Tag: USA

Janie

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★★★
“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

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★★
“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

Hullabaloo: Animated steampunk action heroine seeking your support

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hullabaloo2Currently running on IndieGogo is this campaign to assist in the funding of an animated feature, Hullabaloo, which hopes to resurrect the virtually dead art of traditional, 2-D, hand-drawn animation. Even Studio Ghibli, the home of animation deity Hayao Miyazaki, seems to be heading that way, and it’s easy to understand why: it’s an astonishingly intensive process. The president of Ghibli once estimated that all his company’s resources, going full bore, could produce five minutes of feature-quality animation a month. No wonder the trend is increasingly toward CGI. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing: the best works of Pixar show that story and characterization are more important than medium. But the loss of cel animation takes a tool away from the storytellers, and I personally find CGI still falls short when it comes to depicting human emotions accurately.

Hullabaloo was created by James Lopez, with animation by Bruce Smith, both long-time veterans of the industry, who worked on some of Disney’s classics, including The Lion King, Tarzan and The Emperor’s New Groove. Now, they’ve gone independent, and are looking to raise money for this project – it has really taken off, with the campaign already having raised more than three times its initial goal, with almost three weeks still left. But why is it of interest here? Well, if the pic on the right hasn’t given that away, because it promises to kick the arse of most Disney – or, indeed, most animated – films, in terms of its strong heroine. Here’s the synopsis, which sounds more than slightly like Adele Blanc-Sec, in terms of atmosphere and settings:

Hullabaloo is the story of Veronica Daring, a brilliant young scientist who returns home from an elite finishing school to find her father–the eccentric inventor Jonathan Daring–missing without a trace! The only clue left behind points Veronica toward Daring Adventures, an abandoned amusement park used by her father to test his fantastical steam-powered inventions. There she discovers a strange girl named Jules, a fellow inventor who agrees to help Veronica in locating her missing father and discovering the secrets of his work.

Together, Veronica and Jules learn that Jonathan Daring has been kidnapped by a mysterious group of influential persons, who seek to use his latest invention for nefarious purposes. These villains are wealthy and influential and neither Veronica nor Jules can stop them openly. But determined to save her father and holding true to the family creed that technology should be used for the good of all, not the greed of some, Veronica assumes the secret identity of “Hullabaloo”, a goggled crusader who uses wits and science to combat evil and oppose the nefarious conspiracy that has taken her father.

Got to love a story which also appears to be pro-science, as well as intent on providing a strong female role model for kids, something which isn’t as common as it should be [and even when it appears, can end up going off the rails – see Brave for example, which started an awful lot stronger than it finished]. Yeah, latching on to the steampunk trend does perhaps seem a little too bandwagon-jumping. But if you’re going to use an “antique” style like cel animation, then it does perhaps make more sense to put it into a period setting. And, it has to be said, there hasn’t been a “true” steampunk feature released for a while: there have been some with steampunk elements e.g. Sherlock Holmes, or even the version of The Three Musketeers made by Paul W.S. Anderson. But this seems a good deal more full-on, and can only be applauded as such. Of course, there’s a long way to go from where they are now, with the quarter of a million raised a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of the full feature. Hopefully, it’ll end up both getting made, and looking as cool as it has the potential to be.
hullabaloo

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

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

S+H+E: Security Hazards Expert

  By

★★★
“The Spy Who Loved S+H+E.”

s+h+eThis brisk TV pilot was apparently screened on CBS in early 1980, as a showcase for a possible series depicting the adventures of Lavinia Kean (Sharpe), the female secret agent of the title, as she jets around the globe fighting bad guys while immaculately dressed. Think of it as an early ancestor of Covert Affairs, perhaps, though there are aspects, such as the gadgetry, which have more in common with Roger Moore-era 007. That’s probably not surprising, since the writer here, Richard Maibaum, did a lot of Bond films, from Dr. No until License to Kill. The villain’s scheme is certainly a bunch of Cubby Broccoli: a plan to introduce a biological slime which eats oil into the world’s supplies, and hold UNESCO to an annual ransom, in perpetuity. In this case, it’s actually two villains, Baron Cesare Magnasco (Sharif) and Owen Hooper (Lansing) who faced off in a gold medal boxing match at the Tokyo Olympics, before deciding global terrorism is a better path to fame and fortune than punching each other in the face.

The series never materialized, and its status as a pilot explains why elements – such as Lavinia’s Italian boyfriend – just dangle without resolution. It also features questionable science, with the heroine somehow pulling out of thin air, that freezing the slime with CO2 is the way to deactivate it. Mind you, with Anita Ekberg playing the bad guys’ top boffin, you know you’re looking at style over substance all round. Still, Sharpe has the air of a young Goldie Hawn and there are moments where things work, and you get the frothy entertainment at which this aims. For example, after Lavinia sprays a heavy with “knockout gas”, she is unable to drag the body away to hide it. Fortunately, there’s a trolley nearby, so she uses that… Until she gets to a doorway it won’t fit through…. When she just gives up, and throws a blanket over everything. Also a bit different from Bond is the dynamic between hero(ine) and villain, with Lavinia and Cesare having a sexual attraction that you never saw between Bond and Blofeld. It’s probably for the best, that.

Sharpe doesn’t have a great physical presence, so the fisticuffs require a fair bit as far as suspension of disbelief goes, and Michael Kamen’s soundtrack clings firmly to a touching belief that disco isn’t dead. However, the production values are good, with a lot of shooting on location in Italy.  Combine that with a decent cast, and the eighties could have done an awful lot worse than this becoming a full series.

Dir: Robert Michael Lewis
Star: Cornelia Sharpe, Omar Sharif, Robert Lansing, Anita Ekberg

Mercenaries

  By

mercenaries11★★★
“Somewhat Expendable…”

Credit to The Asylum for getting off their ass and actually making a female version of The Expendables, while every other producer to touch the idea, has so far been nothing but talk. Certainly, it’s a cast to die for, with some of the most renowned action heroine names from both the past (Cynthia Rothrock, albeit kicking less butt than I’d like – but hell, she’s 57 – and with a hairstyle which has to be seen to be believed) and present (Zoë Bell, whom we will watch in absolutely anything. And occasionally have). The rest of the cast is an interesting mix of has-beens (Brigitte Nielsen) and names you’ll recognize from other genre entries (Kristanna Loken, Vivica A. Fox). It’s not a bad cast, though one wished, instead of Nicole Bilderback, they’d got someone like Rina Takeda or Yanin Mitananda. On the other hand, having an Asian that’s not good at martial arts is about as close as this gets to going counter to stereotype.

The scenario is basic but serves its purpose. The President’s daughter is kidnapped while on a trip to Kazakhstan by local warlord Ulrika (Nielsen). Her hatred of men leaves the best rescue solution to send in a team of women, hand-picked by CIA section chief or something Mona (Rothrock) from various prisons. There’s disgraced agent Raven (Fox), sharpshooter Kat (Loken), explosives expert Mei-Lin (Bilderback) and all-round bad-ass Clay (Bell), who is given the task of leading the group into the remote corner of Asia, infiltrating Ulrika’s lair and rescuing the “First Daughter”. They do so by faking Mei-Lin’s identity, claiming she’s the daughter of a rich industrialist, whom they’ve kidnapped, and offering her to Ulrika for the ransom possibilities. Of course, getting in is one thing: finding the President’s offspring, setting her loose, and then everyone escaping from the middle of nowhere back to the good old US of A is quite another.

Directed by Christopher Olen Ray, son of noted B-movie maestro Fred Olen Ray, easily the best thing about this are the characters. Nielsen may not have aged well, to put it mildly, but she’s still six foot tall, and looks like she could spit nails into floorboards. On the side of good, Bell and Fox, in particular, also capture the necessary spirit of marginally-restrained irritability, with Loken and Bilderback providing a little lightness for contrast. The banter between them is a bit of a mixed bag: I mean, “fucking George Clooney with a strap-on” sounds more like bizarre wish-fulfillment from writer Edward DeRuiter than anything a real woman might say. However, other moments do have a nice sense of authenticity, and you get the sense that each of the main characters have enough back-story to fuel an entire feature on their own. That’s in part because most of the actresses already are more than familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in action heroines. Even Bilderback, the least-known, was in the unaired pilot for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so has at least a minor role in the history of our genre. It might have been fun if the script had played off their history more, riffing on Loken’s part in Terminator 3 in some way, or Fox’s in Kill Bill. After all, that’s why they’re all here, and I can’t think of a more loaded cast in GWG film history.

Unfortunately, what doesn’t work is the action. The most obvious problem is an excess of mediocre digital effects, particularly in the areas of muzzle flashes and blood. Few things work so well at taking the audience out of the moment, as when you start spotting things like that: generally, you are better off not having muzzle flashes at all, than doing them badly. But a much more egregious crime by Olen Ray is having a crown jewel like Zoë Bell, but taking her action scenes and running them through a cinematic wood-chipper. You need to do this kind of thing when you have an actress who can’t do her own action, and you need to hide a stunt double or to make them look better than they are. You do not need to do either when you have Bell: you stand back, point the camera in her direction – and might as well get some popcorn, since you’ll be there a while. What you get here instead, is like hiring Maria Callas, then having her lip-sync, and it’s aggravating as hell, with only a few flashes of the talent we know to be present. Compare and contrast the approach of Raze, which largely just got out of Bell’s way.

It’s a shame, because the film did so much right, from intent through to assembling a rock-solid cast, yet couldn’t finish off the process. The Asylum are notorious for their mockbusters e.g. Atlantic Rim, but this has enough fresh about it that it could have been one of the best films in their catalog (and, I should know because, dammit, I’ve seen far more of them than most people!). Hopefully, it’s still successful enough to merit a sequel, perhaps under someone with a better handle on shooting the action.

Dir: Christopher Douglas Olen Ray
Star: Zoë Bell, Brigitte Nielsen, Kristanna Loken, Vivica A. Fox

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