I first got wind of these films after one of my readers suggested them to me in a comment he left for one of my earlier posts. He hadn't seen them yet either. I was very curious. I love kickboxing movies, so one with a psycho sounded awesome. Add the double feature aspect and the 2007 release date-- which to me signaled potential new blood in the DTV market-- and I knew I needed it on my Netflix queue.
Psycho Kickboxer is a YouTube high school video quality revenge yarn with real life kickboxing champ Curtis Bush as a dude who is after the dude who killed his dad and fiancee. Canvas of Blood is a Troma reject about a Vietnam Vet who wants revenge for his daughter's botched hand surgery.
I put these two together in one post because A) they were packaged together, and B) they sucked so bad they didn't deserve one a piece. I like bad movies as much as the next guy, but I can watch YouTube for free, so Psycho Kickboxer's a waste, and Canvas of Blood was a Troma movie without anywhere near as much fun. Neither film was made in 2007, but rather 1997. I couldn't even get an imdb listing for Canvas of Blood, it was so obscure. These were two film school projects snatched up by some low-life distributor in an attempt to make a little money off bad movie honks like myself. It hurts.
The acting in Psycho Kickboxer was worse than my friends and I when we would get drunk and film something for a school assignment. And the production value was like a home video camera. It was kind of funny to watch, but 90 minutes is way too much. Also, we had some sweet head explosion and arm cut-off-age in the beginning, and they never did anything like that again. I might have had a different opinion of it had they kept that up. But they didn't, so I didn't.
Canvas of Blood looked like the average fare on USA's Up All Night at 3am to 5am. It had some funny parts, but overall it just wasn't fun enough to make that Troma level for me. When it isn't fun, it's only bad, and no one wants that. Probably the hardest thing to watch was the girl's ex-lover kill her dog by feeding it hamburger with cut glass in it. Even if it's pretend, who wants to see that? Bad. Then the last ten minutes was some scene of two dudes getting lap dances at a strip club. For whose benefit is that in there? Certainly not mine.
I guess I knew I was had when I saw the Chess King outfit on the hero in Psycho Kickboxer, because there was no way a movie made in 2007 would have people dressed like they were from 1992 in it. 1997 makes more sense, because bad movie fashion is usually 5 years behind the times. I just thought I was going to see some new blood in the DTV market, and instead it was the same old same old putting lipstick on a pig.
Just be careful with this double feature. I don't want to begrudge anyone a bad movie experience, but these two are bottom of the barrel. You won't recognize anyone in either (though Michael Mann's name comes up as producer in Canvas of Blood-- don't know what he and his lawyer think!), and I just didn't find them to be a lot of fun. Rent at your own peril.
For more info (Psycho Kickboxer): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493231/
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