Young Rebels (1989)

This is one I did on the podcast back in August, episode 105, with Jacob Gustafson of the Awful Awesome book series, and I've had it in my queue to review all that time. I guess there's no time like now to finally make it happen. In addition to us, this is a Superfecta Film, as Comeuppance, The Video Vacuum, and Bulletproof have all covered it before as well.

Young Rebels has neither youth nor rebellion, but rather is an Amir Shervan joint about a guy, played by Jon Greene (as Johnny Greene) who has a down-on-his luck brother that's into a mob boss for a lot of dough. To settle the debt, Greene agrees to fly a helicopter to pick up some guys in Mexico for the mob boss, but when that goes south, the mob boss, as mob bosses are wont to do, decides he wants his revenge, so he starts by killing Greene's brother. Turns out he messed with the wrong guy, so Greene gathers up some friends, including Tadashi Yamashita, to take the mob boss, and the mob boss's son, Robert Z'Dar, down. It's going to be a blood bath--or maybe just an extended shootout and extended strip scene bath, but a bath nonetheless.

This is pure Shervan. All of our late 80s action movie excess is run through Shervan's Iranian filter and reflected back at us. How long should a strip scene go before it crosses from sexy into uncomfortable? Shervan has no idea, American guys seem to spend hours in these places, so why not make it as long as possible? And does seeing a sweaty doughy man responding to the strippers make it more uncomfortable for the viewer? Why would it, don't American men go to these places with other guys all the time? What about the shootouts taking place in late 80s finished basements, known at the time as "dens,"--before we had to give everything cute names like "man caves"--how long should those be? I mean, Americans like action and they love their guns, the longer the better, right? And to that point, who cares how good the dialog is? Does it even need to make that much sense? It makes sense enough to me, that should be all that matters, right? While this doesn't have the all out classic level of ridiculousness that Samurai Cop does, for the kind of movie this is, it hits all the right spots.

We last saw now DTVC Hall of Famer Robert Z'Dar back in October when we did his induction post, which was also an Amir Shervan film, Killing American Style. Like that one, this was a bigger role for Z'Dar, which let him do more. The problem here was, part of that doing more was watching a woman do a strip tease with a long necklace of pearls that she drags through parts of her body that maybe she shouldn't have, and Z'Dar has to react to it like he's into it. There is no real face someone can make to show they're into it that doesn't look ridiculous, especially on camera, which means Z'Dar was already working uphill before he even agreed to do that scene, but he ends up making it more cringey for us the viewer. The question is, where do we go from here with Z'Dar? He does have some stuff on Tubi and YouTube, but the reality is, a lot of it is two or three notches below where we usually go with all the stuff that's available now. There are a couple though, like Red Line and Double Blast, which our friends at Comeuppance have already covered, that I think we need on here, so this definitely won't be the last we see of Mr. Z'Dar.

We're now at three Amir Shervan films on the site, and I slot this one between the other two, right after Samurai Cop and before Killing American Style. It's a fascinating filmography though, where he's an established director in Iran, then is forced to come to the US after the Iranian Revolution, and while the next generation of filmmakers there are, despite the restrictions put on their work by the government, a few years out from putting out some of the best stuff in the world at that time, Shervan is giving us what are objectively some of the most off the wall low-budget actioners ever. As we get into the later part of the 90s, in Iran we get Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry, Makhmalbaf's Gabbeh, Dariush Mehrjui's Leila--and Mehrjui was actually a contemporary of Shervan's before Shervan left Iran--and Majid Majidi's Oscar nominated Children of Heaven--and even before that, in 1992, one of my favorites, Nargess, directed by Rakhshan Bani-etemad, all while Shervan is giving us Samurai Cop and Young Rebels. It's really fascinating to consider these two tracks in parallel, that we have a set of directors who are the darlings of international cinema working in the country Shervan was forced to flee, while he's struggling to put together some schlock actioners that he thinks are what Americans at that time wanted. What we get isn't maybe something worthy of the Criterion Collection, but it's fun just the same, making it a short but sweet legacy in the DTV action world.

Our hero is played by Jon Greene, and when we look at his filmography on IMDb, it's a lot of "police officer," "police detective," or "police sergeant"--in fact, we've seen him before as "Officer Baylor" in Crack House. This was his one time to shine as the hero, the problem was, I think in Shervan trying to push the "young" element in the film, he ended up making him into the guy I used to see in the convenience store on a Friday when I was growing up who definitely looked like he was onto cooler and better things than me and my friends who were loading up on junk food before a night of video game playing. Was that guy really about do something cooler than that though? When I finally got to be his age, I learned that life generally wasn't that much cooler, that maybe finishing every level in Super Mario 3 without warping was better than getting wasted and having a hangover the next day, and now it's even worse, as guys that age post on social media what they're doing to try and make it look even better. At least that guy back then, or me 10 years later, didn't need to worry about making everything look better to keep up with the Joneses on Instagram, didn't need to worry about how our sneakers looked, if our T-shirts had designer logos on them, if the place we were at was more of a destination than what our friends were posting. No, that guy in his mullet, dirty high-tops, and faded jeans was living his best life before we coined horrible terms like that and needed to hashtag it on our social media posts about what we were doing. 

Finally, as I mentioned above, parts of this film take place in the finished basement, or den, of the house where they were filming. When I was in high school, a friend of ours had one of those finished basements complete with a bar and a bathroom, and he used to host big sleepovers with five or six of us on a weekend. We could sneak out the backdoor to smoke weed, or go to get late night food, often the friends with cars letting them roll in neutral to avoid waking up his parents before they started the engine. Nowadays, that den would be called a "man cave," the dad wouldn't let his son use it for sleepovers, and Ring cameras would patrol the backdoor so no one could sneak out. Were we "young rebels," or just kids in a small town in Maine who were looking for something to do? And to go back to the previous paragraph, we couldn't wait until we were old enough to have our own places where we could smoke our weed and come and go when we felt like it. The problem, as I'm sure you know, is your own place comes with bills, which means you need a job too. Now we don't even need to sneak out to get weed, I can take a bus to New Jersey and get gummies legally--and if I snuck out at 1am here in Philly, I don't know what kind of unsavory characters I'd run into, but I can order my Taco Bell through Doordash so I don't need to sneak out to get it. Here's to you 90s den and all that came with you, you were one of the good ones.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Here in the States you can stream this free on Tubi. That's your best bet. It's not quite Samurai Cop, but it will anchor your Saturday movie night well enough. As the guys at Comeuppance said, they don't make 'em like this anymore, and I agree with them that that's not a great thing.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2394099

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Killing American Style (1988)

It's October, and you know what time that is at the DTVC, right? Actually you may not, because I usually don't have my shit together, but this year I do. It's time for Hall of Fame inductions, and we start with the one and only Robert Z'Dar, so I figured this would be a good one for his induction post. In addition to us, RobotGEEK's Cult Cinema has covered this, plus our other three usual suspects, Comeuppance, The Video Vacuum, and Bulletproof Action, so I finally join those three in finally making this happen too.

Killing American Style is an Amir Shervan joint starring Robert Z'Dar as the leader of a gang who, after a robbery where people are killed, is arrested, but then en route to prison, his brother springs him and his pals. Problem is, said brother is injured in the execution, and they need to get him help quick. They find a nice house with a nice family inside and take them hostage, hoping to get a doctor to nurse the brother to good health, and also pick up the money from the robbery gone bad. The fly in the ointment though, Harold Diamond is the man of the house. Z'Dar an co won't know what hit them.

From a Shervan film standpoint, this one is good, but as opposed to Samurai Cop or Young Rebels, which are suitable for a mixed bad movie night audience, this is more for your hardcore crew. One, there's a rape scene. Two, we have some extended nudity. And three, overall it's a bit darker. Beyond that though, this is the fun Shervan you came for, between Z'Dar as the main baddie taking his baddie to another level, to Diamond as the family man who just happened to know martial arts and wear unzipped coats with no shirt underneath, it delivers the goods. The other issue is, because it's a home invasion movie, and clocks in at 101 minutes, it does spin its wheels a bit in the middle--another reason it's probably not a good bad movie night pick, but I think once you've done Samurai Cop and Young Rebels, this is your next Shervan go to.

Now for the man of the hour, Mr. Z'Dar. When I did a Z'Dar podcast episode with the guys from Comeuppance (episode called "A Z'Dar is Born" in their podcast archives), I had a realization that he probably belonged in the Hall of Fame, so from there it was a matter of what movie to choose. Sure, a Maniac Cop would be a good choice, but I thought because is face is all scarred that that might not be as fitting. His Shervan films on the other hand, though maybe not as iconic as the Maniac Cop films, were really the ones that let Z'Dar stretch his acting chops, and I think he really enjoyed making them for that reason. In that vein, this is a more fitting way to celebrate him. With that shot above, I don't know what's happening with his rib cage, but overall, I think he played an excellent baddie here, which, despite the fact that the film dragged in spots, helped get us through some of that dragging.

This is now three Harold Diamond films here at the DTVC, but I discovered in his IMDb bio that he was a fight consultant in Kickboxer: Vengeance, so I added that tag in for him as well. The problem for him here is, despite how cool he could be, the home invasion construct forces him to look weak for large portions of the film. That's an area where the Die Hard paradigm improved action films, because if his family were being held hostage, and he had to get them out of a building, he could just take guys out one-by-one. The other thing is, because Diamond has such a scant filmography, it's hard to see one of his outings waste him like the home invasion paradigm ultimately does with its heroes. Looking at his IMDb bio, he doesn't have much else for us to do, especially since some of his films are hard to find--including Gypsy by this director. It's a shame he didn't do more, because between this and his Sidaris films, he makes a fun action star.

This is our second Amir Shervan film we've covered on the site, but we also did a podcast episode on Young Rebels with Jacob Gustafson of the Awful Awesome book series as a guest, and we got into Shervan as a director in general there. In school I studied Iranian film, but what I studied was the post-Revolution New Wave stuff, and Shervan was before that. One thing Jacob and I talked about was the idea that maybe all the stuff we see as silliness, was Shervan trying to mimic what he saw as popular trends in American movies. In that sense, are we're getting something like Ross Hagen dressed like a cowboy in Action USA telling Hoke Howell "when in Rome...", or maybe a distorted mirror reflecting what Shervan thinks we value back at us, but we don't recognize it as such. The only thing missing was the Garfield phone, but seen through that lens, it gives the films a different vibe, which to me makes them more fun--and you need all the fun you can get when a movie has a rape scene in it.

Finally, earlier I mentioned the fact that this film has a rape scene in it. It reminded me of when I read about Sidehackers in the MST3K Episode Guide and how they committed themselves to that movie without watching it, and realized there was a rape and murder scene that they had to cut out. It's just not fun, and while I get that Shervan or the Sidehackers director weren't making movies so we could make fun of them, it does serve as a reminder that the movies we watch and celebrate on this site and others like it aren't always for everyone, and when we're introducing our movies to friends and family who aren't otherwise inclined, we have to make sure there isn't anything in there that might be uncomfortable. Animals being killed, women being raped, nudity, over the top torture of the hero, all things we need to screen in advance. That's why Bridge of Dragons is one that always works, but Showdown in Little Tokyo maybe not so much. With Samurai Cop, is the bacon grease too much, or not graphic enough to be an issue? You gotta know your audience, but if you pull it off right, you can have a great bad movie night that people bring up years later.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of right now, Cinema Epoch has this on DVD, and available to stream on Tubi here in the States. I think if you're a Z'Dar fan, and you haven't seen this, it's definitely worth a go; and great to finally get him into the DTVC Hall of Fame with this post, as he's truly one of the DTV legends. In terms of a classic "that kind of movie," the way Samurai Cop is, this is a bit too brutal to be that, plus it drags in spots. That's okay, the way Jim Morrison told the Doors "we've already done Ed Sullivan" after a producer told them they'd never be able to go on again when Morrison sang the line "couldn't get much higher," we can say "we already have Samurai Cop, we don't need Killing American Style to be another."

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0293324

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Total Force (1996)

Back in March I had Rich Hawes from the DTV Digest podcast on our pod to discuss this film and its sequel, Absolute Force. He and Mike and Steve had just covered it for their throwback segment on their pod, and when I asked him about coming on, he liked the idea of discussing this and its sequel in more detail than the segment on their podcast allowed; and I, having seen that these were on Tubi, was definitely intrigued. In addition to us, our friends at Comeuppance have covered this as well.

Total Force is about Richard Lynch, a defense contractor who developed a device called the Neurolator--not to be confused with the delightful candy Now and Later, which I used to mix in with my other penny candy when we went to the Goldenrod on York Beach in Maine when I was growing up. No, the Neurolator uses a laser from a satellite to turn opposing soldiers' brains into mush, but not before they become violent zombies who attack their own troops. The problem is, the turn to mush part doesn't kick in, and now Lynch needs to call in the Total Force team, led by Timothy Bottoms, to clean up the mess. Then, after he frames them for dealing drugs (?), Lynch is then taken off the project himself, which causes him to call in mercenary Frank Stallone to break into the facility it's being housed in. Sounds like we need to call our Total Force guys back in, huh?

This movie was awarded zero stars by the guys at Comeuppance. That's right, "we award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul;" and Rich's compatriots on DTV Digest couldn't believe how horrible this was--and if you listen to their show at all (which you should be if you're not), they are almost never this hard on a film. Is this really that bad? Quite possibly, but it's an intriguing bad, which is why I think Rich wanted to discuss it. Writer/director Steven Kaman, who has worked with "rah-rah military beats bad guys" schlock auteur J. Christian, Engvordsen, looks like he's trying to go less black and white with this effort, but he's also trying for this MTV 90s TV show thing that feels all over the place. One scene in a hotel room or something where Frank Stallone and his team are getting their marching orders is a great example, cameras are whipping around all over the place, with all kinds of odd angles, while Stallone is slouched on a couch laughing at this creeper fixer guy getting fresh with Calista Carradine and her twisting the creeper's arm back as a result. We get these random in-cuts of stock footage like we're watching M/A/R/R/S's "Pump Up the Volume," which makes sense in a music video, but why here? When the thing becomes more straight-ahead actioner toward the end though, it's kind of a fun dynamic, especially with Bottoms, Stallone, and Lynch, but that's near the end of the movie, and by then you've been through a lot of kookiness. This is a unique entry in the 90s DTV action catalog, and that alone may make this worth it, or totally not.

Kaman also goes by the name "Sven Nuvo," and he got his start in the early 80s doing cinematography for X-rated movies. In 1987 he teams with the aforementioned Engvordsen for the latter's directorial debut, Hangmen, starring Sandra Bullock in her debut as well. From there he works with Engvordsen a lot, though it seems like as the 90s go on, and Engvordsen shifts into things like Airboss, which are more obvious rah-rah panderers, Kaman no longer works with him, and does this film instead, followed by two others of his own after--one of which is the sequel to this, Absolute Force. In that sense, this movie almost feels like a response to the films Engvordsen would do in the late 90s/early 2000s, like the Airboss series. The problem is, it's as if Kaman had too many things he wanted to say about foreign policy and the military-industrial complex--which he also demonstrates in this film that he may not fully understand, because it seems like he thinks there's an actual complex that exists. While the execution may not be there, I like that he tried to do something other than the rah-rah fest we see so often. Does that award him a star in a five star rating system? Good question, and I don't have an answer for you...

We last saw the great Richard Lynch here in 2013, and at that time we said it was a travesty he wasn't in the Hall of Fame. Now it's 2022, and he still isn't in there, so what does that make it? The thing about him is he's like a baddie in a can: you just open him up and throw him in a pot, and he's ready to eat. The problem is though, do you let him do his thing, or do you disrupt his flow with a bunch of other stuff? There's a scene where he's talking to Bottoms through a video phone, and it's all kinds of edits and different kinds of film all put together, which is meant to give us a sense of the technology. Again, I get what Kaman was going for, but the result was Lynch looked sillier than he looked sinister. Just the same, it's good to see Lynch back, and with all the credits he has out there that we haven't covered, I have no excuse to not get the next film of his up sooner than 9 years from now. (Scary to think about that isn't it, what the world will be like in 2031!)

Another issue with the film was that Frank Stallone and his crew--Calista Carradine, Oleg Taktarov, and Tom Bresnahan--were cooler than Bottoms's Total Force. Kaman at least mitigated this by having them kill innocent people, but then he further mitigated by having Stallone and Bottoms team up after Lynch turns a bunch of lab workers into zombies with the Neurolator and has them attack everyone while he tries to escape in a helicopter. From a Destro Effect standpoint, Kaman has committed a major error: he made is cooler baddies sufficiently bad, but then didn't give them their comeuppance. You can't use those two Destro Effect mitigating factors together, if you're using one you have to abandon the other. But as we saw with other decisions Kaman made, he just didn't care--or he was trying to make the point that one man's terrorist group is another man's government wet works clean-up crew team? Unfortunately if that was the case, I don't think it worked, and we were left with baddies who killed innocent people and got away with it at the end.

 

Finally, going back to Kaman potentially not understanding what the military-industrial complex is--or at least making it look like he didn't understand it--I guess it might be good to remember that in 1996 this kind of information wasn't as readily available. I myself didn't learn about it until a few years later, when I was in college and it came up in my Sociology 101 class. Nowadays you can look it and anything else up on Wikipedia, so not understanding a concept like this fully is less forgivable. Also, if you go on Twitter, you'll see a deeper understanding of how the military-industrial complex works, with people tweeting about how a fraction of our military budget would fund public college for everyone who wants it, or how PBS and infrastructure costs make up such a small percentage of the overall budget compared to military spending. We also talk about the trickle-down effects, like how the military-industrial complex begets the police-industrial complex and the prison-industrial complex. These were all concepts that were beyond the scope of what Kaman wanted to do with his movie, but it's interesting how he was trying them out in 1996, while his former directorial comrade Engvordsen was selling us on how great the military-industrial complex was in his late 90s and early 2000s films.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this on Tubi in the States, but I think Rich said in the UK you had to settle for YouTube. Whichever it is, free-to-stream is the way to go if you want to check this out. For Ty and Brett at Comeuppance to give this zero stars, and for Mike and Steve on DTV Digest to dislike it so vehemently, it has to be a unique brand of bad, which I think it is. For more info on it before you jump in, you can listen to episode 95 of the podcast where Rich and I discuss it. It was a great conversation and worth checking out!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145534

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Frogtown II (1992)

Back in April (my birthday, April 1st to be exact), I was on the Comeuppance Reviews podcast to talk about our top five Robert Z'Dar movies. I felt like I needed to see this to have as complete a list as possible, so I found it on Daily Motion--only it was reversed! That's right, the video image was reversed, so I had to find a plug-in for my browser that put it back the way it was supposed to be. Until we get a nice Blu-ray version of this, I guess this is the kind of thing we need to do to watch it.

Frogtown II has Z'Dar taking over for Rowdy Roddy Piper in the lead role. In this sequel, a mutant frog leader has taken a scientist (Brion James) hostage, and is forcing him to make a serum that turns humans into frog people too. When fellow Ranger Lou Ferrigno is captured behind enemy lines, they start using the serum on him. Now their captain, Charles Napier (Napes), has no choice but to send their best, Sam Hell, in to save the day. With him he's taking scientist Dr. Spangle (Denice Duff). But when they get into Frogtown, things go sideways, and now it's going to take Hell everything he's got to get out alive.

This one was fun enough for what we had here. It was a fun cast, a fun concept, fun execution. I don't know that it touches the classic status of the original, this was more the 3am block on Up All Night level as opposed to the 11pm block, but if you were up that late on a Saturday this would've been a good watch. Speaking of Up All Night, we had Rhonda Shear playing Fuzzy, their communicator. Z'Dar was great as Sam Hell, playing the hero with equal parts serious guy who saves the day and tongue-in-cheek in on the joke comedic lead, and it felt like the rest of the cast fell in and played it all the same way. It is very low budget though, and, again, isn't quite what the first one is, but for the film it was, it worked for me.

Z'Dar finally hits double digits here at the DTVC, with this being his tenth film. Out of those 10, I think this is the first one where he plays a good guy, and may be the only one of his films I've ever seen where he plays a good guy. I think his size and face got him more typecast as a baddie, but seeing how well he did here, that's too bad. He has 122 credits in IMDb, of which a brief scan says maybe 75% would qualify to be here on the site, so he could potentially get up there into some of the more prestigious clubs. On the other hand, a lot of his films are in the lower tiers, which means we may not get to them as much. I'd say Hall of Fame this year might be a great place to start for him.

We last saw the great Brion James when we did the PM flick The Underground back in March of 2021. Here you can see he's playing the part of Carrot Top playing the scientist. It's a shame Brion is longer with us, because he'd have been great as Carrot Top in a Carrot Top biopic. The other DTVC mainstay we had in this was Napes, Charles Napier. Talk about your professional actor, he's the same here as he is in a big Hollywood film--the year after this came out Philadelphia, an Oscar winner, was released, and I think he was just as good in both. Guys like these add just enough to a film to make it work on a slightly higher level, and while it's too bad they're no longer with us, they gave us plenty of great moments. Here's to you guys, you're two of the great ones.

This was directed by schlock auteur Donald G. Jackson, who also did the first film, which is the only other film of his we've reviewed on here. Going back to the Up All Night connection, he also directed a film called Twisted Fate aka Kill Kill Overkill, which came out the year after this, that I remember seeing on the 3am block on Up All Night. The problem is, a lot of his movies are like this one: really tough to track down, and when you do find them, it involves things like plug-ins that reverse the image. It's too bad, because a lot of these look like a lot of fun and would be worth checking out for the site. Maybe a company will put the best ones out on Blu-ray?...

Finally, to finish the Up All Night tenor of this review, seeing Rhonda Shear was a welcomed piece of nostalgia. Early 90s sleepovers on Fridays and Saturdays usually involved Saturday Night Live, Headbangers Ball, and USA's Up All Night, especially if we didn't get a chance to go to the video store to rent a movie. I decided to look at what MTV and USA were airing the weekend I'm writing this. On Friday USA has a Fast and Furious marathon until 1:30a, when they move to a reality show about a NASCAR driver, a reality show about a wrestling star, a reality show about someone who's famous for reasons I don't even know, and then Dateline reruns; and on Saturday it's pretty much the same thing, only the Dateline reruns are replaced with reruns of Chicago PD. MTV you can probably already guess: all Ridiculousness reruns both nights. As far as SNL, it's an old trope that the older guy complains that the era he watched was the best cast, but you're talking about Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Dana Carvey, etc., with Sandler, Rock, Spade, and Farley all coming up. We really had it good back then, and while it's a shame that era is gone, at least we had it once.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You may still be able to catch this with the video in reverse on Daily Motion. Hopefully it'll get a proper release soon. And you can find the podcast episode I did with the guys from Comeuppance in their archives under the title "A Z'Dar is Born."

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106970

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

The Final Sanction (1990)

We start our five-movie 1000th post celebration at 998 with this AIP gem, suggested by our friend Simon at Explosive action. I'd been meaning to get more AIP on the site for a long time, but I felt like for a 1000th post, maybe Deadly Prey would be more iconic for that, which I've already covered; but at the same time, I felt like a celebration like this deserved a nod to AIP and all of the great David Prior action that made DTV what it was in the 80s and 90s. In addition to us, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have done this, as has Mitch at the Video Vacuum; and if you haven't done so yet, check out the Explosive Action YouTube channel!

The Final Sanction has the crazy Grinchy idea of settling the Cold War with a mano-a-mano battle between the Soviet's best and the US's best, Robert Z'Dar and Ted Prior respectively. We watch as each train for their fight in their own unique ways, with Z'dar throwing shovels and getting mentally tortured by William Smith, and Prior crushing cheeseburgers. Who will emerge victorious?

This was a fantastic fun time. With a plot like I described above, it can only go one of two ways, right? And fortunately this one went the right way. This is the AIP you came for, and I think a perfect pick by Simon for a celebration like this. Almost 1000 posts in, this is the kind of movie I started this blog for, and while I tend to get caught up in doing all the most recent Dolph posts or whatever, these kinds of movies consistently deliver the bad movie fun I'm looking for. In a sense, they were made with that in mind, so instead of jacking up the runtime and trying to make something more "serious," they're banging this thing out with as much action as they can squeeze in and let the devil take the hindmost. You can't not applaud them for that.

This is only the third David Prior flick we've covered here at the DTVC, which is a major oversight on my part. He deserves his due among some of the DTV greats, like Pyun, Wynorski, and Fred Olen Ray. I recently had Jacob Gustafson on the podcast--who wrote the fabulous Awful Awesome Action Vol. 1, which you can get more details on on our DTVC Book Review page--and he talked about Prior's late 80s early 90s output. It was like 3 in '87, 4 each in '88 and '89, and 6 in '90. You don't know when he actually shot all of those, if some were in the can before that and held back on release, but that's still 17 flicks in four years, which is something we love here at the DTVC. I say this all the time, but we're going to make sure we get more of his stuff up in the near future--for that podcast we looked at Mankillers, so we already have that one in the can.

The great Robert Z'Dar left us in 2015, right around the time I unfortunately went on an unplanned hiatus, so I wasn't able to give him the tribute he deserved then. A total icon who did it for multiple companies over many years, he's someone who will definitely be missed. In this one we get all of the best of him. He's totally buying in on this plot and his character, and he's giving it everything in every scene. I think that's part of what makes a classic like Samurai Cop work so well too. If you're looking for great Z'Dar after checking out Samurai Cop for the first time, I think this is a great place to go next, it's classic Z'Dar. Here's to you Mr. Z'Dar, you were one of the greats, and you will be missed.

This is the first time we've seen Ted Prior since we reviewed another all-time cult classic, Deadly Prey, which was also directed by his brother. Ted and David teamed up on a lot of AIP flicks, so we have a lot of work to do to get caught up on them, but I think it will be a fun ride. What makes Ted great here is he really plays up the other side of the coin to Z'Dar's cold, emotionless Soviet soldier; he's the rude, chauvinistic, burger crushing American that is part loose cannon, part honorable soldier who we trust will get the job done when the chips are down. Again, like Z'Dar, if he doesn't sell this to us, none of the film works in the fun way we want it to. The fact that a lot of the Prior brothers' AIP work is on places like Tubi and Prime and I haven't gotten to them yet is a travesty, but we're going to try to make it happen soon.

I want to finish this by talking about another element that these movies have that modern movies don't--and it's not the modern movies' fault. There's a nostalgia factor in seeing these late 80s/early 90s movies that, when we watched them back then didn't exist, but now make them even more fun. Whether it's a Bud Dry truck in Skyscraper, or Ted Prior washing down his cheeseburger in this with an RC Cola, they're little touches that add to the enjoyment. They pad out slower moments in ways that are a lot of fun as well--though to be fair, this movie at a cool 85 minutes didn't have much in the way of slow moments.

Let's wrap this baby up. Right now you can stream this movie, along with many more of David Prior's AIP flicks, on Amazon Prime. When I first started the blog in 2007, we had to scramble to find them on VHS, which I think also hampered my ability to get more on the site. Now, with so many available to stream, this is a great time to be a DTV movie fan, and this gem should be at the top of your watch list. Thank you again to Simon at Explosive Action for this suggestion, and as I said, everyone should check him out on his YouTube Channel!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101876

Soultaker (1990)

I first saw this on MST3K, but I don't remember exactly when that was-- late college maybe. At that time, Robert Z'Dar wasn't known as Robert Z'Dar, but rather the dude with the big face from Future War... man have times changed.

Soultaker was written by the lead actress so she'd have a film to star in (so the story goes on MST3K). It stars Joe Estevez ("I don't think anything is ever starring Joe Estevez!") as a Soultaker, a dude who collects one's soul after her or she kicks the bucket. His superior is Robert Z'Dar, and Z'Dar gives him the task of taking the souls of five kids who die in a massive auto accident. Somehow, though, the souls are displaced, and Estevez sees a unique opportunity to live with the soul of one of the girls, because she looks like a woman he dated and killed back in the Old West. Now these kids whose souls are displaced need to escape Estevez and make it back to their bodies before the doctors pull the plug.



According to imdb, this won a Saturn award in 1992. Huh? This was an out-and-out painfest. Beyond being pretty boring, it had all these rules about dying and the afterlife-- that it never followed! When the souls are displaced, Z'Dar tells Estevez that in order to track them he has to "abide by the laws of time and space." Does he? No, he shape-shifts and has shotgun bullets go through him, which in itself was amazing, considering a scene before he was felled by a nine iron blow to the back. It had a few hilarious moments, like one where the mom-- a dissimulated Estevez-- is watching her daughter undress for a bath; or how one of the characters looked like former Chicago Bears QB Jim McMahon (sp?), but those were few and unfortunately far between. Maybe if there were a few more of those, plus more Estevez and Z'Dar and less about the kids, this might have passed for a so-bad-it's-good, but it even failed there.

This was something of a landmark episode for the show, because they brought back TV's Frank and Joel for the host segments. I believe it was also the tenth anniversary. All that did was remind me how much better the host segments were before Joel and Frank left. As far as the actual riffing of the movie went, it was very solid, especially at the end when Servo and Crow went off on a huge rant about how the film should've ended. Nelson always excelled as a straight man in those scenarios, and he was particularly funny in that moment. If anything, the film was very entertaining with their commentary, and very hard to watch without it.



Mike and The 'Bots described DTVC favorite Robert Z'Dar as "a catcher's mitt with eyes." Ouch. He kind of plays a good guy here, and as you can see, he has a thick, blond mullet to boot. On top of that, he has a major voice distortion effect, I guess because he's middle-management in heaven. He's not in the film much, though, which is kind of too bad, and the voice distortion removed one of my favorite Z'Dar acting instruments: how he sounds like a phone sex operator or obscene caller when he tries to blot out his Chicago accent and replace it with sophisticated sounding discourse. "Hey Joe Estevez, what are you wearing?" "Is this Robert Z'dar again?" "[cough cough] Ah no, ha ha, what makes you say that?"

Speaking of Mr. Estevez, I believe this is only his second film we've done. Is that right? Out of 200+ credits, almost all of which are DTVC worthy, the only other one of his I've done is No Code of Conduct, with his brother Martin and his nephew "Charles"? Wow, how is it that 600+ posts here and 200+ films of his have only crossed paths that one (and now a second) time? That has to be some kind of statistical anomaly. At least he's tagged now, and we'll see about getting his ass up here some more-- Christ, 200+ films, that's Hall of Fame territory. He is in a film called Guns and Lipstick that I've been trying like a trooper to get my hands on, but it's always too expensive. In addition to Estevez, it also has Wings Hauser and Evan Lurie.



This car shows up at the very end of the film. Had it been in it more, I bet I would've liked the movie more. What is it, a Caddy or something? I don't know much about cars, but I know enough to say that's pretty awesome. The thing I really wanted to discuss in this paragraph is the tagline about how "there's no stairway to heaven." Forget how silly and cheesy it is, it reminded me of a line my buddy I hike with told me, that expert mountaineers call Denali's West Buttress route the "wheelchair ramp to the summit." I know that's really in bad taste, considering hiking mountains is one of the most apparent joys people confined to wheelchairs aren't able to savor, but it's always freaked me out, because I'll probably never hit Denali someday, but the idea that spending a few weeks on a frozen mountain at such a high altitude could be written off by some as a "wheelchair ramp to the summit", just blows my mind, especially when I think about some of the shit I've done that's kicked my ass and isn't even a fraction of what it takes to do Denali.

All right, we're way off track here, so let's reel me back in. You can get the MST3K version as we speak on Netflix Watch Instantly, and it's plenty worth it. The movie itself is way too expensive from Amazon on DVD (like $50!), but the VHS is around $1, which is like $4 with shipping, which isn't too bad, except you're buying Soultaker sans Mike and The 'Bots, which is pretty painful.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100665/

Lone Tiger (1999)

This was one of those sneaky ones that I had in my queue, not at the top but near it, and then, when all the ones above it were deemed unavailable, it was sent to me. Will it have been a nice surprise or worse than a Daffy Duck themed tie for Christmas. Also, Ty at Comeuppance Reviews took the plunge on this bad boy as well.

Lone Tiger is about a dude from Japan who comes to Las Vegas with a very furry tiger mask-- it looks like a furrier skinned it off a real tiger's face!-- and an eye for revenge. His dad used to wear the mask as a wrestler, and our man needs to know who murdered him. Also, he has his dad's score to settle with wrestler The Dark Tiger, played by Mattias Hues, the guy his dad was supposed to wrestle before he was killed. Anyway, when shady underworld dude Richard Lynch offers him some cash and a shot at joining Timothy Bottoms's wrestling league-- and as a result a shot at Dark Tiger-- he takes it, even though he and his trainer, Robert Z'Dar, are total douchebags. Oh yeah, and our hero befriends some street urchins too.



The only thing that made sense about this film was that it wasn't very good. First off, it has a running time of around 105 minutes, and we know if you're moving past the 88 minute mark, your film better be damn good, and this one wasn't even close. Second, was I supposed to take it seriously? I mean, between the mask, and the wrestling that was I guess guys fighting for real or something, and Timothy Bottoms's well-feathered hair, the whole thing seemed like a joke. The fights were extremely clunky too-- I wonder why, oh wait, I think I got it, the fights were clunky because the main hero was doing all his scenes with his vision obstructed by a ridiculous looking tiger mask! And the thing is, usually you can take something like this for the so bad it's good ride, and it would have been, except now we're brought back to that extended running time. By the time we hit the awesome stuff at the end with Robert Z'Dar coughing up his cherry Starburst (TM), any fun energy this film might have had had been exhausted.

One element of this film that looked intriguing going in was that we had three of the best DTV baddies, Richard Lynch, Robert Z'Dar, and Matthias Hues, all in one film. I had a feeling one of the three would end up being a good guy, and that was Hues, which was actually a really cool turn for him, because he works well as a good guy. I don't know that I'd like to see him as a good guy all the time, because he makes a better bad guy, but it's nice for a change. The other thing is, he had a really fun scene where he got to do some pro wrestling. This is where this film went wrong though, because they didn't give us more of that and less of our hero eating fried chicken or telling Richard Lynch he wouldn't kill for him.



Something tells me Robert Z'Dar was sold on this film when his agent told him he'd only have to wear sweatpants and act like a douche the whole time, only exerting himself for one scene at the end. Where do I sign up, right? Still, as long as that meaty face is featured prominently, I think we're all all right. I do think it wasn't very fair of the director to continue shooting while Z'Dar was coughing up his cherry Starburst at the end. Someone should've performed the Heimlich or at least kicked him over a dining room chair so he could perform it on himself.

We're much more used to the Timothy Bottoms that looks like our former President, G.W. Bush, so this extremely hair-feathered version is a bit of a trip. He and Richard Lynch-- whose hair is also fairly well-feathered, but we're used to that with him-- are like former adversaries or something, and they have a score to settle or something, I don't really know, by that point I was like 75 minutes in, and had really stopped trying. One could've double-crossed the other in an amateur bowling tournament for all I knew.



There was one plus, another McDonald's made an appearance. I'm wondering if I should start tagging them. If anything, it made my mind wander all the more as the film dragged on. I was like "man, that McDonald's sounds good right now, I bet I could run over there and back without missing anything..." It was cold out that day, though, and my tiger mask was at the cleaner's, and I couldn't risk the frostbite on my face.

You can get this from Netflix on DVD. How bad does that taste, huh? Almost none of the Bloodfist films are available, but hey, we got Lone Tiger. I don't know why I'm complaining, I was the moron who put it in his queue...

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285680/

Pocket Ninjas (1997)

I was completely shocked to find that this was available from Netflix. We're talking #9 on the imdb Bottom 100, and the film is still in print? On the one hand that sounds really cool, but on the other, I think of all the great Gary Daniels films that aren't in print or available on Netflix, and it irks me that this one is.

Pocket Ninjas has Gary Daniels as a sensei teaching his students how to be vigilante fighters in order to defeat the evil power of Cobra Khan, now embodied in a little kid named Cubby Khan, but originally embodied in DTVC favorite Robert Z'Dar, whose enormous face alone was bigger than that kid. Anyway, the kids go out and fight Cubby Khan's goons, then have some kind of showdown with virtual reality video games.



This lives up to it's Bottom 100 billing, but that's not exactly a good thing. First off, it's trying to be a parody of martial arts movies, but it's so not funny that it falls flat on its face. The number one rule to a good parody: be better than the material one is mocking, and Pocket Ninjas couldn't deliver on that. Second, it tortures us with these drawn out training sequences with the kid and the baddies that have no point other than hurting our sensibilities and hammering this repetitious synth music into our skulls. Third, we get a healthy dose of annoying kid actors, especially this one with a high pitched voice that was supposed to be our comedic lead, but just made me wish the girl in his group would kick him in the nuts-- over and over. Finally I don't know what was going on with Robert Z'Dar. They were going for some kind of Three Stooges thing, but I found myself with my mouth agape, totally stunned and baffled-- nonplussed, so to speak, not knowing how I was supposed to react. Had the people involved let off the schlock a little bit, and trimmed about five minutes off a lot of their scenes-- which is saying a lot for a film with a 76-minute running time-- this could've been a fun bad movie in MST3K terms. Instead, it was just 76 minutes of extreme tediousness annoying the hell out of me.

The opening credits tell us that this is a "special appearance" by Gary Daniels, but he's in it a fair amount, though some of those are clips from other movies, most prominent, Capital Punishment. He was trying his best here, so you gotta give him an A for effort, but this was a hardcore painfest. It's funny to watch, though, just to see Daniels giving it his best, not betraying the silly dialog, or the outfit, or the scene where he's covered in water (I guess sweating). In the review for Across the Line, we discussed Daniels's trend of doing smaller parts in films with bigger actors so he can rub shoulders with them. I wonder if this film is on his mind every time he takes one of these small roles. I wonder if, during the wrap party, he's deathly afraid someone will bring it up, maybe a practical joke where the scene of him covered in water is plastered across someone's 58" plasma.



Robert Z'Dar. Yep, showing us his comedic acting skills. Oh, I know, he's a comedic actor when he's playing it straight, what's it like when he's trying to evoke the Three Stooges? In a word, shocking. He's like the guy at the frat party who's like a friend of a friend, and gets really drunk and acts a fool, and you're there trying to not to make eye contact with him, for fear he'll bring his routine to you, and latch onto you, preventing you from making a connection with the girl you've struck up a conversation with. It was uncouth, and perhaps more frightening than any of the baddies he's ever played.

All of the scenes of Tadashi Yamashita are from Capital Punishment, and I guess for that reason he's uncredited. You also have a quick shot of Ian Jacklin-- the guy from Kickboxer 3-- probably also from another movie. How does one do that, make a 76-minute long movie, and use footage from another film? And then, half the scenes they did shoot originally went on too long. I mean, this entire thing is high school kids on YouTube quality, and I know if they had the rights to movies like Capital Punishment that they could splice in, they'd probably make a much better movie.



This was shot in 1994, but not released until 1997. With that in mind, I'm assuming the female lead, played by Sondi (just the one name, and just the one role according to imdb) is about my age, or maybe a year or two older. Her character, the way she looked, the way she dressed, the way she wore her hair, it reminded me of the girls I grew up with in middle school into high school. People my age probably remember what I'm talking about. Girls back then seldom wore skirts or dresses, usually dressed in slightly unflattering jeans and baggy shirts and sweaters with sneakers. It sounds like a Tom Boy, but these were feminine outfits, all these clothes came from the girls' of the department store section. There was something about those days when a girl that I was so used to wearing jeans and a sweater would come into to school with a skirt on, and though the girl in this movie never wore a skirt, there was something about her clothes that reminded me of those days, where a girl that I always thought was cute would be transformed into something more, just because, for whatever reason, today was a skirt day. It's so weird, because skirts are common on women today, and we really don't think anything of it, but back then, if a girl wore a skirt, it was a big deal.

Okay, so I'm way off track here reminiscing about the early 90s. Pocket Ninjas is enticing, believe me. imdb Bottom 100, Gary Daniels, Robert Z'Dar, and easily available on Netflix. Just be very careful, because you're entering into a 76-minute long painfest, something that will harm your sensibilities, and leave you for hours after with this atrocious, repetitive synth track buried deep in your dome.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107838/

Quiet Fire (1991)

I found this movie on Netflix when I was looking up more Robert Z'Dar films to review. I'd been meaning to get some Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs up for some time, so I was able to kill two birds with one stone. Even better, it's a PM Entertainment picture.

Quiet Fire is about some dude running for senator on a great war record who's trying to bump off a fellow soldier who knows he's lying. He succeeds in bumping the guy off, but not before he tells what he knows to another of their fellow soldiers, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs. Now Jacobs is on the run from the senator's hired thugs, and he can't turn to the cops (one of whom is played by Mr. Z'Dar), because they're in on it too. When a couple drag queens/female body builders/hired assassins kill his girlfriend in an attempt to get to him, he gets fed up and returns to his old special forces in the Army ways.



For a PM Entertainment actioner, this was a little light on the actual action. Yes, it was ten kinds of ridiculous, and plenty good to make fun of, you just have to decide if that's enough for you. One thing I can say is, just when you think the movie's as silly as it's going to get, it gets sillier. I personally gave up when the two female body builders showed up as professional killers. I mean, this was done with a straight face, and we were supposed to take it seriously, which made it all the more amazing to me. One of them looked like Pee Wee Herman on steroids in drag, and the other one looked like the American Gladiator Malibu going to a Halloween party as Taylor Dayne. There was a scene where they were reporting to the senator to let him know they failed in killing LHJ, and Robert Z'Dar and his partner are there, openly laughing. I know they were technically laughing at their failures, but I think it helped that they were so ridiculous.

I've mentioned before that there are subtle differences between PM Entertainment and the more successful Golan-Globus, but I think after seeing this, the differences are probably more stark. Golan-Globus almost has this everything-but-the-kitchen-sink mentality, while PM Entertainment's is "who cares?" Illegal chop shop or garage at some dude's suburban LA home? Who cares? Robert Z'Dar's partner looks like he has old lady's hair with his long gray ponytail, maybe we should fix that. Who cares? Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs' martial arts look beyond unconvincing. Who cares? The truth is, they're right. This is an early 90s Direct to Video action film directed by Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs and starring Robert Z'Dar. The only people who care love this crap, so why worry about it.



One thing I love about Robert Z'Dar is his voice when he's trying to hide his Chicago accent. I don't even know how to explain it to someone who doesn't know what I'm talking about. It's like John Tesh radio hour wannabe, or smooth jazz DJ. I can just see him saying "all right, that was Wham!'s 'Careless Whisper', followed by Taylor Dayne's 'Love Will Lead You Back', and finally, Carole King with 'It's Too Late'. Let's take a little break and pay some bills. This is Robert Z'dar, and you're listening to Soft favorites, 92.9FM." Wow, that was two Taylor Dayne references in one post, I bet that's a record (if it isn't I'm sure someone will comment and correct me-- "You're wrong about that being a record for Taylor Dayne references in one post. Back on August of 2009 you mentioned her five times..."). Anyway, I was just doing my best to write a paragraph about Robert Z'dar without referencing his enormous face... oops... God damn it!

On May 7th of this year, we'll mark our third anniversary, and it's surprising to me that it's taken this long to get a Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs film reviewed. I would say even more amazing is no one's mentioned it either. His PM Entertainment films are as quintessential bad 90s action as anything. I don't know about anyone else, but I think one out of every five movies I rented had a trailer for one of his films on it. He's still making stuff, including one on Netflix's Watch Instantly called Killer Drag Queens on Dope. I saw the trailer, and it looks pretty horrible film quality-wise, but who knows...



Finally, there's a scene where LHJ's woman goes to an electronics store. Check out the 1991 prices on VCRs. $279.95? You know why it costs that much, don't you? That's right, it's got four heads. We're talking top of the line shit right there. I've noticed a trend towards nostalgia lately in some of the blogs I read, for the good ol' days of VHS. I've been guilty of it myself. This isn't like records versus CDs, where the records actually sound better than the CDs; in the case of DVDs versus VHS, DVD is better hands down. What I like though is the feeling I get when see an old VHS, especially one sold from an old video store, of the late 80s and early 90s, watching bad movies on a Friday or Saturday night sleepover with friends. The junk food, the soda, rewinding our favorite scenes and watching them over and over-- all of it. The only reason why I need VHS to feel this nostalgia, is DVDs weren't invented then. Believe me, in no way is VHS superior to DVD, just like tape Walkmans aren't superior to iPods, but sometimes it's just fun to look back to an earlier time.

How bad do you like your action, that is the question. This is closing in on the Penhall/Strain level, which is sometimes too much for a lot of people to take. In addition, it's a little light on action, and though it makes up for that with ridiculousness, there are more fun movies to make fun of out there. Considering we needed to get more Robert Z'Dar up and finally review something with Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, we could've done a lot worse, so I'd put this in a special category as great for the site, but maybe not something you want to go out of your way for.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102743/

Samurai Cop (1989)

I felt I needed to make up for what I saw as the Robert Z'Dar debacle last week by featuring a film where his face was out in center. I realize at this point that perhaps I am the only one with an issue with a film using Robert Z'Dar and hacking up his face. I want everyone to know that that will not keep me from reviewing the other two Maniac Cops at the DTVC, considering those are probably the films he is best known for... even if that's hard for me to admit.

Samurai Cop is about a gang called The Kitana that are trying to take over LA. The LAPD won't have that, so they call in a Samurai Cop, who is really just guy who looks like a reject from a Nelson video with a thick mane of hair and a penchant for sleeping with or discussing sexual relations with every woman he sees. The Kitana are ready for this Samurai Cop with a samurai of their own, the bulbous-headed Robert Z'Dar. Now it's war, and only one man will be left standing.



This could've been awesome. This could've been one of the greatest. There was one thing that held it back: a scene where scream queen Melissa Moore is tortured by having hot bacon grease poured on her torso. Why? I mean, you had this one nailed. The lines were ridiculous, Robert Z'Dar's face was in full effect, the hero's hair was at times replaced by a wig that made him look ridiculous-- and then you had to blow it with the bacon grease scene.

But that's okay, though. Again, that's my own personal issue, and other than that, the rest of this film is one of the most amazing things ever done in cinema. One of my favorite lines was from their police chief, who said "I feel like someone shoved a club up my ass... and it hurts!" Who says that? Why would you say that? And the hero was so amazing. The hair, the lines. Oh, and the Speedo, did I forget to mention that? Yep, he rocks a Speedo while wooing a broad on the beach. So maybe it's not a ten, but it's a nine in my book.



One cool addition to the DVD is the Robert Z'Dar interview. He actually seems kind of affable. His face has also swelled quite a bit since this film was made. You almost wouldn't recognize him. Joe Bob Briggs, in his intro to the film, referred to Z'Dar as "The Face", but because "he has only one expression throughout the film." Um... Joe Bob... I think he's known as "The Face" because of the size of it, not the expressions on it. This is the first of many Z'Dar films we'll be showing this year, so get ready.

And yes, I did mention a Joe Bob Briggs intro in the previous paragraph. He not only has an introduction to the movie, but he does commentary too, which I listened to a little bit. Man do we all miss him. I understand that TNT makes out much better with New Classics like Ransom and The Family Man, but what about the children, huh? What about us? We loved having Joe Bob there screening real New Classics like Virtual Assassin and Voodoo. Here's to you, Joe Bob Briggs, you are one of the good ones.



I'm sure you know MTV has a new show called The Jersey Shore, which is pretty much The Real World set at the Jersey Shore with a bunch of Guidos and Guidettes. It got me thinking, I wish I had an ethnic identity like that that I could relate too, that had horrible stereotypes that I could take ownership of. So I tried to think of what silly things the worst French Canadians do, and the only thing that came to mind was how they invaded the Maine beaches every summer, rocking their Speedos. No way I'm doing that. But our hero did. And why wouldn't he? And he's not even French Canadian.

So if you can handle a little of what Joe Bob affectionately referred to as "Bacon Grease-Foo", you'll love this movie. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's ridiculous, but I can safely say you won't feel like someone shoved a club up your ass afterward.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0130236/

Maniac Cop (1988)

I've had this one in my Instant queue for a while now, and just never got around to it. Then Netflix held my feet to the fire, because they pulled it from Watch Instantly on December 1st, so I had to make sure I watched it before then, and I did.

Maniac Cop takes place in NYC, and is about an evil cop that is going around killing people, which causes citywide panic as people feel they can't trust the police. First, it looks like Bruce Campbell is the guy, because his wife is one of the victims, but then it looks like he was framed. That's when signs point to a cop (Robert Z'Dar) who was thought to be dead-- one who was sent to jail and attacked by his fellow prisoners, getting cut up really bad. The only problem is, how can Campbell A. prove his innocence in jail, and B. prove that a dead cop is the real killer.



What were these people thinking?!?!? They had Robert Z'Dar, one of the greatest and most enormous faces in cinematic history, and they carved it up! Are you fucking kidding me? Who thinks of this crap? What moron said "Hey, let's get the make-up guy in and make his face look like shit"? Seriously, I'm at a loss for words. Here we have this amazing cast, with Bruce Campbell, William Smith, Tom Atkins, Richard Roundtree, and I thought Robert Z'Dar. I guess I was wrong, huh? Is it too much to ask that when I see Robert Z'Dar listed in the cast, I expect his gigantic mug filling my TV? Apparently it is, because some people who make movies are morons.

And that's too bad, because this was good. A solid late 80s slasher with some good action in spots, and great performances by Campbell, Atkins, Roundtree, and Smith. How hard would it have been to just not carve up Z'Dar's face. Just say "hey, I know the script calls for a carved up face, but we've got Robert Z'Dar here, let's make some changes. This is perhaps the greatest face in cinematic history, it's our obligation as decent, compassionate Americans to give people the face they expect to see." I've just lost my faith in humanity a little more after this.



This is only our third Bruce Campbell movie, and only the second where he actually has more than one scene. Campbell is a straight up professional actor. You can see it in a scene with someone like William Smith, who's great, but is a gruff big guy who plays gruff big guy roles. Campbell is a throwback. In the 30s and 40s, all movies were cast with Bruce Campbells in all the supporting roles. Now we tend to have rappers and tough guys take more of those parts. Some of those tough guys, like William Smith or Danny Trejo, are great, but they're the exception in my mind, not the rule, and it's a shame that we don't have more Campbells out there. Another great Campbell is John C. McGinley, who is great in Scrubs.

This is also only the third Richard Roundtree movie at the DTVC, but unlike Campbell, that's more of a disappointment, because he has a greater DTV oeuvre. I will try to correct that in the future. One thing that makes me mad (not as mad as I was about Z'Dar's face, of course) is how the Shaft TV movies haven't been released on DVD yet, and TNT with their stupid New Classics and Without a Trace reruns never show them anymore either. Okay Matt, breathe deep. This Z'Dar thing is getting out of control.



The truth is, I only have myself to blame here. Robert Z'Dar has tons of DTV films out there, more than Richard Roundtree, and he should have more than just the two films I have of him, though I feel like he has more, and I just haven't tagged him enough. Who knows, we'll see. Anyway, 2010 will be the year of Robert Z'Dar, as I will do my best to get another ten or so movies up by next year's induction. Let's be clear here, I won't be inducting Robert Z'Dar, I'll be inducting his enormous face. A grievous cinematic wrong has been committed here, more grievous than Pearl Harbor. Okay, maybe as grievous as Pearl Harbor, but that's still pretty bad, and it's up to me, as the DTV Connoisseur to do something about that.

Do I need a conclusion? Do you need me to tell you whether or not I think you should watch this? Go ahead, watch it. Maybe you'll kick some puppies or tell kids there's no Santa Claus after, how does that sound? I, for one, will not be watching this travesty of everything good and right in the world ever again. Robert Z'Dar's face should be a national monument, not carved up in some silly 80s slasher flick.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095583/

The Killer's Edge or Blood Money (1990)

I found this film on VHS while milling around on the Internet. I had come into a little cash, and what better way to spend it than on DTVC Hall of Famer Wings Hauser's movies, especially when they have the ridiculously huge faced Robert Z'Dar in them.

The Killer's Edge is about Wings Hauser as an LA cop who likes to shoot first and ask questions later, and is also a great detective. Go figure. While trying to turn a corner in his life and settle down, a huge counterfeiting ring is ambushed by Robert Z'Dar, forcing Wings to ditch the women he wants to settle down with, which makes her so angry she does things like throw fruit at him and have sex with him. This isn't Wings' only issue. Z'Dar, who I may have forgotten to mention above has a huge face, was an old buddy in 'Nam that saved Wings' life. Also, the 90s have arrived, and Wings and the rest of the cast are fighting this fact vehemently, insisting on dressing like the year was 1984. Eventually Z'Dar kidnaps Wings' woman, and then tries to shoot Wings and his woman from a helicopter with a rocket launcher. Luckily Wings put a remote device on the helicopter before it took off, and somehow when he hit a button from another remote device, the helicopter exploded.



When seeking out a film where Wings is the star, not just a bad guy on an action series like Walker, Texas Ranger or a TV movie like Kevin Sorbo's Avenging Angel, as the movie watcher, you're venturing into dicey territory. This film is indicative of that. We're talking pretty lousy stuff here. Yet my friends and I really liked this one. It's a fairly rich mine of material. The script is horrible and implausible: things like rocket launchers pop up out of nowhere, and a drunk Wings visits his fiancee's 6th grade class on a field trip to the skating rink.

Did I mention this film has the huge faced Robert Z'Dar? I must start by giving credit to the site where I got these pics of him from. If you want to see more of this gargantuan face, check out: http://members.tripod.com/~bmovies/zdar/zdar.htm This face thing is not something that's funny to look at once. It's a major scene stealer throughout the movie. I've seen other Z'Dar films, and no matter what, it's always the same: I can't get over that face. It rules.

The body count in this is rather substantial. Pretty much everywhere Z'Dar or Wings go, four or five people are shot to death. My buddy's wife, who's from Canada, asked if a cop can kill that many people without going up on review. In real life, I guess it just depends on who you kill, but I got the impression from this film that when Wings does get suspended, it's because the chief doesn't like him, not due to the body count, and even then the chief's overruled when the FBI chick investigating the counterfeiting recognizes him as the detective savant he is.



Another great aspect is the clothing. My friends were convinced this film was made in 1984. Me, being a veteran of bad films, knew how bad film makers are usually 7 to 10 years behind on fashion trends. This movie was actually cutting edge, because it was only five or six years behind. I loved Wings' woman wearing a long sweater and black stirrup pants to the skating rink. I was turned on.

The Wings Hauser movie is a bit of an acquired taste, but once you've acquired it, there's really no going back. What's great about this one is the Z'Dar factor. He's so hilarious on his own, that you don't need to be a real pro at mocking movies to be able to handle it. For me, it's a great introduction to the Wings Hauser category of bad action, perhaps even better than Mind, Body, and Soul. I'd rent it if you see it at your video store, and you may want to buy it for like $2-$4.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102211/