Timebomb (1991)

Our second 2025 Hall of Fame inductee is the great Billy Blanks. The problem is, we've already reviewed all of his great starring films, so we had to settle for one where he had a supporting role, and it looked like this one had as much of him in it as any of them. In addition to us, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, and Mitch at the Video Vacuum have covered this as well, so we're completing the triangle.

Timebomb has Michael Biehn as an unassuming watch repairman, who one day meets psychiatrist Patsy Kensit. They fall in love, have children, and live happily ever after. Or Biehn is a former special forces guy with no memory of it who rescues a woman and her baby from a burning building, which lands him on TV, where he's spotted by his former colonel, Richard Jordan. Jordan and his crew, which includes Billy Blanks and Tracy Scoggins, were planning to assassinate a guy who's tapped to be the next AG, but their bosses think a detour is necessary to take Biehn out. Will it end up being a mistake?

This ain't half bad. It drags at points, but the cast is great, and I think it helps those draggy moments. Early on we get a scene where Blanks's characters tries to kill Biehn while Biehn is sleeping, and the battle that ensues is pretty brutal. And while nothing after that is quite that brutal, the action does tend to lean toward brutality versus over-the-top (Stallone style). One scene that had a lot of promise was a porn theater shootout, but it never quite gets there. The problem with a story like this is we know who Biehn is before Biehn does, and so delaying the process of him finding out feels like they're delaying for the sake of delaying in order to stretch the runtime, and that trick never works. The moment Biehn starts speaking Hungarian should've been in the first fifteen minutes, and then we just let it rip from there. The other interesting element is how the baddies, had they just left Biehn alone, would've kept being baddies and could've carried out their baddie schemes in perpetuity. It's a fascinating concept, usually baddies stick to the plan and the hero is the one who mucks it up, but they did their own mucking themselves. For an early 90s actioner with a lot of names, this does what you need, and I think that's enough if you're looking for something on Tubi to watch.

We'll start with the man of the hour, the great Billy Blanks. As one of the gang he isn't in this as much as you'd like, but he's pretty great in the moments we see him, especially in that scene I mentioned above. And he took that ability to his starring roles and made those fantastic as well, whether he was teaming up with Roddy Piper or Bolo Yeung, or he was a baddie trying to kill Loren Avedon, Blanks brought it every time we saw him. It goes without saying that we wish we had more stuff from him, especially in the 90s when he was really cooking, and we can speculate on why he decided to transition from DTV action to creating Tae-Bo, but at least we got the gems we did. He was a big part of why the late 80s/early 90s were the Golden Age of DTV action, and is long overdue for his spot in the Hall of Fame, so we're finally making it happen.

Michael Biehn is an interesting one on the DTVC. This is only his third film, which, considering his name and the volume of DTV flicks he'd one--not to mention classics that may have ended up as a Wild Card post when I used to do those--seems small, but when I looked at his IMDb bio, he doesn't have a lot of DTV action to his credit, and for better or worse, that's the lane this site ended up moving into. The other thing I think is the emergence of Casper Van Dien took some of his potential DTV roles, as Van Dien is younger and better looking. Like if I'm making Shark Attack, in 1990 I'd probably be trying to get Biehn, but by 2000 I'm contacting Van Dien's agent first. This movie was a reminder though of how much fun he is, and I don't know that this works as well as it did if they'd cast Jean-Claude Van Damme or Chuck Norris--the two names the IMDb trivia said the studio wanted director Avi Nesher to cast. That means the movie wasn't as successful financially as it would've been--especially with Van Damme--but was more successful as an actual film, which I think still counts for something.

We'll zip through all the other names in this. Biehn's costar was Patsy Kensit, who we've seen here before in Renegades. She was like in her early 20s in this, but playing a psychologist, meaning she somehow earned her PhD in the time it takes most people to only finish their undergrad. Then we had Tracy Scoggins, who's been on the site four other times, the most recent being Alien Intruder. With her character, the movie wasn't sure if it wanted to take advantage of her looks and have her in short skirts and heels, or have her be one of the cold-blooded killers in the gang, so we were left with some tough scenes for her and the stunt crew where she had to fight Biehn in said short skirt and heels, which made the whole thing look awkward. Modern DTV has faux leather leggings that they can use to split that difference, but I think even back then they had things they could've done to mitigate that situation so we didn't get the awkwardness we did. The main baddie was played by Richard Jordan, someone we've never seen here before, and probably never will again, so it was great this one time to be able to do it. He was exactly the kind of smarmy higher-up military guy a movie like this needed. Finally, Robert Culp makes his third appearance on the site. He was every bit the fantastic Culp you'd want, the only problem was, he had such a small role, it was kind of a waste. I guess we should be happy for any Culp we get.

Finally, we have another Presidential Portrait! It's another Bush 41, which we've seen plenty on here, but it's great to see just the same. I was hoping, with the Vietnam War flashbacks, that we might get our first Nixon, but no dice. So if you're counting, we have all the presidents from Reagan through Obama, and because this is a relatively new thing I've been doing, we've been finding some in movies I've already reviewed too. I'm beginning to see too how it's kind of like what Will at Exploding Helicopter goes through, where a scene has all the makings of an exploding helicopter, but then it doesn't happen. Anytime I see a governmental office of some sort, I have my eyes peeled for the possible portrait--and this movie had a lot of fake outs where I thought for sure I'd see one but I didn't. It was almost out of nowhere when we did get it, above some desk by the wall that we see as Blanks enters the secret planning room Culp and Jordan were in. But it was good that we got it, and gave us a second Blanks screen on his Hall of Fame post. Makes me wonder though if I've missed any while looking up IMDb on my phone during the lulls in a film I'm watching...

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this on Tubi here in the States. It's fun watch, but also a bit brutal, so make sure the people you're watching it with are okay with that. And congratulations to Billy Blanks on his Hall of Fame induction. Here's to you Mr. Blanks, you're truly one of the greats, and this is well deserved.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105597

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

Dark Breed (1996)

We received some very sad news last week, Rick Pepin, the P in PM Entertainment, passed away. I wanted to post something in his honor, and this is one of the films he directed that I'd been meaning to review anyway. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof, the guys at Comeuppance, Simon at Explosive action, and Fred Anderson at Ninja Dixon have all covered this as well.

Dark Breed is about a group of astronauts, including Jonathan Banks and Felton Perry, that return to earth and don't seem like themselves. Former astronaut and soldier Jack Scalia is called in to contain them. But when Robin Curtis is captured by the big wig in charge, Cutter (Lance LeGault), and beaten by two mustachioed gentlemen; and then his ex-wife, who was also on the failed space mission, takes him to a diner and tells him that everyone, including her, have been infected by aliens--but fortunately she's been infected by a good alien, not the bad aliens the other astronauts were infected by--Scalia knows this goes much deeper. Now they need to stop both the bad aliens and Lance LeGault. At least Scalia is handy with a rocket launcher.

This is up there as one of my favorite PM flicks, slotting in at number 12 all-time on my PM Entertainment list. A big part of it is Cole S. McKay's action sequences, which I think are some of the best from PM, including a fantastic car chase where Scalia's character is riding a satellite dish that's being towed by a bread truck like he's on an inner tube attached to a speed boat on a lake. I saw some reviews on IMDb and Letterboxd calling this just a cheap rip-off of Predator or Alien, but how can you watch a car chase like that and have that opinion? I think Fred Anderson in his review summed up my thoughts, saying that even if it is a mix of all those other movies, the action is what makes it such a fun time. Beyond that, Scalia is the perfect hero, giving us plenty of bad ass moments, like when he takes a rocket launcher from a sergeant below him, and shows him how to use it, turning his baseball cap backwards in the process--perhaps giving us the one exception to the rule that men over 40 shouldn't wear their baseball caps backwards. Then you add in the supporting cast, with the great Jonathan Banks as the head alien baddie, Lance LeGault chewing scenery as the head government baddie, a trio of great leading ladies with Robin Curtis, Cindy Ambuehl, and Denise W. Scott, and then the inimitable George "Buck" Flower as an unhoused individual who encounters the aliens. This is the too sweet PM you came for.

It's hard to describe the legacy Rick Pepin, with his production partner Joseph Merhi, created with PM Entertainment. 90s action wouldn't be 90s action without them, but also would 2010s action be what it was without guys like Spiro Razatos and Cole S. McKay having the freedom to do the crazy stunt scenes they did in these films. In wanting to do something in Rick's honor, I decided to review one of the films he directed, even though his work as cinematographer created what we know of as "the PM look," because Jon Cross from the PM Entertainment Podcast said these sci-fi movies he directed were what he especially enjoyed. I think out of those, I'd put T-Force and Hologram Man above this, but it's not far behind them. For us fans of action movies, it doesn't get much better than PM Entertainment, and with Pepin being the P in PM, he leaves behind something that he and Merhi created that I don't think will ever be matched. Not to mention personally giving me hours of enjoyment with all the fun movies they produced. Here's to you Mr. Pepin, you truly were one of the great ones, you'll really be missed.

We're now at 61 movies for Cole S. McKay, but we're closing in on October so we can officially get him into the Hall of Fame. And while I wanted to do a movie he directed for his induction post, this would've been a great one for that too. It also would've been a great one for his entry into the 60 Club, which ended up being Save Me due to movies getting shuffled around and our need to do The Stray for Michael Madsen's passing, but with this being the post in honor or Rick Pepin, we can't use it for his 60 Club post either. Looking at all the films I've seen that he was stunt coordinator/second-unit director on, I have this behind Hologram Man as his best, maybe just above Skyscraper, though it's close. I mean just the car chase with Scalia's character riding the satellite dish, I'd take the Pepsi Challenge with that against any of Spiro Razatos's great PM stuff, and McKay had plenty of other scenes in this that were great as well. He also gets a cameo as a guy attacking George "Buck" Flower, before one of the aliens beats the crap out of him. We'll get him in the Hall of Fame in just over a month, the question is, how many more tags will get before then!

This is our second Jack Scalia film on the site, the other being T-Force, so I'd say that's a pretty good two-film run. He has plenty of other DTV stuff out there for me to review, including The Silencers from this same year, which was also directed by Rick Pepin and action-directed by Cole S. McKay, so we know I'll have to do that one eventually. He's just fantastic here, everything you'd want in an action lead, total bad-assery. Speaking of two-film runs, the only other time we reviewed a Jonathan Banks film was Last Man Standing, a film I have at 4 on my all-time PM list, three places higher than T-Force, so Banks's might be better than Scalia's! Unlike Scalia though, Banks doesn't have a lot of other DTV stuff, so we may not see him again unless he finds his way into a Randall Scandal or something in the future. I recently finally got around to watching Breaking Bad, which he was fantastic in, so seeing him here now gives this an added element that I enjoyed. 

Finally, the Lance LeGault's character in this was named "Cutter." I don't know about you, but every time I hear "cutter" I think of Coors Cutter, Coors's non-alcoholic beer from the 90s. I did like most nowadays, and looked Coors Cutter up on Wikipedia, but the info is scant. They said the beer was introduced in 1991, revamped in 1994, but now mostly discontinued. I remembered it as part of that early 90s non-alcoholic trend that included O'Doul's and Miller Sharps. The one my grandmother drank was Genesee, which I thought was cooler than any of them, and I think if I needed an NA beer that's probably what I'd get. There's been a new trend recently in non-alcoholic beers, with Heineken joining in, and some companies exclusively brewing NA stuff, which I see advertised for sale at sporting events, after venues stop selling alcohol late in the games. For me, I don't drink much anymore anyway, but when I want to enjoy a beer without the alcohol, I get a hop tea instead. You get the hops taste without any of the alcohol side effects--though if I getting them to have while watching one of my teams play, I make sure I get the chamomile ones, because I don't need any additional caffeine while I'm stressing out about the outcome!

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi here in the States, which I think is a good deal. This is one of my favorite PM flicks, well worth checking out. And also a great one to watch in honor of Rick Pepin, a legend who, with his partner Joseph Merhi, gave us hours of fantastic movies, for which I will be forever grateful.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116026

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

Steel Frontier (1995)

This is one I discussed on episode 3 of Jon Cross's PM Entertainment Podcast, which was a really fun conversation, and now we're finally giving it a review here. In addition to us and the PM Podcast, Chad Cruise at Bulletproof, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Outlaw Vern, Tom Jolliffe at Flickering Myth, and Mitch at the Video Vacuum have covered this as well.

Steel Frontier takes place six years ago, after the apocalypse, where the world is a big Mad Max-ish mess, and a horrible conqueror (Brion James) has gathered up a bunch of baddies and taken over all the peaceful tire farming towns in the LA County area. Is there any hope? Sure, as is often the case, a heroic lone drifter comes into town (Joe Lara). He starts off by joining the gang, and then does a bit of a Yojimbo move to get Brion James's gang to kill each other. Will he eventually succeed? And in true PM fashion, will he require a lot of explosions and car chases to do so?

This one jumped to number 9 on my all-time PM list (which you can find on the DTVC Letterboxd), that's how much I enjoyed it, and Jon felt the same way. This is PM doing the Italian late-80s Mad Max exploitation flick, but doing it in true PM style. The exploitation comes in the form of violence, with explosions and car chases, which is nice because we don't get the usual sexual assault or other sexual exploitation the Italian films liked to do. We get some great Joe Lara as the lead, Brion James is a fantastic baddie, and the addition of Bo Svenson as James's second-in-command was solid too. From there you get all the beautiful PM action goodness you expect when you see the PM logo on the spine of your VHS, including this massive chimney explosion that the IMDb trivia says is the largest PM ever pulled off--and that's saying a lot considering this is PM we're talking about! PM gets it right again, and we're all better for it.

Out of all the Joe Lara films I've seen--which isn't that many, he's only at 8 now on the site--this is my favorite. He's everything you want in the roguish, Western hero, and we can't wait to see him enter this town and take out James and all his baddies. Another place where this movie deviated from the late 80s Italian films is they didn't do the whole "hero captured and tortured by the baddies, then he recovers and gets his revenge" penultimate act, which was refreshing for me. While I liked Hologram Man better as a film overall, this is the better Lara film for sure, and it's too bad he didn't get more roles like this. By my count, we have 7 or 8 more of his films that we could review, and I don't know how many of those we'll actually cover because they look hard to track down, so he may top out at around 12 movies, and I think that's okay considering how good a job he does here.

PM is closing in on the 50 Club at the DTVC, we're only one away now, and this is one I probably could've used for that milestone, but I didn't want to wait on it too long after the PM podcast episode was released. That's okay, I think there are some great candidates for the big 5-0, there's no shortage of fantastic PM flicks. What makes this one so good, is it's their take on this post-apocalyptic/Mad Max subgenre, and they successfully make it the PM version, they never get away from what they were best at. In the PM Podcast episode, Jon interviews both Paul Volk and Jacobson Hart, and they give great insights on what made this work. Hart in particular talked about how PM didn't do sexual exploitation, that their "exploitation cinema" was the action, and they nail it, especially with two great chase scenes, and that aforementioned chimney explosion. When you see PM on the spine, or listed under company credits if you look a movie up after seeing the thumbnail on a streaming site, you expect a certain level of fun, low-budget action, and this one delivers on that in a way that exceeded even those expectations.

Part of why this works so well is the stunt team PM puts together. The stunt coordinator/second-unit director is Michael J. Sarna, who has done a bunch of other PM flicks--including my personal number two all-time from them, The Sweeper, where he was stunt coordinator under Spiro Razatos as action director--plus the David Bradley classic Hard Justice, and a personal video store mainstay of mine, The Perfect Tenant--which I can't believe I haven't covered yet! In addition to him, we have 50 Club member Art Camacho, and soon to be inducted 50 Club Member Cole S. McKay, plus "Broadway" Joe Murphy sans his stunt coordinating partner Red Horton. And as if all those names weren't enough, we have stunt legend Kane Hodder as one of Brion James's gang, though not credited as doing any stunt work. Guess with all the PM names they had they were able to let him take a break on this one! This is part of the PM magic, let these great stunt names do their thing, and the result is this high-octane alchemy that was the secret to their success.

Finally, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention Brian Huckeba's "Chicken Boy" role. As Jon pointed out, this was a kind of character that showed up in Ozploitation films that this movie is in the tradition of, and Huckeba goes all in on his performance. It just makes things that much more fun and memorable, and with low-budget filmmaking every little bit helps. When the guys at Comeuppance reviewed this, Huckeba commented on it, and if you listen to the PM Podcast episode, Jon interviews him in addition to Paul Volk and Jacobson Hart, and he gives Jon some great jewels when recalling his experience on set. It would be easy for Huckeba to look at this part as a one-off in his career, maybe something he shows his family 30 years later so they can all have some laughs, but the fact that he's still this enthusiastic about this part today is great to see. It's more fun for us to embrace it if the people involved are embracing it too.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi, Prime, the Roku Channel, and Fawesome here in the States. That's a great way to catch this, but also if you see it in the wild on VHS, pick it up. And if you haven't yet, subscribe and listen to the PM Entertainment Podcast on your favorite podcatcher. Jon is delivering the PM podcast we've wanted for years, you need to check it out.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114537/

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

Phoenix the Warrior aka She-Wolves of the Wasteland (1988)

It had been over four years since we last had a Kathleen Kinmont film on the site, so I figured it was time, and when I saw that this film was on Tubi, it sounded like a no-brainer. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Mitch at the Video Vacuum, and Down Among the Z Movies have all covered this, meaning it was probably long overdue for me to cover it too. 

Phoenix the Warrior is a post-apocalyptic AIP flick with Kathleen Kinmont as our eponymous hero. She rescues a young lady, Keela (Peggy McIntaggart), who just happens to be pregnant, and in this future where pretty much only women survived the apocalypse, a pregnant woman is a big deal. So big that Persis Khambatta and her ruler, the Reverend Mother (Sheila Howard) want her, because the baby Keela is carrying is a special boy that the Reverend Mother could use to power herself--or something. Whatever it is, Kinmont needs to protect Keela and her baby at all costs, otherwise the post-apocalyptic world will be destroyed--or something.

As post-apocalyptic exploitation goes, this isn't horrible. We have a tight 90-minute runtime, Kinmont is a great lead, Persis Khambatta kills it as the baddie, and we get all of the usual post-apocalyptic trappings, like buggies and dirt and fun 80s hairdos. You then have the added element of AIP, which gives this a unique quality the way Corman/Santiago ones are unique, or PM's entry Steel Frontier is unique. For example, I tagged Ted Prior because he gets a set constructor credit, but I think it was more that they reused his set from Mankillers, the corrugated iron shanty town looks like a rundown version of William Zipp's evil drug lord lair from that film. That's the kind of thing that will push a usual post-apocalyptic flick like this up a notch or two, and that can mean a lot when you've seen a lot of these--which I have, more than I expected when I started this site! If you're a connoisseur of these kinds of movies, this is worth a look.

We're now at 9 films for Kinmont, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it puts her in a three-way tie with Shannon Tweed and Dona Speir for third-most all-time among women on the site, behind Cynthia Rothrock's 43, and Julie Strain's 10. The other thing is she was alone as second-most all-time when we last reviewed one of her movies, so in that time Strain, Tweed, and Speir have caught her. I was looking at her bio, and there are some movies of hers we need to do, the problem is they aren't as easy to find, a lot of them haven't made it to free streamers yet--and funny enough, this one is on Tubi twice, as both this title and She-Wolves of the Wasteland. I'll work on tracking down more of her stuff from the late 80s/early 90s that fits our site more, because she should have more films reviewed here than she does. Here's to you Ms. Kinmont, you're one of the greats.

This movie was a staple of USA Up All Night in the 90s, which makes sense considering most of the film has women in bikinis or less. According to the IMDb trivia, Kinmont said the filmmakers asked her to go topless too, but she said no, because she thought the nudity was gratuitous, and they weren't paying her enough--the $50 a day she got barely covered the gas required to drive out the Mojave Desert for shooting. The other thing she said was this was a non-SAG role that she took because the filmmakers assured her the film would only be shown overseas, but when it ended up on HBO and USA, she almost lost her SAG card as a result, and she never saw a dime from that cable money. I guess David Winters and AIP really put the "exploit" in "exploitation," huh? And if Kinmont was only making $50 a day, we have to imagine Ted Prior got nothing for them using his corrugated iron shanty town that he went to all that trouble to make for Mankillers. When you put this up against her doing a love scene with Wings Hauser in Art of Dying that involved him pouring milk and food all over her and yelling at the make-up woman to powder his bare asscheeks, you realize that Wings and PM were probably nothing compared to her AIP experience--okay, maybe not "nothing," maybe just not as bad, right?

The 80s were rife with same-sex platonic partners raising kids, so the fact that this film used that device wasn't too out of the ordinary for the time. We had My Two Dads and Full House as examples of straight males living together and raising kids, and then we had Kate and Allie as two straight women doing the same thing. They were skirting the line of same-sex romantic partners raising kids, but never quite getting there, which meant when you had situations like my parents telling me my mom's best friend was living with her "roommate," and that that "roommate" was pregnant by artificial insemination, it was believable because we had Kate and Allie and Murphy Brown to look to as examples for why my aunt and her "roommate" weren't actually in the committed romantic relationship they actually were in. The thing is though, this movie could've gone there, but for some reason in a lot of exploitation films, homosexuality is depicted as this degenerate thing, like here when women hook up with other women, they're the baddies, while Kinmont's hero and the pregnant woman she rescued would never "engage in that kind of thing." Nope, they're Kate and Allie raising their Murphy Brown child in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, nothing else to see here--until a balding, mustachioed man falls into their laps, and then it's on.

Finally, look at that beautiful Zenith TV set. Not sure how its knobs lasted that long after the apocalypse, but considering everything else I'm accepting in this film, I probably shouldn't worry about it. I did some digging, aka "I looked Zenith up on Wikipedia," and I found out when this film was made, Zenith was already in trouble. The HDTV technology they were starting to pioneer was over a decade away from making it to market, and between their market share dipping due to Japanese competitors, and the cost of the anti-dumping lawsuit they were party to that was filed against those Japanese competitors--which Zenith and their co-plaintiffs eventually lost--they weren't pulling in the money they used to while the debts were mounting up. Over time the company that eventually became LG bought an increasing share in them, finally buying the whole thing in 1999, so LG owns what remains of Zenith now. The irony of course with those dials, was Zenith also pioneered the remote control, so for most of that TV's life the dials weren't necessary, unless a kid had it in the 80s and needed to turn the dial between channels to view some squiggly-lined porn, a practice that also became obsolete when TVs stopped using dials, and internet porn became so prolific. What a scene that would've been in this movie though if the people who prayed to the TVs were sitting around it, turning the dial between channels to watch squiggly-lined porn that was being produced in a post-apocalyptic corrugated-iron shanty town built by Ted Prior for another AIP film. You AIP guys really missed a trick there, didn't you?

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi, under both its names, though the film is the same. This is fun as a post-apocalyptic actioner between the cast and the AIP touches, and sometimes for a film like this that's all you need.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093731

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

Alien Intruder (1993)

This is one of those ones I thought I'd done earlier on on the site, but didn't, and then for some reason it ended up getting pushed down the list, for almost 18 years it seems. Strange, considering this is the first PM flick I remember watching, so it has some significance. In addition to us, our friend Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Alien Intruder takes place two years ago in 2022, where a Commander Striker (William December Williams) gathers a Dirty-Dozen-style team of four convicts (Dirty Quartet?) to investigate a space freighter that went incommunicado. We know what happened, because in the opening scene, a crazed Jeff Conaway killed everyone at the behest of Tracy Scoggins, before turning the gun on himself (it was like the Rolling Stones song, "it's just a Conaway, it's just a Conaway"). After the guys do some virtual R&R, they start to notice Scoggins appearing in their fantasies, and then eventually appearing in their realities! Does Mr. December Williams hold the key to what's going on? And will our rag-tag group of heroes figure it out in time to stop Scoggins?

This one starts a little slowly, but it's the kind of slowly that in the mid-90s when I first saw this would be boring, but in 2025 is a fun nostalgia trip--even if it was only three years ago! In one scene, Maxwell Caulfield and the other guys are playing cards and busting each other's chops, and in that spirit Caulfield calls one of them a "brick shithouse," which is Generation Jones speak for "ya big lug." You can just imagine on college campuses in the early 80s people calling each other "brick shithouse," and even if they didn't, it's fun to imagine, right? Scoggins is great too as the alien temptress. The VR fantasies are like music videos with their themes and settings, and she's pretending to be the "video girl," only with a diabolical twist. And then they have a PM twist too, because PM uses the VR fantasies to inject action into the film, including a massive explosion at a gas station that sends a stunt guy flying off in the background--if only they did that in Michael Bolton's "Missing You Now" video! Top it off with the great Billy Dee Williams, and you have yourself a fun PM sci-fi actioner.

Speaking of Michael Bolton, the last time we saw Billy Dee Williams on here was in February of 2012, with Gary Busey in the submarine flick Steel Sharks--do you remember that Michael Bolton song, "Steel sharks, wrapped all around me..."? Maybe not. Anyway, the only reason my friends and I rented this back in the mid-90s was because it had Billy Dee. I didn't know anything about PM Entertainment, but in that period between Return of the Jedi and Phantom Menace, Star Wars fans needed anything they could get, and Billy Dee Williams in a low-budget DTV sci-fi flick seemed like a good bet--not to mention as high schoolers we were also Colt .45 fans, if you knew someone who was over 21, you could give them $5 and they could get you a 40 and keep the change to buy themselves some cigarettes. What a simpler time. You don't get a lot of Williams in this, but PM does a good job of sprinkling him throughout so you never go too long without him, which is a nice thing. Here's to you Mr. Williams, you're truly one of the best.

This is now 46 PM flicks on the site, but as I mentioned above, this is the earliest one I remember watching. Also as I mentioned above, I didn't know it as a PM flick--we didn't know what that really was back then, it was just another logo we saw a lot--we only rented it for Billy Dee Williams. If you look at the release date, 1993, we would've rented this around the time it came out, but back then the mom and pop we rented from, People's Video, didn't gouge on new releases like Blockbuster and the other big chains did, so it was the same $2 as the older movies. When Alex, the guy who owned the video store, was picking it out of the catalog, he was probably thinking Star Wars fans like us would grab it because it had Billy Dee Williams on the cover, and at least for us he was right. I couldn't have imagined 30 years later there'd be this thing called blogging, and that I'd be almost 18 years in on a site of my own reviewing it, let alone watching it again on a "streaming" site called Amazon Prime--forget the fact that Donald Trump is not only our president, but he's on his second term. PM had a better vision of what the 2020s would be in 1993, we just weren't worthy of it.

Speaking of the future, we usually talk about flying cars as the thing that didn't end up happening, but the one we usually miss is laser guns, which were prevalent in this film. How did no one pick that up? Especially here in the States, we love shooting people, a laser gun seems like a natural invention. I guess because guns are so easy to get and shoot up schools with, people were probably like "why would you want a laser when you can mow down tons of people, especially kids, with an automatic gun firing bullets?" It makes sense, there's no way a battery could hold enough charge for the laser shots required to equal a high-capacity magazine. And if there's one thing the United States does better than the rest of the world, it's mass shootings. We also like our deaths due to car violence too, which is probably why we never went too far into flying cars either. "If cars are in the sky, what reason would we have to displace people and wildlife to expand freeways in order to save drivers 30 seconds on their commute? And then who would be hit by cars at dangerous intersections if all the cars were in the air? Nope, better to keep the cars on the ground where they can hit more people and we can scar the landscape with more highways and parking." And that's why no laser guns and no flying cars.

Finally, Maxwell Caulfield's outfit here was too good not to comment on. Fluorescent yellow and blue Lycra spandex shorts with a black codpiece (??), and finger-less gloves. And look at the Wes Anderson-style shot composition with him leaning against the door frame, the woman fresh from the Hot Tropic pageant on the other side, and the living room and the windows with the view of the beach to the right. Just an absolute thing of beauty. Now I do need to confess, when I lived in Maine ten years ago, I biked a lot, and as such I needed the finger-less gloves and the spandex shorts. They served a purpose though: the gloves and shorts had gel padding in them, which mitigated the impact of my aluminum bike bouncing on the road. Also, if it helps, the shorts were all black and didn't have a codpiece, and I always wore a shirt too. Maybe it doesn't, and I understand. I realize too that in the interests of being forthright with my audience, I've just made this paragraph in celebration of that fantastic shot above all about me, so I apologize.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently you can stream this on Prime. I think there's also a decent YouTube version. As far as PM goes, this isn't a top 10 or even a top 20, but their deeper catalog is a lot of fun too, and this film is a great example of that. Plus you can't go wrong with Billy Dee Williams!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106244

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

Alien Love (2024)

Nathan Hill is back! We had a great time with Lady Terror and Revenge of the Gweilo, so I was excited when he reached out to see if we'd cover his newest film. In addition to us, YouTube channel Jay Harangue has covered this as well.

Alien Love has Hill as Ryan Van Hill-Song, an astronaut in a world where astronauts are rock stars. When he finally gets his big chance to go into space with NASA, something goes wrong--he goes radio silent for 60 seconds! Luckily a NASA special agent has informed his wife Sadie (Ira Chakraborty) that there's nothing to worry about, even if he ventured all the way out to Australia to tell her. When Hill gets home, everything seems fine at first, but then she discovers her husband's not himself. He's jogging a lot, and sometimes has a larger-than-normal erection. Unfortunately she doesn't catch all these red flags before he impregnates her with his alien seed. As her world unravels, she's fortunate that she kept the NASA special agent's card--though he's already onto everything and has sent some folks out to take care of it.

This was a lot of fun. There were definite laugh-out-loud moments, like when Hill and Chakraborty are sitting at a cafe, he in a NASA T-shirt and Kennedy Space Station hat, and a young woman rushes up to their table and asks if he's an astronaut, then asks for his autograph. Hill's character's transformation is a lot of fun, from his ambling around the neighborhood with what could loosely be termed "jogging," to when he goes to a bar and orders champagne and hooks up with Demz Lato--who I swear I've seen in other Hill films before, but she's not listed on any I've seen. I also really liked Ira Chakraborty as the wife who thinks she's got it made with her astronaut husband, but then slowly sees that her life is falling apart. Unlike Hill, who could ham it up a bit as he was becoming more alien, Chakraborty always had to play it straight, which I can't imagine was always easy, but she pulled it off. 75 minutes, free to stream on Tubi, and a fun time, what more could you want?

Even though Hill didn't direct this, he co-wrote and produced it, so it still has the feel of one of his films. Unlike Lady Terror, where I missed initially that I should be laughing with the film, this one I could feel it right away; but I can also still see how people could miss it, especially us Americans who sometimes need to be hit over the head with the humor. The thing I loved about Alien Love was how his approach to making these movies can mitigate the budgetary limitations. If you don't have the budget for an expensive outer space set, if your hero astronaut is playing it straight but we know it's for laughs, the lower-budget set enhances that sense. If your stars are newer to acting--and based on the fact that very few have photos on their IMDb page, that's probably the case here--playing silly-ish dialog straight is a great way for them to be serious while we're having fun with the content of what they're saying and not that they're inexperienced as actors. I'm really glad Nate reached out to me to cover his films, because they're a lot of fun, and I can't wait to see what's next!

As you're reading this, you might be thinking "isn't that the plot to The Astronaut's Wife?" I'd actually forgotten that movie existed, but yeah, it definitely is, the same way Lady Terror was like the Haim/Feldman flick Blown Away, and Revenge of the Gweilo took elements from Drive. That's part of how Hill works, he pays homage to other films, and then puts his unique twist on them. What was crazier to me was that this year marks 25 years since The Astronaut's Wife came out, which explains why before watching this I'd forgotten about it. That was a time when R-rated movies were more common. If a studio were to remake The Astronaut's Wife today, it would have to be PG-13, though maybe now with the success off Deadpool and Wolverine, maybe R-rated movies in wide theatrical release will come back. If not, at the very least Nate can bring them back to us in his own special way.

This movie has a lot of flying saucer imagery, which made me wonder when flying saucers were first invented. According to Wikipedia, it was a sighting reported by a pilot in 1947, which then led to myriad other reported sightings. From there, 1950s sci-fi movies and TV shows made heavy use of it, so much so that now if we see a flying saucer in a movie, TV show, or even commercial, we know right away that that means aliens, the same way the opening wah-wah to "Let's Get It On" tells us something we're going to see is alluding to sex. The propagation of sightings makes sense too. It's like how one Karen's Facebook post about two people of color in the Hobby Lobby parking lot being potential traffickers will lead to thousands of Karens across the US thinking traffickers are targeting them in Hobby Lobby parking lots too. It's a fascinating thing about us humans, how one person sees something and then a bunch of us think we see it too, and popular media can exacerbate it, turning things into phenomena faster. In the 70s Sci-Fi imagery started to change, and the flying saucer became less ubiquitous, meaning maybe we'll also be released from the fugazi trafficking paradigm we're seeing in every third DTV actioner or Lifetime thriller--though to be fair, flying saucers were actually fun, as evidenced by how much fun they were in this film.

Finally, I don't know why, but whenever I see the film's title, Alien Love, I get Zapp's "Computer Love" stuck in my head. They aren't the same thing, I mean I guess they're both three syllables for the first word and "love" for the second, but that's it. After watching this I was making dinner, and our fluffy cat Luca was hanging out with me, so the whole time I was singing "Computer Fluff," which makes even less sense. It was really ahead of its time though, predicting how we'd all end up using computers to meet romantic partners. Zapp had some great hits, like "More Bounce to the Ounce" or their cover of the Smokey Robinson song "Ooh, Baby, Baby," and then in the 90s their music was a huge part of the West Coast hip hop scene. Here's to you Roger Troutmann and the rest of Zapp, you were great ones--now I just need to get "Computer Love" out of my head!

With that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi here in the States. It's a lot of fun, and it's only 75 minutes. What better way to support indie creatives? Thanks again to Nate for having us review it, I really enjoyed it.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28434918

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

The Adventures of Taura: Prison Ship Star Slammer aka Star Slammer (1986)

Back in April I did a film called Galaxy Warriors for my indie review, and I watched this then as a means of comparison. Considering it was directed by DTVC Hall of Famer Fred Olen Ray, and has DTVC favorite Ross Hagen in it, I figured it needed a review as well.

Star Slammer has Sandy Brooke as Taura, a woman living on a planet somewhere in outer space, having a pretty nice life, until Ross Hagen and Dukey Flyswatter show up with some other baddies and cause trouble. They're there as representatives of a galactic empire, which means when Taura takes the henchmen out and burns Hagen's hand in the process, she's sent to a space prison run by a lesbian dominatrix, Warden Exene (Marya Gant), and her lackey Muffin (Dawn Wildsmith). She's tossed in a cell block with some rough characters, led by Mikey (Suzy Stokey), who give her a hard time at first, but after she saves Mikey's life from a large monster, they team up to take everyone out. At the same time Hagen and Flyswatter show up to inspect the prison, so Taura can get her revenge on them too. Sometimes everything just works out.

This is the fun time you want from a movie like this. It plays on all the exploitation notes you'd expect, from women in bondage, to lady-on-lady action, to women in various stages of undress, but it also has a lot of enjoyable elements that go beyond that. Sandy Brooke is a fun lead who brings you back to actors like Pam Grier and Margaret Markhov, and Suzy Stokey is great as the antagonist that Brooke wins over. Also I enjoyed Gant as the warden, she played that part to a T, but she also brought in some "women dealing with men in the workplace" elements that I wasn't expecting which were funny too. For some reason these movies often have a warden and a lackey, and Dawn Wildsmith was great in that lackey role too, being creepy and villainous. And then you have Ross Hagen and Dukey Flyswatter, aka Michael Sonye, who were fantastic. I love seeing them in anything, but they were particularly fun here. This just works on a lot of levels and will get you to the church on time.

Unlike Galaxy Warriors, which tried to make an Impossible Burger version of this type of film by removing the women in bondage and girl-on-girl exploitative aspects, this film leaned into them fully. That's not why it worked better though, I think an Impossible Burger version is still possible to make right. This worked because it had some really fun performances, the jokes landed better, and the effects were more realistic. I looked, and IMDb said this had a budget of $200,000, which is a lot more than Galaxy Warriors probably had, but it's not like this had a lot either--and I imagine a lot of that $200,000 went to the cast. So how does a Galaxy Warriors pull something like this off then? I think that's where Fred Olen Ray comes in. The sense of humor, the relationships with cast and crew, the experience to get things done quick and on the cheap, it's all there. We can poke fun at these all we want--and the volume with which Ray makes these means they aren't all hits--but there's a talent there to make these work at the level they do beyond the T-n'-A, and we can see it here. For anyone trying to make an Impossible Burger version of this, study the other things Ray does well here and try to replicate them.

Part of the strength of a movie like this is a great lead. With the 70s Corman films it was Pam Grier, who was maybe the best to ever do it. Sandy Brooke is great here too. She mixes the fun with the serious, all while getting groped and wearing a ripped tank-top without a bra underneath. Looking at her IMDb bio, she only has 11 credits, and many of them are much smaller parts than this. It's possible most of the parts she was offered after were like this one, which may not be as much fun to play, even if she was great at it. That's an area where the Impossible Burger version has an advantage, the star isn't put through the ringer as much, but in the 80s there wasn't an Impossible Burger version of anything--veggie burgers were something different from an actual burger, and no one considered that anything could approximate the real thing, all while cattle farming was being consolidated under Reagan's deregulation policies into the factory farms we have today, so at the same time that plant-based burgers were getting better, the inhumanely factory-raised beef we started getting was tasting worse. Is that another thing to consider? That the DTV market is just as assembly-line now that the quality of the films is such that an Impossible Burger version doesn't look so bad? But also, while a Sandy Brooke would only have had the real version of this kind of movie to make in the 80s, could we see more actresses like her take on these roles in a new Impossible Burger version? That might be the kind of thing that punches the Impossible Burger version up.

The other thing of course was having Ross Hagen and Dukey Flyswatter. Look at how great they look down there. The outfits alone were fantastic, but then you throw in their performances. Back in May of 2022 I had Kevin Vonesper on the podcast to talk about the documentary he was putting together, The Life and Slimes of Dukey Flyswatter and Haunted Garage, which is still in production as we speak, but hopefully will be out soon. That's episode 98 in the archives if you want to check it out, but he gave us a lot of great info on Flyswatter. Then we have the Ross Hagen, who's now on 8 films on the site. I don't know if the Hall of Fame is in his future, mostly because we don't see him as often on here, but between his performances in this film and Action USA, he's gotta be close. There's an inspired element here with Flyswatter and Hagen, they're bringing an energy to the proceedings that the film needed, and I think for people looking to make movies like this today, find people who can give you this--and if they're a bit more of a known commodity, pay for that one day of shooting to get this out of them--though if you can't, just come up with the outfits. Hagen's was probably recycled from another film, but how hard would Flyswatter's 80s suit and hair be to pull off?

Finally, we're at 16 director credits for Fred Olen Ray on the site. That puts him three up on Sam Firstenberg for second-most all-time as a director, but 27 behind Albert Pyun. The thing is, Ray has the CV, even if most of his output now is Christmas movies, I think I could count off 27 movies in the 80s and 90s that he's done that would be perfect for the site, but when will I get them done? I realized the last film of his I did was his Hall of Fame induction post back in October of 2020. That's way too long to go, but how much more frequently could I get to? One every three or four months? Call that four a year, so in 7 years we could be there? I'm not saying Pyun's director record is like Cy Young's career win total of 511 games, which will never be touched with the current five-man rotation in baseball where pitchers barely get 30 games a season, but it's kind of close to that when you consider how my cutting back to one review a week is similar to the baseball five-man rotation. When guys like Dolph, Camacho, Pyun, Daniels, Rothrock, etc. were racking up big numbers, I was doing upwards of three posts a week. There was a lot of tagging to be had at that time, just like when Cy Young pitched, pitchers pitched much more often, so there were a lot of wins to be had. So if we call Dolph the Babe Ruth of DTV action stars, is Pyun the Cy Young of DTV directors? Maybe?

Before I bore you with too many baseball analogies--especially for our readers outside the States who have no idea about baseball--let's wrap this up. Currently you can get this on Tubi in America. That's a great way to make it happen, grab some pizzas and some beverages and put this on a Saturday movie night with one or two other movies, and you'll be all set.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087945

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Alien Uprising aka UFO (2012)

This is one that's been sitting in my Tubi queue for a while now. It's got Van Damme, so I knew I needed to do it at some point; but it also didn't look that great, none of the other big low-budget action sites had covered it, and it was over 100 minutes long. But then Tubi was about to get rid of it, so I figured I'd better make it happen.

Alien Uprising has a group of young people in Derby who go out to a night club and get into some trouble. One of the group is Pierce Brosnan's son Sean, and he meets Jean-Claude Van Damme's daughter Bianca, and the two hook up. The next day, the power's out, and things seem weird. No one thinks too much of it, until the next day a massive UFO is resting in the sky. Now all hell breaks loose, as people are scrambling to get supplies and fighting with each other, while the army is confronting the aliens. Somehow Jean-Claude Van Damme figures in as well. Will the kids make it out alive?

And do we care? Kind of, maybe. There was one character I cared about, so I guess that's something. There was a lot sauteed in wrong sauce here though. First, most of these kids aren't worth caring about, and the movie wrote them that way, so I wasn't sure why I was following them. We also could've trimmed a good 20 minutes off the beginning and been okay. The club scene went on too long, the sex scene went on too long, the next morning stuff went on too long. There was a fight scene between Sean Brosnan and another guy that was also too long, but not only that, chock full of interspersed slo-mo. Like Brosnan kicks a guy in the head, and for some reason they decided to slow that down, only to speed it up right after. Was it that cool of an effect? Finally, the worst part--spoiler alert--everyone dies at the end. If everyone dies at the end, what's the point? Why put everyone through this if you're just going to kill them all off? We did have some moments of legitimate tension, which I think would've had more punch if this was tighter. I guess this is for Van Damme completists only, which is what I am, so if you have a review site and need to get all of Van Damme's stuff reviewed, it's worth it for that.

This is now 34 films for Van Damme on the site. (He has 35 tags, but one is for Post 400, the Van Damme Film Fest.) Can we get him to the 40 Club? Based on my math, we have his newest one, Darkness of Man, and then three others from the 2010s, which gets us to 38, plus he has some stuff in pre-production, so we might get there--though we know from The Eagle Path what can happen with those pre-production movies: nothing. He has a very small part in this, where he comes in at the very end as a former military guy who knows what's happening with the aliens. He sticks around long enough to have a fight scene with his daughter--so he's now had them with two of his kids, after having them in multiple films with his son Kris--then gets blown up by a laser from an alien ship. Again, it's just about being a Van Damme completist, and now I can officially say I've seen this and reviewed it.

Speaking of Bianca Van Damme (credited as Bianca Bree here), I didn't realize that this is her fifth film on the site. (If you're curious, Kris has nine so far.) As I mentioned above, she has a fight scene with her father, and based on her bio, she's trained in martial arts, so she may not have been doubled as much as I thought. Based on her skills and action star lineage, she could have a solid DTV action career, not just in low-budget stuff like this, but those higher-budget things that get picked up by Netflix or end up on Hulu after a short rental window on Amazon. Olga Kurylenko would be a good comp, but again, being able to put the name "Van Damme" on the tin would be a bigger selling point. You could also see lesser roles in big screen films the way Scott Adkins and Daniel Bernhardt have done, like a one-off baddie in that new John Wick film The Ballerina. Imagine if that happened, and Van Damme had to ask his daughter to get him on set instead of the other way around?

I mentioned above that we also had Pierce Brosnan's son in this, but I didn't realize that when I was grabbing images, I thought he was just your run of the mill 2010s bro dinkus type, until I started writing the review and saw who he was, and by then I'd missed my window to grab the images on Tubi. Throughout the movie I was trying to figure out what he looked like, beyond the 2010s bro dinkus type, and when I saw his picture on IMDb it clicked: lead singer of a third-tier 80s British pop act. And maybe not even an actual Brit, but like a Scandinavian or Northern European playing in the third-tier pop act. I wish the filmmakers had had the sense to let him run with that instead, just said "give us full lead singer of A-ha or Nik Kershaw. Just pretend I'm Russell Mulcahy and we're filming your latest video." That was the energy this film needed, and even though it wouldn't have gotten us over the goal line, it would've helped.

Finally, this film was shot in Derby in the UK. Not a place I've ever been to--unless the tour bus I took on my high school trip to the UK went through there between Stratford-upon-Avon and York, but I wouldn't have even known--but I do have an interesting connection to there. At the Goodwill here in South Philly, I found a Derby County scarf. I've probably mentioned before on the site that I'm an Arsenal fan, which started in the mid-90s after the World Cup was here in the States and I became a world football fan, I really liked Dennis Bergkamp, and when I found out he played for Arsenal, that became my team. Anyway, all I really know about Derby is from their Premier League season when they had like 9 points, which might explain why the scarf ended up at Goodwill, South Philly's lone Derby County fan was so disgusted, they donated the scarf, and it sat there for ten years, in among more fashionable women's scarves because the people who worked at the Goodwill didn't know where else to put it, and where it was ignored, until I was there with my wife and happened to see it while she was looking through that section. Had I known going in that this was shot in Derby, I would've dusted it off for the occasion. I saw that they're back in the Championship for next season, and I think those games are on ESPN+ here in the States, so that'll give me a team to root for if I follow it at all.

And with that, let's wrap this up. It looks like this is still available on Freevee, so that may be a way to make it happen. For me, this is strictly for Van Damme completists, and only the hardest of the hardcore of them at that.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2040578/

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.

Invincible (2020)

This past week we lost one of the best and most prolific DTV directors and producers, Daniel Zirilli. As such, I wanted to do a post in remembrance of him. This is one Ty and I covered on the podcast back on episode 138, so you can go there to see what we thought as well; also, Todd Gaines at Bulletproof Action has covered this too.

Invincible is about a corporation that may or may not have developed a process to create super soldiers. Johnny Strong is a former soldier and security specialist who's called in by said corporation after their prized experiment, Marko Zaror, goes AWOL and starts terrorizing Bangkok. As expert as Strong is--and with "Strong" in his name--he's no match for Zaror, and gets beaten nearly to death and has his spine broken. All hope is not lost though, as we have this super soldier stuff, and once Strong has a dose, he's ready to take out Zaror. Also, the stuff doesn't work if you don't take boosters, and Zaror wants more boosters, so he kidnaps Strong's girlfriend hoping to exchange her for some. Will Strong prevail?

Compared to the last Zirilli film we did, Phoenix, this was much better-made. As Ty and I said though, that doesn't mean it was more fun. Strong is a more steady and accomplished lead, and Zaror a more imposing baddie, but it's almost like the flaws Phoenix had made it more endearing. Another fascinating element is Wych Kaosayananda as cinematographer--yes, that Wych Kaosayananda. It adds a level of quality that may have betrayed the rest of the story and budget. It's such a weird thing to be reading off pluses for a movie yet putting them in the minus category. I think maybe this is the case because ultimately our hero doesn't have to figure anything out, he just gets his back broken and then he's given the super soldier serum to make him an equal to Zaror, which then becomes an advantage when Zaror needs the boosters. I guess the challenge for Strong's character was overcoming the loss of his humanity, which is a great concept, but in an action movie there was no space to explore that enough. All that said, this has a pretty solid action quotient, and sometimes that's all you need.

This is Zirilli's 17th tag on the site, but only his seventh director's tag, as more of his tags have come from his work as a producer. Unlike Phoenix, which felt rushed, this felt like it had more time available to it, plus it had more names to anchor the proceedings. We can't compare Natalie Eva Marie to Johnny Strong, he's been doing this longer and is more comfortable in dramatic scenes; and we can't compare Marko Zaror to a Russian guy smoking cigars that we've never heard of. I think what this movie does then is remind us that Phoenix is the anomaly in Zirilli's CV, and I think Invincible is closer to what we usually get from him. The most important thing that comes through in any Zirilli project is his love of film, and even if he's pumping movies out quickly and on the cheap, there isn't the cynicism we see in some of the more assembly line approaches to DTV action that we've seen in the last 15 years or so. In the age of streaming, as studios continue to cut budgets and expect DTV action to be done on the cheap, Zirilli's absence will be felt that much more, but hopefully the great influence he's had on others in the industry will continue to be felt, and they'll carry on his legacy. Here's to you Mr. Zirilli, you were truly one of the greats, and you will be missed.

"Road's closed, Pizza Boy." Before this film, that's what I knew Johnny Strong for, his classic line in The Fast and the Furious. Obviously, 20 years later, this is a more mature performance by him, and while I'm not sure I'd have pegged him as an action lead, he works well cinematically as a kind of muse for Zirilli and Kaos's eye. The way they framed scenes around him gave the film an overall sense of stylishness that you don't usually see with movies at this level. Strong also co-wrote the screenplay, so that may have had a hand in the tone we got. It was an interesting change of pace, and something I'd like to see more of potentially. It looks like he's working on his own Warhorse One series, but seeing the stuff Kaos has done with Mark Dacascos and Kane Kosugi, he and Strong could probably have some nice collaborations.

One thing Zirilli does is brings names to his films, and Invincible was no different. The name people of the site would be most familiar with is Michael Pare, who now has 18 films here. With the volume of stuff he's been doing, there is a question of whether or not the Hall of Fame is in his future. I feel like he needs some DTV standout roles to go with his big screen ones, but we'll see. We also had Sally Kirkland, who we've seen before in another Zirilli film, Acceleration. Another lesser-known one she did that we've covered is Guns and Lipstick, one I tracked down for the Wings Hauser and Evan Lurie factor--and was saddened to see our guy Lurie rocking a fanny pack... the less said about that the better. Then there was Vladimir Kulich, who we've seen here in three Jesse V. Johnson films, the two Debt Collector movies and Savage Dog, plus, he was in Crackerjack. At some point her and Kirkland probably should be tagged, maybe the next time either of them shows up. Finally, our baddie was played by Marko Zaror, who we've also seen a few times on here before, including Savage Dog with Kulich. He has a bunch of stuff in various stages of development on IMDb, so I'll be excited to see what we get next from him--and at that point I'll probably tag him too.

Finally, speaking of Zaror, look at that scene there with him and a cat, eating some fish he stole from a streetside vendor. I think the scene was used to show both how the serum turned Zaror into something of an animal, but also the humanity he had in not attacking the cat and letting them eat with him. This was as tight as the shot got unfortunately, but it keeps to my rule that any scene that includes a cat is better for it. I was trying to think of the best cats we've seen on the site. There was Williamson's in Black Cobra, who was a fantastic companion to him. We also had Ginty's in Cop Target, with which he used a machine that fed them while he was away doing his international mission. We also had Trigger in Do or Die, who gave their life so the rest of the Sidaris gang could live, after eating some poisonous food that assassins had cooked for them. I understand cats are harder to use in a film, because they don't obey commands as well as dogs do, but maybe that's what makes them all the better, because they're just kind of there doing their cat thing, like eating fish on the street while Marko Zaror is chowing down.

And with that, let's wrap this up. I think if you wanted to watch a film in honor of Zirilli, Renegades is probably a better bet, but this isn't horrible if you've already seen that. Yes, it's low-budget, and yes, the story has some holes, but the fact that Zirilli along with Kaos and Strong are trying to make something they care about does come through, and sometimes that's all you need. Before we end, one final toast to Daniel Zirilli. The spirit with which you made these movies was truly special, and I hope that legacy you leave behind lives on in new filmmakers.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9134678

And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.