Category: Review

Janie

  By

★★★
“Janie hasn’t got a gun. But that won’t stop her…”

janie ad matThis grindhouse obscurity manages to rise above the limitations of its budget, and proves an effectively nasty piece of work. The titular teenage “heroine” (Carpenter) is on the way to see her older lover, but embarks as well on a killing spree that first includes a classmate and the guy who picks them up, then a householder (Michael Findlay) whose swimming pool Janie hijacks, before moving onto a predatory lesbian and finally her lover’s girlfriend (Roberta Findlay), whom she strangles with a belt. This is all told in flashback as she tells the story to her disbelieving bedmate – though the corpse he discovers in the bath-tub rapidly changes his mind. Oh, and did I forget to mention, for extra sleaze points, he is also Janie’s daddy? Damn. All of her exploits are accompanied by narration from what could be seen as an ancestor of Dexter’s “dark passenger”, exhorting Janie to further murderous acts, in a placid and matter-of-fact tone that is actually all the more chilling for its calmness.

While credited to Bravman, there was definite creative input from the husband-and-wife partnership of the Findlays, both in front of and behind the camera. Bravman says Michael “helped” direct a number of scenes, though insists he was in charge overall. And as well as her on-screen role, Roberta also provided the narration and shot the film under her pseudonym, Anna Riva. The Findlays would go on to achieve worldwide notoriety for their 1976 film, the purportedly real Snuff, before Michael was killed in a rooftop helicopter accident the next year. The film appears to be Carpenter’s only movie, though reports indicate she was the director’s girlfriend, whose real name was Linda, and she was not a natural blonde, as depicted here – the early, failed efforts involving wigs account for some of the woeful continuity present here. She’s not a bad actress, though isn’t asked to do much more here than alternate between psychotic and cute; it’s the narration and overall sleazy feel that are mostly responsible for making this flesh-crawlingly effective.

Make no mistake: this is cheaply-made, with all the killings save the last (because you don’t need much to fake a strangulation) thoroughly unconvincing and lacking in impact. And for a grindhouse film of the era, it’s actually kinda tame, with less nudity than you’d see in a typical Game of Thrones episode [this runs 65 mins, so isn’t much longer either!]. Still, this is such a nastily twisted piece of work, it can only be admired as such, and is a fine example of how low-budget and independent film-making can go places mainstream cinema would never dare venture.

Dir: Jack Bravman
Star: Mary Jane Carpenter, Roberta Findlay, Peer St. Jean, Michael Findlay

Prehistoric Bimbos in Armageddon City

  By

★★
“Video sleeve not relevant to movie inside”

prehistoricIt’s hard to be critical of a film for being cheap, when the movie is not only aware of its own cheapness, but wears this on its sleeve like a badge of honour. “So what if I’m made entirely by amateurs with their pocket-money,” it seems to be saying. “We didn’t care, so why the hell should you?” I could list all the flaws here – crappy sound, low-quality video, acting your local amateur dramatic group would reject, awful use of stock classical music that would make Gustav Holst spin in his grave – but its response would simply be “…and your point is?” In the interests of space, let’s largely take those aspects as thoroughly read, and get on with the rest of our review. The setting is Chicago, and far from Armageddon having hit, it looks pretty much like the city we know – trains run in the background, for example. There is some introductory guff, which is hardly convincing, and nor is there anything particular “Prehistoric” about the leading ladies here, beyond a bit of fur trim.

You’d certainly be forgiven if confusion set in through a first ten minutes that can only be described as incoherent. There is a pretty good reason for this, however, in that it’s actually a quick rehash of Sheets’ previous film, Bimbos B.C., which leads into the story here. It’s relevant, as the predecessor was (apparently) mostly concerned with the search through Armageddon City by our heroines for an antidote so one of their number can be cured after being nibbled by one of the local monsters. This brought them into conflict with Salacious Thatch (Bernier), whom they defeated and apparently killed. Whoa, not quite so fast, ladies. He actually survived, being outfitted with a cyborg arm by Nemesis (Vollrath), and kidnaps the bimbos from a foraging mission under temporary leader, Gabrielle (Starr), enslaving them in his mine [Quite what they are digging for in Chicago, I’m not sure. Deep-pan pizza, possibly] But there’s trouble up above, as Thatch is seeking a return to power, now held by Nemesis…

As noted above, it’s practically critic-proof in many aspects, because it just doesn’t care. I will note my disappointment that during the second half in particular, it focuses far more on Thatch + Nemesis than our heroines. In particular, there’s a long chase which starts out in cars, downgrades to pedal bikes, and ends up on skateboards. It’s not as amusing as Sheets thinks. But I have to say, the “home made” robots are quite lovely, truly evoking the B-movie spirit apparently being aimed for. Without a strong tolerance for micro-budget cinema, this is quite probably unwatchable. Even with such, this feels like it overstays its welcome, even at less than 70 minutes.

Dir: Todd Sheets
Star: Holly Starr, Robert Vollrath, Deric Bernier, Veronica Orr

Lust for Freedom

  By

★½
“Lust Highway”

lustforfreedomUndercover cop Gillian Kaites (Coll) needs a break from the force after an operation goes wrong, with her boyfriend and fellow cop being gunned down in front of her. She goes on a road-trip, but has the misfortune to go through a town where the local cops are in league with the prison to arrest fetching young ladies on fabricated charges. They can then be shipped off to jail and… Well, the script is kinda vague on the specific purpose behind this, clearly quite significant, operation involving a large number of people and no small effort. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, and presume the ends, whatever they may be, justify the means. Gillian ends up framed for drug possession, and has to survive against brutal guards, brutal fellow prisoners and matron Mrs. Puskar (Trevor) – in the interests of sustaining suspense, I will avoid revealing whether or not she is brutal. Eventually, the brutality on display becomes too much, and she leads the inmates in a revolt against their cruel captors. In other words: women in prison plot 3A.

It’s not a genre which naturally is at home here: whether it qualifies, depends on the approach taken with the heroine as much as anything. How pro-active and action-oriented is she? It’s really a judgment call, but in this case, Coll is physical enough to qualify, and there are a couple of other elements that just about push this into the fringes of our territory. Most obviously, is the lengthy pro-style wrestling match between two inmates, at the behest of Puskar. It’s notable, because one of the participants is actual pro wrestler Dee ‘Queen Kong’ Booher, who was part of the GLOW franchiseas ‘Matilda the Hun’ (a name shamelessly stolen from Death Race 2000), and at 6’4″, certainly deserves the name. Kaites also professes to possess some close-combat abilities, befitting her role as a cop – which she, curiously, never mentions during her incarceration – and uses these to defend herself.

The downside is, this isn’t very good in most aspects, ranging from the overuse of voice-over, clearly as a penny-pinching tactic to avoid the rigours of sync sound recording, through a godawful soundtrack consisting largely of two songs by eighties hair-metal band Grim Reaper (in the film’s defense, it actually was the eighties), to the performance of the lead. This is Coll’s only credit ever, according to the IMDB, and you can understand why. Compared to, say, the Female Convict Scorpion films which were my last dip into the field, it’s positively chaste, outside of a lesbian scene between scream queen Michelle Bauer and porn starlet Summer Breeze. So you have something which is neither tongue in cheek, nor excessive, nor well-acted or filmed. Kinda hard to work out what the point actually is. Great poster though…

Dir: Eric Louzil
Star: Melanie Coll, William J. Kulzer, Judi Trevor, Elizabeth Carlisle

Raven Hawk

  By

★★★
“But is it Raven Hawk or Ravenhawk? “

ravenhawkThe sleeve and the IMDB seem to differ. Either way… In 1979, young Native American Rhyia Shadowfeather is forced to watch as her parents, opposed to the building of an industrial plant on native land, are killed in front of her. Rhyia, sent catatonic by the shock, is framed for the murders and sent to an asylum. 12 years later, the van transferring her to another facility crashes, and the adult Rhyia (McLish) is presumed killed. Except, of course, she’s still alive, and seizes the chance to extract vengeance on those responsible, who have profited from the plant, which was constructed after the opposition was disposed of, and is now belching pollution into the environment. Top of the food chain there is Philip Thorne (Atherton), but on Rhyia’s trail is federal marshal Del Wilkes (Enos), who may be on thin ice, investigating on the reservation.

McLish is a former bodybuilder, who was a two-time Ms. Olympia, and was featured in Pumping Iron II: The Women. Pyun seems to have something of a “thing” for those – see also Sue Price in Nemesis 4, but at least McLish doesn’t the same neo-alien look to her. Chiseled out of stone, certainly, but cinematographer George Mooradian does a good job of simply making her look fit. Indeed, credit Mooradian for a film that looks an awful lot better than most TV movies, taking full advantage of the spectacular landscapes and scenery (both physical and biological!). Some of it was shot here in Arizona, in and around Page, most notably the Glen Canyon Dam Bridge from which one of her targets topples; it’s a long way down, since the bridge was the highest arch bridge in the world when it was completed in the late fifties.

Probably wisely, the script doesn’t give McLish many lines, leaving the chat to the rest of the cast, a solid bunch of character actors, including Mitch Pileggi (The X Files). The story generally works well, the villains growing steadily more and more disturbed as the body count grows, Shadowfeather apparently able to vanish like a ghost. It is a little heavy on the “tormented and put-upon Indians” angle – yeah, I get it, give them a casino or something and let’s all move on. Disappointingly, Shadowfeather is also robbed of her ultimate vengeance, a strange scripting decision that significantly devalues everything which has gone before. However, it remains generally solid, and you’re left with a vague sense of disappointment that McLish didn’t keep on with the action flicks. She’s certainly no worse here than a certain other body-builder was, in his early genre efforts.

Dir: Albert Pyun
Star: Rachel McLish, John Enos III, Ed Lauter, William Atherton

Modesty Blaise (TV pilot)

  By

★½
“Modesty blasé“

modestyblaise1982It seems that around every two decades, someone decides it’d be a good idea to adapt Modesty Blaise. First up, in 1966 was a wretchedly camp adaptation, so bad I can’t bring myself to watch it again, starring Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp. In 2003, there was My Name is Modesty, which was a good deal better, but appears to have been a quickie intended to allow Miramax to hang onto their rights to the character. In the middle, dating from 1982, ABC took a shot at creating a TV series inspired by Peter O’Donnell’s anti-heroine, but it never went further than this 50-minute pilot. In it, Modesty (Turkel) and her trusty if no longer Cockney sidekick, Willie Garvin (Van Bergen), rescue a student from an attempted abduction. Turns out, she’s the last piece in activating a cryptographic device, that Debbie DeFarge (Seymour) intends to use to crack the stock-market. Federal intelligence agent Gerald Tarrant (Curtis) requests Modesty’s help to recover the device, so she and Willie head down to Mexico to stop DeFarge’s evil plan.

I think the kindest thing you can say about this is, maybe it made more sense in 1982. This certainly isn’t the Modesty I imagined, one whose history on the streets may be in the past, but is never entirely buried beneath the surface. Turkel is striking enough visually, and I was amused to see her rip open her skirts, the better to fight villains, but she doesn’t have any kind of edge or darkness to her character. That’s somewhat understandable – after all, American network television in the early eighties was hardly renowned for pushing the envelope – but, why bother adopting Modesty Blaise if you want something so utterly bland and neutered? Van Bergen is even more mis-cast: when writing the script for the original film, O’Donnell said he was thinking of Michael Caine as the ideal actor for the role, who is about as far from Van Bergen as imaginable.

After the moderately exciting opening, there is an awful lot of sitting around and chatting, whether it’s in Modesty’s house, or after they’ve been captured by Defarge’s minions (including renowned pro wrestler, Professor Toru Tanaka). The final five minutes sees a brief flurry of activity, as they try to stop the computer from executing Defarge’s buy and sell orders – though the computer in question resembles, in shape and size, a washing machine rather more than anything you’d see in a finance house these days. The cutting-edge technology shown here has not aged well either, with Blaise able to rescue the Western financial world by picking up another phone connected to the same line, thereby disrupting the device’s ability to communicate. Yeah, that degree of planning is not exactly going to get Defarge honored by the Supervillains Academy. Wikipedia claims Sparks wrote the theme song, but that definitely isn’t them on the pilot, and I suspect their version was for a different, unconnected attempt to adapt the show.

Should you be interested, I’ve embedded a video copy of the show below. Not great quality, but I can’t say even watching this on Blu-Ray would make it bearable. Roll on 2021 or so, and the next scheduled adaptation. We know Quentin Tarantino’s a fan, and Neil Gaiman as well, with the latter having written an unmade script based on I, Lucifer. Maybe the fourth time will be the charm.

Dir: Reza Badigi
Star: Ann Turkel, Lewis Van Bergen, Keene Curtis, Carolyn Seymour

Fugitive at 17

  By

★★½
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Lifetime TVM version)”

fugitiveat17Holly (Avgeropoulos, best known for her role in post-apocalypse series The 100) is a high-school hacker in Philadelphia, convinced against her better judgment to attend a college party with her best friend. These doubts prove amply justified, as her friend ends up dead, after being dosed with drugs by slimy sex offender Spencer Oliphant (Van Dien), and Holly is blamed, with no-one believing in Oliphant’s existence – it’s doesn’t help that the two girls were on probation for an earlier pharmaceutical incident. On her way to jail, other prisoners in Holly’s van are busted out, and Holly also goes on the lam with the help of Dan (Rindress-Kay), intent on tracking down Oliphant and exposing him as the real culprit. Hot on her trail is Detective Cameron Langford (Cox), who wants Holly to come in before she makes things worse for herself, but has to deal with problems of her own, because the dead girl was the daughter of a major contributor to the mayor’s campaign.

Holly makes for an interesting character, even though Avgeropoulos is way too old to be playing a teenager, being the best part of a decade older than the alleged high-school student. Mind you, with Van Dien drooling all over her, that’s probably for the best. While the film does specifically indicate she has no parents, and is, in fact, also taking care of her sick grandmother, there isn’t the necessary intensity to convince me that Holly could survive on her own. It’d also have been cool to have had her make more use of her technological skills to track down Olyphant, perhaps destroying his life in the same way that he destroyed hers, toying with him before eventually handing him over to the police. That’s the way I’d have gone, had I been writing this: however, it would certainly not have been suitable for screening as a Lifetime TVM. Given this, it’s no spoiler to reveal that the film ends with hugs all round, lessons learned, and a cleaned-up version of Holly, no longer sporting dyed hair and piercings, serving birthday cake to her granny.

It’s a painfully obvious ending, and there enough other mis-steps on the way there to have me rolling my eyes on occasion. Holly’s breakout from custody is far too convenient, and I can’t say I would expect the police to take seriously a fugitive, calling after having broken into someone else’s house, who claims the house-owner is the real culprit and, look, I found drugs they were hiding.  But if the storyline is, more or less, pants, the performances aren’t bad, with Cox giving a nice performance as a single mom having to juggle a harassing husband, and troublesome son – though, with this being Lifetime, his delinquency extends no further than being caught skateboarding on private property. Van Dien is also suitably sleazy [Man, it doesn’t seems so long ago he was playing high-school students himself; must watch Starship Troopers again some time.] and you certainly find yourself rooting for him to be taken down. For what this is, it’s okay: however, it’s another case where the makers could have aimed a good deal higher.

Dir: Jim Donovan
Star: Marie Avgeropoulos, Christina Cox, Casper Van Dien, Daniel Rindress-Kay

The Naked Killers

  By

★★½
“Because ‘Topless killers’ wouldn’t sell quite as well, I guess.”

naked killersNot to be confused with the Hong Kong exploitation classic Naked Killer, this 1977 Spanish film is set mostly on a Pacific island inhabited solely by a veteran Japanese soldier, Yamato, who thinks World War 2 is still going on, and three women, whom he rescued from a plane crash when they were small children. He has raised them in military style, to defend the island against any “invaders”, and it’s not long before these show up. They come in the form of a boatload of treasure-hunters, who have heard that a Japanese freighter carrying gold wrecked itself on the island’s shoals. Adding an additional layer of complexity, the crew, a collection of ne’er-do-wells apparently chosen at random from the dockside, are planning a mutiny, unhappy with captain Paul, and old salt Walter, who knows the island’s location. This leads to a rather unusual alliance between Yamato and his adopted daughters with Paul and Walter, as they fight for survival against the latter’s former employees.

It’s more than a little bizarre, not least because the actor playing the soldier is very obviously not Japanese at all. I was thoroughly confused when he called himself a Japanese officer, until I realized this was made not long after the last Imperial Army holdout. Teruo Nakamura, having surrendered in December 1974. The other unusual aspect is making him more than somewhat sympathetic: perhaps this is due to Spain’s position in the war, which leaned toward the Germany-Japan Axis under General Franco, who had died not long before this was made. He’s shown very much as a father figure, loyal to a fault (which is why he stuck to his post for 30 years after everyone else gave up) and utterly honourable. Witness his face as one of the mutineers tells him the Japanese emperor is now shining the shoes of the American president every morning, or his embarrassment as he tries to breach the subject of s-e-x with his nubile foster family. It’s kinda endearing, despite this still being the worst case of yellow-face I’ve seen since Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

The film’s original title translates as The Island of Burning Virgins, which is one of the most awesome titles in exploitation history. Naturally, they spend an impressively hygienic amount of time frolicking in natural pools – though I do have to wonder, where the hell did they get their thoroughly modern bikini costumes? And they’re naturally delighted when the handsome captain shows up, happy to demonstrate to them what this s-e-x thing is actually about. However, they are not mere puppets, laying some rather nasty jungle traps for the “invaders”, and with hand-to-hand skills that are occasionally surprising. It is, of course, extremely silly, very dated and questionable in a whole number of ways. However, it certainly isn’t boring, and compared to certain jungle girl films I’ve seen, can only be appreciated for that.

Dir: Miguel Iglesias
Star: Sita Sadafi, Roxana Dupre, Inca Maris, Alejandro del Enciso

Nina: Crazy Suicide Girl

  By

★★
“Well, it’s certainly different. Note: different, not necessarily good”

NinaPosterThis micro-budget Italian offering seems to go about things almost entirely in reverse. Rather than establishing the characters, then dropping them into a scenario, this starts with Nina investigating a missing girl, Anna. The disappearee seems to have some connection to the dodgy “Xstasy” video company, fronted by Cesare Mazza (Guerra), and behind that, an apparent Satanic cult under the leadership of Marcus (Visconti), who is actually a woman. Apparently, they take the offcasts of illegal Eastern Europeans from the porn shoots, and sacrifice them to their demonic master.

But what’s never really addressed in any real detail is Nina. Is she a cop? A private detective? An assassin for hire? And what exactly did she do to merit the title of, and I quote, “Crazy suicide girl.” Must have been something pretty cool and interesting, right? We never learn. She does point a revolver at her temple and pull the trigger, but since we have no clue if it’s loaded or not, I’m finding myself underwhelmed there. She does torture someone with a blowtorch to extract information from them. But I had just finished watching 24: Live Another Day, and let’s be honest, that isn’t enough to turn Nina into Jack Bauer in a dress.

I did quite like the heroine, who has an off-center attitude to her and a look which is not conventionally pretty. But the film probably needs to decide what it wants to be, and stick with it, rather than trying to combine aspects of the hard-boiled detective thriller, Dennis Wheatley adaptation, soft-porn and action heroine genres. Because, the scripts doesn’t handle any of them particularly well. For instance, the “detecting” aspects are so conveniently simplistic as to be an embarrassment, right from when Nina discovers a porn DVD in Anna’s bedroom. Another problem is an almost total lack of motivation for anyone involved here, from Nina through Cesare and up to ‘Marcus’: they seem to exist purely because the plot demands they do.

There’s no shortage of nudity and the gore effects are fairly plentiful, if characterized more by enthusiasm than quality. But it’s only at the very end, which hints at a sequel with the potential to be more interesting than this film, that you get some idea of what this was trying to accomplish. It’s a shame there wasn’t less of a gap between intent and execution, pun not intended.

Dir: Christian Arioli
Star: Irene Giordano, Mauro Cipriani, Gabriele Guerra, Stefania Visconti

Shaolin Girl

  By

★★★
“Shaolin lacrosse, rather than soccer.”

Shaolin Girl photo 02Rin Sakurazawa (Shibasaki) has been training in shaolin kung-fu for over eight years. When she returns to Japan, she finds her dojo abandoned and derelict, and her former master Kenji Iwai (Eguchi) is now working as a cook in a local restaurant. She is recruited by a waitress there, Minmin (Yuqi). for the lacrosse team at the local Seikan University, but learns some harsh lessons on the nature of teamwork The university president, Yuichiro Oba (Nakamura), has another agenda, and seeks to draw Rin over to the dark side, by getting her to use her skills for more violent ends which he can then exploit. But it turns out that she was sent to China for good reason…

After the recently reviewed Beach Spike took volleyball to extremes, albeit to dubious effect, the inspiration here is equally obvious. That’s clearest during the end credits, when a lacrosse shot does exactly the same “turning into a fiery dragon” thing as in Shaolin Soccer. Still, despite having Stephen Chow as executive producer, and the presence in minor roles of a couple of actors from Chow’s Western breakout, in Chi Chung Lam and Kai Man Tin, this does go its own way for much of the film. Fortunately, it doesn’t try to reproduce the “plucky bunch of underdogs” story, which Soccer was affectionately parodying. This is far more about Rin’s personal journey of enlightenment, as she realizes there’s more to that than simply the physical aspects. Indeed, if you’re looking for action, the first two-thirds of this will be pretty disappointing, and even the lacrosse games aren’t very interesting.

Things certainly perk up in the final act, Rin eventually being provoked – mostly through attacks by Oba’s minions on everyone she cares for – into an assault on the villain’s lair. This appears to bear some relation to Bruce Lee’s unfinished Game of Death, as she works her way up through a pagoda, to the top level where she faces Oba, and… Well, things veer off into Matrix territory, with Rin apparently being The One, or something. If heavy on the CGI, it’s certainly spectacular, with the water effects being particularly lovely. All told, I didn’t mind this: it struck a nice balance between the elements, and it’s a winning performance from Shibasaki. However, it certainly suffers in comparison with its predecessor, and it appears clear Chow’s work on this, involved little more than cashing the cheques.

Dir: Katsuyuki Motohiro
Star: Ko Shibasaki, Tôru Nakamura, Kitty Zhang Yuqi, Yosuke Eguchi

Breakaway

  By

★★
“Marginally better than having your kneecaps broken. “

breakawayAfter a brisk start, this gradually falls apart, the script collapsing under the strain of too much disbelief, as everyone whizzes around in search of $300,000 in stolen mob money. This was taken by Myra (Thompson), a courier for a gangster boss, Anton (Ray Dash). She wanted out of the business, but makes the mistake of telling him so, and her “last job,” delivering money to a hitman, is actually an ambush. Myra escapes with the cash, causing Anton to send a string of other killers after her, most notably Grey (Joe Estevez). Meanwhile she tries to avoid detection, with the help of both her two-timing boyfriend Carter (DeRose), who is cheating on her with a cafe manager Gina (Harding – yes, it’s that Tonya Harding) and a college professor Dan (Noakes), whom she meets at an art gallery. Everyone schemes, double-crosses and fights each other, to try and recover the brown paper-bag containing the cash, leading to a final battle at Anton’s.

Initially, it’s quite promising, with Myra being efficient and effective in her job, more than capable of taking care of herself. [Her character’s fondness for wearing a really short skirt doesn’t do any harm either!] However, it soon becomes apparent that her survival is equally due to the howling ineptness of everyone whom she comes up against. I don’t know if the aim was to make Anton and his minions out to be lovable buffoons, but if so, it only half succeeds: they nail the “buffoon” part in the bulls-eye. Which is a lot better shooting than can be said for the henchmen, since they couldn’t hit a barn if they were inside it. This starts off amusing, until you realize their incompetence is not a joke.

It’s the kind of film where, if everyone behaved with any morsel of common sense, things would be over in 10 minutes. Instead, you have frequently to resist the urge to yell at the screen, whenever the characters instead behave with the willful stupidity necessary to the plot. As noted, some of the elements here have potential, Thompson among them. It’s unfortunate that the makers did not apparently have enough confidence in her ability to carry the film, and chose to throw all the other plot threads on top. These don’t add depth or complexity, so much as unnecessary encumbrance. Grey is the only other character with any credibility, and the film would have been much better, if it had been stripped down to he vs. she. Junk the minions, junk Carter and, especially, junk Gina, because Harding’s performance serves solely as a demonstration of the gulf between professional actors and amateur ones.

Dir: Sean Dash
Star: Teri Thompson, Tony Noakes, Chris DeRose, Tonya Harding