Tag: i

IWA Mid-South: Queen of the Deathmatch

  By

★★½
“Only women bleed…”

The Hardcore genre is denigrated by some pro-wrestling fans as “garbage wrestling,” but I’ve never quite felt that way. To be good, you still need many of the same skills necessary to be good at the more regular end of sports entertainment: ability to work the crowd, sell the offense of your opponent, put over a storyline, etc. It’s true, you don’t need much in the way of technical aptitude to let someone break a fluorescent light-tube across your head, but the willingness to do so is certainly worthy of undeniable respect (if coupled with questions about your sanity). The bottom line is, there are good “garbage wrestlers” and there are bad ones. We’ve seen both in our previous coverage of the genre, when we wrote about FMW: Torn to Shreds, where we saw Megumi Kudo and Shark Tsuchiya, who represent the two ends of the spectrum.

We’ve also spoken before about the gulf betwen Japanese women’s pro-wrestling and the largely pathetic excuse for it put out by the WWE, where two minutes of a glorified cat-fight passes muster as a title match. You need to abandon network TV and go down to the independent level if you want to look for anything comparable – in style, if not necessarily in quality – to joshi puroresu, and it’s there that we found this. The IWA Mid-South federation had been holding annual “King of the Deathmatch” tournaments for quite some time, the first being won by Ian Rotten, one of the most well-known/infamous garbage wrestlers (current WWE heavyweight champion, C.M. Punk was part of the 2004 event, in a non-deathmatch bout). But in 2006, they also staged a similar event for women wrestlers.

Of course, this being independent wrestling where the phrase “card subject to change” is a given, the eight women scheduled to complete ended up being seven and a man. MC Ian Rotten said that Delilah Starr had a car-crash on the way here, and another competitor, LuFisto, had broken her hand fighting another notorious garbage wrestler, Necro Butcher, in a Canadian Death Match tournament called “Bloodstock”. Taking advantage of the open spot was SeXXXy Eddy, a male wrestler with a long history of intergender matches, which his in-ring persona thoroughly enjoyed, as you can imagine from his name. The roster also included reigning IWA women’s champion Mickie Knuckles, Rachel Putski (grand-daugher of WWE Hall of Famer Ivan Putski), and two joshi wrestlers, Mayumi Ozaki and Sumi Sakai.

The first round got under way with a Staple Gun Match between Knuckles and Ann Thraxx: it was best of 13, so the first to embed seven staples in their opponent won. Knuckles was busted open immediately, but this was very much equal opportunity carnage: as the pic on top shows, the red, red blood contrasted nicely with Thraxx’s bleached blonde hair. The score was tied at six with a staple to Knuckle’s crotch, but she took the win by tacking a dollar bill on Thraxx’s nose. Next up was a disappointingly bland thumbtack match, with Putski taking on Vanessa Kraven in ring containing a small box of tacks: it was Kraven’s first death-match, and you could tell her heart really wasn’t in it. Add another skill to the list necessary to succeed as a garbage wrestler: commitment.

The third match was improved, though from a strictly aesthetic and visual sense, was hard to watch. Amy Lee – about as far from a WWE diva as it’s possible to get – took on SeXXXy Eddy, who was wearing what can only be described as a “banana hammock”. This was a “Four Corners Of Pain” bout, with the corners of the ring behind home to barb-wire/salt, mousetraps, fluorescent light-tubes and..,er, lemons? Life gives you lemons, you…stage a death-match. That said, this was mostly fun for Eddy’s antics, not least his epic selling of the mousetraps: though he won, he took care in the post-match interview to put Amy over, for which he deserves credit. The first round finished with Mayumi Ozaki taking on Japanese colleague Sumie Sakai, in a Barbed Wire Ropes and Boards match: this was basically a squash, Sakai taking all the damage, as Ozaki prevailed.

Moving on to the semi-finals, the first pitted Knuckles against Putski in a Taipei Death Match. In this, the wrestlers’ fists are taped, dipped into glue and then in broken and crushed glass, to turn their fists into nasty weapons – its use here may have been because the most infamously bloody of these was between tonight’s MC, Ian Rotten, and his “brother” Axl, at a 1995 ECW show. This one is not much less messy, especially when the two wrestlers set up on facing chairs, and take turns whaleing away at each other’s foreheads [a common target in this kind of wrestling, being an area not likely to incur permanent damage, but capable of generating plenty of the red, red kroovy, as A Clockwork Orange called it, running down the face]. Knuckles prevailed, but hard to say who lost more blood.

Osaki took on Eddy in a two out of three, light-tube log-cabin match. You’re wondering what a light-tube log-cabin is, aren’t you. Those are fluorescent tubes, taped together in a square, four to a side and maybe stacked four interweaved rows or so high. They make a very satisfying crunch when you drop your opponent through one, as we discover here. One thing wrestling fans know, is “two out of three” anything means the first two will inevitably be split, and that’s the case here: Ozaki gets backdropped through the first log-cabin, but comes back with a flying kick off a chair to send Eddy into the second. She takes the win after he tries a high-risk manoeuvre off the top rope, only to be grabbed by his banana hammock and flipped through the deciding log-cabin. Ozaki, again, appears to avoid significant damage.

The final, between her and Knuckles was officially described as a (deep breath!) “No Rope Barbed Wire Fans Bring The Weapons Electrified Lighttubes Cage Match”. Basically, pretty much anything went, inside a steel cage which came already furnished with a ladder, beer barrel, barbed-wire ropes, a host of other offensive shrapnel (barbecue fork, baking tray, and bizarrely, a light-up magic wand with a star on the end) and enough fluorescent light-tubes to illuminate Vegas – yes, some of which were plugged in and working, for added emphasis. It is, I think, the first wrestling bout I’ve seen where the referee wore eye-protection. Knuckles hadn’t even bothered to clean up after the last bout, coming to the ring still covered in dried gore from her semi-final.

This one was relatively brief, and must confess, I actually found it somewhat disappointing, especially considering it was supposed to be the grand final. It felt almost as if both women had been drained by the previous encounters, so (understandably) had little energy left for their third match of the night. There was some breaking of glass and some mild use of foreigh objects, but it lasted only a little more than seven minutes in total, before Knuckles kicked through one of the electrified light fixtures into Ozaki’s forehead, following up with a pin for a three-count and victory. She didn’t really get to enjoy her title for long, as LuFisto and Kraven came in, blindsided her and left Knuckles draped in a Canadian flag, obviously intended to set a grudge-match up for the next IWA Mid-South event,

This is not great wrestling, by any means: matches generally proceed at a sluggish pace, and the format offers little scope for any significant degree of technical skill. But I have nothing but total respect for the participants, who put their bodies on the line for the entertainment of the audience, with a cheerful lack of concern for safety. If they were getting paid tens of thousands of dollars, I could perhaps understand it, but the paying crowd here probably numbered a hundred or less, so the compensation for their efforts can have been little more than token. Such willingness to suffer for your art (and there is no doubt in my mind, that pro wrestling is indeed an art), can only be applauded.

Date/time: November 3, 2006 at the Capital Sports Arena in Plainfield, Indiana.
Participants: Mickie Knuckles, Mayumi Ozaki, Rachel Putski, Sexxxy Eddy
Available through Amazon, as The Best of Deathmatch Wrestling, Vol. 4: Queens of the Deathmatch.

I’ll Never Die Alone

  By

★★½
“Will cross rural Argentina off the list of holiday destinations, in much the same way that Deliverance did for North Georgia.”

I have no problem with rape/revenge movies, providing the balance is skewed more towards the revenge than the rape. Ms. 45, for example, has about five minutes of rape and 60 of revenge. This is fine by me. I am all about the revenge, which should be nasty and brutal, exactly what sexual predators deserve. Actually, so should the rape be, because portraying it any other way is very, very questionable. But that’s something which hardly needs depicting: I’m quite happy taking it as read, thank you very much. Here, the depicted brutalization of four young women goes on far longer than necessary to serve any point.

They appear to be heading home from college – it’s a bit vague – when they see a girl lying beside her bike, injured at the side of the road, and some men with guns nearby, who might just be hunters…or might not be. The women load her into the car, only for the victim to die before they reach the next time. They report it to the two-man police force, who seem less that enthusiastic about investigating. As they leave town, they find themselves being chased by the hunters’ truck, and it’s soon very apparent that their intentions are very, very unpleasant.

To be honest, I largely tuned out the middle portion of this, for reasons explained earlier. That said, when the tables are finally turned, it is certainly satisfying, especially in the final moments of vengeance. Bogliano takes his time in all aspects, which is a double-edged sword: some scenes benefit from the unflinching approach, such as the filling in of a grave, which unfolds in real time and is chilling viewing. However, others are simply dull and pointless, for example, the one where one of the girls goes into a bathroom, smokes a cigarette, changes her shirt and leaves. Really. That’s it. There’s a serious lack of characterization as well, to the point that it’s hard to care too much about the victims, as you’ve been given no reason to do so, or insight into their characters.

The film does improve markedly in the final reel, though this may be as much due to my personal prejudices as any actual change in the direction. But the revenge is certainly memorable, in particular the use of a strand of barbed-wire, in another sequence where Bogliano’s unblinking camera lens comes out as a positive. Much credit is due to all the actresses involved, for going to hell and back in the name of their cinematic art, and the overall impact is certainly better than some of the entries in the genre, as linked below. However, it may simply be too brutal, and the tuning-out mentioned above is something likely to be experienced in an even greater degree by viewers that are more sensitive than I.

Dir: Adrián García Bogliano
Star: Gimena Blesa, Magdalena De Santo, Andrea Duarte, Andres Aramburu
a.k.a. No Morire Sola

À l’interieur (Inside)

  By

★★★★½
“Some women will stop at nothing to have a baby. Whether it’s theirs or not.”

The ‘final girl’ is a well-worn concept in horror: the last survivor, typically the “good” girl, finally fights back against the assailant in the movie’s climax. It is isn’t normally enough to merit inclusion here, since it’s usually a relatively minor aspect of the film. Here, however, not only is it just about the entire film, the main theme – motherhood and the instincts it arouses – is entirely feminine. Aliens, and Ripley’s surrogate parenting of Newt, would be another example. And it’s also a rarity in the horror genre for both protagonist and antagonist to be female, but the threat here certainly deserves to be up there with Freddy, Michael, Jason and their cousins.

The action here does take place on a much smaller-scale, with the vast majority occurring in a semi-remote house. Sarah (Paradis – her older sister is Johnny Depp’s other half) is left alone on Christmas Eve, her husband having been killed a few months previously in a car accident. She’s about to give birth, but is more depressed by her current situation than delighted. There’s a knock on the door from a mysterious woman (Dalle); Sarah, suspicious, does not let her in, but it seems the woman knows Sarah and her history. The police are called but find no trace and leave. Later that night, the woman returns, and it’s soon clear she will go to – bold, underline please – any lengths to take Sarah’s baby.

Let me be perfectly clear: this is hardcore horror of the most unrelenting sort, completely unsuitable for those of a nervous disposition, and particularly pregnant women. In the 1980’s, Dalle was a sexpot, for her role in Betty Blue, but you can flush all memory of that down the toilet: here, she has a feral, near-demonic intensity, and god help anyone who is unfortunate enough to get in her way. Particularly the men, who are disposed of with complete dispassion and brutality; as the film goes on, her relationship with Sarah becomes complex, and more a case of, “I’m taking your baby, and we can do this the hard way or… Well, really, that’s all there is. Sorry.” Friends, family, even an entire patrol of cops – no-one can help Sarah. She’s completely on her own, and her fate is entirely in her own hands.

Somewhat inspired by the 2006 case of Tiffany Hall, who removed a foetus from her friend’s womb with scissors, the film escalates from a quiet opening, through tension, before exploding in a literal tidal-wave of gore, as the protagonist and antagonist battle each other. My sole complaint is a couple of incidents in the final act that seem to stretch belief, e.g. a character conveniently rising from the dead for another assault, though it’s a common complaint in this area. Otherwise, even though we are jaded fans of both genres covered here, this one will stick with us for a long time, and cements France’s place at the forefront of horror.

Dir: Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo
Star: Alysson Paradis, Béatrice Dalle

Ichi

  By

★★★
“Ichi the not-quite so much a killer as we hoped.”

This unofficial spin-off from the Zatoichi series had us wondering if there’s a Japanese studio version of The Asylum out there – the people who specialize in knockoffs of popular films, including such classics as Snakes on a Train and Sunday School Musical. We’ll cut the makers of this some slack, since we’re of the opinion that all action films are improved with a heroine in the lead. That’s the main switch here: Zatoichi becomes Ichi (Ayase), a blind swordswoman and entertainer, who is roaming the country in search of the man she believes is her father. She is quite capable of taking care of herself, but the resulting trail of bodies is blamed on travelling companion Tomo Fujihira (Ôsawa), who becomes bodyguard to a town under assault from a gang, led by Banki (Nakamura). Unfortunately, since he accidentally blinded his mother, Tomo is unable to pull his sword from its scabbard, and the Banki gang are ready to wreak revenge on him for the members killed by Ichi.

The main problem is that Tomo is the focus of the film more than Ichi. This is somewhat understandable, since Ichi takes “stoic silence” to much the same level as the corpses she leaves behind. We get some fragmentary glimpses of her past, and what makes her the way she is, but as far as her current personality goes, she’s never going to be accused of talking too much. Or at all. Making matters worse, during much of the climactic final battle between the Bankis and the townsfolk, Ichi is nowhere to be found. We’d been hoping for something like the climax of Azumi, with her slicing and dicing her way through a host of bad guys. Ichi had showed a nice economy of effort early on, maintaining a close to 1:1 ratio of slashes to kills (and never having as much as a hair out of place), but it turns out Banki has dealt with her style before, hampering its effectiveness.

On the plus side, it’s very-nicely shot, and as sidekicks go, Tomo is an amiable character, sliding from comic interest to love interest to tortured-hero interest with ease. This is as much a case of managing expectations as anything. It’s a solid samurai drama, and if it had been called Tomo, we would likely have been less disappointed in the way the film concentrates on him. Admittedly, if that had been the case, we probably wouldn’t have bothered getting a copy…

Dir: Fumihiko Sori
Star: Takao Ôsawa, Haruka Ayase, Shido Nakamura, Yosuke Kubozuka

In Her Line of Fire

  By

★★
“Lesbian Action in the Jungle [suitable for all ages].”

This is a competently-made but ultimately forgettable film – it feels very much like a TVM, albeit for one of the slightly-more liberal channels. Hemingway plays Secret Service agent Lynn Delaney, who has to look after the Vice-President, when their place crashes in the Pacific. Of course, in the way things only happen in Hollywood movies, the island to which the struggle is a rebel outpost, and the VP is a former soldier, with more-than adequate combat skills of his own. Which extend to more than shooting people in the face, Dick Cheney please note. Meanwhile, there’s a lot of tension with female journalist Sharon Serrano (Bennett), who is also among the survivors; this includes tension of a sexual kind, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Like I said: one of the slightly-more liberal channels. However, it’s nice that no big thing is made of this; you’re not whacked over the head with anyone’s sexual orientiation, as in D.E.B.S. [Curiously, even the nods in this direction are edited out from some releases]

“Her mouth irritates me.” That was Chris’s dismissal of Ms. Hemingway and, for once, her snap judgement would have saved me from enduring this. For it is directed and written with a stunning lack of energy, imagination, invention or enthusiasm – basically, anything that’d make it worth watching. This is apparent very early on, when the villain’s henchman are, once again, unable to shoot for peanuts. Yes, I suppose they are a rag-tag guerilla outfit, whom their mercenary leader (Millbern) is supposed to lick into shape, but they still basically get their asses handed to them by one Secret Service agent and a politician. No-one is allowed to develop their characters beyond a single dimension, with Serrano perpetually whiny, and Delaney perpetually furrowed. While Hemingway’s mouth may not, particularly, have irritated me, just about everything else in this vapid confection did.

Dir: Brian Trenchard-Smith
Star: Mariel Hemingway, David Keith, Jill Bennett, David Millbern

The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant

  By

★★★½
“Based on real events. Yeah, righ…oh, heck! It is!”

Most Aussies won’t thank you for mentioning it, but the colony was originally populated largely by the dregs of British society. Prisoners were shipped Down Under, thereby alleviating jail overcrowding and providing a cheap labour source for the new world. This mini-series recounts the story of one such unwilling emigrant, Mary Bryant, shipped off to Oz for a petty theft. She gives birth to one child en route, and has another there, but when starvation threatens her family, she plans a daring escape, and convinces her co-convicts to help, even though they’re 3,000 miles from the nearest safe haven.

It’s a compelling story; we intended to watch the two parts separately, but we had to carry straight on (though the cliff-hanger it contains is a huge cheat). It’s a solid period drama, enhanced by Garai’s fully-committed performance as the heroine, and captures the wretched conditions of life below deck on the transport ships. Similarly, it’s fascinating to see early Botany Bay life, with the rigid division between haves and have-nots – Neill plays the governor, while Davenport largely reprises his Pirates of the Caribbean role as straight-faced Navy officer Lt. Clarke; both are good in their roles. There’s one nasty sequence of anarchy, where the guards just sit back and wait for things to burn out, which says much about the pragmatic approach adopted.

Would have liked to see Mary do more; she’s a bit passive, not feisty enough to be a truly memorable action heroine. And this does lose pace; early in the second half, once the escape has taken place, it occasionally verges on dull – something of a surprise, given the potential for tension of six criminals in a small boat. It’s set up that treachery is the name of the game, but that angle is never explored at all. Things perk up again later, and overall, this is an entertaining three hours, with a rousing finale, which’d frankly be very difficult to believe…if it wasn’t actually based on fact. This brings me to:

Here be historical spoilers I was surprised how close this was to the truth. Bryant was a Cornish convict, transported to Australia, who did take part in a break-out. Though captured in Timor and returned to Britain, there was indeed a public outcry, and those involved were pardoned. The main dramatic invention is Clarke’s relationship with Mary; he certainly didn’t kill her husband, who actually died of natural causes during the voyage back to Britain. The nod to James Boswell is legitimate too, as he was among those who campaigned for her release. Various books have been written about her; Google is your friend if you want to find out about these.

The DVD was released in the US on March 27th by MTI Home Video.
Dir: Peter Andrikidis
Stars: Romola Garai, Alex O’Loughlin, Jack Davenport, Sam Neill

Illegal Aliens

  By

★★½
“Anna Nicole’s last film. It’s probably her best, though that’s not saying much.”

Okay, her swansong won’t be up there with James Dean’s or Bruce Lee’s, but this does at least sense its own idiocy, rendering the movie somewhat bullet-proof, critically speaking. It’s supposed to be dumb, wildly implausible and hideously over-acted. So condemning it for these flaws is complaining because your hotdog tastes of meat. A trio of shape-shifting aliens land on Earth to protect it from the scum of the universe. Thanks to their first encounter with our culture coming in the shape of a porno mag, they opt for the form of attractive women. Two end up getting jobs as FX/stunt people in Hollywood – a sadly underexplored angle – while the third is…Anna Nicole Smith. Then their nemesis (Laurer, the actress formerly known as Chyna) turns up, taking over the body of a mobster’s wife, and prepares to bring about the end of the world. Can she be stopped?

We do have a huge tolerance for “bad” movies in this house, not least Smith’s earlier efforts, so maybe appreciated this more than most. However, for every neat idea, such as the trio taking Cameron, Lucy and Drew as their human names, another doesn’t work at all, or is just creepy, like the director’s apparent obsession with AN’s toilet habits. The film also swings from decent production values – some stunts and chases are large-scale, though I suspect may come from other flicks – to cheapjack as hell. For instance, at one point there’s a ‘Super Villain Monologue Timer’, an amusing idea…except they spell it “Villian”. Ouch. Laurer channels Vincent D’Onofrio from Men in Black to an embarrassing extent, but is still oddly fun to watch, though there’s a strange difference in approach between her or Smith, and the other two leads, who play it almost straight.

There’s no doubt this film is, if not cashing in on her death, certainly shrugging its shoulders and taking advantage of an unfortunate situation. I don’t really blame them for that, even if anyone looking for skin will be wasting their time here. In sharp contrast to her previous, ah, body of work, AN’s clothes remain on; as exploitation goes, this is tame and restrained. And that may be the main problem: a failure by the makers to decide which way to go. SF/action or all-out comedy? There’s enough of each to suggest, with greater commitment, either might have worked better. Instead, it comes off as somewhat lukewarm – can’t say we were ever bored, yet I can’t say I was ever more than mildly amused.

The DVD was released in the US on April 22nd by MTI Home Video, and includes a commentary, deleted scenes and bloopers.
Dir: David Giancola
Stars: Anna Nicole Smith, Joanie Laurer, Gladys Jimenez, Lenise Sorén

In the Line of Duty III

  By

★★★★½
“The harder they come…”

Firstly, in case you’re wondering, there was no In the Line of Duty 2, or even In the Line of Duty. Well, not as such… In the Line of Duty is the European title for Royal Warriors, and In the Line of Duty 2 is Yes, Madam!. Even though the latter was made first, they were released in a different order in some territories, with the success of In the Line of Duty/Royal Warriors leading to a swift re-titling for marketing purposes of Yes, Madam!. However, one presumes makers D+B Films decided to save time, simply adopting the name for the third “installment” in the – really, non-existent – series. I hope you’re paying attention at the back. This will be on the test. ;-)

There was, however, a problem. Namely, the star of the previous two films, Michelle Yeoh (at that time, better known as Michelle Khan) was unavailable – having married D+B owner, Dickson Poon. Their choice was “Cynthia Khan”, a name obtained by combining that of the two Yes, Madam! stars, Cynthia Rothrock and Michelle Khan. Like her predecessor, she was not from Hong Kong, coming from Taiwan, and was also both a martial-arts novice and a former dancer whose aspirations in that direction had been limited by injury. [You can also add Moon Lee into the “former dancer” category] Despite this lack of long-term background, she slots right in, and the result is a solid action heroine flick.

The plot is largely based around revenge; the catalyst is a Japanese cop (Fujioka), whose partner is shot by a terrorist (Ong) during a jewel robbery. He reckons the jewel owner, Yamamoto, was doing an insurance scam, and follows him to Hong Kong, since there is too much influence to press charges in Japan. The terrorist and his partner (Nishiwaki) have also come to Hong Kong, seeking to buy arms with their loot, but discover the jewels are fake, and they too have been scammed, so want to take it out on Yamamoto. Meanwhile, Madam Yeung (Khan) has joined the police squad run by her uncle; he doesn’t want her to do anything risky, despite her being the most talented officer on the roster, so assigns her to babysit the Japanese cop, show him the sights and keep him out of mischief.

No prizes for guessing exactly how well that works – or for predicting that it will all lead to a brutal brawl in a warehouse between Nishiwaki, Khan and Dick Wei, as the various agendas of revenge come into conjunction. It’s rough-housing at its best, with everything save the kitchen sink (but including an industrial drill) being used as weapons. While the doubling for Khan is occasionally apparent, there are also moments you think she’s being doubled, until she swings round to show her face. Overall, for what was basically her debut, it’s pretty impressive, and credit to action directors Chris Lee, Tony Leung Siu-Hung, Brandy Yuen and Yuen Cheung-yan, as well as, of course, to Khan herself.

in-the-Line-of-Duty3-001The script is not bad. It does suffer from the usual unevenness of tone, with occasional comedic interludes that detract from an impressively dark tone, especially as the film progresses. The worst offender there is a meaningless cameo by Eric Tsang and Richard Ng (well-known HK actress Sandra Ng also shows up in an early supporting role), but there are nice moments which help give all the characters depth, and the storyline makes basic sense, which is more than can be said for some entries in the genre. Though let’s just hope, it isn’t as easy to get a bomb – complete with ticking digital counter – into the heart of a Hong Kong police station these days!

What I particularly like about the film, is the nicely-built sense of escalation. The opening scene, in which Khan handles a traffic-offender, then a robber, is light fluff, like you’d expect from the Inspector Wears Skirts series. Almost immediately, however, the body count starts to rise, not least since the terrorists’ approach involves a startlingly reckless disregard for human life. While Khan’s acting talents are, perhaps wisely, hardly tested, Nishiwaki delivers a good performance of striking intensity, and it always struck me as a shame that she didn’t get many lead roles like this one: she’s more known for her cameos, as in God of Gamblers or My Lucky Stars.

This is undeniably a fun time-passer, and a good example of the HK girls-with-guns genre that flourished in the mid-80’s and has never quite been replicated since. There’s a moment towards the end where it’s suddenly made clear that anyone could die at any moment in this film: something you’ll rarely see in a Western flick (outside the horror genre, at least). It’s perhaps a shame they didn’t do this earlier, since from that moment on, this has a reckless, unpredictable attitude which ranks with the best action movies.

Dir: Brandy Yuen and Arthur Wong
Stars: Cynthia Khan, Hiroshi Fujioka, Michiko Nishiwaki, Stuart Ong

It Waits

  By

★½
“It Sucks.”

This appears to be aiming for a leg-up on The Descent bandwagon and its theme of “chicks vs. cave-dwelling monsters in a remote wilderness”; though there’s only one of each here, rather than it being a team sport. “Troubled young ranger” Danielle St. Clair (Vincent) is atop a remote tower, watching out for fires, but a careless use of dynamite unleashes an ancient Indian evil that’s been trapped in a cave for centuries. Fortunately, despite said centuries, the monster still knows how to disable satellite dishes and trash Jeeps, as well as ripping the heads off everyone in the area it meets – except for St. Clair, of course, whom it merely terrorizes. The inevitable native American (Schweig) gets wheeled on for one scene of indigestible exposition, trotting out the usual cliches about how we’ve lost touch with our inner child, or some such New Age guff. Not that the beast cares much, I was pleased to see.

Wholly deficient on just about every level, it sent both myself and Chris to sleep, independently, just after the half-way mark. Though things did pick up thereafter, that might have been because we’d been refreshed by 8 hours’ sleep and a bowl of Wheaties. The pacing is particularly bad, with far too much weight given to Danielle’s past trauma, which is of no interest or relevance, and is not exactly helped by the depressing, sub-Tori Amos songs on the soundtrack (the director’s wife, I believe). The title is particularly appropriate, as the viewer is also kept hanging around, waiting for something entertaining to happen. There’s pretty thin pickings on that front, I’m afraid.

When Danielle finally decides to leave the forest, it’s a bit more energetic, though has nothing to offer beyond reheated leftovers you’ve seen before. I mean, when she runs over the thing in her truck, is anyone surprised when the body isn’t there? Not to say the idea isn’t without potential, as was shown in The Descent – and, possibly even more so, in Dog Soldiers. However, when your script is as flawed and uninteresting as here, a film really needs to pull up its socks in the areas of acting and direction. It Waits is mediocre on these fronts, at best, and as a result, the whole thing fizzles out like a damp squib.

Dir: Steven R. Monroe
Stars: Cerina Vincent, Dominic Zamprogna, Greg Kean, Eric Schweig

I Spit on Your Corpse!

  By

★★★
“Surprisingly survivable 70’s schlock – but, oh, that soundtrack!”

Porn stars who try to act are usually on shaky ground – see Traci Lords’ career – except, it seems, when the characters they play have something of the porn star in them. Brigitte Lahaie in Fascination is a good example, and Spelvin, best known for The Devil in Miss Jones, impresses here as Tate, a cold, animalistic killer, freed from prison by mob boss Moreno (Taylor) to kill a treacherous lawyer. Which goes fine, it’s when her unwitting accomplice Donna (McIver) realises what happened, and goes on the run, that the film really starts. The chase is on: can Tate and sidekick Erica (Miles) hunt Donna down before she reaches Mexico?

Originally Girls For Rent, the new title (presumably inspired by I Spit On Your Grave) is certainly more apt, thanks to Spelvin’s brutal character – particularly one scene involving a mentally deficient kid, that is simply nasty. Moments like that, or Erica’s sudden ‘conversion’ to Christianity, are great and will hopefully stay in my mind longer than the truly dire stock soundtrack, which alternates between being woefully inappropriate, and simply bad. I suspect Adamson, buried in concrete beneath his own hot-tub in 1995, was murdered by a music-lover.

However, Spelvin and Miles hold this together well, and at times it has the same energetic air as Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! This is cheap, drive-in product, shot in only 9 days (not counting the sex scene spliced-in later), and won’t be mistaken for anything else. Don’t expect too much, however, and this will occasionally surprise pleasantly. Just bring the ear-plugs.

Dir: Al Adamson
Star: Susan McIver, Georgina Spelvin, Rosalind Miles, Kent Taylor