Murder City (2023)

I've been a huge Mike Colter fan since I saw him in Luke Cage, which is one of my favorite things Marvel has done. When I saw this Tubi Original with him in it pop up on my Tubi recommendations, I knew I had to make it happen. Let's see how it did.

Murder City has Colter as a semi-corrupt cop who decides to take his dad (Antonio Fargas) up on an offer to make some easy cash by doing a drop off and pick up of some illicit stuff. Turns out the DEA was wise to it, and both of them get clipped. After two years in the can, Colter is out and trying to pick up the pieces of his life. Local crime boss Stephanie Sigma has been messing with his wife and son, and not only that, she's upset that Fargas sounds like he's going to cut a deal with the DEA to bring her down. He offers to work for her as hired muscle, while at the same time he's working undercover to get the goods on Sigman so he can bring her down himself. All of this sounds like it should work out really easily, right?

This wasn't bad. It was slow in a few spots, but with the short runtime, that was mitigated. Colter was great too, along with Sigman as the baddie, and Fargas as the dad. On the other hand, the powerful crime boss stuff got repetitive, no matter how good Colter and Sigman were. You can only see it so much: Colter thinks he's making headway, but she's one step ahead because she's got "eyes all over the city." Like when his wife and son go to a hotel to get away, we know it's only a matter of time before Sigman's goons fine them--and when they do, we get a particularly brutal beating of Colter's wife, played by Medina Senghore. The action was sparse, as this was more of a suspense kind of story, but what we got wasn't bad, especially the fight Colter has with Anderson Silva, who plays Sigman's right-hand man. I think if this didn't have Colter in it, it would've felt more run-of-the-mill, but because it did, he made it a more enjoyable ride.

Looking at Colter's IMDb bio, he doesn't have a lot of DTV stuff, and in a way I was relieved to see that, as it means his career is still doing well in the upper tiers of the industry. This one may have come across his desk as some extra money, or maybe something that was going to be bigger than it was. The thing is, the character he played could've been more compelling in a different setting, like maybe a remake of a Bad Lieutenant, where he starts out like he does here, only pinching a couple hundred bucks here or there from lower-level drug pushers he catches, and then it starts to spiral, either with a gambling addiction like Keitel had in Bad Lieutenant, or maybe it's a mental spiraling like Cage in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. There's a sense in watching Colter play this part that he had more to give it, but this story wasn't built for that. I don't know if we'll see him again on here, because he's doing more big-budget films and he has a broadcast TV show, but at the very least it was great to see him this one time. And if you haven't yet, you should check out Luke Cage on Disney+. Colter is Luke Cage, and hopefully with the new Daredevil show coming, they'll bring him back to reprise his Cage as well.

As much as this was run-of-the-mill, Stephanie Sigman was a great baddie. She had this calm demeanor that we all knew was a facade over her true sinister nature, giving every scene she's in a vibe of tension and impending danger, and then when the more overt stuff came out, it made it all the more chilling. I think with someone with the kind of screen presence Colter has, a baddie has to be truly special to make us believe that she could scare Colter, and Sigman does that. Speaking of Luke Cage and the Marvel Defenders shows, another villain she brings to mind is Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin, but part of what makes him so scary is his imposing size, and that makes the fact that Sigman could pull this off so well that much more impressive. Like Colter, I'm not sure how much more we'll see her on the site, but she has a few things that may end up on here, so you never know.

We last saw Antonio Fargas in Night of the Sharks, which was our post in honor of the late Treat Williams. Unlike Colter and Sigman, we'd expect to see Fargas on here more, but this is only his fourth film. I looked at his bio, and while there are some we could've done, his stuff doesn't overlap with what we do as much as you'd think. What I liked about his performance here, was this was straight-ahead serious with no goofing around. I imagine that's why he would've taken this role, because it wasn't just another version of Huggy Bear, he got to do something else, and he did really well with it. 

Finally, in addition to being a Tubi Original, this is also a Fox Entertainment Studios production. I was curious what else they'd done, since Fox sold off their 20th Century Fox movie arm to Disney, and it turns out according to IMDb not much. There's this, 2023's Cinnamon, two hacky-looking Right Wing culture war animated films, and another animated film called Big Bruh. All of these are also Tubi Originals, which makes sense, because Fox owns Tubi. It seems like they might be slowly inching back into the movie game, nowhere near at the score they were at before, but at least involved; while it looks like in Deadpool and Wolverine this summer we have a scene where the 20th Century Fox logo is buried in the dirt as a relic of the past, symbolizing what once was. It is interesting that they had all of these Marvel properties, especially the X-Men, and they couldn't hit Disney and Marvel Studio's success, but when you look at films like Deadpool and read that they cut the budget and wouldn't pay for a Wolverine appearance, you can see how they mismanaged their assets even on relative successes like that. I guess we'll see what this new direct to Tubi iteration does now.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently you can get this on Tubi here in the States, and as a free streamer it's not a bad deal. It had a run-of-the-mill plot that we've seen often, but the performances and the runtime elevate it to something a bit better.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2583014

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

Equal Standard (2020)

I was looking to get some more Ice-T on the site, and saw this on Tubi. The story looked compelling, which was made even more so when I learned that the screenwriter, Taheim Bryan, was murdered about a year after this came out. Great story, great cast, this had all the hallmarks of a solid film.

Equal Standard follows an NYPD detective named Chris (Tobias Truvillion) who is out with a friend, and is accosted by two racist cops that don't realize Chris is a cop too. Shots are fired, Chris is hit, and one of the racist cops is killed. This sparks a massive controversy, as the city is already tense due to a rash of police shootings, plus the racist cop is from a "Blue Lives Matter"-type family, where the younger brother and a racist friend want revenge, while the older brother has a sense of what his family's about and is trying to stop the younger brother before he gets into trouble. Underneath this, local gangs led by Ice-T and Treach call a truce so they can deal with their common enemy: the NYPD. All Chris wants is for this to end so he, his wife, and daughter can move on and live their lives.

This was really good. There were some clunky moments with some of the interludes that were mixed in, where some of the supporting characters would have conversations that tried to delve into issues like how cops that also happen to be people of color feel about what's happening, but that's a smaller issue, and to some extent it still worked despite the clunkiness. What I liked was the compelling characters in Chris and his wife Jackie (Syleena Johnson), both police officers who both want to make a positive difference, but also just want a comfortable life for them and their daughter. It grounds the film and gives it a level of humanness that we often don't get in movies like this. From there, we had great supporting performances from bigger names like Ice-T; Robert Clohessy, who plays an IA investigator looking into the shooting who thinks something's off with the dead cop's partner's story; General Hospital's Maurice Bernard as Chris's police captain; and Chris Kerson as the dead cop's older brother. Finally, because the film was shot in New York, we get the full effect of the "New York as a character" element. At times it feels like an unfeeling observer, lurking in the background throughout all the conflict and tension; but at others it feels like a massive gravitational force that can pull the story in different directions. This is worth checking out, especially while you can stream it for free.

We always start with our DTVC Hall of Famer, and this film is no different, as Ice-T proves again why he has that status, and why he should've been inducted long before he was. It's the perfect use of him too, if you only have him for a short shooting schedule, make him the high-level gang boss that isn't in the film as much, and he'll make the most of that time, which he did. Everything you want in that character, a sense of menace and power, yet he's also intriguing and compelling. This is now 18 films for him, and I think this performance here is a reminder of how much more we need to get him on the site. Truly one of the greats, which he reinforces in this film.

One of the elements I really liked in this film was the way it depicted racism and removed some of the verbal equivocations racists try to use to avoid saying they're racist. One involves the N word, where racists will sometimes say "if black people can use the word, why can't white people?" The film smashes that false equivalency when we have two scenes almost back-to-back, one where some of the gang members call themselves the N word, and then another when the racist cop's father goes to the police station and uses it. That juxtaposition is sharp and jarring, and it delivers the point effectively that the two uses are not the same. Another is the Confederate Flag. Racists have all kinds of excuses for why they have it--"it represents the South," "I like Lynyrd Skynyrd," "it's part of my heritage as a Southerner." Again, the filmmakers smash those equivocations when the racist cop's younger brother and his White Nationalist friend break into Chris's house and hang a Confederate Flag on the wall. The message the flag is meant to convey is clear, there's no other reason why they'd do that if that flag meant anything else.

Someone I wasn't expecting to see was Maurice Bernard, who plays Chris's captain. I know him as Sonny, the mob boss on General Hospital, which I haven't seen in years, and didn't realize was still on the air. Growing up, my mom watched the ABC soap operas, which were All My Children, One Life to Live, and then General Hospital. Later, when I was older, our neighbor would babysit my younger brother and sister after school, and she watched General Hospital as well. I remember I'd go inside to get my baseball glove or basketball or something, my friends waiting outside, and then I'd find myself watching it until the commercial, and my friends would be annoyed that I kept them waiting. There's something about soap operas that always drew me in. Anyway, I was curious which soaps were still on the air now. General Hospital was the lone survivor on ABC; and then Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful are still on CBS--and I thought that was it, but Days is streaming only on Peacock. For decades, soaps were king on daytime TV, and now it's talk shows and judge shows; but somehow General Hospital has held on, with Maurice Bernard still there 30 years later. It was great to see him here, and great to see him turn in a great performance.

Finally, someone I was expecting to see even less than Maurice Bernard, was Bill Weeden. Who's Bill Weeden you ask? He played the baddie in Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD, one of my all-time favorite films. I had no idea he was doing other stuff, but here he is in this, with long hair, some kind of official person at a church that has a KKK picture on the wall, telling the racist cop's younger brother and his White Nationalist friend that they're fighting the good fight as racists. Sgt. Kabukiman came out in 1990, and 30 years later New York is a very different place--in fact, Troma had to move out of Hell's Kitchen because it's too expensive, and now they're in Long Island City, Queens--which is also where the writer of this film, Taheim Bryan, was killed. I didn't know NYC in the 1990s--and to be fair, I don't really know it now either, I just pop up there a few times a year for a day trip to see a sporting event or go to a work conference--but this film kind of gives you the sense that for some people, they were left behind by the changes New York has gone through, but at the same time, for those same people who were left behind, they also have a more authentic relationship with the city. Like so many elements in this film, it's complicated, and in 90s minutes they're able to convey that complicated nature really well.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of my writing, you can get this on Tubi, Freevee, Plex, and Prime here in the States. While it may have a few moments that were a little rough around the edges, overall this really worked for me, and I think worth checking out, especially on a free streamer.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8171000

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

The Commando (2022)

I saw this on Tubi and wanted to make it happen strictly to get more Michael Jai White on the site, and the fact that it had some other favorites like Mickey Rourke and Jeff Fahey helped. In addition to us, the New York Times, The Guardian, and Variety have covered this too.

The Commando has White as a DEA agent suffering from PTSD after accidentally shooting and killing a wife and her two young daughters during a raid of a drug compound. At the same time, Mickey Rourke is getting out of prison, and he wants the $3 million he stashed in his parents' old house. Whose house is that now? You guessed it, White's. Just happens that one of his daughters has found some of the money, so she uses some of that to send her parents on weekend away, with the idea in mind that with her parents away, she can have a party. Oh, she'll have a party all right, and her poor older sister will have more to worry about than whether or not she'll get to sleep with all the noise, as these violent baddies break in looking for their cash. Will White make it back in time to save them?

Save who? The daughters? From death maybe, but the unfortunate older one still gets beaten and raped, and while most of it happens off-screen, that it happens at all is enough. The Guardian wasn't a fan of it either, but mistook the older daughter for the younger daughter who threw the party, so it wasn't even a twisted penance for throwing a party as they said, it's a twisted penance for being a stick in the mud about the party? And speaking of the party, all the guys and some of the girls the younger daughter invites over get murdered too. In a horror movie, teens getting killed is harsh, but we can handle it. When it's sadistic baddies in a home invasion, it's darker, and was handled here pretty callously, as if director Asif Akbar didn't realize he was murdering kids or something. The Michael Jai White we get is solid, and I did like the twist of him dealing with PTSD from a DEA mission instead of a combat tour, but even that didn't make a lot of sense, considering he was slitting guys' throats and shooting first and asking questions later all over the place. As the writer of the Variety review said, it felt more like a writer's crutch. Either way, when he gets home and takes out all of Rourke's baddies, it was pretty sweet, it was just a shame we didn't get more of it sooner. Rourke himself was great, even in a limited capacity, as was Jeff Fahey, in an even more limited capacity. I think if this had a cleaner, less dark identity, it would've worked better. The rape and murder of kids is not something to casually toss around in a film, especially not a 90-minute DTV actioner that's more meant to be a fun time waster than anything.

But we did achieve our one goal, right? We got more White up, with this being his 25th film now. Interestingly enough, that puts him only two behind Scott Adkins. Depending on how the new releases fall, if I'm leaning more on the back catalogs White could catch him and beat him to the 30 Club. The thing you can see when watching a film like this is how much he should be getting better parts in better films. Forget playing a DEA agent who slits low-level drug cartel members' throats, he's showed us over and over how much better he is than that. I think that's why he's gotten into more directing. An Outlaw Johnny Black isn't going to come to him, he needs to make it himself, and what's great is when he does, we get something fantastic. He does his best to make this fantastic too, which I appreciate. He saw something in the character he liked and went for it--for one take, and then they moved on to the next scene, as this did feel like a bit of a rush job.

This is now five for Mickey Rourke, and while we can joke that you get what you pay for, because he's not in many scenes, he also turns in a pretty solid performance in the limited role he has, and I think the fact that he's in this at all is the reason this is getting reviewed in major publications and not just sites like mine. One thing I didn't realize about him, I thought he was born in the late 50s/early 60s, but he was born in 1952, meaning he was almost 70 when this was made. I don't think he was playing someone 70 though, I think based off of John Enos III, who was playing a biker that was a longtime friend of Rourke's, that would make him ten years younger, but then I think both of them were supposed to have been born in the late 60s, which would mean Rourke was playing someone a good 15 years younger. I think you could also do the same thing with Michael Jai White, who was born in '67, but paired with Brendan Fehr in this, who was born in '77, probably say that White's character was ten years younger too. To be honest, I would've liked Rourke's character more if he was playing his age. Say he was in prison even longer, maybe he has to adapt more to life on the outside. The problem was, with the limited time they had him, younger and less time in jail was the way they had to play it.

This is the second film we've done that was directed by Asif Akbar, the other being the Gary Daniels film Astro. This one was definitely more brutal than that one, but it also felt a bit like an Amir Shervan film in that the brutality felt more like it was trying to mimic the American action genre. Akbar said in his bio that he grew up in the States, unlike Shervan who moved here during the Iranian Revolution, which I think would explain why it's not as off as the Shervan films were, but the seeds of it are still there. Tonally, murdering teens, beating and raping a young woman, or even DEA agents slitting the cartel grunts' throats puts the movie in a different place from teens just being held hostage and menaced, the threat of the young woman being raped but it never happens, and the cartel grunts being incapacitated with a rear-naked choke by the DEA agents. Where does that confused tone come in though? Is it a misunderstanding of what makes Commando--not The Commando--with Schwarzenegger work despite the high body count? What is the difference between Arnold raiding the tool shed and murdering baddies versus DEA agents slitting guys' throats? I don't know how to explain it fully, but tonally that difference exists, and this film has the Shervan--or even Godfrey Ho--feel of our culture being reflected back at us, even if it was to a much smaller degree.

Finally, this film asks the age-old question: what do you do when you find a lot of money? The closest situation I've ever been in to that, was when I was out with some friends and their kids, and I was washing my hands after going to the bathroom, when one of the friends' kids came out of a stall with a wallet stuffed with cash and asked me what to do with it. This was a TGIFridays, so we took it to the host, and the person whose wallet it was came for it after. We got barely a thank you from the guy, forget any of the cash as a reward, but I felt better knowing we did the right thing regardless. Now, if I found millions of dollars under a floorboard where I was living, I'd probably call the cops in that situation too, and they'd probably just confiscate it and use it for their police funds, but with all the action films I've seen, I'd also wonder if they may be in on it, like Fahey was here, and instead of letting me just turn it over, would kill me for it too. I don't have the martial arts skills of say a Don "The Dragon" Wilson, who could handle the Bloodfist-ian wherewithal required to escape a situation like that, and then live on the run for however long it took to expose the conspiracy at the heart of why this cop tried to kill me. All that to say, I guess the hope is I'm never unfortunate enough to find a pile of cash anywhere, especially not in the floorboards of a place I'm living in.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of my writing, you can get this free on Tubi here in the States. I think this is really for Michael Jai White completists, or if you have a site like mine and you want to get more than 30 films of his reviewed. Otherwise, you could probably skip it. You've seen this one before, and while it tries to cover new territory with the PTSD angle, really what distinguishes it is the tonal confusion with all the brutality.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12689248

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

Deadly Impact aka Impatto mortale (1984)

With this weekend being the Super Bowl here in the States, and with the Kansas City Chiefs one of the participants, I figured we'd do a Fred Williamson film, considering he played in the first Super Bowl for that same Chiefs team. Also, this is a good time for us to officially celebrate his entry into the 30 Club. In addition to us, the guys at Comeuppance and The Video Vacuum have covered this, so we're completing the triangle with our review.

Deadly Impact has Bo Svenson as a detective on the edge who likes to crash cars. He's investigating the murder of a young computer programmer along with his hustler/helicopter pilot buddy, Fred Williamson. They discover the murdered young man had software that allowed him to see when slot machines in Vegas would hit, and some baddies wanted all the money he'd won. Now it's a race against time, as the baddies are looking to kidnap the young man's girlfriend to find out where their money was, and our heroes need to stop them. Will they make it in time? And if they do, how many cars will Svenson crash in the process?

This is a fun one for sure. As Ty and Brett said in their review, this is an Italian production rip-off/cover movie of 48 Hours, and with that in mind we'd rather have Bo Svenson and Fred Williamson than Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. The two of them are a fantastic pair and have great chemistry, which makes them enjoyable to watch. It is a bit on the dark side (John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band?)--I mean, our baddies are leaving a trail of bodies all over Phoenix that would make most mass killers in history blush. That said, when people aren't being murdered, the car chases are fantastic. Just when you think they could be going on too long, one of the cars suddenly flips over somethings and lands on it's roof. How do you not love that? And Svenson's character in particular seems to love crashing into things--the moment he borrows someone's car you know that's it for it. The helicopter chase we get near the end was fun too, culminating in a sweet helicopter explosion. The other thing is, for the juvenile minded of us out there, of which I count myself among them, the word "hacker" hadn't been coined yet, at least not officially, so the term used in this was "computer penetration," and what we know of as "cyber security" was "penetration prevention." I'm giggling about it as I'm writing it. Finally, speaking of Phoenix, we get some nice shots of the city in the 1980s, plus even better, shots of 1980s Vegas, which looks fantastic. If you can find a copy of this, it's worth checking out.

For years we've been talking about getting Fred Williamson into the 30 Club, and when we finally do it, it ends up being a tiny cameo at the end of The Outlaw Johnny Black, so while this is technically his 31st film on the site, I figured we'd use this one to truly celebrate his entry--though even this one is more of a Bo Svenson film, with Williamson playing his sidekick. In less than a month from my writing this, he'll be 86 years old, and he still has in production credits on IMDb. Even without those, I count around 25 films of his that we could do on this site that we haven't yet, so the 40 and 50 Club are definitely possibilities, I just need to review his films at a more consistent clip--which has been the thing that's kept him out of the 30 Club for so long. There's also the element of him being a director, with him being the only member of the 20-10 Club--20+ films as an actor, 10+ films as a director. We do have a couple more of the films he's directed that we can do here as well, I just need to track them down. One thing I liked about this one, was it was an Italian production, but it didn't take place in the future or after the apocalypse. Not that I don't enjoy seeing Williamson in those films too, but this one was a nice change of pace. One of the greatest to ever do it, finally joining the 30 Club here at the DTVC. It's an honor that's long overdue and well-deserved.

As I mentioned above, this also has Bo Svenson. In looking over his bio, I didn't realize how similar to Dolph he is. Both from Sweden, both came here to study--Dolph mechanical engineering, Svenson metaphysics--both fell into acting, and both are 6'5" and athletic. The big difference I think is the size of the big break each got, where Svenson's came in replacing Paul Newman as Robert Redford's co-star in The Great Waldo Pepper, and Dolph's was as Ivan Drago in the hit blockbuster Rocky IV, which led to the lead in another blockbuster, Masters of the Universe. The two did team up in The Killing Machine, which was directed by Dolph, so we at least have that. As far as team-ups go though, it's his work with Williamson that's the best, and this film is another example of that. In Williamson's later films, Svenson would often play a baddie, so it was cool to see the two of them working together and bantering with each other, as Svenson crashed Williamson's car that only had two notes left on it.

We get to use the McDonald's tag for the twelfth time, as this film has not one but two locations, one in Vegas, and then the one above in Phoenix. While I have had McDonald's in Vegas before, I've never been out of the Phoenix airport to have been able to get it there--I did get it near the Grand Canyon though, so I have had it in the state of Arizona. What's great here is the baddies are using the payphone at McDonald's, which I don't know if we've ever seen before. Before the advent of the mass availability cellphones, I remember using payphones at McDonald's, smelling the fries cooking, the scent almost like an anthropomorphized hand pulling me in like you might see with a pie cooling on a windowsill in an old cartoon, I couldn't wait to get my call done so I could get inside and order, despite having had no plan to get anything prior to making that phone call. It was a business model for them that went away when payphones were no longer necessary, but back in 1984 it was in full effect as we watched the two baddies go inside after their call, seemingly unable to resist the siren song of McDonald's. Here in Philly many of the McDonald's near us have closed, so instead of that great French fry smell, it's the Popeye's fried chicken, which can be just as alluring.

Finally, I caught this billboard advertising Arizona State football games on the radio as this car flew past it. It reminded me that in 1984 the Phoenix area didn't have an NFL team yet. I looked it up, the St. Louis Cardinals moved there for the 1988 season--in fact St. Louis has lost two NFL teams in my life, first the Cardinals, and then they got the LA Rams in 1995, where they stayed until they moved back to LA in 2015. It's a strange concept to the rest of the world I think, that in US pro sports--and Canadian when those teams play in the US pro leagues--teams can move around like that. In fact, two of Phoenix's four professional teams are from other cities, as they got their hockey team, the Coyotes, from Winnipeg--don't worry, Winnipeg eventually got Atlanta's NHL team, so they have NHL hockey again. This also shows how much Phoenix has grown in the 40 years since this film was made. They went from having only one top tier professional team, the Phoenix Suns of the NBA, to now one in each of the four sports; and is also now the fifth largest city in the US by population if you just go by city limits, more than doubling their population between the 1980 census where they had just shy of 800,000 people, to the 2020 census, where they had over 1.6 million people. You'd like to think this film helped that trend of growth, but actually there was a 10% dip in population growth between 1970 and 1980, where they had 35% growth, and 1980 and 1990, where they only had 25% growth. My hunch is seeing Svenson driving around like a maniac scared some people off.

And with that, let's wrap this up. I caught this on Plex here in the States, but you can see that that version they have available isn't much better than a VHS rip on YouTube--in fact, you even get the same tracking issues at some points--and Plex is one of the worst for commercials, every 15 minutes you get about 150 seconds-worth, which is a pain, but it's better than nothing, and this is worth checking out however you can.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087461

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

Craving (2023)

In my attempt to get at least one indie movie in per month, I figured I'd see what old friend of the site J. Horton was up to. I saw that this was on Tubi, and had been meaning to watch it for a while, so it seemed like the right time. Unfortunately I was ill and this review sat, but we're making it happen now. In addition to us, another friend of the site, screenwriter Tom Joliffe, has covered this for Flickering Myth.

Craving starts with a couple of local police officers walking through the aftermath of a blood bath in a dive bar outside of town, where they find only one survivor. Flashback to the night before, some locals are enjoying themselves at that same bar, when they hear gunshots outside, the owner (Felissa Rose) gets killed when she tries to investigate, and then the bar and it's patrons are taken over at gunpoint. Who are these people who are holding them hostage? And who are the people outside that seem to want to kill these people? As the night goes on, the gang outside starts pushing to come in, and the gang inside is starting to fracture. All this happens while one of their members is ill. Could he just be a junky going through withdrawals, or is it something more sinister?

This is more of a slow-burner for a horror film, and for the most part it works, so I couldn't figure out why it felt like it was dragging. Yes, the hostage scenario can be hard to mitigate, because it can be repetitive, but the story did a great job adding elements throughout to keep it interesting. When we got to the end though, where we have a fantastic monster reveal, plus Horton goes all out with the practical effects in the killings, that's when it hit me: because we got the ending at the beginning, I couldn't wait to get back there and see what happened, and everything before it was just prolonging the inevitable. In that sense, maybe sticking the end at the end instead of teasing it at the beginning would've been a better bet. All that said, the monster is fantastic, and as I mentioned above Horton sets up a great reveal for it; I loved the practical effects, no punches are pulled, it's all kinds of blood and guts; and perhaps best of all, Horton's direction combined with Sophia Cacciola's cinematography gave us some really well-shot scenes that enhanced the actors' performances, ramped up the suspense, and accentuated the horror. Yes, I couldn't wait to get to the end after seeing the end at the beginning, but that ending delivered, which is what you want.

I believe this is the fourth film of J. Horton's that we've done on the site, the others being Monsters in the Woods, Deceitful, and Trap. Out of those, I still have Trap as my favorite of his, but this is probably my second-favorite now. This has elements of the suspenseful interplay between the characters that Trap had, which was important to keep the hostage scenario interesting, but then he goes all out at the end when we get the monster reveal and the monster starts killing people. The other aspect of this that I thought worked really well was his editing. I'd seen a couple of his documentaries and the editing work he'd done on those, so it was cool to see it play such an important role in this film. It's part of the art of film making that, in more modern contexts, is often used to make a movie something different from what a director initially wanted, maybe after a studio, producer, or even actor has their say, so to see it used here to enhance a director's vision was refreshing.

As a writer myself, I know one of the toughest things to do is to not fall so much in love with your characters that you can't put them through the ringer, or even kill them off, but it didn't seem like Horton or his co-writer, Gregory Blair, had that problem at all. Pretty much everyone gets it, and gets it in horrific fashion. One of the interesting things was, despite having so many characters for a film like this, because of the way it played out where we get most of the action at the end, it gave us time to get to know a lot of them, so when their head was ripped open or their entrails were ripped out and thrown across the bar, they weren't simply "store owner number 2," but also they weren't playing types, like "Zack the Jerk Guy who we can't wait to see get it." It's something we don't usually see in a horror film, to put that much work into creating people who are going to die by the end, but it added another layer here.

This film has a bit of a "Final Girl" element in Rachel Amanda Bryant's Shiloh character, but the weird thing is, out of all the characters, she doesn't get much of a backstory. Other characters get flashbacks or more plot exposition that give us a better sense of who they are and what their motivations are, and I feel like Shiloh could've used that as well. How did she end up working at that bar? What is it about her that would make her a candidate to be the one who survives the beast's attack? One thing I liked about the flashbacks is it felt like it gave the actors whose characters had them more material that they could draw from, which in turn made their performances more authentic. It's an interesting idea that I had never considered before, because many films use other actors in the flashbacks, like younger versions of the characters, which doesn't give the actor that extra layer to build from that they get when they're performing the flashback themselves. In microbudget films like these, with tight shooting schedules, I think small touches like that can make a huge difference.

Finally if you're not following J. Horton on YouTube, you should be, because he produces videos on the business of film making (you can also see clips of the videos in reel format on his Instagram). Even someone like myself who doesn't make movies, the information is invaluable, as it pulls back the curtain and gives more insight into how the sausage is made; but also his tips on proper social media promotion apply to anyone with something they're trying to sell, including my novels. He both demystifies the process, but also doesn't sugarcoat anything. Like when he talks about your social media strategy, it's not a silver bullet or a magical way to game the system, it's a lot of work, but he's showing where he's found you can get the most out of that work. There always entertaining and insightful watches, and worth checking out.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently catch this on Tubi here in the States. It's definitely worth checking out, I really enjoyed it, and streaming on Tubi is a great way to support an indie filmmaker without breaking your bank.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17069062

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

American Warships (2012)

With the unfortunate passing of the great Carl Weathers, a post in his honor was required. He's someone who has only been on the site twice, but his influence is so massive, especially to me as an action movie fan, that finding something to review for him as soon as possible was absolutely necessary. In addition to us, Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

American Warships is about an EMP attack on warships in the Pacific by a mysterious actor. Could it be the North Koreans? The Chinese? Either way, General Hugh McCracken (Weathers) and the Secretary of Defense need to get to the bottom of it before World War III breaks out. Fortunately the USS Iowa, a World War II warship, has been restored to its WWII glory in anticipation of it becoming a living museum in California, which means it survived the EMP burst and is still functional. Led by Captain Mario Van Peebles, it's our only hope against an all out war. But when he sends a group of Navy SEALs onboard the enemy ship, what they find will change everything. The problem is, will everyone believe them?

This is pretty standard Asylum fare. Lots of CGI, to the point you kind of can't always make out what you're seeing; a story that's uneven and probably could've used a few more rewrites, but no one had the time; and some big names who are giving you as much as they can, but also possibly imagining how they're going to be reading their agents the riot act when this is all done. On the other hand it feels like it's trying to mimic the 50s sci-fi slogs you'd get on an MST3K, or that might be on TV on a weekend afternoon growing up. The thing I'd say about that, is the film techniques those movies used actually looked nicer. There are scenes where raiding parties are trying to board the stealth enemy ship, and there's fake water splashing everywhere, to the point that I couldn't make out anything that was going on. No 50s sci-fi flick would do that. There are ways though that The Asylum improves on the 50s model though. You wouldn't see a person of color in a command role back then, but here we have two in Van Peebles and Weathers; plus we have women in prominent roles, and more than one. Ultimately, I think like those 50s sci-fi flicks that you might see on a weekend afternoon to kill time, this film fills the same niche, whether you're watching alone or with friends, and maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Where do we even start with Carl Weathers? For me, like most movie watchers, Apollo Creed was where I first saw him, and that would've been in Rocky III on The Movie Loft, which would've been followed up soon after with Rocky IV and The Predator. From there, it would've been Street Justice in the early 90s. Friday nights on WNDS in Derry, NH, we had Renegade and Street Justice--a much better line-up than ABC's TGIF shows. Weathers and Genesse were a great pair, and it was one of my favorite shows at that time. Then I saw Action Jackson, where not only was he amazing, but the fact that we had Coach as a baddie was great too. And I think that really cemented Weathers as an all-time great for me, so whenever I saw him in anything else after that, like Happy Gilmore or Friday Foster, or heard his voice in a Regular Show episode or saw him in The Mandalorian, there was a sense of "this is awesome just because it has Weathers in it," he had attained that level. Even though he's not in this as much, I do think you can say that about this, or at least that it's better just by virtue of the fact that he's in it. And I think that's what we'll miss the most about Weathers leaving us, the fact that we'll no longer have anything new coming out that's awesome just because it has him in it. Here's to you Mr. Weathers, you truly were one of the greatest to ever do it, and you'll be greatly missed.

In addition to Weathers, we had Mario Van Peebles as the ship's captain. I had just seen him a little while back in a rewatch of Highlander: The Final Dimension, so obviously this role was a departure from that. I joked above that he was probably mentally dressing down his agent for getting him this part, but I will say too that Van Peebles may have also considered that 50-60 years earlier his part wouldn't have been available to him due to his ethnicity, and that may have factored into him signing on. This is where representation matters, because for him growing up in the 60s, when these old sci-fi movies would've been on TV or showing in local theaters, he would've only seen white guys, especially in leadership roles, but now a kid flipping through the channels or browsing Tubi on a Saturday afternoon could stumble upon this and him leading everyone into battle against the baddies--and not just African American kids either. Compare that to the blockbuster this was ripping off, Battleship, where Van Peebles's part was played by Alexander Skarsgard and Weathers's part was played by Liam Neeson. With that in mind, maybe Van Peebles saw more in this than a paycheck.

Speaking of Battleship, I'd totally forgotten that movie even existed. As with many Asylum Mockbusters, I try to find the movie they were mimicking if it's not obvious, and I only found it when I read in the trivia that they originally wanted to call this "American Battleships," but Universal threatened to sue if they did. It's easy to understand why I would've forgotten that Battleship even existed, because 2012 was full of big movies that all pulled in a ton of money. That early 2010s period, where everyone was scrambling to find the next big franchise, Marvel Studios was totally changing the game with The Avengers, but at that time, no one, including The Asylum, knew that was going to happen, so when they saw Battleship was being made they scrambled to get their own Mockbuster version out there, which has now becomes like an inside joke that people would only get if they remembered the moment it was referring to. The thing about the Asylum is they can never quite get a movie like this all the way right, which seems odd, because these movies feel like they make themselves. Like we have a scene where a Navy SEAL comes back from the enemy ship and he's all charred, and they find a roll of film he stuck inside himself by carving a hole in his abdomen. Why did we need that? I guess because The Asylum is always gonna Asylum. Anyway, this is now 35 films for them, meaning they're closing in on the 40 Club. I don't know if they're make it this year, but they'll definitely get there eventually. You almost have to admire their stick-to-it-iveness.

Finally, one aspect of The Asylum film I enjoy, is that one supporting character we get that I want to root for. In this case it's Nikki McCauley's Dr. Julia Flynn, a quirky WWII expert who's leading the overhaul of the ship to make it a living WWII museum. When the EMP first strikes and knocks out all of the ship's electronics, she points out all of the retro-fitted elements that still work. Van Peebles isn't sure he can trust her, but with only 90 minutes, they can't mess around with that too much, so she ends up playing an integral part in their success against the baddies. Unfortunately, in true Asylum fashion, her character is severely injured and we see her at the end, forced to walk with a cane and with a scar on her face--again, Asylum gonna Asylum. I think the Asylum goes into things expecting all of the characters to be like Dr. Flynn, that we want to root for everyone on the side of good, but usually due to how the script falls, the editing, and the performances, we're lucky if we get one like that, and fortunately we did here. Here's to all the Nikki McCauley's out there, making Asylum films more palatable. 

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of my writing, you can get this on Tubi here in the States. I don't know that it's one you want to go out of your way for, and if you're looking for a film to watch in tribute of Carl Weathers, all of the Rocky films are on Max, and The Predator is on Hulu; but for a weekend afternoon time killer, this will do the trick. As far as Weathers, one of the true legends of the film world, he will be missed, and I think he's worthy of a second toast, so here's to you again Mr. Weathers, you were one of the greatest.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2175927/

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