In the days of my youth, back when I was filled with hopes and dreams and unsightly boogers, the local neighborhood convenience store was where my friends and I would hang out and discuss the intricacies of life. We’d also spend our lunch money on sugary foods, high-calorie carbonated beverages, and, occasionally, cheap knock-off G.I. Joe figures encased in flimsy cardboard containers. As I tore away the colorful packaging to interact with my latest molded plastic purchase one sunny summer afternoon, my unfortunate investment’s arms and legs immediately fell away, leaving only his head and torso to answer for this unsettling crime. And while I can’t recall the exact name of this ultra-cheap cash-in, I do remember the overwhelming sensation of sadness when I discovered I’d been completely ripped-off by a shady corporation looking to make a few bucks off skinny little suckers like me. Bitterness, I’ve found, never really goes away.
Instead, it lies dormant, waiting for the opportunity to live again.
Not surprisingly, this debilitating series of unwelcome emotions came screaming to the surface after viewing Scott Wheeler and Davey Jones’ opportunistic adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. In true Asylum fashion, the film makes it direct-to-video debut around the same time New Line Cinema’s Brendan Fraser 3-D extravaganza dances its way into cineplexes all over the entire world. There are, however, a number of significant differences between this low-budget nonsense and the source material, though I seriously doubt that anyone who purposely rents this drek knows how to read. No offense to those who simply have absolutely no taste in film, as I’m sure your ability to comprehend the written word is outstanding.
Continue Reading »
Generally speaking, most movies do not require a sequel. The Blair Witch Project, for example, could have lived happily ever after without its successor, the undeniably horrible and completely extraneous Book of Shadows. Don’t even get me started on An American Werewolf in Paris. Unless you’re bringing something entirely new to characters and/or scenario(s) crafted in the first outing, follow-ups are just another way for Hollywood to sneak a few more dollars out of your moth-eaten back pocket. There are exceptions, mind you, but not many. And as much as I love Gremlins 2 and Troll 2, the world would have been a-okay without them, thank you very much.
Dodgy director P.J. Pesce — who also helmed the ultra-boring Tom Berenger actioner Sniper 3 — has added yet another title to this never-ending list of cinematic mistakes. Lost Boys: The Tribe, developed by Warner Home Video’s questionable direct-to-video label Warner Premiere, is every bit the stank bastard you’d expected it to be. It’s the very definition of “knock-off,” a cheap imitation of an interesting concept that made a few dollars for the studio several years back. Strip away the title and the presence of professional has-been Corey Feldman and you’ve got nothing more than a cheap erotic vampire flick that will probably appeal to fat chicks eagerly awaiting the arrival of Twilight. Insert heavy sigh here.
Continue Reading »
Have you ever looked up from your delicious vegetarian lunch on the patio of a swank downtown eatery only to discover some hairy wack job with a digital camera filming your every move? If so, congratulations! You’re somebody special, and we should probably get together for dinner in the near future. Would you mind terribly if I brought my own Wal-Mart digital video camera on our date? I promise I won’t film you. Not while you’re looking, anyway. What goes on when your back is turned is between me, my camera and the waitress who’s in on my elaborate plan to control your life. Call me, okay?
Promise?
Still with me? Wonderful! If that horribly constructed attempt at witty fiction didn’t trigger a particularly devastating case of the heebie jeebies, then director Seth Landau’s impossibly paranoid thriller Bryan Loves You should do the trick quite nicely. It’s an Orwellian nightmare for the YouTube generation, a vaguely surreal landscape sprinkled with hidden security cameras, secret stalkers, and sinister religious fanatics. Making the most of his very limited budget, Landau has crafted a genuinely affecting narrative that takes full advantage of society’s new found interest in digital voyeurism. A socially aware horror movie?
You don’t say!
Continue Reading »
Though it doesn’t come up often in day-to-day conversation, I do consider myself to be a pretty big fan of Fred “The Hammer” Williamson and his dodgy collection of filmed entertainment. He may not be the greatest actor to ever grace a cheap downtown double feature, mind you, but he’s got enough genuine, uncut screen presence to compensate for what he lacks in emotional range and technical skill. Even when the material for his pictures has been scraped from the bottom of a very deep, very greasy barrel, chances are you’ll have a good time watching Williamson shoot, slap, and mistreat everyone he comes into contact with. Truthfully, sometimes that all I really need to consider his films a success. Sad, dear readers, but painfully true.
However, I have recently found a very unfortunate exception to this rule. Case in point: the big guy’s 1989 Chicago cop thriller The Kill Reflex, a rambling, unfocused affair akin to the sort of empty-headed malarchy you might have found on the USA Network back in the early 90’s. Nevermind the stilted dialogue, the illogical script, or the hamfisted acting — this film is just plain boring. Considering that Williamson served as producer and director, one would assume this picture to be, if nothing else, an action-packed adventure overloaded with numerous shoot-outs and a handful of mediocre fight sequences. What we’re given, I’m sad to report, is similar to every other renegade cop flick lensed during this dry, visually-defunct era of American cinema.
Continue Reading »
During those dusty bygone days of the now-defunct Video Home System, purchasing films for your personal collection was a very costly venture. Unless the distributor had chosen to issue their product as “priced to sell,” the going rate for almost any movie on the market was simply outrageous. Spending close to one-hundred dollars on any film seems positively preposterous in this pirate-friendly digital age — I honestly can’t remember the last time I paid more than twenty-five bones for anything I didn’t have to order from a genre-specific website or some opportunistic yokel on eBay hording a tasty collection of ultra-rare VHS tapes.
The price tag printed on the box art for director Carl Monson’s 1987 Frank Stallone-Christopher Mitchum revenge actioner Death Feud (aka Savage Harbor) would suggest madness on the part of the consumer. The damage: $79.95, though this item is priced slightly higher in Canada. And while I don’t necessarily regret dropping two wonderful little dollars on this undeniably hilarious motion picture, there were moments when I truly wished I’d spent my money on a fresh avocado, instead. In fact, I’d love to hear from anyone who actually shelled out that much cash on such a dumpy, amateur hour production such as this. I promise I won’t poke fun.
Continue Reading »
Before I sat down to pen this late-night review of writer/director Daisuke Yamanouchi’s nauseating Japanese torture flick Red Room 2, I was forced to pay a quick visit to the write-up I’d concocted about the first entry early last year. Not surprisingly, my thoughts and feelings regarding this admittedly unnecessary sequel is pretty much exactly the same, albeit for a completely different set of stomach-churning reasons. And, yes, I do still feel more than a wee bit guilty for spending roughly 80 minutes of my unadventurous life watching a sad collection of individuals humiliate one another for a few million yen. What that says about my mental well-being probably isn’t too good.
The setup for Red Room 2 hasn’t changed much since last time: Four pathetic individuals, each acting on their own free will, play an extremely twisted game entitled “King” inside a room illuminated by cherry red light bulbs. After each seedy contestant has taken a seat at a cheap all-purpose table, four crude playing cards are dealt, one for each player. The lucky boy or girl holding the card marked with a black crown gets to order the others around; think “truth or dare” without the option to cough up an embarrassing anecdote regarding your masturbatory habits. The poor bastard who loses the round is usually covered in blood and gore and screaming bloody murder, especially once things get a bit personal between the combatants.
Continue Reading »
It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen anything as unapologetically violent and deliriously enjoyable as Noboru Iguchi’s stylish 2008 super-heroine epic The Machine Girl. From the picture’s over-the-top blood-spattered opening to its slightly ambiguous sequel-ready conclusion, yours truly sat in complete awe, slack-jawed and astonished. To be perfectly honest, I’ve never seen anything quite like it — except, of course, for the 2005 splatter flick Meatball Machine, yet another ridiculous Japanese oddity specifically designed to overload your fragile cinematic senses with copious amounts of grue and gore. If this is where Asian genre filmmaking is headed, color me tickled pink and pulsating.
Let’s get one thing perfectly clear before we begin: The Machine Girl isn’t an overly complicated affair, nor does it strive to be. The central premise has been used time and time again in various forms of Eastern cinema, almost to the point that even casual fans can recite the formula by heart to anyone within earshot. It’s a clothesline for filleted flesh and massacred muscle, nothing more. However, were you to carefully peel back those meaty layers of dismembered limbs and congealed blood, you would come face-to-face with an ordinary, everyday revenge tale mired in cliche and familiar ideas. Which is a good thing, mind you, since the plot never gets in the way of the one element that keeps us from finding more constructive ways to pass the time.
That element, of course, is wanton bloodshed.
Continue Reading »
I will readily admit to anyone within earshot that I am, in fact, a complete and utter hypocrite and a seething, pulsating motion picture snob. Hard to believe, I’m sure, but every centimeter of that bold statement is true. This embarrassing factoid has become more apparent as of late, especially when I find myself lambasting a selection of films for containing certain elements and praising others for doing the exact same thing. Careful examination of the evidence has determined that I am more lenient on foreign films than I am those produced and crafted within the United States. Go figure. Were I better writer and critic, perhaps I could put a finer point on it.
With this tidbit of needless information fresh in your Internet-saturated little minds, it should come as absolutely no surprise that I found myself giggling faux-girlishly while viewing Kôji Kawano’s hilariously awful erotic actioner The Girls Rebel Force of Competitive Swimmers, also known around the world as Joshikyôei hanrangun and Undead Pool. Using a threadbare plotline about a ferocious viral infection inside an otherwise ordinary Japanese high school as a crumbling foundation for naughtier ventures, the filmmakers and their bevy of Eastern cuties unleash an unapologetic torrent of violence, overblown action, pointless nudity, and gratuitous sex over the course of its 80 simplistic minutes, giving you and your kooky sexual fetishes plenty of bang for your entertainment dollar.
Guess what? I loved every microsecond of it.
Continue Reading »
For assisting a local video store with the collection, transportation, and storage of the dusty, spider-infested inventory of a defunct Blockbuster Video store last year, I was rewarded with stacks upon stacks of neglected, unwanted low-budget movies on VHS. The titles range from brutally obscure to burn-this-immediately; I’m sure most of them will never experience the unbridled joy of a digital remastering or the warm fuzziness of a two-disc special edition DVD release. This treasure trove of pure, uncut B-movie nonsense should provide yours truly with the sort of unhinged cinematic sugar rush that has, in laboratory studies, destroyed weaker men. Here’s hoping I escape the ordeal with my sanity intact.
At the bottom of one of these glorious towers of audio-visual delights was cult director Sergio Martino’s 1986 actioner Hands of Steel (aka Vendetta dal futuro), a film which is, God help us, an unholy amalgamation of James Cameron’s classic The Terminator and Menahem Golan’s cheesy father-son epic Over the Top. What does this exercise in lazy writing mean to the common, everyday layperson, you ask? Well, in short, it means arm-wrestling cyborgs in “the bleak futureworld of 1997.” The last part, of course, is quoted directly from the strange little synopsis slapped absent-mindedly onto the back of the box. To be fair, there is a bit more going on here than simple roadhouse machismo.
Continue Reading »
It’s no secret that I’m a huge frothing fan of both Take Out, Seth Landau’s first full-length feature, and his latest effort Bryan Loves You. These films are fine examples of what independent filmmakers working with limited funds can accomplish if their hearts are truly into their respective projects. At a time when everyone and their dearly-departed grandmothers are making movies in their backyards with the digital cameras they purchased at Wal-Mart, it’s nice to see creativity, quality, and, above all else, integrity in the world of low-budget and no-budget cinema.
With Seth’s highly-anticipated creepfest Bryan Loves You looming on the horizon thanks to the good folks at Anchor Bay, the kind individuals here at Cinema Suicide thought it would be hella swell to pick the writer/director/actor’s brain about his latest cinematic endeavor. After spending a few interesting hours in my patented Interview Via E-Mail Machine, a series of thought-provoking questions were constructed using an off-brand word processor and delivered electronically to the man himself. These inquiries were then answered and returned in a timely and orderly manner. Ah, the beauty and the power of the Internet and its inhabitants.
Continue Reading »
