Stark Raving Mad (2002)
I have to admit that I didn't have high hopes for this one. It's nice
to be pleasantly surprised once in a while and what I thought was going to be a
paint by numbers action flick turned out to be a cool indie heist
flick. Seann William Scott is a long way 
from Stifler starring as Ben
McGewen, a small time hood who is putting on a rave in a space that happens to
be right next door to a bank. While the rave is going on upstairs, Ben's
crew is breaking into the bank vault by going through a wall in the
basement. The whole thing becomes a comedy of errors as everything that
can go wrong does and Ben has to try and hold it all together or else he will
face certain death from a badass gangster named Gregory (Lou Diamond Phillips
with some crazy platinum blonde hair). While this could have gone into
standard action territory or silly comedy territory, it didn't and ended up
thoroughly enjoyable. The supporting cast was awesome with Timm Sharp as
the sidekick, Suzi Nakamura as the cranky techie, John Crye as the rocker pyro
guy, Patrick Breen ("Galaxy Quest") as the nerdy safecracker, Dave
Foley ("Kids In The Hall") as the creepy FBI guy, Monet Mazur
("Torque") as Ben's tease, and Reagan Dale Neis as the hot raver chick
who likes to play truth or dare. A great techno soundtrack kept the film
at a fast pace and added to the tension. There were a number of funny set
pieces that were restrained enough to keep a sense of reality going rather than
put the film into slapstick territory. This was a perfect mix of black
comedy and action that was like a cross between a Tarantino movie and a Kevin
Smith movie. Look for Adam Arkin in a small role as the club owner who
starts out like Tony Montana and ends up looking like Marsellus Wallace would
have had the gimp actually had his way.
Project Viper (2002)
I wasn't expecting much from this direct to video action flick. I would
not have even picked it up had I not known that this was directed by Jim
Wynorski under a pseudonym. Patrick Muldoon ("Starship
Troopers") stars a Mike Connors, a sarcastic, cool guy voiced cop who is
brought in to recover a science project that has gone bad. It seems as
though a couple of aliens have come to earth and cloned a scientist to steal a
top secret creature that was developed to live on Mars. Naturally, the
creature is soon on the loose and Patrick has to team up with the main scientist
(Theresa Russell) and her team to contain the creature before it consumes too
many humans. The only clue that our heroes have to our CG-villain's
whereabouts is a metallic snail trail and piles of human
guts. I have to admit that the main attraction for me on this flick was to
see the Bronson Caves that I had recently visited in Los Angeles but I did not
mind spending the time watching this story play out. Muldoon was fun and
supporting roles were played by Tim Thomerson ("Near Dark"), Curtis
Armstrong (Booger from "Revenge Of The Nerds"), John Beck (who I have
not seen since "Audrey Rose" and the original "Rollerball"), and
the lovely Lorissa McComas. Thomerson and Beck both made me feel old as
they are really starting to show their age (maybe it's because I recently
watched "Fade To Black" and "Rollerball"). Something I
found really weird about this movie is that entire sequences are lifted from
other movies. These scenes include a car driving down a hill stunt from
"Species" and big plane landing scene from "Air
America". These scenes were stolen and used like stock footage.
I don't remember the last time I saw that other than when Roger Corman was
'borrowing' from his own movies.
Moonraker (1979)
I believe this was my first Bond film and therefore it will always hold a
special place in my heart. That said, "Moonraker" is also the
most absurd of the Bond films with Bond ending up in outer space and making
friends with his enemies. The tone of the film is the lightest of the
series and it times it felt more like a sci-fi parody than a spy thriller with
obvious references to "Alien" and "Close Encounters Of The Third
Kind". This film was the fourth film from the Roger Moore era and
with this script he didn't have much of a choice other than to play it for the
one-liners and the charming smiles. I can see how many people complain
that Moore was a sissy compared to Connery after seeing this flick but I still
can't say I hated it. At the beginning of the film, the space shuttle 'Moonraker'
is hijacked and it is up to Bond to get it back. The trail begins with a
space-obsessed filthy rich bearded man named Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale) who is
clearly the villain from the first scene where we meet him. Bond then
travels from California to Italy to Brazil to space in his adventures and along
the way runs into the usual gang of henchmen and beautiful women. The main
action set pieces include a gondola chase in the canals of Venice, a fight atop
a cable car in Rio, a jump out of an airplane without a parachute, and a final
battle that reminded me of the underwater battle from "Thunderball"
set in space. The Bond girls include Corinne Clery ("The Story Of
O", "Hitch Hike") and Lois Chiles ("Creepshow
2"). This also marks the return of Richard Kiel as the gigantic
villain named Jaws who seems more like Wil. E. Coyote than a menacing
brute. As a Bond film, this is like the black sheep of the franchise due
to it's sheer demand of our suspension of disbelief but as a campy action flick,
it is a lot of fun. If you, like me, are a "Friday The 13th" fan
who enjoyed "Jason X", then you have the mindset to be able to like
"Moonraker".
Death Ship (1980)
Like a bad cruise, this one started off promising enough but by the end, I
could not wait for it to be over. Richard Crenna ("First Blood")
stars as Trevor Marshall, the first mate on a cruise liner that gets rammed by a
large abandoned Nazi ship. The only remaining survivors of the cruise ship
are Trevor, his wife and two kids, a comedian, the second mate, his girlfriend,
and the captain of the cruise liner (George Kennedy). They soon come
across the lonely Nazi vessel and board it as it is better than a life
raft. Strange things begin to happen including the cameraman having zero
control when he is in the engine room which results in crazy pans and zooms
whenever the camera sees the giant pistons. It was like watching a Jess
Franco documentary on steam power while on speed. While this is going on,
captain George inexplicably becomes possessed by the ship and takes the
helm. He also runs around all crazy-like, kills the woman who is taking
care of him, and has delusions that it is his ship and that no one should
leave. This movie showed a lot of promise in the first half hour with the
ship being effectively creepy and the poltergeist-like occurrences being quite
unsettling. When George flew off the handle, though, the whole tone of the
film went overboard and became a messy mish-mash of annoying sound effects, Nazi
overdubs, flash forwards, and ceaseless ranting by our old disaster movie
staple. There was a pretty cool shower scene though with Victoria Burgoyne
as the lovely lady whose ends up being much messier than when she starts.
Look for character actor Saul Rubinek as the annoying comic and Nick Mancuso as
the ill-fated stud who ends up like a dolphin in a net full of corpses.
Cult movie maestro Jack Hill co-wrote the story.
The Student Nurses
(1970)
My computer crashed so this is now my second time writing this review.
How bloody annoying. I felt compelled to rewrite this as I did find it to
be a surprisingly good entry into the sexploitation genre and had a script that
went beyond the usual tits and ass. We have four nurses with
different personalities who are all living together in early 70's California and
trying to make their way through nursing school. My favorite nurse was
Lynn (Brioni Farrell). Lynn is a little misguided at the beginning of the
film seeming to be unsure of what she wants to do but she soon finds her niche
with a group of Hispanic rebels who want to take on the 'man' and will use
whatever means
necessary. Lynn becomes something between a paramedic and a
mob doctor to this group. She is the rebel nurse. Next we have
Sharon (Elaine Giftos) who spends much of the movie caring for a terminal
patient named Greg. Sharon is also the only nurse who spends a substantial
amount of time in the hospital and she doesn't really get into any
trouble. Sharon is the nurturing nurse. The third nurse of the group
is Phred (Karen Carlson). Although Phred seems to be the typical dumb
blonde at the beginning of the picture, we discover that that is a front and she
is actually the prude of the bunch who seems to have a problem with everything
(including turning the lights off during lovemaking). Phred is the
unsatisfied nurse. Finally we have Priscilla (Barbara Leigh) who is the most interesting
of the gang. Among other things she hooks up with a drug dealer, drops
acid, has unprotected sex on the beach, gets pregnant, has an abortion, and
never wears a bra. My kind of girl! Priscilla is the bad girl
nurse. Those looking for an abundance of nudity and sex will be
disappointed but if you are looking for an exploitation movie that is more
engaging than most of this genre then check this out. Carlson was married
to David Soul ("Starsky And Hutch") when this was filmed and Leigh
later married Timothy Leary. The leader of the rebels was played by Reni
Santoni who is still working these days with recent roles in Howard Stern's
"Private Parts" and in the Sandra Bullock alcoholic movie "28
Days". Also look for character actor Pepe Serna ("Scarface")
in his film debut as the rebel who gets shot in the alley.
Horror Of Dracula
(1958)
This one solidifies the fact the to me that Christopher Lee is the coolest
Dracula. The way he talks and moves personifies the ultimate gothic
villain in a way that the others have gotten parts of but not the whole
package. The film starts with Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) arriving
at Dracula's castle to catalogue his library. Unbeknownst to the count,
the real reason that Harker is there is to slay the vampire. Harker is
soon introduced to a hot vampire babe (Valerie Gaunt) who bites him and
unfortunately Harker's days are numbered very quickly. Enter Dr. Van
Helsing (Peter Cushing). Now this is what I have always pictured Van
Helsing as. Maybe it is because of all of the horror movie books I flipped
through as a kid that are buried in my subconscious or maybe it is because this is
the role that Cushing is best known for but this guy was cool, courageous, and
confident. No pansy-ass Hugh Jackman pretty boy posing here, kids.
Cushing was the real deal and, like Lee as Dracula, is pretty much
irreplaceable. We also have Michael Gough as Arthur, a proper gent who
becomes Cushing's sidekick when the women in his life start to develop
fangs. Gough was later cast as Alfred by Tim Burton in the
"Batman" movies. "Horror Of Dracula" was the first in
the series of Dracula movies for Hammer Films. Cushing returned to
his role in 1960 with "The Brides Of Dracula" but Lee didn't don the
cape again until 1966 with "Dracula: Prince Of Darkness". Hammer
only reunited the pair as Van Helsing and Dracula in "Dracula A.D.
1972" and "The Satanic Rites Of Dracula" in the 70's.
Speck (2002)
Yet another disappointment from the recent brigade of serial killer docu-dramas.
Out of the tales of Gein, Bundy, Ramirez, and Speck that I have seen recently,
the only one I kind of enjoyed was "Ed Gein". Speck had all the
makings of a tense and disturbing story as this guy went into a house that eight
young nurses shared and proceeded to kill them one by one. In addition to
killing them he also raped a few of them and held the others bound and gagged in
a bedroom waiting for their turn. Somehow, the filmmakers managed to make
this into a boring, unsuspenseful, wannabe art film that looked more like an
uncut TV movie. The constant use of close-ups, slow motion, focus
adjustments, and funky camera angles made for an annoying experience that
completely took away from the mood of the film. Add to that the choppy
sound design that consisted of voice over, mismatched dialogue, sound effects
that were too loud, and a score that was distracting and you have a movie where
you are just waiting for an ending. I also didn't like the script which had
Speck quickly fall into a routine of kill, go to the washroom to clean up with
an annoying voice over accompaniment, change your shirt into another of your
endless supply, then repeat process eight times. It's too bad, this could
have been a good one. Two of the victims as well as a non-victim nurse
were also in "Hell Asylum". Also on board from "Hell
Asylum" was makeup artist Mark Bautista complete with his lackluster gore
effects. It seemed like this was factually
quite accurate but the filmmakers seemed to be trying to make the budget look
way higher than it was. The low budget was especially evident in the
scenes shot outside the house such as the hospital and the bar. Maybe they should check out something like
"If I Die Before I Wake" and they can see what a good low budget
trapped-in-the-house-with-a-killer movie looks like.
Pinata: Survival Island
(2002)
I had high hopes for this one as it is the sibling team of David and Scott
Hillenbrand's follow up to the bad but entertaining "King
Cobra". Unfortunately, this one was a CG-fest that took a cool idea
and a creature created by the Chiodo brothers and turned it into a laughable
travesty that had me keep checking if my X-Box was crossing signals with my DVD
player. A group of college students led by Jaime Pressly and Nicholas
Brendon (from the "Buffy" TV show) arrive on an island a la
"Survivor" to participate in a scavenger hunt. They are
handcuffed together in couples and let loose on the island to collect as many
pairs of underwear as they can before nightfall. Soon into the hunt one of
the couples smoke some ganja and break open a possessed pinata that gets really
pissed and proceeds to slaughter the students. This is all great for the
first little bit as the evil pinata takes it upon himself to get a little
revenge for pinatas the world over by beating the insides out of some
humans. Things take a turn for the worse, however, as the pinata gains
strength and for some reason the Hillenbrand brothers decide to have a silly
looking computer generated monster flying around the island therefore
killing the movie for me. It was like seeing a cross between the Scorpion
King debacle at the end of "The Mummy Returns" crossed with a low
budget predator looking like an orphan from the a Nintendo 64 game. I hate
to be so hard on this but there were so many annoying POV shots and way too much
fake looking monster on the screen to hold my interest. This is sad
because I think had they gone with practical creature effects, it could have
been a pretty good monster movie as the Hillenbrand's clearly have a sense of
what it takes to make an entertaining movie but for some reason they felt
compelled to go over the top with the CG and thus create a dud. There were
a few good kills including a couple of juicy head bashings, a penis ripping, and
a nasty ripped-in-half aftermath effect. If the decapitation hadn't been
CG, it probably would have been pretty juicy as well. This is a great
example of why I hate computer effects because I clearly see the potential and
talent was there. The practical pinata was played by Ed Gale who was also
in the suit for "Howard The Duck" and "Child's Play" 1 and
2.
The Case Of The Bloody
Iris (1971)
There is a lot to look at in this lesser known giallo. For starters, we
have some beautiful women with the striking features of Edwige Fenech leading the
pack. Fenech is one of those 70's European women that captivates you from
the moment you first 
see her. In this case, the effect is even greater as
we are introduced to her when she is wearing only body paint. The film
opens with a stabbing in an elevator. The police begin to investigate this
murder and the film quickly moves along to a gentleman's club where one of the
murder witnesses makes her living by challenging men to try and 'make it' with
her and beating them up in the process. By being both a cock tease and
then humiliating the men, it is no surprise that she is the next person to end
up dead in the same apartment building as our stabbing victim. The movie
then follows the basic giallo structure by introducing a number of suspects,
showing some skin, showing some blood, and building up to the ending which you
may or may not have figured out. The great thing about the genre is that
when the movie is good, it does play like a good mystery novel and keeps you
guessing up until the bitter end. Although I found "The Case Of The
Bloody Iris" to be quite engaging, I have to say that I was not too
surprised by the finale and I had figured out most of what was happening on my
own. This is usually very difficult in this genre. Overall, this one
was nice to look at with the 70's set dec and the babes and was entertaining,
but it was just not in the caliber of classic films like "What Have You
Done To Solange?" and "Deep Red".
The Initiation (1984)
It would have been nice if more time was spent killing kids in a mall instead
of the psychobabble that dominated this film. Daphne Zuniga ("The
Sure Thing") plays her usual uptight character who always looks like she is
about to yawn. Watching this girl in a movie usually makes me tired
especially when the plot isn't doing much for me. Zuniga stars as Kelly,
an out of place looking sorority sister who is trying to figure out her
nightmares while preparing for her sorority initiation which involves kidnapping
a security guard in her father's department store in the middle of the
night. Unfortunately, they do not even get to the fucking mall until after
the halfway point where I had completely lost all interest in the
characters. The only thing that kept me going in the first half hour was a
small performance from Clu Gulager ("Return Of The Living Dead") who
was the only actor who seemed to be trying. After he is dispatched quite
quickly I waited patiently for something to happen and was briefly rewarded with
some full frontal nudity courtesy of Deborah Morehart (now a born again
Christian soap star named Hunter Tylo). The initiation finally began and
we are given a few quick kills including an arrow through the chest and a
hatchet in the head. All said the gore was not terribly impressive and
many questions were left unanswered culminating in one of the lamest endings I
have seen in recent memory. You can't win them all and we all know that
for every "Slumber Party Massacre" there has to be an
"Initiation" to balance things out. Also starring Marilyn Kagen
("Foxes") as the curly haired goody goody who was raped by her violin
teacher, Vera Miles (a long way from "Psycho") as Kelly's mom, Patti
Heider as a Nurse Ratched wannabe, and Peter Malof as a gay sounding tennis
playing loser. There is also a horrible band with a singing drummer, a
poster of Tom Selleck, and some guy who dresses up like a penis at a costume
party.
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