Tag: kung-fu

Minty: The Assassin

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★★
“Walking in a Minty wonderland…”

mintyWhen a film clearly doesn’t take itself seriously, and in particular, when it almost takes delight in acknowledging its own flaws, this does convey a certain immunity to criticism. “Yes, we know this is crap,” it seems to be saying. “So what?” But on the other hand, it’s hard to be a parody of comic-book fan-service, when you actually are comic-book fan-service. The heroine here is Minty (Madison), an assassin who works for a man known only as Big Boss (Parker, channeling the spirit of Michael Clarke Duncan). When he is kidnapped by Dr. Brain Bender (Joslin), an evil scientist – really, how could he be anything else with that name? – and his vampire sidekick, Double Delicious (Taylor), Minty, powered by chocolate, has to fight her way up through the levels of the Cock Tower [sic], defeating Bender’s other minions, up to where Boss is being held. While Bender can’t beat Minty himself, he transfers his mind into DD’s body, and there’s only one way for our heroine to prevail…

If you guessed the answer is “lesbian canoodling,” give yourself two points.

It’s very much a mixed bag here. Some moments fall entirely flat, and the film often isn’t as funny as it thinks it is. This is in part because most of the supporting characters don’t have the acting chops to pull off the satirical aspects, which is a lot harder than it looks. “Broad comic mugging” seems to be the main direction provided by Baldovino, and that rapidly becomes more tiresome than entertaining. However, there are some scenes which do work well. I particularly enjoyed Minty going up against a Bruce Lee look-alike (the fight here was nicely put together and edited), while there’s also an animated interlude featuring Minty being chased through a Prince of Persia-style level by a psychotic rabbit. This ends in an arterial way that feels like it comes out of a particularly twisted Tex Avery cartoon.

Unfortunately, the finale then gets itself bogged down in soft-core shenanigans with poor continuity e.g. in one shot, Delicious is topless, the next, she’s wearing butterfly-shaped pasties. [Look, you’re either willing to get undressed or you’re not. Have the courage of your convictions, and don’t change your mind mis-scene] Admittedly, it’s preceded by Dr. Bender explaining that the goal of all fanboys is to see the heroine naked, so this is simply delivering on that promise. But blatant foreshadowing doesn’t make it any more interesting or entertaining, and the movie doesn’t at all make it clear that Bender is actually a fanboy who has somehow come across into Minty’s comic-book world for nefarious purposes. Maybe there’s a director’s cut somewhere that explains all this. Instead, as seen here, it’s a probably over-ambitious and occasionally entertaining mess, not without its charms, yet some way short of being charming enough.

Dir: Eugene Baldovino
Star: Elina Madison, Chip Joslin, Tabitha Taylor, Anthony Ray Parker

Twins Mission

  By

★★½
“To bead, or not to bead, that is the question…”

Twins_Mission-posterTwins Effect, the first film starring the Cantopop duo, Twins, was a frothily entertaining mix of action and humour, that was surprisingly entertaining. Its sequel? Despite a stellar supporting cast, and some great action, not so much, with a historical setting, and a balance that tilted unfavourably towards comedy. This third entry does at least return to the modern era, and also continues some impressively slick fights – and more broken glass than any other movie I can immediately think of – but has a similarly lumpy attitude, feeling almost like two films spliced together.

The McGuffin is a Tibetan relic called the Heaven’s Bead, long alleged to have magical powers to cure illness – which is actually pretty damn big, since I was expecting something that could be measured in millimetres, rather than feet. On its way by train, a robbery attempted staged by an evil collective of twins (rather than Twins, if you see what I mean) leads to it ending up in a bag belonging to the owner of a store in a Hong Kong mall. Meanwhile, good twins Pearl (Chung) and Jade (Choi) are working as trapeze artists in the circus, but end up helping the guardian of the bead, Uncle Lucky (Hung) and his adopted son (Wu) to track down the artefact. But the evil twins also have their agent, Lillian, who is lured in with the promise of the bead’s power being use to cure her cancer-stricken little sister, the unfortunately-named Happy.

Yes, this doesn’t exactly take the high road in terms of pathos, milking child illness for every ounce of maudlin sentimentality it can muster, when not making xenophobic jokes about the funny way foreigners speak. There is also a fight over an autographed picture of David Copperfield [Jade + Pearl’s idol], which ends with it being eaten by a hippo. This apparently tells us two things about China: people still care about David Copperfield, and it may be the only place where circuses that use wild animals are still welcome. I’m not sure which is more surprising, but that’s the level of nonsense between the action that you will have to endure, and I’m not sure the plot makes any actual sense in terms of logic or motivation. Fortunately, the saving grace is said action, with one standout fight between the good twins and several sets of evil twins in the mall, and another at the end, in the evil twins’ lair. Both are long, inventive sequences on finding new and interesting ways to break plate glass, though both the wire-fu and the stunt doubling for the starlets are a bit excessive.

I originally gave this 2.5 stars, then upped it to three, when I realized that was what I gave Twins Effect II, and this surely wasn’t any worse, was it? But on further reflection, it probably was, and I downgraded it again: there’s about 20 good minutes in this, and even Sammo couldn’t save the rest.

Dir: Kong Tao-Hoi
Star: Charlene Choi, Gillian Chung, Wu Jing, Sammo Hung

Beauty Investigator

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★★
“Beauties and the beasts.”

beautyinvestigatorEllen (Lee) and Grace (Kim) are police officers, who are first on to arrive when the latest victim of a serial sexual predator is found in a dumpster. After a brief diversion to catch a purse snatcher – really, how dumb must you be to do that at a murder scene? – they are sent undercover as nightclub hostesses, since that’s the profession of all the victims. While fending off both lecherous customers and employers, they stumble across an arms smuggling outfit, whose leader Bill (Tsui) has pulled a fast one over his Yakuza partners, with the help of a hired hitwoman (Oshima, whose character in the end credits is named as, I kid you not, “Japanese Jap”!). Rather than letting their superiors know, they decided to investigate themselves. Probably not the wisest of moves: as they’ll discover by the end of the movie, discretion is indeed the better part of valour…

Very quickly, the bar for this one is set low, with the creators’ idea of comedy gold being to have Grace throw up over the corpse on seeing it: oh, hold my sides, for I fear they may split. If you’d be thinking the only way to go from there is up, the next hour seems to take a sadistic pleasure in proving otherwise, with Ellen and Grace doing the “mismatched cop” thing, which was already about 20 years past its sell-by date, when this came out in 1993. Then, with about 20 minutes to go, the film inexplicably takes a far darker turn (especially considering how lightly the previous carnage has been played), with the mission become one of personal revenge rather than law enforcement. In cinematic terms, it’s like putting a sprig of parsley on a cow-pat, and calling it a salad: I was left wondering if someone had sloppily spliced on the final reel of an entirely different movie.

The only redeeming aspect – and even this falls well short of making it recommendable – is the action, which is quite frequent and high in intensity. Lee and Oshima are both in fine form, and watching the pair of them go toe-to-toe with each other is a joy, as always: that’s particularly so for the end battle, in which all the previously mentioned participants are involved, along with Sophia Crawford, who plays the villain’s mistress (she also takes an entirely gratuitous shower in some versions of the film). However, the truth is, you can see Lee and Oshima in any number of other movies, without having to endure the feeble efforts at buddy comedy attempted here. And you’d be well advised to do just that.

Dir: Tso Nam Lee
Star: Moon Lee, Kim Je Kee, Tsui Zen Aie, Yukari Oshima

Lady Whirlwind

  By

★★½
“Because Lady Moderate Breeze wouldn’t sell as many copies.”

deepthrustI’m not saying this is a bad film. But when I watch one called Lady Whirlwind (though here is as good a place as any to acknowledge the wonderfully tacky alternate title featured on the poster at the right), I expect a good deal more lady whirlwinding. The focus is instead on Ling Shi-Hao (Chang), beaten and left for dead after trying to leave a gang. Wisely, he decides to continue with his death, hiding out in the country for three years with girlfriend Hsuang Hsuang (We). This anonymity is shattered by the arrival of Tien Li-Chun (Mao), who wants a word with Ling, along with ripping the beating heart out of his chest. For it turns out, he was a bit of a bastard who jilted Tien’s sister, leading to her suicide. Hence, when he thanks Tien for saving him, she replies, “I just didn’t want somebody else to kill you.”

Ling admits he deserves his fate, but asks for a stay of execution, so he can first take revenge on his former colleagues (who include Sammo Hung in an early role). Tien is clearly pretty laid-back about the whole vengeance thing, since she’s nowhere to be seen during the lengthy training montage that follows, after Ling helps a Korean herbalist, bitten by a snake, and is taught the deadly Tai Chi Palm style. Will that help him beat the bad guys? And will Tien then stop lurking off-screen and goddamn do something?

There’s certainly no shortage of action, though in comparison to some other Mao films I’ve seen recently, the fight scenes doesn’t seem as smoothly choreographed and frankly, get a bit boring – it also suffers too much from the “we’ll attack you one at a time, while everyone else circles about aimlessly” trope, common to many movies of the time. Indeed, I must admit, there was one of Ling’s battles in the middle where I actually fell asleep: never a good sign where a martial-arts films is concerned. The frequent use of musical cues definitely not composed for the film is also rather distracting: one, in particular, will be particularly familiar if you’ve watched James Bond movies, but other sources say the pillaging also includes the works of Ennio Morricone and Bernard Herrmann. Hey, if you’re going to steal, do it from the best, I suppose.

Mao does have some good fight scenes, particularly going one-on-many with a copious line of henchmen. But you wonder why she’s so apparently disinterested in her revenge, particularly at the end, which is entirely ludicrous, and all but negates everything that happened over the previous 80 minutes. Not one of her best, with not enough going on beyond her usual graceful performance, to merit your attention.

Dir: Huang Feng
Star: Chang Yi, Angela Mao, Pai Ying, June Wu
a.k.a. Deep Thrust

The Lady Constables

  By

★★★½
“Crazy people have to be good fighters.”

lady constablesI first encountered this in a dreadful copy on Youtube: dubbed, cropped to 4:3 and apparently filmed off someone’s TV during a Force 10 storm at sea. However, what was left after that, was still impressive enough to make me track down a better copy. Well, somewhat better: it had subs, albeit burned in and incomplete, while the 16:9 ratio was at least a vague approximation to the original widescreen print. Still, you take what you get, and this is certainly enough fun to overcome the adversity of any flaws in the format.

The film starts with a robbery, in which five priceless pearls are snatched by the Black Wind Fortress gang under Coldstar Tiger (Chang). They split up to avoid detection, reckoning without the investigative – and, more importantly, interrogative – prowess of leading ladies Ti Yung Hing (Mao), who despite the title, is the only actual agent of law-enforcement here, and Tang Lin (Lee), whose uncle was killed during the robbery. Although they have similar goals, they refuse to team up, each preferring to work alone; adding an extra angle is Hung Yi (Wang), the bodyguard to the prince for whom the pearls were intended. Gradually, and not without some bickering on the way, they work their way up the Black Wind Fortress chain of command, and finally reach Coldstar Tiger. Though someone appears to be trying to cover the trail by offing their prisoners…

Yeah, as stories go, it’s pretty basic, and it’s clear the invention here was reserved for other aspects, such as the characters and the kung-fu. All three leads have their own quirks and foibles. One of the weapon’s in Ti’s arsenal is the ability to shoot scarves out of her sleeves, like a mad magician, and use them to encumber her opponent. Meanwhile, Tang keeps a plentiful supply of coffins on hand for her revenge, and isn’t a follower of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners, to put it mildly. And finally, Hung doesn’t speak – not because he’s mute, mind, he just doesn’t like to talk. He communicates instead with prewritten scrolls, which always have exactly the phrase he needs on them, and which he unfurls with a tinkly sound-effect.

The fight scenes are heavily wire-assisted, but that probably contributes to the action having stood the test of time better than many of its era (1978). They are no less imaginative than the characters, particularly at the end, with Mr. Tiger (Coldstar to his friends) wielding a mean umbrella/drone, on which one of our heroines hitches a ride. That previous sentence likely makes no sense if you haven’t seen the movie: if you do, then it will all become clear. Trust me on this, it provides a fitting climax to an entertaining piece of bare-bones action. With not one but two fighting ladies, this Taiwanese feature is deserving of a better presentation than it has received to date.

Dir: Cheung San Yee
Star: Angela Mao Ying, Judy Lee, Wang Kuan Hsiung, Chang Yi

Book of Heroes

  By

★★★
“Double-you Tee Eff?”

bookifheroesThe ranking here would probably be at least half a star higher, if I had the slightest freakin’ clue what’s going on here. For this has truly the worst subtitling I’ve seen in a quarter century of watching Hong Kong action films, with text that is entirely illegible more often than not. You’re left trying to piece together the plot, based on fragments of sentences and on-screen action, which significantly subtracts from the entertainment value. Good thing we have the Internet, and can turn to that for a coherent synopsis of proceedings, that will shine some light on who was doing what to whom, and why.

Having learned that the underworld society smuggled a batch of gold, the police authority sent Hu Pai and so on to watch and arrest. But unexpectedly it’s robbed by the 5th Rat of another gang. Therefore, Hu Pai was demoted as a traffic policeman. Hu Pai’s girl friend Little Wild Cat intended to join Royal Police but didn’t know how to get in, and so handled cases often in the name of Hu Pai. One day, when she met the youngest of Five Rats and was ready to arrest him, but was stopped by Risking San Niang. The second boss of Five Rats and Lawyer contrarily accused Little Wild Cat for pretending to be police. The 5th Rat wanted to sell the robbed gold to the 1st boss, but the latter took possession of it and sent Black Baboon to kill the 5th Rat. Before dying, the 5th Rat said “gold drawing, elder sister, fire” Little Wild Cat and Hu Pai started to investigate the 5th Rat’s sister Ever Changing Fox. Fox and her partner Smiling Tiger held the picture of hiding gold. The 1st boss, for the gold, started a chasing fight with Fox, Smiling Tiger and Stupid Rat. They used tricks one another with being extremely ridiculous.

bookofheroes2Well, crap. I was following that, right up to “batch of gold”.

Let me translate and summarize the summary of this Taiwanese action-comedy. What matters, is really that a shipment of smuggled gold has gone missing: the bad guys  led by Yamashita (Kurata) and his top enforcer (Oshima) want it, the police want to stop them, led by the plucky but largely incompetent Hu Pai (Gua Hu) and his cop wannabe girlfriend, Little Wild Cat (Hsin-chuen Lan). There’s also a couple of confidence tricksters – Ever Changing Fox (Yeung) and Smiling Tiger (Tao), if you’re keeping score – who end up collaborating with the cops to that end, though they have their own agenda in mind. Wacky hi-jinks ensue. Fortunately, so does a lot of action. Yeung has been seen here before, in Challenge of the Lady Ninja, Golden Queens Commando and Pink Force Commando, while Oshima’s credentials shouldn’t even need mentioning. Suffice it to say, asses are kicked in some volume, though the undercranking used to speed up the fight scenes is sometimes painfully obvious, and hardly necessary.

But there’s enough good here to balance out the negative aspects. Just don’t make the mistake of bothering to care about the storyline or the characters; in fact, you might as well save yourself a lot of time and just watch the fight compilation embedded below. All of the violence, none of the goofy (and largely unamusing) attempts at comedy, and a good hour saved for you to do something more worthwhile instead. You’re welcome!

Dir: Chu Yen Ping
Star: David Tao, Elsa Yeung, Yasuaki Kurata, Yukari Oshima

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

Hapkido

  By

★★★
“Forbearance. It’s vastly over-rated…”

lady_kung_fu_poster_011934 Korea is under the yoke of Japanese occupation. At the hapkido school of martial arts, Yu Ying (Mao), Kao Chang (Wong) and Fan Wei (Hung) are learning the form. On graduation, they return to China and open an establishment of their own, only to fall foul of the Japanese Black Bear group, who bully both local residents and other schools, and try to run the hapkido practitioners out of town. Despite their teacher’s mantra of “Forbearance,” of which Ying has frequently to remind her colleagues, hot-headed Wei is eventually baited into fighting and killing some of the Black Bear students, and has to go into hiding. Chang’s efforts at diplomacy fare no better, leaving him beaten within an inch of his life, and the Bears seize the opportunity to tell Ying they’ll be incorporating her school into theirs. She finally realizes that turning the other cheek can only go so far before you have stand up for what’s right. Which, in this case, is some kicking of asses belong to the Japanese and their minions.

The film certainly loses points for obviously cloning Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury, also released in 1972 and similarly based on a conflict between Japanese and Chinese martial arts schools. The strong anti-Japanese sentiment is no less shrill and strident here, and the style adopted for the fights is also largely similar, with one or other of our hero(in)es taking on a large group of rival students, before finally battling the big boss (or The Big Boss, if you prefer…).  Still, this is remarkable for the future output of those involved in the film. As well as being an early entry in the careers of Mao, Wong and Hung, there are minor roles for Billy Chan, Lam Ching-Ying (Mr. Vampire), Yuen Biao, Corey Yuen (director of Yes, Madam, She Shoots Straight and DOA: Dead or Alive) and Jackie Chan, who plays one of the Black Bear students.

But it’s mainly a showcase for the leads, and the action demonstrates why they’d all go on, to varying extents, and become stars in their own right. Mao is, obviously, of most interest here. After an early demonstration in Korea, which shows her as the smartest and sharpest of the trio, she largely takes a back seat in the middle, trying to keep the peace and practice that whole “forbearance” thing, before exploding into action again at the end. Particularly cool is the use of her weighted braids as a weapon, to whip her opponent about the face – you never saw Bruce Lee do that! And this is probably what defines the film. When it’s trying to be no more than a Lee-mitator, it comes off as second best, for obvious reasons. However, when the creators go their own way, it’s inventive and much more entertaining as a result. Shame the ratio isn’t tilted more heavily towards the latter.

Dir: Huang Feng
Star: Angela Mao, Carter Wong, Sammo Hung, Bai Ying
a.k.a. Lady Kung Fu

Checkmate

  By

★
“Obscure, and justifiably so.”

checkmateYou know a film is rare when the IMDB is using a photo from a completely different movie with the same name to illustrate it – at least, unless Cynthia Rothrock has had a sex-change, got a tan and changed her name to Lawrence Fishburne. I’ve gone for the Netherlands title here, because most of the copies floating around the usual sources seem to be from that. It reminds me a little bit of First Shot, which was also about psycho militia leader, Dutch Leonard (Nichols). seeking revenge on a federal agent, Kate Mason (Rothrock), whom he blames for the death of his brother. It’s FBI rather than Secret Service, and for obvious reasons, Rothrock is a good deal more hands-on than Hemingway. But that’s about the only advantage this offers, as it’s yet more evidence for the increasingly inalienable rule concerning Cynthia Rothrock films: the American ones suck. The fact that this one is not more easily available is perfectly understandable, because if I owned a distribution company, I wouldn’t release it if they were giving the rights away.

The main problem here is Nichols, who looks a bit like a low-rent version of Roddy Piper, and whose performance is so cringe-inducingly bad, you’ll be left yearning for Piper’s subtle, underplayed dramatic style. And I don’t even mean yearning for Piper in the classic They Live, but for the Piper who cut promos for the WWF, when his performance basically consisted of yelling a lot. On the plus side, Nichols does at least make an impression, and you will remember him, even if the impression is mostly, “Christ, this is terrible.” The rest of the film is almost completely forgettable: Cynthia does deliver her usual competence in the fight scenes, but there aren’t enough of them, and the garbage which flows between them is more than enough to drown out any positives. The problems start early, with the fake situation Leonard initially uses to draw out his target. Despite hostages and a large quantity of automatic weapons, the poverty-row budget means the federal presence at the siege reaches single figures. And this is after Ruby Ridge; we know this, because it’s explicitly referenced more than once. I’m guessing it inspired the whole “white rights’ militia” villain.

There’s a whole subsequent subplot involving a local judge, who is in cahoots with Dutch, and using the profits of their gun-running business to fund his gubernatorial campaign. It’s no more interesting than the main storyline, and every moment spent there is a moment wasted, since it could be used for better things, such as Cynthia Rothrock kicking some additional ass. Or simply removing it entirely and shorten the film, which would probably be even more welcome.

Dir: Nicholas Celozzi
Star: Cynthia Rothrock, Stephen Nichols, Patrick Wayne, Alex Hyde-White
a.k.a. Deep Cover

Lady Street Fighter

  By

½
“Legitimately terrible, among the worst films I’ve ever seen.”

lady_street_fighterLet me start off by repeating myself, in case you missed it, because I want to be absolutely clear on these points. This is legitimately terrible. This is among the worst films I’ve ever seen. And I speak as someone with over 25 years of watching really bad films. That half-star is solely for amusement to be gathered from how bad this is, because there are basically no redeeming features here at all, and I speak as someone who will tolerate almost any pile of shit with an action heroine in it. This movie is largely responsible for the addition of the word “almost” to the previous sentence, despite being mercifully brief at a mere 72 minutes in length. The half-star is simply because I did reach the end without gnawing a limb off to escape. I think I deserve some kind of Internet prize for that.

The problems start with the lead actress, Harmon, who is barely intelligible in English, to the extent that in her conversations, you largely have to listen to whoever she’s speaking to, and try to figure out what she said from their responses. Her acting talents are almost non-existent. but are probably better than her martial arts skills, which… just aren’t. Gives mean celery fellatio, however. Trust me, you don’t want to know. She plays Linda Allen, flies into the movie to investigate the death of her sister, apparently killed by the villains because she had a stuffed toy containing incriminating information. Ok, let’s pause here for a disclaimer. Please take the word “apparently” as read for the rest of the review, because this film does such a godawful job of explaining things, I’m not prepared to vouch for the accuracy of any plot point. I’m not even sure from which decade this dates. The IMDb says 1985, but the fashions are pure seventies, and judging by the near-sampling, the soundtrack was written when The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was still in theaters.

Allen is in trouble almost as soon as she arrives, with someone trying to stop her, though their efforts to silence her are woefully inept. There’s FBI agent Rick Pollard (McCrea), who may be undercover, may be crooked, and has thing for our heroine; John Verdes, who runs an escort agency; and Max Diamond, who is into drugs as well as “harder things,” (specifically, has an assassin for hire business), and has a foot fetish which would make Quentin Tarantino snort derisively. He holds parties which are the height of 60’s/70’s/80’s/whatever decadence – except for the guys incessantly chanting “Toga! Toga! Toga!”, who appeared to be on loan from Delta Tau Chi. It’s kinda hypnotic, in a “passing a multiple pile-up” kinda way; you find yourself guiltily wondering what horrors will be present around the next bend. The same goes for most of the film as it evolves, and Linda makes her way up the chain to find the truth about her sister’s death, with the help or otherwise of Pollard – it appears she particularly needs help, when clambering over any barrier above knee-high.

Awful on every conceivable level, I was unsurprised to discover the director was also responsible for one of the worst horror movies of all time, Don’t Go in the Woods and also, The Executioner Part II, which likely rivals this one for title of worst action film of all time. Such a broad scope of diverse talent can only be admired. If you can admire it from a distance, without actually having to watch any of his work, so much the better.

Dir: James Bryan
Star: Renee Harmon, Joel D. McCrea