere in the eighties there was a Demons 3, 4, and 5? Read More »

Let’s get the obligatory explanation of where this fits in to the Demons mythos out of the way: it doesn’t. It bears no relation to Demons, Demons 2 or Demons 4. I’ve never met anyone alive that has ever seen Demons 5 and as far as Demons 6 goes, I suppose this one bears a passing resemblance to it in that they are both hampered by inept female leads. Of course Demons 6 didn’t have the star of House By The Cemetery backing her up like this one does! As Tom, this guy excels at slapping his wife Cheryl around and belittling her writing career and mental problems! And he’s not even the ogre! Read More »

Those of you who were sitting through Demons 6 and wondering when it was that the whole Demons franchise went down the crapper only have to try and sit through the wretched Demons 2 to realize that it all started its horrifyingly fast downward spiral with its very first movie. You see, as you attempt to make heads or tails of what is transpiring in this mess, the one thing you’ll be able to figure out is that it’s pretty much the same movie as the first Demons movie, but much, much worse. In fact, you’ll start cataloging what’s wrong with Demons 2 and come to the conclusion that all those things were wrong with Demons as well. Read More »

I’m not sure what’s scarier: the fact that Demons is often hailed as Lamberto Bava’s masterpiece or the fact that Lamberto Bava has a masterpiece at all. Lamberto is the son of Italian legend Mario Bava and if nothing else, he should be recognized for not letting a lack of talent get in the way of his drive to make movies. Once his dad died, Lamberto was free to begin cranking out awful movies in earnest. So it was that we were witnesses to Monster Shark, A Blade In The Dark, and Delirium, all films that serve only to make us appreciate the relatively painless experience that Demons is. Read More »

We continue our tour through the later portions of Lucio Fulci’s career (see also Aenigma, Sodoma’s Ghost and Zombi 3 for example) which is probably comparable to the tour you get from a colonoscopy, at least in the sense that you’re having something stuck up your butt. Lucio only made two more films after this one and I realize now how much we lost when he went and croaked on us in 1996. Can you imagine how bad the movies would be if he were still alive and making them today? Read More »

Nine months after Richard Burton was harassed into becoming a Christian by a red beach towel in The Robe, Hollywood decided it was time to take Jesus’ favorite outfit out of mothballs for another go around and sicced Demetrius And The Gladiators on us. Since this whole Christian thing worked out so well for Burton and co-star Jean Simmons (you might recall they ended up on the wrong end of the archery field at the end of the last episode), it was left to Victor Mature to run around squawking about this robe and how it can just butt out of his life when things get rough. Read More »

This one basically boils down to a story of a boy and his blankie. Now, it’s a very important blankie, but still a blankie nonetheless. In this case the guy is Richard Burton and he develops a fetish for the robe that Jesus wore up on the cross. I’m a fairly strong Christian around Easter time and such, but I wasn’t really familiar with this story from the Good Book. They might have had to leave it out of the Classics Illustrated Bible that I regularly consult when I don’t like what my horoscope says, so my ignorance is really not only understandable, but probably expected. Read More »

I thought I was watching a douche commercial when this movie began. With its shot of two people on a beach and its cloying “These Are The Best Times” song playing in the background, I assumed that a regular dosing of Superdad was going to refresh my most secret of places. Sadly though, I was left with that not so fresh feeling and even more incredibly, by the time Superdad complains to his daughter at her wedding that he smells, I was wishing that this was a douche commercial! Read More »

This time all our school buses loaded with the Shah of Iran’s stolen gold come home! Genial special forces operative and all around killing machine Johnny Hondo has only been back home at his Montana ranch for a month following a daytime rescue mission (during which he was inexplicably dressed in black) in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan when his country comes calling again! General Ross (John Vernon, forever known as Dean Wormer from Animal House) tells Johnny that his father, General Hondo, is dying in Washington! A deathbed conversation is quickly arranged for the Hondos and the General sends his son on one final explosive suicide mission! Read More »

Would it make me a lazy oaf to call this movie Dullta Farce Commandope Boo? Maybe, maybe not, but it would most definitely make a liar out of me! Everything about Delta Force Commando II is twice what Delta Force Commando was! Twice as less action from Fred “The Hammer” Williamson! Twice the use of the same locations as War Bus Commando! Twice the confusing, bland, and poorly staged intrigue! And much more than two times as many scenes of Battlestar Galatica legend Richard Hatch over-emoting to the point of unintentional parody! Read More »

Does it make me a bad person if as soon as I saw the pregnant Mrs. Delta Force Commando, I was hoping she would be viciously murdered? I suppose I should explain. When you’re Delta Force Commando and have retired from the Delta Force for a military desk job, you’re always going to be yearning for some good old-fashioned black ops/plausible deniability mission that sees you slitting throats, blowing up choppers, and generally destabilizing unfriendly Third World governments. I know making sure the Puerto Rican base you’re stationed at maintains its inventory of staplers and paper clips is also an important part of American national security, but the rush you get from counting boxes of copy toner isn’t quite the same as diving out of exploding jeeps. Read More »

This is another one of those giallo movies from Italy. My Italian is about as rusty as my recall of this movie, but roughly translated, giallo means “Italian slasher movie with noxiously bad heavy metal music substituting for suspense.” This time it’s directed by Lamberto Bava (Demons, A Blade In The Dark) and if this film is any indication, he managed to inherit only his last name from his famous father. Read More »

The Intruder Within unsurprisingly accomplishes less than Alien, which it relentlessly rips off for its 90 minutes. But The Intruder Within accomplishes all this failure with less resources! Alien, with its R rating, could have alien parasites busting out of stomachs and cyborgs going haywire and needing to be destroyed. With its theatrical budget it could afford to design a sinister atmosphere with its creepy sets and inspired creature designs. The TV movie market of the early 1980s being what it was, The Intruder Within could only afford a junior varsity version of the alien, could almost give you a glimpse of a little blood, and had to imply the possessed crew member raped another just as the film went dark for a commercial break. It’s blue collar origins were perfectly illustrated with its oil rig setting. That and they traded in Sigourney Weaver for Jennifer Warren. Read More »

I’ve never really gotten too hyper about the fact that we’re paving over the Everglades down in Florida or Timbuktu or wherever. About once every six to eight weeks, the news will interrupt their coverage about what a crappy country America is to do one of those pinko stories about how the environment is threatened by strip malls and amusement parks and I’m thinking that we’ve got enough skeeters and weeds and that we could use another TCBY and check cashing place. Besides, if Disney or Universal want to add another roller coaster or log ride to make some kid happier, who are we to tell them they can’t? Isn’t this country for the young? Don’t we care about their future? Do we really want them to grow up in a country without the fastest, tallest, and bitchingest thrill rides? Read More »

They killed his favorite prostitute! They framed him for her murder! Sent to prison where he must learn to survive using only the skills that have made him the single best kickboxer in all of southeast Asia, Jack Dammeron’s life is about to get much worse! His attorney, the very best legal beagle in all of southeast Asia is none other than his wife! Can she put aside her irritation with Jack for screwing hookers on business trips while he’s too self-centered to agree to have children with her to get an acquittal? But her life is about to get much worse! She turns out to be pregnant! And the only way out of this serpentine mess is through the most dreaded of all competitions! Deathfight! Read More »