Love Crime (2022)

I got wind of this film through an email from Shane Ryan-Reid's Mad Scinema Productions back in July, and I was excited to check it out. Unfortunately a few things came up and I was delayed by a couple months, but we're here now, making this happen for our September indie post.

Love Crime stars Nicole D'Angelo (who also directed) as Jodi, based somewhat on Jodi Arias, who believes God sent her Travis (Ryan-Reid), a guy who does self-help seminars. She thinks he's perfect for her, but Travis sees her as a nice girl who's great to spend time with and hook up with. As things get more serious on Jodi's side, Travis finds he can't get out as easily as he thinks, and things only get worse for him as Jodi's mental condition worsens. When she ultimately snaps and kills Travis, she discovers the criminal justice system isn't as easy to persuade as Travis was.

This is packaged like a true crime film, and what I was expecting was Cinema Epoch meets true crime, which sounded like a lot of fun, but what I got was something much more. D'Angelo and Cinema Epoch take the true crime film and turn it on its ear. This isn't a Lifetime movie of the week, "The Long Island Lolita" with D'Angelo as the Alyssa Milano or Tori Spelling femme fatale. And Ryan-Reid isn't your run of the mill Bryan Austen Green boy next door who falls victim to said femme fatale. Beyond the storytelling style, which works in a nonlinear way to tell us the ending first, but make the suspense the "how do we get there?", we have a dynamic between D'Angelo and Ryan-Reid that takes the black and white we usually see in true crime dramas, and melds it into a bunch of gray. D'Angelo's Jodi isn't totally unsympathetic, and Ryan-Reid's Travis is boy next door in the realer sense in that he's not always that nice. It's not so much a metacriticism of the true crime genre, as it's exploiting it, the way true crime films often exploit the victims involved, and I appreciated that approach.

How D'Angelo plays Jodi is a huge factor in why this worked for me. The way she'd have Jodi's voice change ever so slightly when she thinks she's losing Travis in order to get him to come back to her, making herself sound a little more vulnerable when she needs to be, or a little more seductive when she needs to be. How D'Angelo does it though, it's not that Jodi's manipulative, it's a defense mechanism she's developed over time as a way to manage in her world, and we see her using it in court or in prison, expecting the same effect as she gets with Travis, but the criminal justice system can't be manipulated like that. One of my favorite scenes was when Jodi's reading her bible, and she hears a knock at the door, and says "thank you," meaning she's thanking God for sending Travis over. It wasn't a dramatic "thank you," it was more a thanking a friend for doing you a favor, showing the relationship Jodi thinks she has with God. Again, usually the true crime femme fatale is unhinged in a black and white villain kind of way, and I liked how D'Angelo subverted that in the way she depicted Jodi.

That bleeds perfectly (no pun intended) in with how Ryan-Reid plays Travis. He's not a total bro, but there's enough bro there to make it work, enough of him thinking he's the man that he thinks he has everything under control. When Jodi's voice changes that little bit after Travis starts to put some distance between them, and he decides "why not, let's hook up again?", he thinks he's consciously making that decision. By the same token, Ryan-Reid never plays Travis so bad that he deserves his fate, which is also really important. The thing I always like about seeing him in these Cinema Epoch productions is the sense of danger he adds to movies that already feel dangerous in the style they're made, but here he exudes that danger in a different way, the manic energy is more under the surface and drawing Jodi in, like her character is feeding off it so we hit this inevitable conclusion. Again, not enough to make us feel like Jodi was justified in killing him, but enough for us to get why it all happens.

Lisa London is another Cinema Epoch mainstay who appears in this, and while she has a very small part, for me it really tied together this subversion of the true crime genre, as she's the closest thing to a character in one of those films. My parents watch a lot of those true crime shows on ID or whatever, and while I have trouble with something like that that often depicts grizzly murders, when I'm up in New England visiting them, I find I have to listen to them while I'm in the living room getting a coffee refill or making myself a sandwich, and Lisa London is that detective in those shows who solves everything, and brings the baddie to justice. We trust her on that kind of show when she tells us that they found who the killer was because his car had the same tire tracks as the tire tracks near the swamp where they found the victim's body, and while we have no idea if that science is sound, there is no Marisa Tomei winning an Oscar to tell us those couldn't be the tire tracks despite what the state's expert on the stand says, so we have to trust the detective that they have their man and he's going to fry. She has no sympathy for Jodi, in her world Jodi is played by Tori Spelling in the movie of the week, and London's is played by Vivica A. Fox in that same film, no nonsense, boots up on the table, telling her detective friend she likes her coffee bitter like the truth, and making sure he isn't falling for Jodi's charms when she thinks he might be cracking. We needed London's character as the thread to tie this movie to the genre it's trying to subvert.

Back in 2014 or '15, my wife Jen and I watched a Netflix documentary on the Pamela Smart story. It was both a look back on that case, and a commentary on the true crime sensationalism that happens with cases like these, and how in that rush to exploit and sensationalize, we never truly get the whole story. That one was big for me, because I grew up near where it happened, and at the time, we all took for granted that Smart convinced her high school student boyfriend and his friends to murder her husband, and the documentary we watched shoots a lot of holes in that theory we all took for granted. I told my mom about it, and while she yes'd me for a few minutes, when I was done, as if she didn't hear a thing I'd said, responded with "it was horrible how she manipulated those kids to kill her husband like that." In that sense, I may have been particularly sensitive to what D'Angelo and co. were going for here--we even had the Lisa London cop, the detective who arrested Pamela Smart was so proud of himself in that documentary when told the filmmakers how he told her "I have good news and bad news, the good news is we found your husband's killer, that bad news is, it's you." It makes "if truth is bitter, my coffee should be" sound circumspect by comparison.

And with that, let's wrap this up. In the US you can get this on Tubi and Plex, so perhaps outside the US it's available too. If you're a fan of true crime, this may not be for you, despite the fact that it's packaged like a true crime drama. If you're looking for something different from that though, at just over an hour and available free on streaming, this is worth checking out.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15410936

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

Heartbeat (2020)

Way back when I reviewed Choke after an email from Mad Sin Cinema brought it to my attention, that same email let me know about this film, and I watched it then too, planning to review it soon after Choke. Somehow though that didn't happen, and after getting an email from them about The Wrong Sarah, I realized I still hadn't reviewed this, so with this month's indie spotlight, I'm finally making it happen.

Heartbeat isn't about the Don Johnson song of the same name, but rather is about Jennifer (Nicole D'angelo), a reporter who's discovering that people connected to a recent story are turning up dead. Now she needs to dig back into her research and figure out who could be doing this, and what their motives might be, before she ends up dead herself. At the same time, she's forming a budding romance with a local police detective (Chris Spinelli). Does he know more than he's letting on? And what about the creepy photographer (Shane Ryan-Reid) who seems to be following her around? What does he know? When is Shane Ryan-Reid not a murderer in a movie?

This is another interesting one from Gregory Hatanaka. There's some strange alchemy going on with these films for me, because I feel like they shouldn't work, but for some reason I can't articulate, they do--which is an issue if I'm writing a review of the movie. In the IMDb reviews, someone mentioned the kills had notes of Giallo films, and that might explain some of it, even though I'm not as familiar with that world of cinema; but I did like the stylized way he depicted the kills, so that probably explains it. The lead, played by Nicole D'angelo--who also co-wrote--is much realer than the usual lead in a murder mystery movie like this, and I think that's another element that works. It's almost like this real person has been dumped into this crazy Hatanaka space, and we can use her to anchor ourselves as we try to make sense of things. Then we have the frenetic energy of Shane Ryan-Reid, which, though it's really toned down here for this part, still enhances the proceedings. And then of course you have a runtime of 73 minutes, which never hurts. I don't know if this movie is for everyone, but it worked enough for me.

Nicole D'angelo has done a bunch of movies since 2019 for Cinema Epoch, of which I've only scene Choke--plus she had a part in Samurai Cop 2--but this is one of five she's written, plus she also has five she's directed or co-directed with Hatanaka, so this looks like this is one of many she's had a more creative hand in beyond acting. As I said above, the thing I think she brings to the proceedings here is she's written and she plays someone who feels real, which adds a dimension we seldom see in this kind of movie. Usually the female lead is someone who's not quite human, more like a caricature of an idea of a woman. Beyond the sense that she helps to anchor us while we navigate Hatanaka's crazy world, we also get an authenticity that allows us to follow her when her character is reacting to danger or recovering from an attack. I also liked that the movie sets up like a traditional murder mystery, where she's going to have a man that can save her, but then ultimately it's up to her to save herself when she's caught by the baddie, which I thought was a great decision. Considering the other films she's written or directed for Cinema Epoch are also on Tubi, this won't be the last film of hers we cover.

Shane Ryan-Reid is back as well. As I usually do, I felt like this movie could have used more of his frenetic energy, but I think the amount we got worked better, because it didn't allow us to take the focus off of D'angelo, which is where we needed it. To me it also showed that Ryan-Reid can do this kind of character, where maybe he's not turning the dial to 11 and breaking off the nob, but even in the understated tone there's a sense of menace in there that keeps us from getting too comfortable. The scenes with D'angelo were great too, because I liked the way they played off each other. Combine that with the scenes she has with her other male co-star Chris Spinelli, which had a different kind of energy, but also worked really well. In a way, the Ryan-Reid scenes with D'angelo remind us we're in a Hatanaka film, while the ones she does with Spinelli almost make us forget we're in Hatanaka's cinematic world, and D'angelo does a great job weaving them together.

Like Choke, Hatanaka is bringing his own style to the proceedings, though unlike Choke, I think this has a bit more cohesion to it, while still breaking down the classic murder mystery movie. Also where this differs from Choke is, while Choke couldn't (at least for me) escape the tired trope of the older man and teen girl, even with Hatanaka's stylized shooting and Ryan-Reid's and Sarah Brine's performances; I think here, the murder mystery genre was crying out for a female lead that broke Hollywood conventions, so once we were able to establish D'angelo as that break from the norms, Hatanaka wasn't working uphill like he was in Choke, so the rest of the movie could play out much more easily. Both films though show Hatanaka as someone doing some interesting things that I enjoyed, so, like with Shane Ryan-Reid and Nicole D'angelo, I'm looking forward to seeing more of his stuff.

Finally, I wasn't sure where to go with this last paragraph, in part because the movie is so short, there isn't as much to cover. That's good though, I'd rather struggle through finding my seventh paragraph than struggle through a 100-minute movie. In a world where the new Batman movie is 3 hours, to see that Cinema Epoch is staying in the sub-80-minute range is refreshing. Yes, I imagine budgetary constraints play as big a role in that as anything, but it's still nice. I've always been a big proponent of supporting indie works, and when the movie is only asking for a small amount of time, it's a lot easy to give that support. That new Batman movie, notsomuch.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi. Like Hatanaka's other work, I don't know if this is for everyone, but based on the reviews I'm seeing on IMDb, this may be for more people than I thought, which is good. It's definitely unique, so if you've got 70 minutes to kill and are looking for something different, give this a shot.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11127512

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

The Wrong Sarah (2021)

I recently received a promotional email from Shane Ryan-Reid's Mad Sin Cinema for this film, and realized I hadn't done an indie screener in a long time, so I figured I'd make this happen. After how intriguing Choke and Hearbeat were, I was excited to give this one a shot. (I also realized that I still hadn't reviewed Heartbeat yet, which I watched when it was listed in the last promotional email they sent me about a year ago, so I better get on that one soon too.) 

The Wrong Sarah is about a serial killer (Shane Ryan-Reid) traveling the country killing young women named Sarah who meet a certain physical description. Hot on his trail is FBI Agent Jack, played by Jason Toler (who also wrote and directed), but he always seems to be one step behind, and every time he is, a new young lady dies. Finally he gets to Sarah Thomas (Elliott Woods) before the killer does. She's the key to him stopping this killer before he can kill again. But will even he be able to stop him when he comes back to finish the job? 

 

While this wasn't directed by Gregory Hatanaka, he produced it, and it felt like one that he directed. Yes, there were elements that felt off, like how the characters would explain minute details about what they were going to do that they didn't need to explain. In one such instance, a man selling Sarah her security system explains that it also starts the fire pit outside. She asks why the fire pit, is that necessary? And they go back and forth a bit. It made me think "the fire pit must play a role later on," but it doesn't. So why go into that detail? On the other hand, Toler brings some of the same manic energy those Hatanaka films have, plus there's a visceral humanity to the entire thing that elevates it beyond the usual serial killer suspense yarn. In one scene Toler's FBI Agent has a soliloquy where he talks about the lives that were snuffed out by this killer, and it's not only his character reflecting on his job and the human lives behind the work he does, but it's also a commentary on the myriad "crime dramas" on TV where, really, the dead human whose crime is being solved is secondary to the actual solving of the crime--the death is just a means to an end in filling an hour in prime time, while here our hero is trying to say no, these deaths aren't a means to an end, they were human lives ended by this killer. With that in mind, I think whatever the film's flaws are, I'd rather it deliver on that humanity front, than be polished in all the other places but miss the humanity altogether.

This is possibly the first, and maybe the last time you'll hear me say this on here, but I think the film could have been longer. Shock, horror, gasp! Say it ain't so Matt, he who always complains "I can't watch a film over 88 minutes" is saying he thinks a movie should be longer? Yes, I would rather this film's 63 minutes than something in the other direction that's 108 minutes, but I think there were areas that could have been fleshed out more. For example, furthering that idea of the film trying to humanize the victims, we had two Sarahs that were killed earlier in the film that I thought were a missed opportunity for that. The first one, played by Sarah Brine from Choke, we just see being held by Ryan, screaming for help, before he sets her ablaze off-screen. What if, before he grabs her, we see her at home talking to one of her friends? In the opening credits, we see a shot of a lone black boot lying in a crime scene, which was a great image of violence and femininity. Maybe Brine is telling her friend how she bought the boots for her date with her boyfriend on Friday. Maybe there's a back and forth with the friend, then she gets off the phone, and two seconds later the lights get cut. What is that, five extra minutes? I get that with the shooting times and budgets they're working with that that might as well be 30 minutes, but the way it could have helped with the pacing and depth of the movie would have been worth it. The other one was the last Sarah to die, whom we meet in a bar. Again, five minutes before she died was all it would have taken, maybe talking to a bartender about her future goals. What have I added, ten minutes total, so we're still under 80, but I think it could've fully fleshed out the themes the film was trying to delve into.

 

Another thing I really liked was how the film addressed the inevitable love scene between the hero and the Sarah he's protecting. In films like this we usually see the female becoming smitten with the male lead, but here it's more the stress of everything that's going on that pushes her for some comfort and distraction wherever she can get it. It starts with her putting on his shirt and looking at his badge and gun, and the scenes of this happening are interspersed with scenes of Agent Jack on the porch having his soliloquy, reinforcing the message of remembering the humanity of the victims. Then he comes back inside, they talk, and as he walks away she grabs his wrist. After the love scene, she says flat out that she needed the distraction. It takes a common, tired trope of the girl falling for the hero, and makes something new out of it, something more human and three dimensional for the female lead, which I really appreciated. 

Shane Ryan-Reid plays the killer, and while he's good, I think we could have used more of the manic energy that made him so great in Choke. I get why they didn't focus on him too much: one, they wanted to maintain the suspense of who he was; and two, as I've mentioned above, I think they wanted the film to be more about the victims and less about the killer. I get all that, but what would five minutes of Ryan-Reid going off have done to hurt that? He's exactly the person I need when I'm watching a film like this to make me uncomfortable. And if we add that five minutes, where are we at now? 78 minutes? Still really good. I looked into more of Ryan-Reid's films on his Mad Sin Cinema site, and I think they're all a bit too harsh for me, but it's that harshness that makes his roles in these Cinema Epoch films worth watching, so I'm happy for it here. (Also, I need to update his tag on here to reflect his proper name now.)

 

One of the things I talk about a lot is supporting indie, whether it's musicians like our friend at the After Movie Diner, Jon Cross, and his Miscellaneous Plumbing Fixtures; authors like me and my novels, Jacob Gustafson's Awful Awesome series, or our friend Mitch Lovell at the Video Vacuum and the books on horror and action he's put out like Bloody Book of Horror; or with movies like this or the other screeners I've received over the years. The thing with these Cinema Epoch films though, is I don't need screeners to do them, they're all on Tubi for the most part. If I'm Mr. Support Indie, I should just review them. I have this Tuesday spot set aside for indie films, I just need to use it more often. How can I expect people to "support indie" and buy my novels, if I'm not doing it properly myself?

And with that, it's time to wrap this up. Right now you can get this on Tubi for free, which I think is a good deal. It's not perfect, but it attacks the genre in ways that have been long overdue, and for me that made it worth the time I spent on it.

For more info:  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14502754

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

 

 

 

Choke (2020)

I recently received an email with some screener links from Mad Sin Cinema, which represents the films of Shane Ryan. It was also released by Cinema Epoch, and I've done some screeners for them in the past, including a film I really loved, Nipples and Palm Trees. In the email, it said this one and Heartbeat, which I'll be reviewing in he future as well, were shot at the same time with the same cast, which was intriguing. Also loved the 72-minute runtime. Let's see how it went.

Choke has Shane Ryan as a serial killer who strangles his victims with his bare hands. When he meets Jeanie (Sarah Brine), a 17-year-old, on a train, he's instantly smitten, and she's drawn to him too. At the same time, a police detective investigating one of his murders (Scott Butler), and who also has a thing for erotic asphyxia, meets Jeanie and he falls for her too. Will the love they have for her keep them from going over the deep end, or is their going over the deep end just what she wants.

Seriously, I don't even know if I got that synopsis right. I don't even know if it matters. I don't even know if it's a bad thing that it matters. Seriously. Scenes flow from one into the other as if the film was tossed in a blender and glued back together. Is Ryan strangling someone, or dreaming of strangling them, or is he strangling them now, or is he strangling them in the past? Does any of it matter? To some extent I think it does, because while I like the chances this film took in terms of the narrative, cinematography, and performances, when you boil this down and get past everything else, this is still your classic older guy has thing for a teenage girl trope, and like every other time we see that trope, they try to repackage it, but no matter how you package it, the trope is the trope, and I think that's important to consider here despite everything else I liked about it.

Shane Ryan is the star, and also executive producer, and he turns in the kind of manic performance that I think at least elevates his serial killer character beyond the usual serial killer in a movie. In some respects, he's playing his serial killer like the Joker, and a Joker that bigger name actors who try to play that part think they're giving us, but missing altogether, while Ryan is here nailing it. And I think to some extent too, his performance lifts the older guy/teenage girl trope out of the usual baseness to make it something more than that, but I think that thing is too James Woods-y or Woody Allen-y in our society for even the most manic and intense performance to get it beyond that. That shouldn't take away from how much I liked his performance in this though.

The teen girl was played by Sarah Brine, and I think like Ryan, she tries to elevate things beyond the old guy/teen girl trope. She plays her character with a mix of agency and nihilism that, if it weren't so tied to this tired old guy/teen girl construct, would have really worked. That's the toughest part for me about this, Ryan and Brine turn in great performances, I wouldn't want to not have either in the film, but when you put them together, there's still that sense of "oh we're doing this again?" I don't know how you fix that either. I mean I think even if they didn't have any scenes together, the trope is so common and so tired that that wouldn't be enough. It's a Catch-22.

This was directed by Gregory Hatanaka, who also did Samurai Cop 2, and I think had they played Samurai Cop 2 straight the way they played this straight, it would have worked much better. I mean overall this movie allowed me to appreciate it better as a movie than Samurai Cop 2 did, and maybe that's because Hatanaka was trying to live up to something in the former, while here he was able to make his own thing. Also he and Ryan have worked on a lot of stuff together, and they seem to get what each wants out of a scene. Looking at it like that, imagining a 72-minute Batman movie with Ryan as the Joker and Hatanaka directing sounds too amazing for words. It's a shame the studio system is so litigious, because these characters like Batman are really part of the zeitgeist, and if something like this were to come to fruition, I feel like a Ryan/Hatanaka Batman movie would only enhance the franchise and get people to invest in the big screen ones that much more. I'm trying to think who my Batman would be confronting Ryan's Joker. Maybe you don't even need Batman with their movie.

As I mentioned above, this was a Cinema Epoch film, which is actually Gregory Hatanaka's releasing company. When I looked them up on IMDb, they had a ton of titles with "(Video)" after the names, which is right up our alley. I remember when I did Nipples and Palm Trees for them, someone on that production had talked about me maybe covering the Boston screening of Samurai Cop, but because it was a midnight showing, I needed to take the train, and couldn't afford a hotel since the trains didn't run that late. It's too bad, because I think that would have been a really fun experience!

And with that, let's wrap this up. Choke is available on Prime and Tubi. I wish I knew what to tell you on whether or not you should check it out. It's totally unique in terms of style and pacing, but it also runs the tired theme of old guy/teen girl, and for me that takes the uniqueness and makes it baser than I'd want; but this is also worth checking out as an indie film that does take chances, and I think that can't be understated. Thank you again to Mad Sin Cinema for sending along this screener, I appreciate it!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11127256

Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance (2015)

During my time on hiatus, one of the greatest cult classics ever released a crowdfunded sequel, and when I came off of hiatus, I saw it as a priority to get it up as soon as possible. But then other things got in the way, as there were tons of other films that I needed to make happen in the meantime, so this ended up languishing in the hopper. Well, we're finally making it happen, so let's see if it was worth the wait. Also, our friends Mitch at the Video Vacuum and robotGEEK's Cult Cinema have looked at this, so you can go to their sites to see what they thought.

Samurai Cop 2 takes place about 25 years after the first one. Matt Karedas (Hannon) is called back into action after a Yakuza gang war ignites, and his old partner tracks a series of medallions at the crime scenes to Karedas's forgery (is that the right name for a place that makes things out of metal? Blacksmithery? Mintery?) All the while, there's a mysterious woman who's hooking up with Matt, Bai Ling is acting off the chain, Tommy Wiseau is there, and Joe Estevez and Mel Novak, oh my!

I don't know where to go with this. It's not like the last one where my hang-up over the Bacon Grease Fu made me question what was an otherwise great time. In fact, I had to watch this one twice, because I couldn't believe I didn't love it right away. How could I not like something where Joe is ordering kombucha on a plane? Or a film that has Mel Novak seemingly just to have him? Mel Novak is there for my benefit as a fan of these kinds of movies, and to not like this film felt a little ungrateful. But the issue is something Ty and Brett from Comeuppance Reviews said on a podcast where I brought up this same issue: you can't manufacture a cult classic, and I feel like therein lies the rub. Take the Joe ordering kombucha on a plane scene. At the same time, we have the restaurant concierge from the first one wheeling out a drink cart, and then Bai Ling comes with the dial cranked up to 13, screaming and sending this floating ball into a mass of CGIs, causing a fight scene with more CGIs all over the place, and we're left with a sense that it's all too much. You had me at kombucha, you didn't need the rest.

By the same token, when I get to the credits and I see all of the people who donated getting a thank you from the filmmakers with all of their names listed, there's another part of me that appreciates everything they were trying for here. The best analogy I can come up with is the cheesesteak here in Philadelphia. I like mine with cheese wiz on it, but not all places that make them get how it should be done. Some just slather it on the bun like they're painting a barn, and I don't know that they're doing it that way to be dismissive--some are for sure--, I think they're doing it to be like "you like wiz? I got you man!" The really good ones treat the wiz like they would provolone or American, they put it on the shaved rib-eye while it's on the grill with the onions, so all three meld into something both unctuous, and disastrous for my arteries at the same time. I think this movie slathered on the wiz, instead of doing like they would one with provolone, and the result, despite the best of intentions, was too much. I think if they had played it straight a little more, and let the onions, wiz, and shaved rib-eye come together, that mess of grease, cheese wiz, meat, and carmelized onions on a roll still would have had the punch they wanted, it just wouldn't have felt like too much, so we would've gotten it down better.

Bai Ling is exactly what I'm talking about here. Bai Ling unleashed on 13 with the knob ripped off is too obvious and too much; but Bai Ling on 6, like she was in The Breed or Circle of Pain, and she elevates the material she's working with beyond its limitations, like the budget, but it's still something that we as an audience can still have a lot of fun with. The movie overall felt too much like an everything but the kitchen sink kind of deal, and maybe in some instances you need that, but for a Samurai Cop sequel, we don't need it. Hell, I think you rearrange the plot and make Bai Ling your queen baddie, again, let her play it straight, but still have fun with it. Bai Ling is someone who can pull that off.

I'm all for the classic, buy up everything at the local fetish store, cast some adult actresses, and load up on all the low-budget mainstays you can find--Julie Strain made a great career in films like that, but again, I come back to the fact that, as fun and low-budget as a lot of her movies were, they played it straight. Shane Ryan, Tommy Wiseau, and Lexi Belle can all work, but I think it becomes too much if it's let's be as goofy as possible and not care what happens. Part of what made The Room a cult classic on its own was the fact that Tommy Wiseau was playing it straight. I'm not saying not have fun with it, and I had fun with elements of this, it's just at a certain point this turns from being the funny kid in school to being the kid who jumps on his desk and you're just hoping the teacher will send him to the principal's office; and the thing is, I was pulling for this movie, and it pains me a bit to say it ventured into the latter territory for me.

That begs the question then, what would your Samurai Cop 2 have been? There's a part of me that thinks it should have been a scene by scene remake of part 1 with Bai Ling in Robert Z'Dar's part. Or at least a similar idea to part 1. Use Wiseau and Ryan if you need to, but make them bit parts, like guys Joe has to question for information--or maybe since Ryan does all those exploitation films, he could be the guy Ling has to sneak into the hospital to behead. Get a lot of that green screen and mysticism out of there, go bare bones like the first one, or like a classic AIP actioner. You can still be in on the joke and play it straight. And then maybe incorporate some of the goofiness of this. Maybe Wiseau is a goofball when they need to interrogate him. Maybe Bai Ling has one flip-out scene on her henchwomen--who can still be Gentlemen's Cinema actresses in outfits from the local fetish shop--in fact I think it's even better if they're there and you're playing it straight.

This is a tough no for me, which is different from a hard no, even though tough and hard can mean the same thing, in this case they don't. I wanted to like this, and at moments I did, but overall I think it was played too goofy, and playing it that way didn't work they way it should have. Right now you can stream it on Tubi, and I think that's the best way, that way you'll know if you like it enough to plunk down the cash for the DVD.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3398252