Cinderella's Revenge (2024)

This is a film we covered on the pod back on episode 157, when the film's screenwriter and friend of the site Tom Jolliffe was on to discuss it with us. At that time, the film had a limited theatrical release that included a theater in the Philly suburbs, so I was able to get out there and see it then on the big screen. Now it's finally on Tubi here in the States, so I figured it was time to review it here too.

Cinderella's Revenge has Lauren Staerck as our eponymous hero. After her father is framed by her stepmother and executed by a couple of bounty hunters, she's forced to live a life of toil and abuse at the hands of the stepmother and her stepsisters. When a ball is announced for the prince to find a mate, initially Cinderella is stuck at home, but a visit from her Fairy Godmother (Natasha Henstridge) changes all that, allowing Cinderella to go and be the belle of the ball. This only enrages her stepmother and stepsiblings even more, but instead of taking it lying down, Cinderella asks her Fairy Godmother for help again, and she gives Cinderella the strength to exact bloody revenge on all who have wronged her.

 

This was a lot of fun, a great mix of comedic, lighthearted moments, and gory, horror ones. When one of the stepsisters saws off her two smallest toes to try to fit into Cinderella's shoes, it was definitely a cringe-worthy moment for me, which is what a movie like this wants, but Tom reminded me on the podcast that that was taken from the original version of the story--not something we'll see in the Disney adaptations. Adding to the levity, Natasha Henstridge was great as the Fairy Godmother, off-beat, caring, and perhaps a bit sinister. This is juxtaposed with Stephanie Lodge's villainous stepmother, who is never not menacing and vile; and the two stepsisters, played by Beatrice Fletcher and Megan Purvis, who were more silly in their performances--Purvis in particular reminded me of Tracy Ullman. Then all of this is tied together by Lauren Staerck, who we really have to become invested in early on so we can be there to root for her when she starts the killing spree. It all works in a fun, 85-minute package, and while you can't see it in the theater anymore, Tubi is as great a place as any to check it out.

 

The big name in this is Natasha Henstridge, who we've seen here two other times, first in '07 with the Pyun/Lambert flick Adrenaline: Fear the Rush, and then in '08 with Riders aka Steal, with Stephen Dorff and Bruce Payne. 16 years feels like a long time between posts for her, but in looking over her IMDb bio, the only thing I see that we probably should've reviewed is 2016's Home Invasion with Scott Adkins and Jason Patric, but it was dumped from Tubi before I had a chance to catch it, and it's been lost to me ever since. I was surprised to find out that she's not that old, as she was only 21 when she did Species, and 22 when she did Adrenaline: Fear the Rush and Maximum Risk. So how do we get here, from Species to low-budget films like this--even if this one was produced by Mark L. Lester? In her IMDb trivia, she said she wasn't good at choosing movies, and turned down Independence Day and Men in Black for those two movies I just mentioned. That's the start, right? Then two underperforming films, Species II and Ghosts of Mars, a success in a supporting role in The Whole Nine Yards, only to see that sequel not do as well, and now we're doing She Spies. (Which I have to admit I was a fan of.) Seeing her here, where she's bringing a lot of great stuff to the table, we can see where she could've shined in bigger films. Maybe if Elektra didn't do so poorly, Marvel wouldn't have waited until Captain Marvel to make another female-led adaptation. And maybe we could still see her in something like that, but in the meantime, we can enjoy her work here.

 

That's right, Mark L. Lester produced this, he of Commando, Showdown in Little Tokyo, The Base films, and many others. Somehow I missed that he also produced The Gardener, the Gary Daniels film I reviewed recently. Over the last ten years or so, he's stopped directing and turned his attention to producing low-budget films like this--the one he did before this was Ouija Witch, which is also on all the free streamers here in the States. This kind of stuff is fun for sure, but what the world needs is another balls-to-the-wall actioner! Call up Dolph, call up Dacascos--hell if Arnold won't answer your calls, at least call Vernon Wells--and let's blow some shit up! And you've got the screenwriter you need, Tom can give you 90 pages. At the very least, just consider it, and if not for us, please, do it for the kids.

Obviously as the DTV Connoisseur, I don't see movies in the theater that often, let alone review ones I've seen at the theater on my site, so this was a unique experience, but one I hope to have more often. Yes, with me not having a car it's a bit of a hike up to Warrington where this was showing, but it was a fun adventure and worth the trip to support an indie low-budget release like this, and I would happily do it more often if more films like this were showing in the area. For low-budget distributors considering limited releases of their films, one benefit I hadn't considered was the exposure you get from people coming to see other things. At the time this was playing, the new Ghostbusters movie and The Fall Guy were also playing, so anyone coming to see those would see the poster for this and, even if they didn't come back and see it, would have been exposed to it, so when they saw it months later as they're paging through Tubi, it might be enough to have them give it a try among all the other options on there.

 

Finally, we live in a world of expansive movie universes. The MCU is perhaps the most well known, or DC, but Star Trek and Star Wars also come to mind, or even the Fast and Furious. What about fairy tale characters though? They're all public domain, so anyone can use them. Maybe you make a sequel to this, introduce Hansel and Gretel in it, give them their own movie, then go from there, building to a major film with all the characters from the previous films fighting two or three big baddies. And because these stories have been changed and fudged and passed around for centuries, like this one here, you can do whatever you want with it. I think we might have something with this...

But for now, it's just Cinderella's Revenge, and you can get it on Tubi here in the States. I had a really fun time with it, and I think it's worth checking out, especially if you're looking for some off-beat horror to pass the time. Kudos to everyone involved, including Tom, who wrote a great screenplay here. Again, you can check out my conversation with him on this on episode 157 in the archives.

 

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28087226

 

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

 

Raw Justice aka Good Cop, Bad Cop (1994)

Wasn't there a Klingon proverb that said "justice is a dish best served raw"? Either way, this had been on my radar for a long time, and when Tubi finally picked it up, I didn't have anymore excuses, so we're making it happen now. In addition to us, the guys at Bulletproof and the guys at Comeuppance have covered this as well.

Raw Justice has David Keith (not to be confused with Keith David) as a former cop who's now a bounty hunter. When he's not wearing the clothes of a lady of the night--and magically making said clothes fit him--in order to fool a mark, he's drinking and ruing his lost love. When said lost love is murdered, Airplane's Robert Hays is implicated, so lost love's father, mayor Charles Napier, calls in Keith to keep an eye on Hays, because Keith can work outside the law. At the same time, he's being harassed by former fellow cop Leo Rossi, who's working for lieutenant mayor Stacy Keach to cover up the murder; and then lady of the night Pamela Anderson comes calling for her clothes Keith took, and gets wrapped up in Keith and Hays's troubles. Just put your goggles on for the last 15 minutes, because you'll need some eye protection when all these loose ends start flying together.

What do we make of a movie like this? It's pretty paint-by-numbers, except it isn't. First off there's the music, which is a cross between the start of the Chili's "Baby Back Ribs" song and what you'd hear in a Roseanne episode supporting a scene change establishing shot. Oh, they're at the Lobo Bar? Now they're back at the Connor's house? Maybe Darlene's apartment in Chicago? Ooh, is David hiding in the bathroom? On the other hand, this had some nice action sequences in it, not PM, but nice enough; and the names are prodigious, with Keith as the disgraced cop on the edge, Robert Hays in a Guttenbergian turn as the awe-shucks guy--yet he also knows kung fu?--, Pamela Anderson pre-Barb Wire but mid-Baywatch slumming it in a David Prior-directed flick, and then Napes, Keach, and Rossi being as Napes, Keach, and Rossi as you want. And before I forget, the great Ted Prior in a small role as another cop helping Rossi, sans mullet but fully-shirted, almost like a Bizzaro Danton. And maybe, for all the things that worked and all the things that didn't, that's what we ultimately needed to get us over the goal line: more New York Seltzer-sponsored AIP action. Where's William Zipp when you need him?

This is our first Pamela Anderson film on the site, just shy of 1300 posts in. I'm not sure why I didn't do Barb Wire back when I was doing Wild Card posts on comic book films, but I must've missed it. With all of the talent in this, it was apparent that she was the one with the real it factor, that it was only a matter of time before she became a big star, though it was more star in the celebrity sense, because she never really had that one breakout acting role. This was maybe 5 years before one could be famous just for being famous, like Paris Hilton, or later Kim Kardashian, so Anderson at least had to try acting, but I think she was one of the first stars to create that famous just for being famous ecosystem, so without her we wouldn't have Kim Kardashian. According to the trivia, she said the love scenes in this were horrible for her, which I definitely saw in the David Keith love scene, where he's really rough with her; but the one with Hays seemed very tame. From a character standpoint, I get why Keith would've gone that route, but he also could've acted it out more than actually going for it. It felt very Jeff Conaway in a Traci Lords PM flick, and you could even see in the shots they used in the film how uncomfortable Anderson was with it, but how she tried to go with it--which again, fit their characters better in the movie, but that doesn't help Anderson out with what she went through at all.

Out of all the names, Napes is the one with the most tags on the site, this being his 13th. After that, David Winters has his 8th (he's a producer), Keach, Rossi, and both Priors have 6, and David Keith has 3. In the scene I took the screen of above, he's in Keith's apartment asking for his help to keep an eye on Hays while Hays is out on bail. From a story standpoint, it's a ludicrous construct, why would Napes do this, especially when we find out he doesn't suspect anyone else, he really thinks Hays did it, why bother getting Keith involved at all? But Napes sells it as only Napes can. "What is my motivation here? Why would I do this if I was this guy?" The paycheck is why, and Napes knows that, and he delivers. The Keach kind of makes no sense, it took a second to even realize it was him. I guess he had to play it this way for us to believe he was the lieutenant mayor to Napes, but I like a good mustachioed no-nonsense Keach if I'm getting Keach in my film. And then there's Rossi. He has this combination Cajun and an impression of the late Leslie Jordan accent that was equal parts hilarious and fascinating. Like I think if I could have one wish, it might be to eat at a Waffle House with Rossi while he's doing that voice the whole time. "You 'bout done with that Heinz 57 sauce? My potatoes are cryin' out for a lil' dab uh two." Who am I kidding, it'd be an honor to have a meal at a Waffle House with Leo Rossi, even if he wasn't doing his Cajun crossed with Leslie Jordan voice. A guy can dream, right?

As I said above, this is now six films for David Prior, but only 5 for directing, which puts him way down the directors tags list--he got a tag for his writer's credit on Dancin' It's On, that's why he has six. That's definitely on me, because I'm behind on my AIP flicks overall--of which this isn't one--but also Prior is one of the DTV greats, and deserves to have more films on here. For all the paint-by-numbers-ness of this, Prior does inject some nice action sequences, from a mall dirt bike chase, to some nice flying cars, to an exploding helicopter. I'm not going to say this is as good as Shakedown, but Prior does his best to get us closer to that. Looking at his IMDb bio, he has another 25 or so films that we could cover here on the site, so I just need to get after it. I'll do my darndest. Here's to you Mr. Prior, you were one of the greats.

Finally, who remembers Montgomery Ward? When our heroes are chasing each other on dirt bikes through the mall, we get a good shot of one here. Growing up, Wards was the anchor at the Newington Mall, which was run out of business by the bigger Fox Run Mall that was opened near it in the late 80s--and the Montgomery Ward along with it--only for the Newington Mall to be torn down and replaced by a massive strip mall with a Barnes and Noble, Kohl's, and Best Buy, which has since almost killed the Fox Run Mall. Anyway, back to Wards, did you know they still exist online? And you can go to the site and request a physical catalog be sent to you? Now I don't know if that catalog has He-Man figures for sale in it, and my parents live over 350 miles away, so I can't just circle the guys I want and dogear the pages so they can find them, but just the idea of a Monkey Wards catalog is fantastic! As an aside, did anyone else call it Monkey Wards? Was that a thing everywhere, or just my neighborhood in my small town in Maine? If you're wondering, I ordered the physical catalog. I had to. Maybe the next Prior film I review will have a chase in front of a Service Merchandise.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this as Good Cop, Bad Cop on Tubi--despite that fact that neither character is a cop--which is as good a way to get it as any. With the names and the good bits of action here and there, it's a nice weekend morning time killer--if you find you have time to kill some weekend morning.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110948

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/