The Devastator aka The Destroyers (1986)

It's been a while since we've done some Cirio H. Santiago, so we were long overdue, and this one was on Tubi and looked like a gem. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Eoin at Action Elite, TarsTarkas.net, and When the Vietnam War Raged... in the Philippines have all covered this as well, plus it was included in Bulletproof's Cirio H. Santiago Countdown.

The Devastator has Rick Hill as a former special forces guy who's called to a small California town after a former Army buddy that lives there dies. Turns out there's a lot more afoot, as a baddie is growing weed there in the Green Triangle, and he runs the town with an iron fist, including the sheriff, who's complicit. Well Hill ain't complicit, so he rounds up a bunch of his old crew, and they go back to take on those dastardly weed growers. They won't know what hit them!

This is a ton of fun. Hill is exactly the hero you want him to be, the baddies are sufficiently bad, the old Army crew are sufficiently colorful, and the action does what it needs to do. We get plenty of stuntmen shimmying to death from machine gun fire, falling from high heights, or flying through the air after explosions go off behind them. On top of all that, we have a 79-minute run time. That's right, when you're 19 minutes in, you only have an hour left! They just don't make 'em like this anymore, but at one time they did, and we're fortunate that they're on free streamers like Tubi.

We're only at 11 films for Cirio H. Santiago here on the site, which isn't great compared to some of the other directors we've covered. I count 20 between 1981's Firecracker and 1994's Stranglehold that we could review that we haven't yet. That means we have a lot of work to do, but with how much fun his movies are, and the indelible impact they've left on the world of low-budget action cinema, that work will be well worth it. And of the ones we've covered, this is one of my favorites. Santiago doesn't play around, he gets in and gets out in 79 minutes, and doesn't waste any of that time, either giving us action scenes or plot exposition scenes that lead to action scenes soon after. Santiago is one of the best to ever do it for a reason, and this film is a great example of that.

If our Santiago tags are lacking, we're only at seven films now for Rick Hill, but when I look at his IMDb bio, I don't see many more that we can do for him, maybe another six? While he may not qualify for one of our high-tag clubs, he could get Hall of Fame consideration, because he's one of the great leads of low-budget action. I think this is right up there with Deathstalker for one of his best movies, Hill just carries it from start to finish, he's a leading man you have to root for, and it's so much fun to see him blowing up baddies. Whether it's Santiago, or another B-movie stalwart like Fred Olen Ray, Hill seems to understand what's asked of him in these films, and he delivers it. I'm going to do my best to try to get the rest of his DTV flicks up here, because the more Rick Hill the better.

In 1986, I don't know if we could've seen the current US, where many states, including California, have legalized recreational cannabis, but had we had any sense back then, we'd have seen how making it illegal leads to this underground economy where crime lords like the baddie in this film can have power and kill people. No one should be dying so people can smoke weed. And even with the legalization on the state level, it's still illegal federally, which affects where and how it can be grown and sold. Here in Philadelphia, for example, it's not legal in our state, but it is decriminalized in the city, so people can go to New Jersey and buy it there then bring it back. Why? All that tax revenue is leaving the state. But the question is, if it was legalized in this state, would we have nice rural family farms growing it, or would it be a baddie like in this film, only instead of an illegal cartel he'd have a massive corporation, a legalized form of cartel if you will (and if you won't, that's okay too). I guess what I'm asking is, in a world of legalized weed, is there still a place for someone like The Devastator to come in and have to sort our evil growers?

Finally, would you look at that beauty! A vintage Detroit Tigers cap! And in the image above that we have a rumpled San Francisco Giants one. In addition to those two, a baddie wears a New York Mets cap, and I swore another wore a Yankees one, but it was blink-and-you'll-miss-it, and I kept missing it. Baseball caps don't really look like that anymore, which I'm okay with, I prefer the modern '47 Brand Clean-Up style, and I have it in a variety of teams. When I started going to more games in 2018, my plan was to get a cap for every ballpark I visited, both Major and Minor leagues, but at $30 a pop, I realized that was too expensive, so now I do souvenir cup sodas, since I'll need a beverage anyway. I also collect them when I see other sports, so I have a bunch of them now. If you're curious, the Mets and Yankees do the best job with them, it's like they're competing with one another to see whose is better. The worst? The Philadelphia Phillies. Ever since they made it to the World Series in 2022--made it, not won it--they changed the style from the standard, shorter and wider version, to something that's taller and thinner. Why, I don't know, I guess they wanted to make it harder for me to stack them with all the others I have, because they made it to the World Series in 2022, not won it.

And with that, I'd say it's time to wrap this up. As of this writing you can get this on Tubi here in the States, among other streamers. If you're looking for some fun, low-budget action that gets you in and out in 80 minutes, this will do the trick. Also, if you haven't yet, check out the Bulletproof Cirio H. Santiago Countdown, where yours truly did a write-up on Dune Warriors! The link to the site is on the left sidebar.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089023

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Firehawk (1993)

As we continue on in our October Hall of Fame month, I wanted to spotlight a film that featured two Hall of Famers that we don't get on the site enough, Martin Kove and Cirio H. Santiago; plus legend DTV producer Roger Corman--who usually produces Santiago's films. Seeing that this was on YouTube made it a no-brainer. In addition to us, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have covered it too, so you can go to their site to see what they think. Now, without any further ado.

Firehawk has Kove as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam who takes his men on a mission into the jungle, only to have the helicopter malfunction, forcing it to make an emergency landing. It's the sloggiest of the jungle slogs when they're stranded, but the problem is, we also have Kove as the hero, which means he may be up to no good. As his men slog through the jungle, hoping to be rescued, fractures and fissures form, tensions brew, and there's a fear that a traitor may be in their midst. Or maybe they're just losing their minds at being stuck in this Philippine jungle slog. Either way, will someone figure out what the score is before too many people die?

 

For a 90-minute movie, this feels a bit longer than that, and I think that has to do with not only the slog aspect, but the fact that we've added the stranded element. Anyone who's been in a car far from home that has a flat tire or breaks down, or has been waiting at the airport for a plane that's been delayed indefinitely, knows the sense of dread, helplessness, and boredom that you feel, and that I couldn't help feeling when I watched this. There were plenty of shootouts and scenes of Kove chomping a cigar that attempted to mitigate that, but it just felt too flat tire-y. This isn't horrible by any stretch, there are a lot worse ways you could spend 90 minutes, but I think if you were looking for a bad movie night flick among friends, you may end up with people going to their phones if you choose this one.

With his addition to the second season of Cobra Kai, there's been a bit of a resurgence in interest in Martin Kove, which I think is fantastic. By the same token, this late 80s/early 90s incarnation of him is much more enjoyable for me. This is him as the DTVC Hall of Famer/pillar of the video store that he is, chewing cigars and scenery, vests with no shirts underneath, not sure if we can trust him and not sure if we care. Talking about the feeling you get when you're stranded due to a flat tire or something, Kove is both the person you'd love to be stranded with, and the person that you start to not trust because his decisions start to look bad, which makes the feeling of helplessness that much stronger. I think it may have even been what Santiago was going for, but the problem is, is it something we'd really enjoy experiencing?

 

Speaking of Santiago, we're finally hitting ten films for him, which for a Hall of Fame director is big. After Albert Pyun, he's currently the only director in the Hall of Fame strictly as a director, and Pyun is in the 40 Club, so we need more Santiago on the site for sure. Whether it's Vietnam in the Philippines, or post-apocalyptic actioner, Santiago has a slew of fun ones from the mid-80s to the mid-90s that I've barely scratched the surface on, it's just a matter of us getting there, so hopefully we'll start soon. One thing about this, is you can see how much in his element Santiago is in the jungle slog. There's a sense that he and Corman had an understanding that when Corman gave him a script and a budget, Santiago knew where he was headed. On the other hand, Santiago does these a bit differently from the Italian directors who handled them. He comes from a different tradition of film making, which makes these a unique addition to the usual Vietnam in the Philippines and post-apocalyptic films from this era, and something I enjoy as a change of pace.

Roger Corman is the third Hall of Famer involved in this, though he's uncredited as executive producer. He has over 400 production credits on IMDb, the most recent of which is 2019's Abduction, a Scott Adkins film I still haven't reviewed. When you think of DTV and B-movie producers, the conversation starts with him. You can look at Golan and Globus, Pepin and Mehri, and Lloyd Kaufman, but it's like if you add all of their stuff together it almost matches Corman's output. Beyond the great stuff that he had with Santiago, he's also responsible for the Bloodfist and Death Race films, plus was the subject of a great documentary on his failed Fantastic Four film, which we've covered here. We wouldn't have the DTV world we have now if it wasn't for him, so we owe him a lot. Here's to you Mr. Corman, you're one of the best.

 

Finally, Captain America himself, Matt Salinger is back, as the racist member of Kove's platoon. I was trying to remember if we'd seen Salinger play a heel before, and I couldn't think of it, maybe in one of the Seagal films he did. In the paragraph above we were discussing the Corman Fantastic Four that never was, but we have Salinger here who was in the Pyun Captain America that actually was. This was Salinger's follow-up to Cap, so it's interesting how he goes from the greatest American hero in one film to a racist wearing a Confederate flag bandana in the next; but also how he goes from one DTVC Hall of Fame director in Pyun to another in Santiago in the next. If you go to his IMDb page, he uses his Captain America still for his profile pic, which I think is fantastic. The way that Disney and Marvel have tried to act like those great earlier films never existed is an abomination, and I like that people are resisting that.

All right, since we're talking about another movie, it's time to wrap this up. You can currently stream this free on YouTube. I think that's the way to go, but be warned, even for free, it's pretty jungle sloggy. Still there's some fun Kove as well, so if you're pining for some while we're waiting for the next season of Cobra Kai, this might do the trick.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106914

Silk (1986)

In looking to get more Cirio H. Santiago on the site, I came across this when Ty from Comeuppance Reviews posted his VHS copy on his Instagram account, tyactionrocks. If you're not following that account on Instagram, you need to, it's fantastic! Anyway, without any further ado, let's see how this one did. This was also reviewed by Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Cool Target Action Reviews, and Mitch at The Video Vacuum, so you can see what they thought as well.

Silk has Cec Verrell as our eponymous hero, working as a detective on the Honolulu police department. She's as bad as they come, and criminals don't stand a chance. When an affluent English gentleman decides to set up his criminal empire shop in her backyard, there's going to be hell to pay.

When an action heroine has her own Pat Benatar-ish theme song, you know you're in for something great, and this only delivers from there. Cec Verrell is fantastic in the lead, the action is consistent, and when the action isn't there, we have other fun moments. This is the kind of movie the DTVC was made for, and the fact that we're almost 1000 posts and 13 years in and I'm just getting to it now is a travesty. Better late than never I guess, and we're here now making it happen. Cirio H. Santiago reaffirms his place in the DTVC Hall of Fame yet again.

This is back-to-back posts with Cec Verrell in them, with her having a part in Hollywood Vice Squad as well, and her third film overall, the other being Hell Comes to Frogtown. In looking at her imdb bio, there isn't much more that we could do of hers, which is too bad, because you feel like from a movie like this she could've had a bigger DTV action career, maybe not quite at Cynthia Rothrock's, but something in the 30 movie range--she wasn't even in Silk 2, which I can't believe after how great she was here. Alas, while the quantity of films was smaller, we're left with the quality, and there is a lot of quality in a film like this for us to celebrate.

I joke often that the biggest trope in movies is film review bloggers using the word trope, but I couldn't think of a better way to describe the damsel in distress trope than as a trope. Anyway, for whatever reason, Cec Verrell couldn't escape it, and despite being the eponymous heroine upon which the film is based, still finds herself captured by the baddies, tied up, and used for bait in the final scene. And the thing is, it felt grafted on, like the helicopter that's only there to be blown up and otherwise serves no other purpose. I'm all for paint-by-numbers, but I think if you're going to make a movie with a woman in the lead who's as badass as Verrell is here, why not skip that part, or have a different female character that you can use for that instead. When we look at some of the other movies we've done this month, Altitude with Denise Richards, Skyscraper with Anna Nicole Smith, Honor and Glory with Cynthia Rothrock and Donna Jason, and Hollywood Vice Squad with Verrell and Carrie Fisher, none of them needed to use the damsel in distress device--the closest I think was Anna Nicole Smith when the baddie in leather pants tries to rape her, and she stabs him with a letter opener and sends him out the window to his death--and all of those movies worked, just like Silk worked. We're okay skipping the damsel in distress, you can trust us to survive if it doesn't happen.

Down below is our good friend Vic Diaz. He, along with our other good friends Joe Mari Avellana and Mike Monty (credited first as Mike Monte, then later as Mike Monty) all make appearances in this. Seeing them in a Philippine action film, especially a Cirio H. Santiago flick, is like watching an old Johnny Carson rerun in bed, or smelling French fries cooking in a fast food joint as I walk by. There's a comfort in knowing they're there, like I know I'm right where I'm supposed to be watching exactly what I'm supposed to be watching at that moment. When we talk about Martin Scorsese's comments about how Marvel movies aren't cinema, maybe what he meant was, they had neither Diaz, Monty, or Avellana in them, and as such couldn't be cinema. I hope that's what he meant...

Cirio H. Santiago is the film's one Hall of Famer, so it's rare to have the Hall of Famer not discussed until this paragraph, but here we are. This is only Santiago's 9th film reviewed on the site, which I believe is the lowest of any Hall of Famer. This is, and has been, a major oversight on my part that I've been meaning to amend. I've mentioned this in other posts, but when I came back from hiatus, I focused too much on newer movies, especially in trying to catch up on all the new Dolph, Seagal, and Van Damme out there, plus the Gary Daniels, Scott Adkins, and Michael Jai White; the thing is though, how often does one of the newer movies hold a candle to something like this? Cirio H. Santiago is in the Hall of Fame for a reason, and one of his films is less of a roll of the dice than a lot of the newer stuff that's out there.

Right now you can stream this on Tubi, or if you have the Shout Factory subscription on Prime you can stream it there too. I think streaming is your best bet, and then you can make the decision after on whether or not you want to ante up for the blu-ray DVD version. However you slice it, this is what you came for, and what we at the DTVC are all about.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091957

Equalizer 2000 (1986)

I'm not sure why this is called Equalizer 2000. Richard Norton with an enormous fucking gun that he uses to blow tons of people away with in the post-apocalyptic Philippines is more like it. I had had this one on my radar for a little while, and then I saw it reviewed over at Cool Target: Action Reviews and knew I had to have it. Both the film and the site are worth checking out.

Equalizer 2000 takes place in post-apocalyptic Alaska, which has been turned into a barren desert wasteland with very little water or oil. One dictatorship has tried to consolidate their power, while some outlying villages look to unite or stay out of the fray. Enter Mr. Norton, who used to be with the big boys, but now he has a score to settle, and he finds himself in one of the other tribes, after rescuing Ken Wahl's (then) wife from Robert Patrick and his gang of thugs. She's working on some big gun, but with Norton's know how, it becomes something more, something totally kickass!



This is a great one. Directed by DTVC Hall of Famer Cirio H. Santiago, it's pretty vintage stuff from him. Plenty of junky cars with spikes and shit on them, dudes in crazy black outfits with eye patches or goggles and silly hats or bandannas. Then you have Norton and his too sweet pecs blasting the place apart with the greatest gun ever. How amazing is that? The key is, either you like movies like this or you don't, but for those who do, this has what you want.

This is one of Norton's best, maybe after some of his great stuff with Cynthia Rothrock. The gun is just beyond hyperbole, and Norton wears it (and very little else) very well. For most of Equalizer 2000 he's pretty much brooding with revenge on his mind, but even that works with that awesome gun. You may have noticed, with all the things I plan on discussing with this film, I've chosen to only embed images of Norton toting that fantastic firearm. Enjoy.



Cirio Santiago does a great job here of keeping things low budget, and in that sense kind of silly, but adding in a lot recognizable cinematic conventions that add a level of nuance, like the way his future felt more like a Western, with Patrick's gang working as the bandits, the powerful warlord more like the Mexican general, and then the village Norton falls in with with the local townsfolk trying to stay out of everything. Not to mention you had Philippine movie industry mainstays Vic Diaz and Ramon D'Salva leading what looked like a tribe of Native Americans. It was very Spaghetti Western-ish, which made it more fun. Oh yeah, and there was Norton's gun.

Speaking of Vic Diaz and Ramon D'Salva, anyone who has seen a fair amount of Philippine low budget movies between the 70s-90s will recognize them. Usually they play Vietnamese generals, essentially bad guys, in Philippine Vietnam War films. If you're into those kinds of movies (and I am because of the carryover into what we do at the DTVC), you might want to check out Jack over at When the Vietnam War Raged... in the Philippines.



The female lead was played by Corinne Wahl, Ken Walh's wife at the time. She was a Penthouse Pet as well-- probably how Wahl met her. Anyway, she's really hot in this, and rocks this tank top with no bra, and thigh high leather boots. Hey, it's the future, after the apocalypse, in Alaska, I'd think you'd want to go for something a little more functional than that, but who am I to say, I get to sit here on my computer and make snarky jokes about the nuclear holocaust, I don't know what it's like out there, in Alaska/Philippines, dealing with bandits and Vic Diaz the Medicine Man. Then there was that gun Norton had... simply the best!

This is VHS or bust, and Amazon is selling it for a pretty steep price, so I'd keep it in mind say if you're digging through a bargain bin or something. It's really great Richard Norton directed by Cirio H. Santiago. This is what you wanted, this is what you came for, get after it. Also, if you haven't already, go check out Cool Target: Action Reviews.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091012/

Kill Zone (1993)

We're reviewing Kill Zone because I wanted a film that featured both of the 2010 DTVC Hall of Fame inductees, David Carradine and Cirio H. Santiago. I usually don't go in for the low-budget, Philippines or Thailand filmed, Vietnam war movie, but I made the exception for this occasion.

Kill Zone takes place during the Vietnam War, and has David Carradine as a colonel who does things on his own terms. That includes sending a special forces team into Cambodia without authorization. That team is led by a low-rent version of the dude from Burn Notice, and Dallas Cowboys great Tony Dorsett. Once there, they find a local tribe isn't stoked that the Viet Cong is running operations in their country, nor that their own government isn't too concerned, so they take matters into their own hands, which is great for the US troops there, because they have an ally. Now the question is, will they succeed before the bureaucratic net closes in on Carradine?



This was a very interesting movie. Yes, it had all the hallmarks: Filipinos passed off as Vietnamese or Cambodian, plenty of explosions and gunfire, and valiant soldiers overly dramatically making the ultimate sacrifice for their guys. What surprised me was how most of the film, cheesy and poorly acted as it was, was totally black and white, only to have buckets of gray splashed on it at the end. I wonder if it was Cirio H. Santiago making his own statement about the toll American military intervention has had in that part of the world, both in Vietnam and Cambodia, but also well before that in the Philippines. It was a sudden level of exploration I wasn't expecting, and I don't want to give it away, but there was a sense of "who should I be rooting for?" or "was that an applause scene?", and eventually it sorts itself out, but not before some serious damage is done.

Does that make it good? Man, I don't know. Not enough David Carradine for my tastes, because when he's on screen, he kills it. There's a lot of "excitement by repetition", meaning, we just go from one scene of pitched battles, explosions, shooting, and yelling to the next one; and the only reprieves we get are in the form of David Carridine interludes. After Tony Dorsett, there really isn't anyone else worth tuning in for. This film was a Reb Brown in the lead role away from being a really fun time. Yes, the message at the end was great and important, but even the 81 minutes it takes to get there feels like a lot longer.



It goes without saying that we've seen better from both Carradine and Santiago, but to blame either of them is a little harsh. Again, a Reb Brown instead of the low-rent version of the guy from Burn Notice would've made the film entertaining. It just goes to show that at this level, when the resources aren't great, and the subject matter is rather worn, who you get is a much bigger factor than who is directing it. In the art house world, it's a more even balance between director, script, and acting, but a great director can make up for lackluster acting or story; here, in the low-budget DTV world, when directors like Santiago and Albert Pyun are expected to pump films out at a porn industry pace, it's all about who we're seeing on screen, and how often we're seeing him or her. I think that's why Santiago is only the second director to make the Hall of Fame, compared to all the actors.

As I mentioned above, this film features NFL all-time great Tony Dorsett. Quick facts on him: only player ever to win the Super Bowl, a college national championship, enshrined in the college football hall of fame, and the pro football hall of fame. He also won the Heisman Trophy, and had the record for most NCAA Div I-A rushing yards until Ricky Williams broke it in 1998. A true hall of famer, apt for this hall of fame DTVC post. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but this isn't the first NFL player to have his film reviewed here. We had Eddie George in the Seagal flick Into the Sun. Kyle Turley was in the Rutger Hauer stinkfest Dead Tone. Of course, there's DTVC Hall of Famer Fred Williamson, who played in Super Bowl I, and Jim Brown, who was in On the Edge with Williamson. I'm sure there are a few more I'm not thinking of at the moment, so if there's any I missed, feel free to mention it in a comment. By the way, Dorsett, aries, born on April 7, 1954.



Look at that gem right there, a Lyndon Johnson Presidential Portrait! With all of these Vietnam War in the Philippines movies you'd think we'd see more of him, and maybe Nixon, but this is the first one we've come across on the site as far as I can tell. By the same token, it's not like we've done a ton of these movies either, so there haven't been the opportunities I'd have thought for these. Fortunately we have a resource, the site When the Vietnam War Raged... in the Philippines (the link is in the Other Great Sites section on the left sidebar), which does a great job cataloging these films. Hopefully through that we'll find some more Johnsons, and maybe an elusive Nixon! A guy can dream, right?

No recommendation here, unless you're into these kinds of films. If that's the case, this is one you should put on your radar, because it offers something a little different, especially at the end. Otherwise, it's a pretty boring 81 minutes with some great interludes featuring new DTVC Hall of Famer, David Carradine.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107316/

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Future Hunters (1986)

My friend at Movies in the Attic suggested this one to me after I'd reviewed a few other films from the late, great, Cirio H. Santiago. The combination of Robert Patrick and Richard Norton sounded great. It took some work to get it on VHS on Amazon, but I did, so here it is.

Future Hunters starts in the future, where Richard Norton lives in this post-apocalyptic wasteland. He needs to get his hands on the spear that pierced Jesus Christ so he can travel back in time, put it on a special shaft, and prevent the nuclear war that started the apocalypse. Unfortunately, when he makes it to the present day, he bumps into Robert Patrick and his woman getting attacked by bikers, and in the process of defending them, he's fatally wounded. Now it's up to Patrick and his woman to join the spear with the shaft in order to save the world.



This is bad. Bad in a good way, maybe; but definitely bad. First off, do not, under any circumstances, watch this alone. You need people around you to make this one work. To give you an idea, moviewise, this is akin to Alien From LA. Ever seen that one on MST3K? It's great with Mike and the 'Bots making fun of it, but if you were stuck with it by yourself, you'd be in trouble. I'd love to see an MST3K version of this film too.

The biggest problem is the length. We pretty much see the same things over and over: Patrick and his woman get close to something, then the baddies show, and they have a close call, and then we repeat. There were some great individual scenes, making it perfect for watching with friends, because in the spaces of nothingness in between, you can talk about how you're going to tell your staff you're hiking the Appalachian Trail, when, in reality, you're planning to see you're mistress in Argentina.



This is the fourth Robert Patrick film we've covered here at the DTVC. He was kind of weird here, because in the beginning, he couldn't hold his own against three bikers, and then later, he announces "I was in the Marines", and suddenly he's great at hand-to-hand combat. Still, the novelty of the Liquid Metal Terminator never wears off, and it's still good here. Again, another reason why this is more enjoyable among friends.

This has Bruce Le, not to be confused with Bruce Li, or the real deal, Bruce Lee. He was great for the five minutes he was there. I was expecting him to hang around and help Patrick for the rest of the movie, but for some reason he didn't. It was like being invited to dinner, offered a smidge of caviar, then told the rest of the meal will be tuna casserole. Eww.



Since Richard Norton was barely in it, I decided to devote the final paragraph to Cirio H. Santiago. This fall, he will be the second director, after Albert Pyun, to make the DTVC Hall of Fame. That makes sense, because he's probably the second best DTV director of all time, after Pyun. He unfortunately died last September from lung cancer. Looking him up on imdb, I see that he not only did much for the DTV film industry, but he did even more for the art of filmmaking in his native Philippines. He will be missed.

I really think this is a fun movie if watched in a group; but alone you'll just be bored to tears. There isn't enough to grab onto for a solo mish, and the good parts are even better when you have people there to laugh at it and mock it along with you. Believe me, it's much better to get through the down parts if you have someone there to talk about how you need your parents to pay off the girl you were just having an affair with down in Argentina.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097404/

Stranglehold (1994)

I saw a trailer for this while watching another Jerry Trimble film. I can't remember which one it was, but I'm not sure how much that matters. With Live by the Fist and One Man Army being so awesome, I was geared up for another Trimble action-fest.

Stranglehold is about some chemical manufacturing plant in Malaysia run by an American corporation that's taken hostage by a huge Australian man and his cronies while an American congresswoman is visiting. The congresswoman's dad has a former CIA operative, Jerry Trimble, tag along for protection, and boy did they need him. Now Trimble's gotta get the congresswoman out alive, while stopping the Australian from escaping with some nerve gas.



This was a huge waste. Jerry Trimble, amazing kickboxer, and the director has him running around with an assault rifle the whole time. Trimble tried valiantly to pull it off, but that's not how he gets down. He looked like a fish out of water. Now, with Trimble in an extremely limited martial arts capacity, we're stuck with a low-rent Die Hard ripoff. For a film with a 70-minute running time, it felt like I was watching it for three hours.

The director of this film was Cirio H. Santiago, and he's done five other films reviewed here on the DTVC, including the amazing Live by the Fist and One Man Army. That makes this movie all the more inexcusable. What was this guy thinking? Did he not know the masterpiece he made with Live by the Fist? How could he not have? Sure, this had some great explosions, and there was plenty of shooting, but when I see Jerry Trimble's name on the cover, I expect Live by the Fist caliber fighting too.



In the few scenes where Trimble actually did have to do some hand-to-hand combat, he excelled, as one would expect. In the trailer for the film, all these martial arts magazines are credited with saying how great the film was, and after watching it, I'm wondering why, because there was almost no martial arts action. Was it out of respect to Trimble? Even the tagline says "Bare Hands. Fast Feet. Short Temper. Ryan Cooper needs no weapon." Sure, he needs no weapon, if an assault rifle doesn't count as a weapon. I can see him using the gun sometimes for the good of the story. I'm just looking for an 80/20 or 70/30 split, with the emphasis being on the hand-to-hand stuff, and this film was more like 90/10, all machine gun.

This had a great Australian actor named Vernon Wells, not to be confused with the Blue Jays center fielder. This guy was great, and his fight at the end with Trimble was reminiscent of Joe Don Baker and Merlin Olson in Mitchell. According to imdb, this cat has been in tons of great DTV stuff, and it's strange that he's never had a film reviewed here before. We'll see if he comes up in the future.



That's that, baby. Not much going on here. A waste of 70 minutes of your life. When I go in expecting Trimble, I want Trimble, not a misguided director's attempt to make him into a Schwarzenegger wannabe.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111300/



But while I have an extra paragraph to play with, I figured I'd mention the new Star Trek movie. It was pretty sweet. The new actors were all faithful to the characters they'd played-- except for one. Sulu was played by the guy from Harold and Kumar that wasn't Kumar, and for whatever reason, he didn't have a deep voice. What? I'm not saying it needed to be Takei deep, but come on, throw me a bone here. Everything else was good, though. For those who don't like Star Trek, I think you'll enjoy it anyway, because it works well as a sci-fi film outside of the milieu of the rest of the series; but for those die hards, it has enough inside jokes to keep you happy too. Just that lack of a good Sulu voice kills me. "Wang!"

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0796366/

Raiders of the Sun (1992)

I first found out about this film when I saw a trailer for it on the DVD for the Don "The Dragon" Wilson film Operation Cobra. It just looked too fantastic not to give it a go. Mad Max rip-offs always work, especially when they have Richard Norton... okay, maybe they don't always work... in fact, they usually don't... but when they have Richard Norton they're more likely to.

Raiders of the Sun takes place after a nuclear war. People have grouped together for protection, and a democratic republic has formed. They have a solid army of soldiers in yellow uniforms, led by field officers in black leather vests with no shirt underneath. But not everyone is happy, and a colonel has committed treason, splitting off and attempting to take them over. His brother leads a criminal gang that terrorizes communities not protected by the republic, and now the two of them are joining forces. As this happens, Norton's buddy's wife is kidnapped by the gang leader, and the friend infiltrates the gang. Norton leaves him to get gunpowder so the republic can vanquish the traitor. That's pretty much it. Oh, and there's midgets that speak their own language.



This movie is not for the faint at heart. You think you got the chops to take it on? Are you up for the challenge? It's like hiking a mountain: it'll take a lot out of you, but when you reach the summit and see what you've accomplished, you feel like a more complete person. Now I'm not saying when I took down Mt. Washington in four hours and thirty-three minutes (that's up and down) last summer that that feeling is the same as when I got through watching Raiders of the Sun, just the same idea. It's a rough movie, but if you can crack enough jokes and get enough laughs, you'll gain plenty of enjoyment.

Where do I start? Maybe the whole premise of the movie: that gun powder of all things is the limited valuable commodity. What? Don't they know if they have bullets the bullets have the gun powder in them? I'd think manufacturing more ammo would be the problem. Or finding gas ("petrol" for my readers in the UK) to fuel their Mad Max style cars. I guess gun powder was meant to reinforce the primitiveness of the post-apocalypse, but it was just really silly. They aren't muzzle loaded uzis.



You wanna talk about silly, check this out. So Norton and his buddy are moving through the desert, and they find this woman tied to a boulder with a branch in her mouth being held by an extremely racist depiction of Native Americans. They free her and take her with them to this town to find out how to get to the gang. Once there, she chats it up with some dwarves. Here's the kicker: Norton joins them and says to her: "You can speak their language?" Their language? Dwarves have their own language after the apocalypse? And just what is this language? Spanish with a Mexican accent. That was just simply fantastic.

Another great thing was the way Norton's friend was initiated into the gang. He had to have a fight to the death with another member. Only in movies. You'd think after the apocalypse a gang would want a solid foundation of members in order to raise hell and plunder what they wanted without worrying about being outnumbered by the villages they were raiding. I could see taking a potential recruit and making him fight a sucky member to the death because it would be a win/win: if he wins, you don't have to waste supplies on the sucky guy, and if he loses, it turns out he probably wasn't worthy of the gang in the first place. But they didn't do that here. This guy was pretty high up. It just seems like a bad way to run a gang in the post-apocalypse.



I couldn't go through this entire post without telling you how Richard Norton did. He was the big name in this. First off, he's either completely topless or wearing only a leather vest throughout the film. If he wasn't so cut he'd double for a Bear at a gay bar. At the very least he doubles for a bartender at a gay bar. I'm not saying that in jest. I think it's awesome that he can pull that look off. It's like a flamboyant Han Solo. And he still kicks people's asses. (Did I mention above at all how bad this movie is?)

As I finish this blog, REO Speedwagon's "Take it on the Run" is winding up in the background. Heard it from a friend who... anyway, this movie is for real bad movie veterans. I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you watch this and find you don't enjoy it, it might just be that it's a tad too much for you right now. It also might be that the really bad movies just aren't your bag, and you may want to stick to the easier to swallow ones, like Road House.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105213/

One Man Army (1994)

After my friend at Movies in the Attic turned me onto Jerry Trimble's Live By the Fist, I was hooked. Trimble was the man, and that movie was amazing. I knew, since his others wouldn't have George Takei, they wouldn't exactly be as good, but I had a feeling they'd still be awesome. I mean he was no Takei, but Trimble was pretty sweet in it too.

One Man Army is a Walking Tall retread, only Trimble is way cooler than either Joe Don Baker or The Rock, so really this isn't a retread, it's more of an improvement. Anyway, Trimble returns to the small town he grew up in after his grandfather that raised him dies, and the town's in bad shape. In a move reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson, he runs for sheriff in an attempt to clean the county up, and wins. But the people making money off the poor townsfolk have other ideas, and Trimble needs to kick some justice into their heads.



No Live By the Fist, but what is? It was pretty sweet just the same. Why they made that stupid Walking Tall with The Rock, or it's bad sequels with Kevin Sorbo, when we have the model for how to do it properly right here, is beyond me. I'm not saying I don't like The Rock, and Sorbo's great as Hercules, but when it comes to guys coming back to their small home towns to clean up corruption, I want it done by Jerry Trimble in a low budget actioner. It's just way more fun.

What else can I say about Jerry Trimble? Two-for-two, and it's not even close. This guy just brings it every scene. You can't help but root for him. At the end of the movie, they release all the bad guys he's arrested and let them loose in the town. It kind of reminded me of when I play Mega Man, and I have to fight all the bosses one more time before I fight Dr. Wily. The only difference is, with Mega Man, I gotta do the work, and it sucks, while here I get to watch Trimble do the work, and it's awesome! He was in The Last Sentinel with Don "The Dragon" Wilson, and I think that'll be a good one to do next for both of them, because they're both world kickboxing champs.



I think this movie was shot in the Philippines. It definitely wasn't shot in the US, no matter how much they'd have you believe that. It didn't look like any American South to me. The best was they tried to pass the least Asian of the local population as Mexicans. Bringing Sorbo and Hercules back up, it was like watching all the local Maoris playing Ancient Greek thugs. Good stuff.

My one complaint was the use of the dog as his partner. Cheesy. Why go Rin Tin Tin on our asses, when you've got Jerry Trimble. I like having the dog there as his pet, but having it save his life? And more than once? Perhaps the most hilarious was when he was in a burning house, and the dog was helping to drag him out. Straight up ridiculous.



I was watching this with a friend, and I told her the moment the female lead showed up on screen that we would be seeing her boobs. I was right, but I don't think I'm gifted with powers of foresight more than I've just seen enough of these to know how they work. Her love scene with Trimble was set to smooth jazz, which was pretty funny. It was like The Weather Channel, and I was expecting a voice to come in and say "The current temperature is... 45... degrees under... PARTLY CLOUDY... skies." The woman's name is Melissa Moore, and she's been in some of the Vice Academy movies, which were an Up All Night staple with Gilbert Godfried and Rhonda Shear. I need to check some of those out again.

Get this. Get it with Live By the Fist if you haven't already seen that too. Trimble is a machine and there are very few lull points: it's constant action. I just wish all action movies were at least this good.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110733/

Live by the Fist (1993)

This movie was a suggestion from my friend over at Movies in the Attic (a link to which you can find in the section titled "Other Great Sites"). I checked out the trailer on YouTube, and knew I had to shoot it to the top of my Netflix queue. You're talking Jerry Trimble and George Takei, does it get any better? Sure, Heat was able to boast the first ever on-screen pairing of Pacino and De Niro, but in my mind, Trimble and Takei was a much more anticipated combination. Sometimes I wonder how I get to be so lucky.

Live by the Fist has Trimble as an ex-Navy SEAL who's framed for killing a woman he tried to save from being raped. He's sent to a corrupt Philippine prison, where he befriends George Takei, a kind of wise man leader of the inmates. Takei's trying to contact a human rights group chick to draw attention to inhumane treatment from the warden and guards. Trimble, as you can imagine, is always in trouble, and always has to kick some ass. He kicks plenty until the calvary's called, and he and the human rights group chick can escape.

Now this is what I'm talking about! Amazing! It just frustrates me to know I sit through so much crap, when all DTV directors have to do is watch a gem like this to understand what makes quality cinema. Where do I begin? First fight scene, we hear this amazing electric guitar riff in the background. Think WASP "Blind in Texas" with a little early 80s Crue and mid 80s Dokken mixed in. And that riff plays during every fight scene. And it never gets old. Every time I heard it I did a Tiger Woods hitting a birdie putt at 18 in the Masters to seal the win fist pump.

Trimble shows up here. It's amazing to think I'm just north of 200 posts at the DTVC, and this is the first time a film of his was reviewed. Actually, I found out looking him up on imdb, that that's not exactly true. He was in a gang in Seagal's Today you Die, and I totally missed him because also in that gang was Karo "The Heat" Parisyan. Anyway, this is the first film I've done that he stars in, and I'll have to make sure I do more, because he was the bomb. He has this awesome voice that's like the best parts of Martin Sheen, Joe Estevez, and Judge Mills Lane all mixed together. And he's a very solid martial artist. I can't think of a better guy to root for.

I know you all want to know, and I'll tell you: how awesome was George Takei? Was the voice there? Did he say anything fantastic? The voice was there, but he didn't have any too amazing lines to go with it (not like his trip to Howard Stern's show). His character name is Uncle Coronado, which is probably good enough. I mean, just having Takei is really enough. As long as he's there and talking, the viewer's usually entertained. I'm surprised more DTV film makers-- as in all of them-- don't cast Takei more often. If I made movies, he'd be in all of my films. I'd break the bank to get him, too. If my budget was 2 mill, I'd take out a loan and give him 3. I mean, come on, it's George Takei.

Roger Corman produced this, and that brings up a question I get all the time: why isn't he in the Hall of Fame? Who better to be in a DTV Hall of Fame than one of the creators of the genre? Well, the reason is that before Albert Pyun was inducted last year, only actors were allowed in. Perusing Corman's vast production credits, it looks like he's produced 10-15 movies that have already been reviewed on the DTVC, which would put him second behind Dolph Lundgren for most times tagged. Look for his induction to the HOF this October.

The prison sub-genre of the bad action movie comes up often. When I watched bad action in the 80s and 90s, I'd say one out of five took place in a prison. It's just such an easy way to make a movie: the set's cheap, wardrobe's a cinch, and the plot can be written in a day or two. Unfortunately the (to my eyes, anyway) overrated Shawshank Redemption changed the way we look at prison films. Maybe I don't speak for many people, but I'll take a Live by the Fist over Shawshank any day. The guitar alone makes it for me, but I also think Jerry Trimble is a better actor than Tim Robbins.

Do you even need me to do the last paragraph? You what I'm gonna say. Rent it, buy it, do whatever you have to, but get your hands on this puppy. It's frickin' awesome. It's also only 77 minutes long, which has to be another selling point. Who needs a 3-hour epic, when you can watch this twice in less time.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107430/

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/

Dune Warriors (1990)

I rented this movie back as a freshman in high school. I was having a buddy over for the first time, and I knew he was a big sci-fi honk. I really didn't know much past Star Wars and Star Trek and all the bad things I watched on MST3K, but I wanted to look like I did. As such, when I saw this I thought "Oh, Dune, sci-fi guys love Dune. This'll be a sweet film. Well, it was a sweet film, just not the way we planned.

Dune Warriors is a very short remake of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, so short, in fact, that they cut the roster down from seven to five. The movie takes place in a grim post-apocalyptic future, where some warlord known only as William is terrorizing the local landscape. One town, the water rich Chinle, wants to fight back, but they're a peaceful people, and don't know where to turn. They send a chick out, and she finds David Carradine, who then finds four other cats in the Mos Eisley-esqu Freetown. They fortify Chinle and take down William in a battle royal.



Looking back, this film had absolutely nothing to do with dunes, so it was probably titled with the sole purpose of duping people who didn't know better, like me, to spend money on it. I fell for it. At 14, my buddy and I didn't really make it much further in the film before we decided to watch some Beavis and Butt-head episodes I taped. The next day, we wanted to see if we could get another friend to tell us the movie was awesome if we talked it up before he watched it. We told him it was better than Star Wars. About fifteen minutes in, he turned to us and said "Hey guys, this is good, but Better than Star Wars?"

At 77 minutes, though, this isn't as harsh as some in its category that run over 100. I'm not sure why bad movies are so long sometimes. 88 minutes, or eleven reels, is the perfect length for a bad film. To all cheap film makers out there: dump enough boring plot exposition to get us in under 88. All we want are the explosions and the fight scenes. Give me five minutes to explain how the bad guy killed the good guy's wife or partner or whatever, then get back to the flying cars flipping thirteen times and landing in a huge ball of fire. Thank you.



One of our favorite scenes came in the first five minutes, when William is pillaging another village. The editing in this is horrible, and very choppy at parts. Guys get stabbed or punched in three distinct takes spliced together so they look like three distinct takes spliced together. There was one where a guy cut off another guy's head in three shots like that, and after the head fell away, there was a fourth cut of the murderer smiling. It was this great shit-eating grin, and we had to watch it multiple times because we thought it was so funny. I'd done better editing in short movies I made for class projects.

David Carradine is all right in this. It's not quite as much fun as watching him in Kung-Fu: The Legend Continues, where week after week he'd have to save his wussy son in the park from a band of ill-intentioned ninjas. He doesn't really flex his martial arts muscles in this as well as he did in that, which is a slight disappointment. I never understood why his son was such a tool on that show. My friends noticed it too. One time, when a buddy and I were at a bowling alley playing Killer Instinct, he noted: "Hey, look, it's Kane's wussy son hanging out with his kids." The guy looked pretty close, and we were wondering if we shouldn't take any chances and get out of there before the ninjas showed up.



Seven Samurai isn't the only film this borrows from. Star Wars is in it quite regularly with the Jawa-like midget people in red robes, and the Mos Eisley-eque Freetown. Carradine also wears a robe and has a sensibility that reminds us of Alec Guiness as Obi-Wan. There's also the blantant Mad Max elements, from the cars to the clothes. If you throw in that the title was meant to make us think this was based on a Frank Herbert novel, then nothing about this film is original. It's like the film makers put a bunch of movies on a dart board and took turns figuring out what to take from next.

This might one of the worst films ever. As such, it's fun to heckle with a group of friends, and if you see it at your local video or store or in a bargain bin for like $2, don't hesitate. It's 77 minutes of funny bad movie, and at the very worst, by the time you get bored of it, it's almost over anyway. You may also want to use it if you're a professor at a film school to demonstrate bad editing techniques. Good work, fellas.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099474/