Def by Temptation is about a succubus (Cynthia Bond), who is killing men who are playing women in New York City. Is it such a bad thing if she's only killing cheaters? When minister-in-training Joel (James Bond III, who also wrote and directed) goes to NYC to visit his friend K (Kadeem Hardison), he becomes the succubus's next target, so someone not-so not-innocent is now in danger. Hardison has to stop her, and fortunately he's found an ally in Dougy (Bill Nunn), the worst of the players at the bar who just happens to be an undercover cop who specializes in the occult. Will they be able to work together and save Joel before the succubus gets him?
This was a ton of fun. It's not exactly direct-to-video, because it made about $2 million in the theater, but it feels DTV, if you know what I mean. It's the kind of late-night horror you might see on cable or at the video store, something that only gets better with time. James Bond III does a great job crafting a unique yet fun and scary tale, and the robust supporting cast does their job rounding out the proceedings and adding extra weight that a low-budget horror film from 1990 may not otherwise have. Just the opening alone is fantastic, where a bartender is on the phone, cheating on his girlfriend, spitting the funniest lines in the process. Then when the succubus takes him back to her place to kill him, and he's running around buck-ass naked, it's both hilarious, and you kind of feel bad for him. You get the fun, but you also get the nuance of making sure we want to see the succubus stopped. Just an all-around great time.
I mentioned above that this was one I'd wanted to do for a long time. How long? In the early 2000s, Troma was doing a sale, and I bought Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD, Surf Nazis Must Die, Class of Nuke 'Em High, and Toxic Avenger all for $5 a piece. I believe each of those had a trailer for this movie, with Bill Nunn's classic line, "when she drinks that holy water, she's gonna be slobberin' and fartin' and gaggin'." My buddy and I would always say "we have to watch that!", but then I don't know, the beer, the weed, the Taco Bell, the Doritos--maybe a combination of all of them?--would cause us to forget, and the movie never happened for us. This is what makes the world we live in now great. Yes, there are a lot of issues with streaming, but one of the good things is that a movie that once slipped through my fingers might now be available, and while I may need to sit through a series of commercials about online casinos, with my attention span shot anyway, it gives me a chance to look at my phone.
It turns out this is the third Samuel L. Jackson film we've done on the site. In addition to Arena, he was an uncredited extra in The Exterminator, so I need to tag that too. You'd think with how prolific he is, that he'd have more DTV stuff, but if you look at the timeline, he got the role of Nick Fury not long after we started the DTVC, so in that sense it's probably crazier that he did Arena at all than it is that he hasn't done anything else. On the other hand, this is our fourth Kadeem Hardison film, the other three being the Michael Jai White/Asylum Joint Android Cop and two Mark Dacascos films, Instinct to Kill and the all-time classic, Drive. The Jackson we get is rather scant, a bit at the beginning and a bit in the close; but the Hardison is prodigious and he's a lot of fun. A classic for both of them to be sure.
This was distributed by Troma, with Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz as executive producers. When I started this site back in 2007, Troma was a huge part of my DTV watching life, and I figured I'd have more of their films reviewed than any other company--I didn't even have PM on my radar then. But as I've said before, soon after I started, people were reaching out about the action films I was reviewing. At that time there weren't many of us doing low-budget action--and there really aren't many more now--while the horror review ecosystem was much more robust, which meant those reviews were more likely to get lost in the shuffle. Take this film for example, it has 30 critic reviews. For a somewhat obscure low-budget horror flick from 1990, 30 is a lot. A good comp might be One Man Force, a classic that came out in 1989, which only has 10 reviews, of which four are Bulletproof, Comeuppance, Explosive Action, and us. So that means we have nearly 50 PM flicks reviewed, while this is only our 13th Troma flick. I'll see what I can do about getting more up in the near future.
Finally, saxophone great Najee plays himself in this, and also performs a song. What you may not know about me is I'm a huge Smooth Jazz fan, especially if it's saxophone-led, so Najee is one that's right up there for me. I love his cover of Anita Baker's "Sweet Love," and of course, "Tokyo Blue," you could play that whole album, also called Tokyo Blue, it's great top to bottom. Another song is "All I Ever Ask," which isn't bad either, but features Freddie Jackson, who also stars in this as himself. Was this where they met before their collaboration? Another nice hit off that album Just an Illusion, he covers Color Me Badd's "I Adore Mi Amor." If you're not into Smooth Jazz, give it a try, it's not just for Weather Channel's "Weather on the 8s" anymore.
And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi, which I think is a good deal. It's a horror classic with some great names, really well put together by James Bond III. And also check out the podcast episode Freddie and I did on this, number 198 in the archives.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099395/
And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment