Armor (2024)

This is one Ty and I covered on a past episode of the podcast, number 214 in the archives. A Stallone Randall Scandal was too good to pass up, and as such, it needed a review on the site as well.

Armor takes place in Mississippi, where disgraced, alcoholic former cop Jason Patric drives an armored car with his son Casey (Josh Wiggins), whom he also makes fun of in front of Casey's spouse when they're nice enough to invite him over for dinner. With a likeable hero like Patric, we have an equally likeable baddie in Stallone (his character name is "Rook"), and the two are on a collision course to wackiness when Rook plans to rob Patric's armored car. They end up in a standoff on a bridge, where Patric and his son try to hold off Stallone and his bad of ne'er-do-wells. That's pretty much it, standoff on a bridge, with maybe a flashback mixed in, and some of the fakest CGI water you've ever seen.

This is as lazy a Randall Scandal as you'll see. One location for the most part, Stallone showing up to be Stallone, Patric wishing he could be anywhere else--you can almost hear him yelling "I was in The Lost Boys damn it!" And that's the thing, if we liked Patric's character, this might matter some, but he's a jerk to his son, he's leading AA meetings while drinking, why am I rooting for him? And while Stallone's character is pretty cool, he has a lot of jerks in his team, like Dash Mihok's character. So this ends up being like an AITA ("Am I the Asshole") post on Reddit, where someone responds "ESH" ("Everyone Sucks Here"). And the thing is with a Randall Scandal, do they really care that we care? Not really, right? Did you stream it? I did. Then that's all that counts.

Speaking of counts, this is our sixth Stallone film on the site, but his first ever DTV movie. Not a bad deal to make it this far without one of these. And the moment I heard his voice, that unmistakable Stallone voice, it felt completely out of place here. What is that voice doing in this Randall Scandal? I don't think I'm alone in that either, because this movie has 29 critic reviews on IMDb, which used to be the going number for an earlier Willis Randall Scandal, but the later ones didn't quite hit those numbers. Like Fortress and Fortress: Sniper's Eye, which did 18 and 15 critic reviews respectively (though the first one also had an astounding 135 user reviews!), people had kind of had enough of these, but I think the novelty of Stallone in one was a big enough draw. He does have another one that was released this year, Alarum, so when that makes it to a free streamer we'll probably make it happen. He just turned 79 a few weeks ago, so the fact that he's pumping these out at all is fantastic. We'll take what we can get at this point.

When it comes to CGI, I'm not as much of a stickler on it, and especially when we're talking about DTV movies being made on a budget, I tend to let it slide--in fact, in some cases, like when it comes to depicting large animals, or really any animals at all, I prefer CGI. Leave the animals alone, I'll take a poorly CGI'd tiger over a real one in a movie any day. All that said, the CGI in this when the "water" is rushing into the armored car was a bit much. The CGI water in Black Dawn thought this looked ridiculous. I mean, I don't know how well you can tell from that picture, but it was like a low-budget effect from a cheap local TV show that's doing a silly bit between segments. Again, it just speaks to the overall lazy vibe these Randall Scandals give off. Do we pay a company a little but more to make it look better, or do we just go with this? And then Randall, from his poker game off-set, just waves at them to get them to leave him alone, before he gets bluffed into folding pocket kings and loses $2000, followed by him throwing a temper tantrum, which all leads to us seeing that cheap CGI water above.

This may be a bit of a spoiler, but if you've seen enough of these Randall Scandals, you won't be surprised by what I'm about to say. Rook, our baddie, turns kind of good, and then escapes with no repercussions for what he's done. Emmett, being the kind of person he is, I think he likes it when the bad guys win, which maybe can work if you make the baddie fun enough, but he seldom does that, so we get this awkward "we're letting the bad guy off" construct that doesn't exactly work. Look at A Day to Die, which we haven't reviewed yet but did do on a podcast episode. Leon as the baddie, kidnaps Kevin Dillon's pregnant wife, keeps her tied up, and menaces her, but in the end after they fight the crooked cops together, Leon joins Dillon and his wife in Caribbean or wherever they escape to. How could you spend any time with that guy after he did that to you? Or Cash Out, where 12 people are held hostage in a bank robbery and treated roughly by Travolta and his gang, but then because he gave them each $1 million after he escaped with all the cash it's okay? If you watch the Randall Scandal documentary you can see the psychology behind this, he treats people poorly all the time and feels like it's his right to get away with it, and movies like this are just a reflection of that.

Finally, Stallone's character's name, "Rook," reminded me of a famous post-NBA game press conference by former Memphis Grizzlies head coach David Fizdale. He was upset that his team was on the bad end of a lop-sided officiating performance, with more calls going in favor of the San Antonio Spurs, a veteran team that had won multiple championships in the past. At one point he said "they're not gon' rook us," meaning "they're not going to treat us like rookies," and every time someone in this movie called Stallone by his character name, "Rook," my first thought was "they not gon' rook us." He also famously finished the press conference with "take that for data!" Here's the link to it, it's a thing of beauty.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi here in the States. If you're that curious to see what a Stallone Randall Scandal looks like, Tubi is the place to watch it. And if you haven't yet, you can check out the podcast Ty and I did on this, episode 214 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29252358

Pick up my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

12 to Midnight (2024)

This is one Ty and I covered on episode 210 of the podcast, and I figured with the Bronzi factor, it was worth covering on the site as well. I don't know how true that is actually, but I'm going with it.

12 to Midnight has nothing to do with the 10 to Midnight that it's cribbing its title from--thought that would be an interesting idea for a prequel, no?--but it seems like it might when we find out early on that Bronzi's wife was murdered by serial killer who's still on the loose, and could kill again. But this thing ain't shaping up to finish with Bronzi confronting a nude dude, oh no, it's a backdoor werewolf movie! Fortunately Bronzi's of Eastern European descent, and as such, this isn't his first werewolf rodeo--which, for an animal lover like myself, that may be the best kind of rodeo and the only kind worth supporting--so he's onto what's happening pretty quickly. Well, not quickly enough to spare myriad other victims from the werewolf's wrath, but if he didn't have that Eastern European background, this could easily be a 150-minute slog, so I'm not complaining. It's going to take everything in Bronzi's bag of tricks to bring this werewolf killer to justice.

This wasn't half-bad. You take the concept of Robert Bronzi having a career based on being a Charles Bronson look-alike, which is bonkers enough on its own, mix in Tito Ortiz and werewolves, and I think you have yourself a fun 90 minutes. To be honest, this is doing a lot better than a lot of modern DTV. It knows what it is, doesn't try to be anything it isn't, and the result is something that's pretty fun. That all being said, this is bonkers, and if you're looking at the cover expecting a hard-boiled actioner, you don't really get that. Bronzi has some cop on the edge in him, but once we add in werewolves, all bets are off. Sadie Katz, who we've seen before, looks like she could add in her own "sheriff on the edge," which would've been a fun twist on that premise, but, again, werewolves throw all that out the window. Sometimes you need that though. I don't know how many rough-sit Randall Scandals we've seen that probably would've been more palatable with the inclusion of werewolves. At least half the Bruce Willis ones anyway. 

We've now seen Bronzi twice on the site, which is four behind the actual Bronson's six. It's possible he could catch him, because Bronzi has a bunch of other stuff out there, and we don't really have anything more DTV-wise for Bronson--I'm a little less lax on what I consider DTV than I was in the past, and I don't know that any of the six we've already reviewed for Bronson qualify as DTV by the standards I have now. Anyway, everything, including the title, is meant to evoke Bronson. Throughout the film, characters tell Bronzi he looks familiar, so they're leaning into it, but I don't know how much I like that part. I almost would rather they act like we don't get what's happening, right? "Wait, what? You think Bronzi looks like Charles Bronson? That's crazy! I don't see it though... no, we cast Bronzi because he was the right man for the picture." "A picture about a cop from Eastern Europe living in Pennsylvania who kills werewolves? Bronzi's perfect for that?" "Exactly!" I don't know how many movies we'll see just for Bronzi, but he has enough listed on IMDb that I think we'll see him again, and considering how this one was pretty fun, it might be sooner than later.

Speaking of doppelgangers, Tito Ortiz has a name of his own from his time in the UFC, but he also fills a Vin Diesel niche if you need too. He needs to practice his Diesel yell ("The buster kept me out of handcuffs!"), but the rest is there. He's also a big guy, which helps too for action movies. We don't get to see much of any of that here, because he's down the list on supporting characters, more here to be a face they can add to the tin, which is fine, because he does have some films with bigger parts, like another Ty and I covered, Operation Black Ops. (Yep, that's right, technically "Operation Black Operations.")The other thing is, how much do we need movies with him as the star? Give me a Michael Jai White movie where Ortiz plays the leader of a biker gang or something. Either the kind of biker gang White needs to take down, or the kind where they and White have a common enemy, so Ortiz helps White bring down the baddie. As long as he's living his life .4 kms at a time, I'll be happy.

Another name we're seeing again is Sadie Katz. She plays a hardo police sheriff, who has a change of heart when she sympathizes with Bronzi's personal motives. The characters in the movie used a different term than "hardo" to describe her, which may have been a bit much, but she also came in hot in a way that made her character off-putting to start, so she was really working uphill to become likeable by the end. I think there's a happy medium between Lt. Chapman on Rockford Files and instantly friendly that her character could've existed in to start with, because when she does warm up to Bronzi, it's hard to believe it, no matter how well Katz can sell it. Since we first reviewed one of her films in Nipples and Palm Trees over ten years ago, she's amassed a great genre career, which would make her a big get for a film like this. That's one of the things about doing the site this long that's really cool, to see names that are just starting out grow into something bigger.

Finally, this film features a railroad connecting areas of Pocono County, PA, which as it exists in reality is something just for tourists, and doesn't function as a passenger rail service like it's depicted in the film. It's funny how the concept of rail is great in movies in America, but we can't fund them in real life, so for people watching outside the US, we can add a functioning, robust intercity rail service to the other myths movies perpetuate about us, like we're all pretty and speak region-free American English. And it looks like rail service in Pennsylvania is only going to get worse. Republicans in the senate here are blocking a budget that would help fund not only SEPTA, the Philadelphia transit system, but transit systems in other PA cities as well. It's part of this whole "us folk in Pennsyltucky want to make life difficult for those Liberal Elites who like riding their hoity-toity subways--plus oil companies give us a lot of money to attend Super Bowls and stuff, so there's that." The thing is, they're not very bright, and don't understand that properly functioning, robust transit systems are the engines that power cities, and for those Pennsyltucky senators whose own districts rely on tax revenue from cities like Philadelphia to keep their dead coal communities afloat, it means their communities will suffer too, perhaps even more, when Philadelphia isn't generating enough tax dollars to prop up their failing infrastructure. (Also, coastal elites don't ride the subway here in Philly.) But that's America for you, the country where passenger trains are more likely to exist in Robert Bronzi DTV werewolf movies than in reality.

And with that, let's wrap this up. IMDb lists this to rent on Prime, but as of this writing, you can also stream it free on Xumo too. Despite the bevy of commercials Xumo loads into its movies, I think that's the best way to go with this one. And also check out the podcast Ty and I did, number 210 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21913192

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Save Me (1994)

This is one I covered on a two-part episode with Jon Cross from The PM Entertainment Podcast and the After Movie Diner back in November, number 184 (part 2) in the archives, when we looked at a couple of Harry Hamlin erotic thrillers. The other thing is this is Cole S. McKay's 60th film on the site! That makes him our third member of the 60 Club, and ties him with Gary Daniels for second-most ever, behind Dolph.

Save Me has Harry Hamlin as an investment broker whose wife (Olivia Hussey) has left him and taken their son with her. Also, he was the top broker at the firm, so he's been able to coast on that reputation and do very little work since then. Anyway, one day he's out on his lunch break, and he sees a gorgeous woman (Lysette Anthony) go into a lingerie shop, so he follows her and spies on her. After another time, she gives him a note that says "Save Me" with a phone number on it. Seems she's trying to get out from under the clutches of her abusive partner Michael Ironside, which Hamlin is only too happy to oblige her. He skips work or leaves early so he and her can hook up in his Mustang. But when will this Noir-ish femme fatale show Hamlin she's not all she seems?

This isn't horrible as a fun, time-killing watch. It pops in at around 90 minutes, you get some fun performances, and the "erotic" in "erotic thriller" is there sufficiently well, even if it's not full on Shannon Whirry Skin-a-max kind of stuff. The business aspects of the story are a bit of a trip though. Hamlin has a jerk for a colleague played by Steve Railsback, and at some point their boss, Joseph Campanella, promotes Railsback to Hamlin's manager. Railsback then puts Hamlin on a performance improvement plan, aka "probation," which would lead one to believe that means one more slip-up and he's out, but according to this movie, it means Hamlin's untouchable during the probation period? Like he can tell Railsback "fuck you," and Railsback can't do anything about it? And Hamlin's character isn't necessarily likeable either, he's just more likeable than Railsback. You almost get to a point where you want Anthony to smoke them all and move onto the next town. But therein lies the charm, maybe? The erotic thriller isn't meant to be compelling cinema, it's meant to get us to the church on time, and I think this one does that.

If it feels like we were just celebrating Cole S. McKay's entry in to the 50 Club, that would be right, the thing is, he had over 50 films when we finally decided to tag him, so he skipped the usual 30 and 40 Club posts and came in in the mid-50s. The plan was to review something more action-oriented, or maybe one of the films he directed or starred in, for this 60 Club post, but reviewing The Stray last week changed all of that, and I didn't realize until I started putting everything together for this post that it would be his 60th, but I figured I'd go with it instead of moving everything around. (I also discovered that Kill 'Em All 2, which I'd planned to do here, is now gated by Netflix and unavailable if you don't have an ad-free version? Do these streamers just get more ski mask and gun-y by the day?) Anyway, since we tagged him a few months back, McKay has been cruising up the all-time lists, first passing Art Camacho, now tied with Daniels, and I think passing him will only be a matter of time, since we don't have many Daniels films left to cover, and there could be over 100 other McKay films that qualify--just 1994 alone he has like 25 movies, of which we'll now have done 8. Just his PM stuff will probably push him past Dolph. And while this movie doesn't have a ton of stunts, the ones it does have, like the person trying to run Hamlin down in a parking garage, are all excellent. We take stunts in a film for granted, and I think a big reason for that is McKay and his teams always makes them look great. 60 Club and beyond!

I believe this is our first Harry Hamlin film on the site, but we have looked at him twice on podcast, one being the two-parter I mentioned above that includes this movie, episode 184 in the archives; and the other being episode 132, "Short Shots," where we looked at a series of short films with Rich Hawes from DTV Digest, and Hamlin was in a short film called One Clean Move, which also starred Gary Busey and Luca Bercovici. The thing about these erotic thriller roles is he seems like a drip a lot of times in them, which, after seeing him in Mad Men, makes me think was more by design than I realized. Did he read these scripts and think "this guy is kind of up his own ass" or "I don't know if I'd want to spend ten minutes with someone who acted like this" and then just leaned into it? Take this movie. It looks like his character barely does any work, and often can't even be bothered to finish his day sitting in the office. When his friend (played by Neil Ronco, who also wrote the script--but wasn't the guy who invented an As Seen on TV rotisserie cooker) invites him and Lysette Anthony up to their cabin to spend a weekend with Ronco and his wife, Hamlin proceeds to use it for as a sex escape bed and breakfast with Anthony, the two of them making the beast with two backs all over the place there. Yet Ronco continues to be this guy's best friend. It creates this gray area though where we don't know if we should root for Hamlin or not. Maybe it doesn't matter if we're just having fun.

This is not our first Lysette Anthony film on the site, that distinction goes to Strippers vs. Werewolves, but this is her first starring role. She's everything you want in that erotic thriller/film noir femme fatale. She's alluring, seemingly vulnerable, yet can be diabolical when it's needed. Another name we've seen here before is Michael Ironside, who plays the psychologist that's also Anthony's lover. We never know if we can believe him or not, because he's Ironside, exactly who you want in a role like this to be this mysterious. Then there's Steve Railsback, a name we've also seen here before, but I think this is my first mention of him. He's had a great DTV career that we haven't really even scratched the surface of, the kind of name that probably should be in the Hall of Fame if we'd been reviewing more of his films. I'll definitely look for more of them now. And finally, you may have noticed two other names we tagged, Kato Kaelin and Jesse V. Johnson. Kaelin plays a broker at the firm Hamlin and Railsback work at, but I couldn't find him in the movie so I wasn't able to get a screen. And then Johnson is listed as a set designer. It's a tag, and while it doesn't count toward his director tags, it adds to his overall count, which now stands at 15. Other names that round out the cast were Bill Nunn, Olivia Hussey, and Joseph Campanella. They all do great and add that much more flavor to the proceedings, which is what you want when you see their names in the cast list.

Finally, the title of this film gets the Aimee Mann song of the same name from the movie Magnolia stuck in my head. Her hit with 'Til Tuesday, "Voices Carry," is one of my favorite songs ever. I don't know if I can name ten songs that came out after it was released in 1985 that I like better than it. I tried to get into more of  'Til Tuesday's stuff, but none of their other songs really worked for me the way that one did. I remember one time VH-1 was playing 80s stuff, and the VJ said that, while he liked "Voices Carry," their album after that one, Welcome Home, was one of his "all-time faves." It was my first time hearing "favorites" truncated down to "faves" like that, and I found it intriguing. Like, I don't know if I've ever been able to use the term unironically myself, but I do use it quite a bit in a more ironic sense, and you'll find it from time to time here on the site, like in my The Most Dangerous Game review where I call CT "one of my faves from The Real World." It's funny how I pick up these little verbal affectations over time, and how much they've become embedded in my speech, but yet how I also remember exactly where I got many of them from, all these years later.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi here in the States. Sometimes you just need a 90s Erotic Thriller with names you know, and this is one that'll get you to the church on time. (If you're wondering where I got that expression from, you should listen to more David Bowie.) And for the podcast episode on this that I did with Jon Cross, you can check out episode 184 in the archives, parts 1 and 2.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108045

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Final Recovery (2025)

Producer Joe Williamson reached out to see if I would review Harley Wallen's newest film, but unfortunately I fell behind on screener requests and am only just getting to this now. I was excited to check this out though, because I really enjoyed Wallen's last couple films. Let's see how this one did.

Final Recovery is about a treatment center run by a woman named Nanny Lou (Charlene Tilton), who, on the surface seems like she really cares for her patients, but there's something nefarious underneath all that. It looks like she's running a racket where she has crooked cops bring in people struggling with addiction so she can bilk the state for their care, and keep them pumped full of drugs so they never recover. And should her patients get wise to what she's up to, she's got a bone saw in a back room that she can use to make sure they disappear. One of these patients, Rodney (Jasper Cole), has been stuck in this cycle for years, but when a new patient, Dustin (Damien Chinappi) comes in, Rodney thinks he may have someone who can help him bring Nanny Lou to justice. The problem is, Nanny Lou has been at this for a long time, and will be hard to stop.

This is another from Wallen that really worked for me. Like the previous two we've reviewed, Beneath Us All and Ash and Bone, he does a great job of mixing genre film with his themes of how society values some people over others, and that's especially true about people struggling with addiction. One area where this one doesn't work as well as those other two though, is I wasn't sure whose story was supposed to be the focus, Rodney's, Dustin's, or Nanny Lou's. Even Dustin's sister Cindy (Kaiti Wallen) felt like she could've been the focus from how she's introduced to us, where she's questioning to Nanny Lou on whether her brother should even be in the facility, I thought the story may have been moving in the direction of following her advocating for her brother and trying to get help for him through official channels on the outside, but it never goes there after that initial conversation with Nanny Lou. The other thing was the fact that the film was set in Flint, MI, and I felt like they could've done more to make that a bigger part of the story. When I look at what worked though, it starts with Tilton, who was absolutely chilling. Even without the genre film elements, had this just been a Behind the Bastards-style biopic about someone using people struggling with addiction to bilk the state and insurance companies, she still would've been scary. I also liked how Cole and Chinappi gave us grounded, human characters who were struggling with addiction. I think without those performances, Tilton's alone would've given us a fun horror film, but Wallen's message wouldn't have come through, and that message gives the film a little bit more. Overall, I really enjoyed this, and with it available on Tubi, you should definitely check it out.

We're now at five of Wallen's directed films here on the site (he has an additional tag as an actor in Realm of Shadows), which puts him up there among the most for an indie director. The thing about his work that resonates with me is that theme that runs through all his work I've seen so far, not simply that there are haves and have-nots, but even harsher, that society deems some lives worth more than others, and the way he marries genre film with giving a voice to people whom society deems less worthy is something I really appreciate, and something I think he nails here in exploring the way society deals with, as opposed to helps, people battling addiction, while still maintaining the film's horror genre credentials. What people battling addiction have to go through to get help is probably a real life horror film in and of itself, but will people watch that as much as they'd watch a horror film about a scary woman in tacky Christmas sweaters dismembering people in a back room? Probably not, but with Wallen we get the message wrapped in a fun horror movie, and he does both effectively.

That scary woman in tacky Christmas sweaters is played by none other than Charlene Tilton. We've actually seen her here before in the Jeff Wincott PM flick Deadly Bet, but I imagine most Americans my age know her from our moms watching Dallas on a Friday night. When an indie director like Wallen finds out they can get a name like Tilton, they're hoping for a great performance beyond the help that their name on the tin means for sales and streams, but what Tilton gives us is another level. I don't know how anyone who did a scene with her was able to interact with her offset afterwards, I think I'd be too afraid to. What her performance does is turns the entire facility into a kind of haunted house, like an old Vincent Price movie, her ominous presence looms over everything. In that way, it was smart that Wallen included the element of Rodney and Dustin leaving the facility to work in Cindy's store, because we as an audience needed a break from the tension in Tilton's performance too.

As I mentioned above, this took place in Flint, MI, and was filmed on location there as well. It's a city that's been through a lot, as far back as 1989 Michael Moore made his famous documentary Roger and Me about GM closing a plant there, which left 35,000 people out of work. Since then, things have only gotten worse, leading up to the Republican government in Michigan's takeover of the city, who, in an attempt to cut costs, changed the city's water supply over to a contaminated river, making many residents sick and leaving them without clean drinking water for years. Going back even further in American history though, Flint was one of the birthplaces of what would become the middle class in this country, union workers receiving a wage that allowed them to live a dignified existence, something that spread throughout the US in the middle of the 20th century, only to be slowly dismantled in the 80s and 90s, and forgotten in the 21st century. And I think this is where, for me, if I hear a film is set in Flint, I want a little more of that history and legacy embedded in the story, and made me wish we had a little more of that here.

Finally, we have the question of whether or not this is a Christmas movie. You know me, I'm more open to having as many films under that banner as possible, but what's unique here is Wallen uses the fun and kitsch of Christmas as a juxtaposition to the horrors happening around everyone. We have Christmas songs, Christmas decorations, and Nanny Lou's tacky sweaters, while Nanny Lou is having someone dismembered, or someone else is dying of an overdose. It's a use of Christmas that I'm not sure I've seen before, because Christmas doesn't really play a part in the film, like no one's exchanging gifts or having a Christmas party. Another aspect of Christmas is the way we use it as a society to bring family members from far away together to celebrate in order to reaffirm familial bonds. For many people struggling with addiction, they've been estranged from family members, which means Christmas can lead to more feelings of isolation, which could beget more using. Unless I missed it, that never really comes into play here, like we don't hear Cindy making plans for her and Dustin, or Rodney's ex-wife making plans for her and their daughter without him, or even just what that would feel like to be in a facility like that for the holidays. Maybe something to explore in a "Final Recovery 2".

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi or Plex, which I think makes it a fun choice for your Christmas in July film. This is another solid outing from Wallen and company, I can't wait to see what's next!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33727216

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

The Stray (2000)

We lost another all-time great this past week in the legendary Michael Madsen. This is a film of his I'd been meaning to do for sometime, because it's a PM flick and also has DTVC Hall of Famer Frank Zagarino, so I figured it would be a good one for Madsen's in memoriam post. In addition to us, Comeuppance Reviews has done this as well.

The Stray has Madsen and Zagarino as cops hot on the trail of some guys in Uncle Sam masks picking up bags of drugs or money or whatever at public trash cans on the 4th of July (total coincidence that I'm reviewing this on 4th of July weekend!). After a big PM-style explosion, Madsen is suspended, so he lives with his girlfriend, Angie Everhart. Soon after, Everhart hits a guy in the road because she's using her cellphone while driving (it was an issue even in 2000!), and when she finds out he's homeless, she offers to let him live in the garage of the mansion she's living in with Madsen. Could this drifter have ulterior motives? And what about those guys in Uncle Sam masks? Madsen is suspicious of this drifter, but is there a basis for it, or is he just being a jerk? Everhart should probably figure it all out before she gets hurt--or worse!

This is a movie that I think I would've killed had I reviewed it in 2007 when I started the site. The story is that unique combination of all over the place, and contrived as all get-out. I'm supposed to believe this drifter who has it in for Everhart knew she was going to use her cellphone at exactly the time he put himself in the middle of the road so she could hit him? And then that she'd definitely take him in and give him a place to stay? But then we have the PM aspect, where foot chases turn into car chases, which turn into flipped cars and explosions. In one scene near the end, our drifter guy gets fired from his job as a dishwasher at Everhart's restaurant, and he causes a scene. In a Lifetime version of this film, the police would escort him out, give him a summons, and that would be it. Here, he smashes through a window, leading to a foot chase, which becomes a car chase when he steals a motorcycle. It's the kind of thing that I can really get down on. And then Madsen is great as the grizzled detective. He might be mailing this performance in in spots, but even when he's doing that, it's great to see. I don't know where this goes on your PM journey, or if this is the film you should watch to honor Madsen's memory versus something like Reservoir Dogs, but it did the trick for me.

When I started this site, I think I expected more Madsen films, but his first appearance wasn't until 2010 with Luck of the Draw, and now in 2025, as we're honoring his memory, I'm shocked that this is only his 16th film. If you look at his IMDb bio though, he has a lot of really low-budget ones, the kinds of things where you don't know how much Madsen you'll get, and whether it's even worth it either way, and I think that explains why he has such a low tag count. Of the films of his we've reviewed, the most infamous is Extreme Honor, the write-up which birthed the term "300-pound pork roast;" and I think his best performance of the films we've covered was in Vice, with then another one of my favorites one we did more recently, Executive Target, also a PM flick. The thing about Madsen was he had an effortless style, where even if he mailed it in, it looks great, but when he brought it, it could be something magical, and I think we see both sides here, like when he can't be bothered during the classic "your suspended!" scene with their chief after the bust gone bad, to the unleashed Madsen beating the drifter with his crutch after the guy sets him off--he had the crutch after a dirt bike accident, because PM needed to get some action in there somewhere. He does have one more PM flick that we need to cover, The Sender, which was directed by Richard Pepin and has a pretty robust cast, and then from there it'll probably be a matter of how many of the really low-budget ones he's done that we get to. Even if it isn't that many, Madsen has left an indelible legacy. One of the best to do it, Mr. Madsen, you truly will be missed.

This is now 50 PM flicks on the site, which I didn't realize when I picked this movie, I thought we would only be at 49. At some point we'll do a proper 50th film on PM celebration, but I don't think it's appropriate now as we're honoring Madsen. This is one of those interesting PM mash-ups. More suspense thriller than anything, and not really on the erotic side, but then to follow the PM rule, we have plenty of chases, shootouts, and explosions. It's this alchemy that shouldn't work--and probably doesn't work--but after seeing enough of these PM movies it's all a lot of fun. Two interesting aspects that I think it help it here too: one, cinematographer Ken Blakey, who worked on a ton of PM flicks and had a huge part in crafting what we know as the "PM look," really seems to be able to spread his wings more here, and we get some inspired shots; and two, Cole S. McKay (in now his 59th film on the site) is stunt coordinator, and he wasn't only versed in action films, but had done a lot of thrillers as well, and I think the fact that he can live in both worlds marries this combination of PM flick with Lifetime-style suspense thriller in a way that feels more organic. So with all the ways this shouldn't have worked, it's fascinating with PM how many ways they manage to make other elements work and give us something a bit more than the average fare.

We do have another Hall of Famer in this, Frank Zagarino. He doesn't have a big role, but it's fun to see him act opposite Madsen. This is one of only two PM flicks he did, the other being No Tomorrow, and neither were a starring vehicle for him, which is too bad. I guess around this time PM was focusing on big names like Madsen, or action leads like Speakman, plus their own in-house guys like Daniels, so someone like a Zagarino would've been the odd one out, but seeing him here as a cop with Madsen, he would've made a great cop on the edge in a PM action romp. Looking over his bio, there's maybe 25 movies of his I have left to cover, including all four of the Airboss movies, and with him at 16 films now, that means somewhere down the road the 40 Club is in play. We probably should get him to 20 and 30 movies first before we think 40 Club, but at least we know that's the ceiling. On the other hand, our last Zags film was Project Eliminator in June of 2023, so it's been over two years since his last flick. At that pace we'd get him into the 40 Club in 2075? If I'm still alive then, and still reviewing movies on this site... I don't know, I feel like by then the nuclear apocalypse will have happened, but if I'm still around for it, maybe a guy in a leather vest with no shirt underneath will be my caretaker, and in between driving me to my appointments in his black Chevy Impala with a spiked grill, he can help me get my Zags 40th Club post up on the site--only to have us ambushed by evil water farmers or tire farmers or whatever.

We got off the rails quick there, and I don't know how we'll get back on track, but maybe Angie Everhart's a good place to go. More than Madsen, she's the star of this, even though the way the film opens they make us think he is, but I think as the lead she does a great job of being the central focus around which everything else revolves. With how good she does here, you'd think, why didn't she have a bigger DTV career? More movies like The Substitute: Failure Is Not an Option would've made sense at least, and to be fair, in the period right before and after this she does have some other stuff that we should review, but then it tails off. According to the IMDb trivia, there were some factors in her personal life that probably contributed to this, plus maybe there's a point too where you're just tired of making The Substitute: Failure Is Not an Option, which I can respect. At least she does great here, and adds more to the proceedings to get us over the finish line.

Finally, we'll do one last paragraph on Madsen, since this is the post in honor of his passing. Madsen had the kind of talent that shouldn't have put him anywhere near DTV flicks, but even as far back as this, he was in that realm. If you go on Tubi now, you could do a whole month watching one Madsen film a day on there, and not run out before the calendar turns. And I think when you get movies like this, that have a fair amount of him in it, it's something really special and fun to watch. And that's the thing, out of those 30, there might be five of these, maybe ten if we're being generous, but when you find them, it makes it all worth it. That's why we love movies, whether they're blockbusters, Oscar winners, or PM DTV flicks like this, we want to be entertained, and perhaps see something special, and with Madsen, if his name was on the tin, there was always that possibility. I don't know if I suggest doing a month of Madsen movies on Tubi, but I think he'll always be one of those names that's fun to watch, and while it's sad he's no longer with us, we were all lucky to have him while we did.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can get this on Tubi, perhaps as part of your month of Madsen, but if you're just going to do one, this isn't a bad deal either. Also, if you want more Madsen, Ty and I did a double-bill of his DTV flicks in episode 159, "Madsen MAYhem," which you can find in the podcast archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0194410

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Black Creek (2024)

This is one that's been in production for some time, a labor of love for DTVC Hall of Famer and 40 Club member Cynthia Rothrock, we've seen myriad DTV stars attached to it who have dropped out, news of premiers and complementary media like a graphic novel, and finally a pre-order date ahead of it's recent release. Now that it's here and available, let's see how it did. In addition to us, Jon at the After Movie Diner and Chris DePetrillo at Bulletproof Action have covered this as well.

Black Creek starts with a sheriff (Patrick Kilpatrick) who gets bumped off by an evil landowner (Richard Norton). When the sheriff's sister (Rothrock) shows up and finds out her brother's been killed, she vows revenge. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but Norton's got a lot of men working for him, who in turn work Rothrock over and leave her for dead in the desert. Luckily, bumbling local drinker Roy (R. Marcus Taylor) finds her and brings her to a local medicine practitioner (Don "The Dragon" Wilson), who heals her in a wonderfully psychedelic sequence. With that out of the way and everyone sufficiently healed, it's time for our hero to get after it and get her revenge. Will she make it happen?

This is a fun deal. It's done on a budget, so there's plenty to pick at on that score if one were so inclined, but if it was between not having this because there wasn't the budget to make it look as clean as possible, or having what we got, I prefer the latter. My two qualms were the length, which at almost two hours was a bit long for me; and I think the script could've used some trimming--a lot of instances where someone says something, and someone asks why that is, and then the first person explains further, when we could've just had the further explanation without the back and forth. Those qualms are overshadowed by all the stuff that worked here though, like Rothrock as one of her best heroes since China O'Brien, Richard Norton as a chilling baddie in one of his final performances, and then guys like Wilson, Kilpatrick, and Keith Cooke giving us the fun performances we want from them when we see their names on the tin. It doesn't skimp on the action either, especially with Mike Möller as action director/fight choreographer. Again, budgetary constraints meant they couldn't do the quick edits we're used to in modern action, so instead we got sped up film that may not have looked as nice, but as a fan of everyone's work here, I was okay with it. This is a really great time that's worth supporting if you're a fan of Rothrock and everyone else involved.

I didn't mean to do Rothrock films on back-to-back weeks (and technically this is her third film in two months, with Darkness of Man back in May), but I felt like I needed to get this one reviewed sooner rather than later, if only to get the word out and support it. The reality for me as I was watching it was we needed a series of Westerns with Rothrock in the lead back in the 90s, and this should've been the callback to those movies thirty years later, but unfortunately we never got them in the 90s, so this has to be the movie that makes up for the movies that never were, if any of that makes sense. On the PM Podcast episode on Guardian Angel (which yours truly was also a guest, but not part of the Rothrock interview), she told Jon that she'd always wanted to do a Western and be the lead, and it shows, because she's a natural at it. Her Rose Jennings character in this is right up there with China O'Brien for me as her best character, even better than Kris Fairfield in the Rage and Honor films, and McKay in Guardian Angel. She also said on the PM Podcast interview that she plans to do a sequel, so hopefully that will happen. I think it's up to us to support this kind of thing though if we want to see it happen.

As I mentioned above, Richard Norton is fantastic in this. It unfortunately ended up being one of his final roles, but if it had to be, I think it's a nice thing that it was in this, making it as good as it could possibly be by his performance. In my Not Another Mistake post, I talked about how he knew exactly what a movie needed from him and he knew exactly how to deliver it, and that's so true here. Patrick Kilpatrick also would've made a great baddie, but I like the twist of him being one of the good guys; and then we have Norton giving us this fantastic villain who is sufficiently evil, but never takes away from Rothrock as the hero. We're going to miss him, but at least we have this performance here as a reminder of how great he was--as if we needed it.

Our third Hall of Famer and second 40 Club member in this is the great Don "The Dragon" Wilson, who plays Xiyang, part-Chinese part-Apache medicine and martial arts practitioner. I wish they would've done more with the Apache side if they felt it was that necessary to include that as part of his heritage, like maybe some advanced knife fighting through a sequence where he takes out three or four of Norton's baddies. That aside, Wilson is as all in as Norton was, which is nice considering, like Rothrock, we've been getting a lot of smaller roles from him lately. And after this, we have Taken from Rio Bravo, where he has almost as big a part as this, but beyond that, I think the rest we have of his to do are all small roles. In that sense, when we get a Dragon role and performance like this, we need to take it and run.

Finally, I want to touch on the length of this movie, because, as you know, I'm a stickler for runtimes. Recently in a writer's group I'm in, the topic came up that, if we want our books to sell, we need short chapters. For me, I don't think about my novels that way. If short chapters fit, I'll use them, like in my first novel Chad in Accounting, or my short action novel Bainbridge; if not, you get something like Don's House in the Mountains, which is five chapters over 275 pages. With that in mind, if Rothrock felt like she needed her movie to be almost two hours to tell the story she wanted to tell, then more power to her. If the mindset is similar to mine, where she didn't want to compromise on the story that was important to her just to get things in under 90 minutes, I can appreciate it.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently this is available as rent VOD and purchase on most major streaming sites that offer that kind of thing. I personally got it on Fandango at Home through a promo code I had. This is a great opportunity to support indie filmmakers, and hopefully the more we're able to support these efforts, the more movies they'll be able to make.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27078378

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Last Kumite (2024)

This is one Ty from Comeuppance and I covered on episode 202 of the DTVC Podcast, and with the names involved, it was only a matter of time before we got a review on the site as well. I addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof, and Outlaw Vern have covered this as well.

Last Kumite has Mathis Landwehr (in English "Matty Country Defense") as Michael Rivers, youngest son of famous singer Johnny Rivers, and nicknamed "Bloody Rivers" because he's such a devastating fighter. After winning a tournament, he decides to bring his teenage daughter with him to the after party, which is held at a night club, and then decides to have her drive herself home alone while he hangs out with Matthias Hues. Hues wants Rivers to fight in his Kumite in Europe--and maybe get his dad to perform "Secret Agent Man" there as well--and while Rivers refuses, because he's such a great father, his daughter is easy pickin's for someone like Hues to snatch, and now Rivers is forced to get his Kumite on. Will he defeat Hues? And will his dad show up and perform?

This was a nice slice of all right. No, Michael "Bloody" Rivers wasn't the son of Johnny Rivers, but everything else in that synopsis is correct. Did we need the forced-to-fight angle? Probably not, but this film had a bouillabaisse approach to the material that I had to respect, even if we didn't get that Johnny Rivers performance. I mentioned that this had a lot of names above. We have three Hall of Famers, the aforementioned Hues, plus Cynthia Rothrock and Billy Blanks; plus familiar names Michel Qissi, Kurt McKinney, and Mike Möller (who was also fight choreographer); and if that wasn't enough, we had Bolo Yeung's son David, Stan Bush did some of the songs, and director/cinematographer Ross Clarkson has done a ton of great DTV action stuff, most notably many of Isaac Florentine's films with Scott Adkins. So they lined up a bunch of familiar talent, but not only that, they all got what the point of this was, and they delivered. There were definitely some tongue-in-cheek elements, but any that there were were done out of love, which is all us fans want. The hero, Landwehr, has plenty-good martial arts skills, plus fellow fighter Monia Moula was also really talented. Maybe after this they can give us a German buddy cop/cop on the edge kind of deal, they'd be great together in that. Finally, our big bad fighter that our hero had to defeat, Dracko (Mike Derudder), not only had a great name, but he was essentially a juice-head that someone picked up off of Seaside Heights, NJ. Maybe this had its flaws, and it was working on a tight budget, but overall it delivered for me.

While she had more of a supporting role, we have to start with Cynthia Rothrock, because she's our only 40 Club member in the film, this making her 45th film on the site. Her character was Dracko's original sensei, so she helps Bloody Rivers defeat him, because she doesn't like what he's become since leaving the Jersey Shore, and I don't blame her either--she had to beat the GTL out of him. We've seen some scant roles for her recently, like Darkness of Man, so it was good that here, even in a supporting part, she gets a good amount of screentime. At 45 films with a little less than half the year left, is the 50 Club a possibility by 2026? We'd have to do around one film a month for her, and while I have one in the can, Taken from Rio Bravo, and one I'm looking to watch over the next couple days, Black Creek, I don't know if she has enough left that we can do that I can get on a free streamer or one I already subscribe to. We'll see as the year goes on, but making her the fifth member of the 50 Club, and only the third actor, would be really cool.

Our other two Hall of Famers are Matthias Hues and Billy Blanks. Hues is just a straight up scenery chewing baddie, which is exactly what you want from him; and Blanks is a fantastic fight trainer, bringing us back to Showdown where he was great too. Between the two, Hues has been busier lately, with a bunch of stuff out there, some of which we'll probably cover at some point; but while Blanks doesn't have the quantity, he does have a Circuit sequel, Circuit 4: Faith Fighter, which is $2 to rent on Prime. I looked on IMDb, and it has one critic review. What? What are you doing Jalal Merhi? You should be sending that out to all of us so we can cover it. Of course I say that while I have a backlog of screeners I still need to catch up on. Anyway, great to see these two here, and they both turn in fantastic performances.

We should devote at least one paragraph to the film's star, Mathis Landwehr. This is our second time seeing him on the site, after 2017's Ultimate Justice. There's been a long line of next names since I started this site in 2007, and the only one who's really been able to break through is Scott Adkins. Compare that to all the names we've seen who were one or two and done. Matthew Reese in Riot for example. Tony Schiena has had come up a few times. Matt Mullins is another. Amy Johnston looked primed to be a bigger name, but we haven't seen her as much recently--though she is in the newest R. Ellis Frazier film, so we'll have to check that out. Probably the biggest of the ones who never quite made it is Johnny Messner, who now does more supporting work and producing. The thing is, the old guard is still getting after it, and as a result, there isn't as much room to break through as there was in the 90s. One advantage Landwehr might have is the fact that he lives in Germany, and can make a name for himself there first, especially if he's working with an extreme fight talent like Mike Möller. Germany all around has had a much more robust action ecosystem than we have. According to IMDb, he has a couple films in the hopper that look good, so I'll be excited to check them out. Who knows, we might have our next big name.

Finally, this is the Last Kumite. Whether or not this movie intends to put a bow on all Kumite movies, or if other adventurous filmmakers out there will defy this film's title and make further Kumite films, only time will tell. Maybe the next one will be the "New Kumite"? The thing about "Kumite," is the way it's spelled looks like Riunite. I haven't had that in forever, but I remember the commercials. Every time I hear "Reunited" by Peaches and Herb, I think "Riunite and it feels so good." The other song that gets in my head with this film's title is "Last Worthless Evening" by Don Henley. This is the last, kuuu-mi-teee, that you'll have to spend. A bit of a stretch, but tell my brain that when the earworm sets in. There's not always a rhyme or reason to it, but the earworm isn't any less real. As an aside, we always talk about the late 80s/early 90s as the golden age of DTV action. I think it was at least a silver age of Adult Contempo too, right? The late 70s/early 80s has to be the golden age, but when you hit like "Higher Love" in 1986, there's a good maybe seven or eight years of a new age of easy listening that made trips to the doctor's or the DMV much more pleasant. What a great time, I could watch a PM actioner, then turn on my radio and hear Michael Bolton and Kenny G charting. As Steve Winwood said so eloquently, I can light the night up with my soul on fire...

And while no one is really paying tribute to my self-styled silver age of adult contempo, at least here we get a nice tribute to the tournament actioners of that time. You can get it on Tubi as of my writing this, which is a great way to go. And if you haven't yet, check out the podcast episode Ty and I did as well, number 202 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17351056

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Lights Out (2024)

This is one Ty and I covered back on episode 162 of the podcast, our "Dermot Mulroney Double Feature" episode, almost a year ago now, and I've been meaning to get it on the site as well. Beyond the Adkins factor, we've been meaning to get more Grillo on the site too--or fire up the Grillo, as we like to say here. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof has covered this as well.

Lights Out has Grillo as a former soldier who has just left the service, and is looking for work. After beating up Kevin Gage and some other ne'er-do-wells at a bar, he catches the attention of Mekhi Phifer, who gets him involved in the underground fight game. But it turns out Phifer's sister is into mob guy Sage (Dermot Mulroney) and the cop who's working with him, Glenn Close (Jaime King), because her abusive ex-boyfriend hid a duffle bag full of money at her house, and they want it back. Now Grillo doesn't just need to win some fights, but he needs to bring these baddies down, and to help him do it is old Army buddy Scott Adkins. Will he prevail?

This isn't horrible. It's directed by Christian Sesma, and his films have a higher floor, which helps in this sea of options we have on places like Tubi and Hulu. I think from a story standpoint, there's a lot going on, which hampers it a bit. The concept itself is one of those I'd say has enough material for an episode of a syndicated action show, and there are two ways to get something with that much material from 42 minutes to 90s minutes: you pad the hell out of it, or you add a bunch of stuff, and this one went for the latter. Still, the fights were good, Grillo gives us another solid lead, Phifer, JuJu Chen, and Mulroney were fun, we had the novelty of an Adkins appearance, plus Jaime King was playing Glenn Close! (More on that later.) Overall, this is a fun 90-minute time killer.

We're now at five Grillo films on the site, which isn't a lot when you consider how much DTV stuff he's done, but when you look at it all, he doesn't co-star with a lot of names like Adkins or Dolph, he tends to be the star power himself, which means we need to carve out specific reviews for him, something that I think will come more often as we start to finish off some of the old guard--though if they keep making movies at the rates they've been, it may not be as easy. We do have two others of his in the can right now, Black Lotus and A Day to Die, plus I'm looking forward to Hounds of War finally being available on streaming. What we get here is more confirmation that Grillo is a great lead in these movies, and with the baddies we've seen him play, he's someone who can slot into a lot of different roles and elevate a DTV film beyond its budget. The other interesting thing is it looks like James Gunn's DC reboot is utilizing him more than the MCU did, which is DC's gain and Marvel's loss, but also means it could be our loss as well if his profile starts to extend further beyond the DTV realm. We'll see, but in the meantime he has a lot of DTV back catalog for us to get to.

Mr. Adkins is at 29 now, so he's on the cusp of the 30 Club. I wanted to try and get him and Michael Jai White, who's at 28, in around the same time, but with three more Adkins films I have in the can to review, he might not only get in ahead of White, but end up a few films ahead of him in the process. This is a very small role, so had he already been at 29 I would've tabled this for a bit, because it wouldn't have been worthy of his 30th film. This is the second time we've seen him in a Sesma film, the other being a small, yet larger than this, role in Section 8, which also had Dolph. He's still pumping out a few movies a year, and even though some are like John Wick 4, which we probably won't review, most of them are DTV, so once he passes the 30 Club threshold, it won't be long before he's in the 40 Club too. Even with a small role, they all count the same, so the next time we see him here he'll officially be in the 30 Club.

Christian Sesma is a director who's been on my radar for a bit, especially for films like this that have a lot of names, and a look and feel that gives them a higher floor than most modern DTV. He's far down the list of directors whose movies we've done, as this is only his third, but I see a bunch that could be reviewed which could get him closer to some of the other names sooner. He has a couple with Michael Jai White, for instance, that are definite reviews just because they have White in them. The other thing is almost all of his stuff is on either free streamers or ones I'm subscribed to, so I can move through his filmography a little quicker. Compare that to Jesse V. Johnson, who I have 8 films left to cover, but I think only three of those 8 are on streamers; or Isaac Florentine, whose most recent is still rent only, while Sesma's most recent is already on Hulu.

Finally, the kids always talk about something not being on their "bingo card," and I'd say for Ty and me when we were discussing this, Jaime King playing Glenn Close was not something we had on our bingo cards. What was the mindset there? Was it "we can't afford Glenn Close, but this should really be her part"? Or did King say "I'm only playing this part if I can play her as Glenn Close." And she's a corrupt cop, so it's an Evil Glenn Close. It just added this bonkers element to the proceedings. When she was in Out of Death or Code Name Banshee she wasn't playing Glenn Close, so it's not like this is a thing she does all the time now. I guess as a one-off I'll go with it, and maybe it makes sense, because Close is such a great actor, who wouldn't want to emulate her--even if this is a bit All About Eve if she is.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Hulu, which I think is a good deal. It has its flaws, but overall it's solid enough to get you to the church on time if you have 90 minutes to kill and you're looking for something to watch. And also remember to check out the podcast episode Ty and I did on this, number 162 in the archives, "Dermot Mulroney Double Feature."

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16368898

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Def by Temptation (1990)

This is one I'd been meaning to do for a long time, and finally covered it on the podcast back on episode 198 with Freddie Young from Full Moon Reviews, so now it's time to get it on the site. In addition to us, Outlaw Vern has covered this, plus Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, Joe Bob's Drive-In Movie Review.

Def by Temptation is about a succubus (Cynthia Bond), who is killing men who are playing women in New York City. Is it such a bad thing if she's only killing cheaters? When minister-in-training Joel (James Bond III, who also wrote and directed) goes to NYC to visit his friend K (Kadeem Hardison), he becomes the succubus's next target, so someone not-so not-innocent is now in danger. Hardison has to stop her, and fortunately he's found an ally in Dougy (Bill Nunn), the worst of the players at the bar who just happens to be an undercover cop who specializes in the occult. Will they be able to work together and save Joel before the succubus gets him?

This was a ton of fun. It's not exactly direct-to-video, because it made about $2 million in the theater, but it feels DTV, if you know what I mean. It's the kind of late-night horror you might see on cable or at the video store, something that only gets better with time. James Bond III does a great job crafting a unique yet fun and scary tale, and the robust supporting cast does their job rounding out the proceedings and adding extra weight that a low-budget horror film from 1990 may not otherwise have. Just the opening alone is fantastic, where a bartender is on the phone, cheating on his girlfriend, spitting the funniest lines in the process. Then when the succubus takes him back to her place to kill him, and he's running around buck-ass naked, it's both hilarious, and you kind of feel bad for him. You get the fun, but you also get the nuance of making sure we want to see the succubus stopped. Just an all-around great time.

I mentioned above that this was one I'd wanted to do for a long time. How long? In the early 2000s, Troma was doing a sale, and I bought Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD, Surf Nazis Must Die, Class of Nuke 'Em High, and Toxic Avenger all for $5 a piece. I believe each of those had a trailer for this movie, with Bill Nunn's classic line, "when she drinks that holy water, she's gonna be slobberin' and fartin' and gaggin'." My buddy and I would always say "we have to watch that!", but then I don't know, the beer, the weed, the Taco Bell, the Doritos--maybe a combination of all of them?--would cause us to forget, and the movie never happened for us. This is what makes the world we live in now great. Yes, there are a lot of issues with streaming, but one of the good things is that a movie that once slipped through my fingers might now be available, and while I may need to sit through a series of commercials about online casinos, with my attention span shot anyway, it gives me a chance to look at my phone.

It turns out this is the third Samuel L. Jackson film we've done on the site. In addition to Arena, he was an uncredited extra in The Exterminator, so I need to tag that too. You'd think with how prolific he is, that he'd have more DTV stuff, but if you look at the timeline, he got the role of Nick Fury not long after we started the DTVC, so in that sense it's probably crazier that he did Arena at all than it is that he hasn't done anything else. On the other hand, this is our fourth Kadeem Hardison film, the other three being the Michael Jai White/Asylum Joint Android Cop and two Mark Dacascos films, Instinct to Kill and the all-time classic, Drive. The Jackson we get is rather scant, a bit at the beginning and a bit in the close; but the Hardison is prodigious and he's a lot of fun. A classic for both of them to be sure.

This was distributed by Troma, with Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz as executive producers. When I started this site back in 2007, Troma was a huge part of my DTV watching life, and I figured I'd have more of their films reviewed than any other company--I didn't even have PM on my radar then. But as I've said before, soon after I started, people were reaching out about the action films I was reviewing. At that time there weren't many of us doing low-budget action--and there really aren't many more now--while the horror review ecosystem was much more robust, which meant those reviews were more likely to get lost in the shuffle. Take this film for example, it has 30 critic reviews. For a somewhat obscure low-budget horror flick from 1990, 30 is a lot. A good comp might be One Man Force, a classic that came out in 1989, which only has 10 reviews, of which four are Bulletproof, Comeuppance, Explosive Action, and us. So that means we have nearly 50 PM flicks reviewed, while this is only our 13th Troma flick. I'll see what I can do about getting more up in the near future.

Finally, saxophone great Najee plays himself in this, and also performs a song. What you may not know about me is I'm a huge Smooth Jazz fan, especially if it's saxophone-led, so Najee is one that's right up there for me. I love his cover of Anita Baker's "Sweet Love," and of course, "Tokyo Blue," you could play that whole album, also called Tokyo Blue, it's great top to bottom. Another song is "All I Ever Ask," which isn't bad either, but features Freddie Jackson, who also stars in this as himself. Was this where they met before their collaboration? Another nice hit off that album Just an Illusion, he covers Color Me Badd's "I Adore Mi Amor." If you're not into Smooth Jazz, give it a try, it's not just for Weather Channel's "Weather on the 8s" anymore.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi, which I think is a good deal. It's a horror classic with some great names, really well put together by James Bond III. And also check out the podcast episode Freddie and I did on this, number 198 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099395/

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!