We Go Again (2026)

This is one we covered on the podcast, episode 256 in the archives, where we had screenwriter Tom Jolliffe and the two stars of the film, Zuza Tehanu and Charlotte Chiew, on to discuss it. It was a great conversation, definitely worth checking out, and like my podcasts on Death Among the Pines, there's a spoiler wall if you want to listen to the first part before you watch the film.

We Go Again is about a neurodivergent couple, Marie and Amy (Zuza Tehanu and Charlotte Chiew), who have moved to an isolated cottage, but are now dealing with financial issues, and their relationship is starting to fray, all compounded by the struggles they're already going though by being neurodivergent in our society. Marie is trying to make it as an actor, but is having difficulty finding roles, especially roles that pay well, so she's working with an acting coach (Annabelle Lanyon, Legend) to try to land some of those better parts. At the same time, Amy wants to leave the corporate 9 to 5 world that she doesn't feel comfortable in, but with the bills mounting, she's finding she may need to go back. Will Maria and Amy be able to navigate all of this and come out on the other side?

This is an amazing movie, dealing with subject matter we often don’t see in film. A true love story for the 2020s. I think the question is, because this isn't our usual genre fare, will you enjoy it? To be honest, I follow a lot of you on Letterboxd (and if you're not following me on Letterboxd, I do follow back), and I see that you watch a lot of different movies, it's not all PM Entertainment flicks and Italian-directed Rambo interpolations shot in the Philippines, and with that in mind, I think you will enjoy this. Tom wrote another great script, and his brother Oliver does a great job as director and cinematographer, but then Zuza Tehanu and Charlotte Chiew really bring the whole thing to life. Two moving, emotional performances that don't pull any punches, which is exactly what this movie needed. Sometimes they're completely still, with no dialog at all; sometimes they're being goofy and all over the place and enjoying each other's company; and sometimes one of them is frantically tearing a room apart in a fit of rage. Yet there's nothing exploitative about it, it's all human, which is what makes it so compelling. This isn't a 90s indie male gaze manic pixie dream girl fest, it's raw and unidealized, which can be uncomfortable to watch at times, but the result is something really special and worth checking out.

In talking to Zuza and Charlotte on the podcast, we found out that Tom and Oliver had Zuza in mind for Marie from the beginning, but Charlotte had to step in and take the role of Amy on short notice. You wouldn't have known from watching it that each actor had a completely different path to their roles like this, the performances we get feels like they spent two weeks living in the cottage together before filming even started, a la Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine, so to make us believe they're a couple who has been together for a long time and the story is dropping in on this moment in their relationship is all the more amazing. Tom said he cast Zuza because she's both an actor and a dancer, and that really comes through, as she's able to tells us as much from her dialog as she is from her movements, but that acting piece was still important because there were moments where she needed to be more raw and uncomfortable, and her acting ability bore that out. Juxtapose that with Charlotte's Amy character, who was maybe the more responsible of the two by greater society's standards, and I think had she not successfully conveyed the fullness of her character, it would've been easy for us in the audience to say "why doesn't she just go back to work and solve all their problems?", but she did convey that fullness, and she provided both a great complement and counter Zuza's Marie. Again, two fantastic performances, and finding out on the podcast how they each came to their roles makes it even more incredible.

This is the sixth film of Tom's we've looked at on the site, but the first one that's not really a genre picture per se. I can see how being a genre film makes it easier to sell with obvious hooks from a marketing standpoint; but I feel like when a movie like this is done right, the way this one was, it should find its audience--at least hopefully. When he came to me to see if I would discuss this film on my podcast, he mentioned that this is not our usual kind of movie, but that part didn't matter to me, I was happy to help get the word out on his latest project; what surprised me though was how emotionally evocative it was. I was expecting something good based off his previous work, but not to be moved to the amount I was. At one point on the podcast episode, I think it was Zuza who asked if there was anything I didn't like about the movie, and you can hear me stumbling over my words to think of something, but having had six months or so to reflect on it, I think when a movie moves you emotionally this much, it feels like to find faults would be finding them for the sake of finding them, and I don't think that's necessary here. Going back to the kinds of movies we usually review here, yes, most of the time I need car chases, exploding helicopters, and people crashing through windows, but watching this reminded me that I love when a movie can move me emotionally too.

Another thing we discussed on the podcast was how the two lead characters were a lesbian couple, but that wasn't an actual story element. Where it becomes an important part of things is in how the film can divorce itself from the 90s indie manic pixie dream girl trope. It was common in 90s indie films for faux edgy male directors to craft these stories around these idealized "quirky" female characters, with male characters acting as a surrogate for the filmmaker trying to make sense of this "quirky" girl, but loving her just the same. Or if it's a guy who's the "quirky" one, he finds an impossibly beautiful starlet who loves him despite his flaws in some kind of noble self-sacrificing way. I'm not saying that by having the two leads be a lesbian couple alone that this film is divorced from all that, but it's a start, and I think had it been a male and female character it would've been harder to remove it from that tradition; and then to not make the fact that they're a lesbian couple part of the story further divorces it from the male gaze aspect so it can really be about the main characters' humanity above anything else, which I think treats their neurodiversity with the proper respect. All that said, it is important that a movie can have a lesbian couple just be a couple as you'd have any heteronormative couple, and I think that's another positive among many in the film's favor.

Finally, Tom mentioned that the title of the film, "We Go Again," comes from a line Aston Villa coach Paul Lambert would say at his press conferences after games, denoting the team's rollercoaster run of wins and defeats, which ultimately led to them being sent down for the first time in their Premiership history the next year. You may know from following us that Arsenal is my favorite team, because I was a fan of Dennis Bergkamp in the 1994 World Cup, and figured I'd pick his team in the Premier League; and my second favorite team is Fulham because when I started really following the EPL, they had a lot of American players. In that sense, Aston Villa wasn't a team I actively rooted for, but along with teams like Everton that made up the EPL's middle class, I always appreciated them and felt bad when they were relegated after having played in every other Premier League season to that point. After winning the Europa League, expectations were high for them this year, but claiming only one point from their first four games has them in 19th, so they've got their work cut out for them if they're going to stay in the top flight. I'll be rooting for them though, especially this week when they're playing Tottenham!

And I'll be rooting for this movie too, as I hope everyone gets a chance to experience it. Here in the States you can stream it on Fawesome, which is a great way to go. Hopefully it'll get an even wider distribution and more people will have a chance to see it. Also, if you haven't already, check out the podcast episode we did with Tom, Zuza, and Charlotte, 256 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32344535/

The Firing Line (1988)

This is one I'd been meaning to do for a while, but it wasn't on any streamers--I don't know how many reviews I've written that have started like that, and almost as many times it's Tubi that comes through and the movie finally ends up on there, which was the case here and I was finally able to make it happen. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action and Ty and Brett from Comeuppance Reviews have covered this as well.

The Firing Line has Reb Brown as Mark Hardin (trying saying that three times fast with a Mass accent), a military advisor who's been called in to help a Central American dictatorship deal with their rebel problem. He unfortunately discovers what's really going on, after he helps capture the rebel leader (Mike Monty), and that guy was killed by those who Hardin thought were the good guys. But before that happens, he happens upon Sandra Spencer (Shannon Tweed) in a local bar, and when the military decides Hardin's no longer on their side, Spencer gets caught in the dragnet as well, and when Hardin breaks out, he and Tweed join the rebels so he can get his revenge. They fucked with the wrong military advisor.

This wasn't a bad deal. Fun Reb Brown, a game Shannon Tweed, and all the "Philippines passing for another location with a war" excitement you can handle. One thing I had difficulty with it though was the rebels and the government soldiers sometimes wore the same outfits, and I had trouble understanding who was who, but I'd not sure how much that matters. Was that a rebel soldier who fell over a railing to their death after the explosion behind them, or a government soldier? Does it matter? I mean, when Reb Brown was hosing people down with machine gun fire, it was possible the shimmying victims were rebels instead of government soldiers, and again, does it matter? I would say no, it's Reb Brown being beefy and screaming, Shannon Tweed being statuesque and beautiful, and the Philippines being "insert jungle location here." If you like movies like this, you'll enjoy this one.

We'll start with Mr. Brown, who's now at 12 films on the site. There are definitely more iconic films of his you can turn to, but if you've seen those already, this is the next place to go. It's the beefy "Lump Beefbroth" or "Gristle McThornbody" you want when you see his name on the tin. The mustache adds a nice touch too, like when he's hitting on Shannon Tweed when they first meet, him smiling at her over his shoulder as he buys her a drink has an added layer when that smile includes a mustache. (If I were more of a Millennial or Gen Z I might say it "hits different," but I'm not an asshole like that.) In looking at his IMDb bio, we don't have a lot left of his to review, but two obvious omissions are the Cage films, so I need to track them down and make them happen toot sweet. So maybe he won't make 20 films on the site, let alone 30 Club or 40 Club, but he's give us some classics, which makes him a true Hall of Famer, and while this isn't quite at the level of those, it's still a fun time, and a large part of that is him.

Our other Hall of Famer is Shannon Tweed, who's a bit out of her element in this one, but as I said above, she was totally game for it, and what's fascinating is, almost 30 years later, she became the bigger name than Reb Brown, so now many covers feature her on the tin or thumbnail instead of him. I actually almost missed where this was on Tubi to get these images, because the thumbnail now is an anonymous woman shown from the neck down holding a gun while her dress is blowing in the wind and revealing her legs, leading anyone seeing it to believe this is some kind of sexy Erotic Thriller as opposed to a late 80s Rambo-esque jungle slog shot in the Philippines. That kind of thing only happens because Tweed is in the film, and I wonder if there's some AI algorithm that looks at the cast and generates thumbnails based on that--do they do that now, "dynamic thumbnails?" This is now 11 films for Shannon Tweed, which puts her one behind Julie Strain for third-most all time among woman actors, and which is still 37 behind Rothrock for the most all time. If you're curious, I looked at Tweed's IMDb bio, and see about 30 movies of her left for us to review, which means she can't catch Rothrock, but we could get her close, so we'll just need to make more of an effort to cover more of her movies.

We often hear that New York City is a character on its own in a film, which makes a lot of sense, but what I never expected when I started doing this site was to see how the Philippines is a character on its own too, but unlike New Nork who always plays itself, the Philippines were often standing in for other locations. It's like the ultimate character actor of locations, like an M. Emmett Walsh, doing yeoman's work pretending to be Vietnam or Hong Kong or a random Central or South American republic, and it wasn't just DTV flicks, mainstream films like Platoon, Apocalypse Now, and Born on the Fourth of July filmed there too. Maybe there's a crassness to it when you're watching one of these DTV films on its own, but after seeing dozens of them, there's a charm in it, the way there's a charm in M. Emmett Walsh being thrown through a plate glass window in Critters. In recent years, as filming in the US has gotten cheaper, we're seeing fewer of these, as we're seeing fewer films made in Eastern Europe too, but we did get one recently in Scott Adkins's Prisoner of War, which I still have to see, so it's nice to know that, unlike the character actors of old who are sadly leaving us, the Philippines is still carrying on.

Finally, Reb Brown's character introduces himself to Shannon Tweed's character with the classic mating ritual of buying her a drink despite her not requesting it. Because he's a good looking fellow, Tweed's happy he did it, and invites him to sit at her table. In real life though, I never tried this, and no one I know who has tried it has been successful. At best it's a creepy imposition, unless the other person has made it clear they're attracted to you as well, but at that point why not just ask if you can buy them a drink? It goes back to this idea that women are there to be won by men, as opposed to being human beings with their own agency and will to decide whom they want to be with romantically. That's not what happens here though, Brown doesn't "win" Tweed, she sees that he's the guy that bought her the drink and is like "well hell-o!" Anyway, all this to say, perhaps this is a mating ritual that needs to go away, but it's fun to see it in the historical context of this DTV Philippine production where a well-mustachioed Reb Brown is shooting a shot he knows he's going to make.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently this is available on Tubi here in the States. I'd say watch it while you can, because it may disappear from there. It's a fun one with Brown and Tweed, and the Philippines playing another country.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101883/

Prey of Wrath (2026)

This is one Ty and I covered on the podcast, episode 273 in the archives, which was one we had to record twice, because I accidentally deleted the first one! Either way, it needed a post on the site too, so we're making it happen now. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Prey of Wrath has Tatiana Neva as Lyudmilla Alekseyenko, a Russian special forces agent sent to the US to track down some rogue agents who absconded with some nuclear warheads. One of those agents, the ring leader, happens to be her mentor, Gray Michael Sallies (Viktor Reznikov), and the question is can she pull the trigger when it comes time to take him down? At the very least, she can't kill his innocent wife when ordered to, so that means she's going rogue too. At the same time, two CIA agents (Cynthia Rothrock and Leonard Zhang) are interested in these warheads, for obvious reasons, and when they encounter Neva, it's a question of whether or not they can trust her. Do they have a choice though, considering the alternative?

This isn't bad, and the main reason for that is Tatiana Neva. She was fantastic, great screen presence, solid martial arts, a more grounded version of Marvel's Black Widow character, which made for a great action lead. Some of the special effects, especially the greenscreen effects, revealed the film's budgetary limitation, but Neva does what a star should do, and lifts the material beyond those limitations. From there we have DTVC 40 Club member and one of the best to do it, Cynthia Rothrock, who has her own fight scene which looked great too. I think her name on the tin is what will get people to click play, and even though Neva is the one to watch, for people who tuned in for Rothrock, it's good to be rewarded. Then we have the all important runtime, and this clocks in at a cool 79 minutes, including credits, so another plus in its favor. Finally, it's free to stream on Xumo here in the States. Add that to the short runtime, an up-and-coming star and one who's already a legend, and you have yourself a fun actioner.

Usually we'd start with our film's Hall of Famer--and in this case 40 Club member--but I wanted to start with Tatiana Neva because she was so great here. I could see this character in multiple movies, but I think anything in the action genre with her as the star would work. Before this she had been playing Black Widow in some short fan movie productions, which look like they could be fun, but what I liked here was she was playing an authentic original character, one that was larger than life in the action movie sense, but more grounded than something in the superhero genre. People often ask who the next big action stars are going to be, but I think we've seen two of them here recently between Neva and Shaina West. A team-up between those two is the action movie I'd want to see. Come on Mr. Nevsky, you can make that happen, can't you? Even a Western with those two would work, and considering he has Matthias Hues on speed dial, I think we have our baddie lined up too. Even if it's not with Shaina West, after seeing what Neva can do in this film, I'm looking forward to whatever her next project is. 

Now to Rothrock, who is in her 48th film on the site, which is three ahead of Don "The Dragon" Wilson for third all time among actors, and 14 behind Gary Daniels's 62, who's in second. As I said above, this isn't a big role, but I'm okay with that, because she already has dozens of movies where she was the lead, including her own film Black Creek, and the amount of her we get in this, including the fight scene, was actually a pleasant surprise. We've seen ones like Darkness of Man where she only has a one-scene cameo, and this definitely isn't that. I don't know that it's a passing the torch to Neva kind of thing either though, and I don't know if we'll ever see that, as one, I don't think Rothrock sees her career as at that point where the torch should be passed; but two, I think it's more a matter of the torch being taken from her by mainstream actors and she's been trying to reclaim it, or at least reclaim the credit for the work she did. Every clickbait list of the "Top Female Action Stars" that doesn't have her on it, let alone at or near the top, is a reminder of that, and I don't blame her for wanting people to know about the path she blazed. So while this is Neva's movie, and she should be part of the next wave of great action stars, Rothrock's wave hasn't crested yet, which means we have a lot of other movies of hers to review, so the 50 Club is definitely on the horizon.

As you know, we have a thing for Presidential Portraits here at the DTVC. It started more unofficially, so I didn't tag them at first, which means from time to time I'll go back through our archives and find another to add--like I did recently with the Dudikoff flick Chain of Command. In this film though, instead of a possible Trump, we got a Putin, which leads to the question, does that count? The only other time this has happened as far as I know was former Mexican president Vicente Fox's portrait in Shark Attack 3 (which is know for much more than that!), but that one also had George W. Bush (plus VP Dick Cheney), so it was getting tagged regardless. The other category of these we've seen is the fictitious movie president having a portrait, like Eric Roberts in Top Gunner: America vs Russia, where we had a Roberts portrait conspicuously tacked on the wall in one of the rooms he was in. I didn't tag that one, and I think I'm going to say no on tagging this for now too, unless we get a spate of Putins or other foreign leader portraits, then I'll reconsider. Part of that is wanting to stick to American Presidents for this, at least for now; and part of that is the fact that we live on the second story, so I think I could survive any defenestration attempts should Putin get his back up about this--though to be fair, a letter from one of his aides would be more than enough to get me to tag him, hopefully precluding any attempts at defenestration, even if I'd survive the fall anyway.

Finally (that previous paragraph felt like the finally, didn't it?), this and all of Nevsky's recent films are going straight to Xumo, which is great because we can see them, but also interesting on two levels. One, IMDb doesn't list Xumo as a place where you can see something, so as far as they're concerned, this is only available to rent on Amazon for $4.99. Letterboxd does list it, and that applies to a lot of other streaming sources, so I've found it's better to go there to see if a movie's available. And two, Xumo doesn't have a search function. You think I'm fucking with you? Well I'm not fucking with you, they really don't have a search function. I know, it's 2026, and a search function would've been a prerequisite back in 1996, but they ain't got one. Usually films like this are visible on the first bar of scrolling, so you don't need to search, but still, how do you find something that's not featured? A lot of times I'll find it on Letterboxd and click the link from there. I think it was in episode 261 of the podcast where Jon Cross and I are discussing Body of Influence, which is also in Xumo, where Jon gives his theory on how he thinks Xumo ended up without a search function. It involves a group of overweight, aging, organized crime types eating greasy sandwiches and trying to cut corners while telling a young computer programmer what they want the site to look like. It makes as much sense as anything.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Xumo is the best way to go, unless you really want to go above and beyond when it comes to supporting indie films, and then you can get it on VOD on Amazon for $4.99. Tatiana Neva is the main reason to watch this, but Rothrock and the 79-minute runtime don't hurt either. and check out the podcast episode Ty and I did on this, number 273 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13650572/

The Power Within (1995)

For our SePMtember PM post, I wanted to do one Art Camacho directed for his entry into the 60 Club, but have since realized that Cole S. McKay did stunts on this too, making it his entry into the 70 Club, so we'll have to find one he directed for his official 70 Club post. In addition to us, Chris the Brain at Bulletproof and Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have covered this as well.

The Power Within has Ted Jan Roberts as Stan, a high school junior not living up to his potential. He could be so much better at school, martial arts, and getting a date to the prom if he only tried harder. At the same time, William Zabka has stolen a ring that makes him very powerful, and Gerald Okamura, holder of the other ring, doesn't want Zabka to get both. Unfortunately, Zabka kills him, but before he dies, he gives his ring to Stan, and tells him that as powerful as this ring is, his true power lies within. Now shit is really happening for Stan, his grades are up, Sandy's (Tracy Melchior) going to the prom with him, and he beat up a blackbelt in karate class. The problem is he still needs to deal with Zabka.

What a great time this one was. A big part of it was the cast, where they just loaded this thing up with a ton of fun performances. In addition to the names I mentioned above, we had John O'Hurley as a police detective, Karen Valentine as Roberts's mother, PJ Soles as Melchior's mother, and a Don "The Dragon" Wilson cameo playing himself. Then we have some fantastic fights, choreographed by Camacho and Roberts, that all looked great as well. From a PM movie standpoint, I would say there were only a couple moments that were pure PM. First is when Zabka is in a high-speed chase with the henchmen of a crime boss that want the ring back from him and some police officers, one of the cop cars goes flying over the top of a city bus, with explosions and everything; and second, when Roberts is being held in O'Hurley's office after a big fight, he needs to escape to rescue Melchior, who's being held by Zabka, and instead of going through the door, he crashes through a window. That's gotta be a PM motto: "Why use a door when there's a perfectly good window you can crash through." If you can find this, I think it's a fun one and worth checking out.

60 films for Art Camacho, of which 13 are director credits, including this one. It's a huge milestone, after Dolph, Cole S. McKay, and Gary Daniels, he's only the fourth person to the 60 Club, and I think it just speaks to his work ethic. The interview he did on the PM Entertainment Podcast episode for A Dangerous Place (which yours truly was also a guest on) really gets into that, where he talks about all the ways he seized various opportunities PM gave him to work in their movies, including directing films like this. The result is that we as fans of the genre ultimately are the winners, because we have a lot of fun movies like this to watch due to his talent and work ethic. When I look at his bio, beyond the fact that we have five more movies that he's directed to review on here, he still has a ton of stuff that he worked on in various capacities to cover, so the 60 Club is just the start, but it's well-deserved too. Here's to you Mr. Camacho, you're one of the great ones.

On a more somber note, since our last Ted Jan Roberts post, Magic Kid, we've learned that he passed away in 2022. Really sad for anyone to pass away that young, but with Roberts, seeing him in something like this, there's a sense of what could've been. He and I were born in the same year, so it maybe gives me a different perspective, but one thing I do notice in watching action movies is they tend to like older men in the leads. Take Scott Adkins, who turned 50 this year, he really didn't start getting the big leading roles until he was in his 30s. Even something like Special Forces had Marshall Teague in the lead. And maybe that was the issue in the 2000s, he was too old for kids and teen roles like this, but too young to take the next step in his action film career, leaving this gap that he may have been able to pick back up on in the late 2000s/early 2010s, but by then it was too late it seems. And maybe even more tragic, we're seeing an influx of films featuring 90s action leads again, so depending on how his martial arts skills were, he could've probably found roles in this new ecosystem. Again, it was really sad news, he'll truly be missed.

We'll use this paragraph to round up the rest of the names in this. First off, it's our 62nd PM Entertainment flick on the site, so we're really starting to make our way through their catalog. My PM Entertainment Letterboxd list is live again, so you can check that out and see where I put this. As I said above, this is 70 films for Cole S. McKay, so we'll be doing a special 70 Club post for him in the near future. I know we'll be doing at least one movie he did stunts on between now and then, but who knows, he may have even more before we get to that post, because he's in so many films doing stunt work. Speaking of clubs, 40 Club member Don "The Dragon" Wilson has 45 films now with this one-scene cameo as himself. That puts him two behind Cynthia Rothrock for third-most all time as an actor, but she has a movie in the can that I'll be reviewing this week, so that gap will widen again. We also have Gerald Okamura in back-to-back weeks, now putting him at 21 films on the site. He's another one that appears in a ton of stuff, so who knows how many more films of his we'll do, but he was great here as Roberts's ancient sensei and previous ring holder. I can't believe I'm almost to the end of the paragraph and haven't yet mentioned how great William Zabka was as the main baddie. Chewing scenery all over the place, just having a great time, he played a big part in why this film worked. Finally, John O'Hurley of Seinfeld fame was in this as the detective, our second time seeing him on the site after Mirror Images. No love scenes for him here, though there was a burgeoning romance between him and Karen Valentine as Roberts's mother.

Finally, we had a few scenes with a chimp in this one. At the end of the credits there was the mention that no animals were harmed in making this film, but I beg to differ, because the only humane way to have a chimp in your film is to not have one, or now with the technology we have, make them with CGIs. You've heard me on this crusade before, but chimps are particularly egregious in my mind, because they share 97% of our DNA. Forget putting them in movies, they shouldn't be in zoos or be had as pets either. To give you a sense of how close to humans they are, there's currently a chimpanzee war in Uganda between two factions that split apart, lopsided in favor of one faction over the other, leading to a lot of deaths. There's actually a Netflix documentary on this that's narrated by Mahershala Ali if you want to know more. So let's leave chimps alone to be chimps, our movies and zoos will be fine without them; and considering it's illegal to keep humans as pets, it should be illegal to have chimps as pets too.

And with that, let's wrap this up. I found this on YouTube, and while it's not the best quality, it'll get you to the church on time. Hopefully as more of these PM flicks are finding their ways to streamers, this one will as well, because I had a lot of fun with it.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114171/

Death Among the Pines (2025)

This is one we covered over two podcast episodes late last year, first with screenwriter Tom Jolliffe in episode 238, and then in episode 249 with two of the films stars, Nicolette McKeown and Stephen Kerr. Both fantastic conversations, and both worth checking out. Now that the film is coming to the UK, it's time to review it on our site as well.

Death Among the Pines has McKeown as Angela, a young woman whose husband (Olly Bassi) is away for work, leaving her alone in their secluded house during a stormy night. Her peaceful evening is disrupted by a knock on the door from a mysterious young man (Nathan Shepka, who also directed) whose car broke down. Despite how suspicious he looks, she lets him in, gives him some of her husband's clothes to change into while his dry, and offers him a glass of whiskey. At the same time, this mysterious young man is at the center of a police manhunt, and when local officer Donny (Kerr) comes to Angela's house to see if their fugitive is hiding out there, she has a decision to make: should she turn this young man over, or protect him from Kerr and the rest of the police.

This was absolutely fantastic, both a tight, smaller-scale thriller that brings you back to the old cable thrillers of the 90s; but also layered and nuanced from the writing, to the performances, to even the cinematography and editing. One of my favorite things was the way Kerr's Donny was introduced into the story. Tom as the writer knew that two characters could only sustain the story so long, so we'd need a third eventually, but he brings Donny in when things are just starting to get interesting between Angela and this mysterious stranger, as opposed after that when things were about to run their course. From there, McKeown, Shepka, and Kerr all play it like Donny's a party crasher, but because we don't really know who anyone is yet, anything could happen from that point, and as a viewer I couldn't wait to see it unfold. I don't want to give anything beyond that away, because I want people to experience this as fresh as possible, and everything else I want to say feels like it could be a spoiler, so I'll leave it at this: if you're looking for an evening thriller done on a smaller scale, but makes the most of it's budget, this should be at the top of your list.

I think the best place to start is in Nicolette McKeown's performance as Angela, because I don't know that the rest of it works if her performance wasn't as great as it was. There was a lot that this movie asked of her, and the way she took it and ran with it makes the whole thing compelling. From there, Shepka and Kerr play two angles of the triangle with McKeown, and they do this dance in their performance where they know as actors outside the film that everything hinges on McKeown, but as characters both think they're in control and that Angela is potentially there for the taking. It's exactly what I want when I fire up a movie like this: excellent performances, a lot of mystery and intrigue, but all in a fun and entertaining spirit. In the podcast episode I did with McKeown and Kerr, they talked about how acting is a career where you get to play make-believe as an adult, and maybe that's the ultimate thing that comes through in the performances, everyone was enjoying themselves, which becomes infectious as the viewer.

This is now the third collaboration between Nathan Shepka and Tom Jolliffe we've done, after When Darkness Falls and The Baby in the Basket, and one element that seems to be a part of all three is a setting that evokes a sense of isolation and claustrophobia. In When Darkness Falls, it's the juxtaposition of the expansiveness of the Scottish Highlands that is beautiful and open during the day, but at night when everything is dark becomes constrictive; in The Baby in the Basket it's the island location, cut off from the rest of the world; and here it's Angela's house, an oasis from the storm outside that may not be such a safe haven. On the surface it feels like limiting locations should make the film easier to produce, but as we've seen with a lot of modern DTV that likes to work in one or two locations, to carry the energy needed to keep things interesting over 90 minutes can be difficult, and a lot of those films resort to all manner of padding to get us over the finish line. For Shepka and Jolliffe to make these stories compelling and have them unfold organically without any padding or dead spots is quite a feat unto itself, and as a result I've really enjoyed watching all three of these movies.

The 90s cable thriller has a bit of a bad connotation, but one of the best ways I remember to spend 90-120 minutes was stumbling upon something while channel surfing, sitting with it for a bit to see what happens, and the next thing I know the credits are rolling and whether I thought the movie was good or bad I had a fun time. It's the crassness of the "good or bad" I think that turns people off, but also, the "bad" often came because maybe we had an actor or two who thought they were slumming it and wanted to get their scenes done and over with; or even if that actor or two did a great job, perhaps they made demands that led to scenes being rewritten so they no longer fit the rest of the story; or maybe a line producer or distributer made suggestions that led to an unevenness that disrupted the flow of the film. What we get here with Death Among the Pines is an example of what happens when everyone is pulling in the same direction, we get the fun of the 90s cable thriller, but with a consistency and higher quality all around, which makes it even better to watch.

Finally, our podcast is no stranger to Scotland, as we have Scott Murphy from All 90s Action, All the Time on the pod every couple months or so to talk about Seagal's DTV oeuvre, plus we've had the director of this film Nathan Shepka on a couple times, and now Nicolette McKeown and Stephen Kerr as well; but this summer as the US hosted the World Cup, the Scottish fans showed up in a big way. It started in Boston, where they wore special tartan-patterned Red Sox jerseys to Fenway Park and made the atmosphere there the most fun its been in years, especially with the team in last place at the time they visited. (The Red Sox then went on an historic run of success and are now firmly in a playoff spot.) The fun of the Scottish fans there was infectious, as stories ran all over the country about them, and I think it helped build more excitement for the World Cup among us Americans. So while Spain won the World Cup on the pitch, if there was a trophy for best supporters, the Scottish fans would've won that, and hopefully all of that goodwill will lead to more of us Americans consuming more Scottish cinema, because there's a lot of great stuff like this film available for us to watch.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Here in the States you can get this on Tubi, or VOD on Prime; and then in the UK, on September 7th it's be available on VOD. This is absolutely worth checking out, especially if you're looking to support indie filmmakers, fire this up on an evening where you're looking for a fun watch. Also, you can check out the podcast episodes we've done on this, episode 238 with Tom Jolliffe, and 249 with Nicolette McKeown and Stephen Kerr.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33089967

For Life or Death (1996)

This past week we lost an absolute legend, one of the best to do it in the DTV action world, James Lew. As such, we needed to do a post in his honor, and I figured because this one had a lot of Lew in it, it would do the trick. As Nicolette Larson said, "it's gonna take a lotta Lew..." In addition to us, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have covered this as well.

For Life of Death has Lew as Kaan Woo, formerly part of a mystical cult of martial arts warriors with magical powers, he left them, but, as cults are wont to do, they come and try to take him back by force. The leader of the cult, Ling Li (Nancy Kwan), was hoping to marry Kaan Woo, so when he left her and found a younger woman in Caren (Grace Una), Li sent her best monks after him, including Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, and Richard "no nickname needed" Norton. Recognizing he's outnumbered, Kaan Woo transfers his soul into the body of Earl (Mark Pellegrino), a man dealing with alcohol addiction and housing insecurity. Now Li wants Earl, but if Earl discovers whose soul is sharing his body in time, perhaps he and Woo together can take Li down.

Maybe I shouldn't have followed Nicolette Larson's advice and gone for the movie that had a lotta Lew, because I don't know if this is the best movie overall. Lew was fight choreographer, and between him and the fantastic names involved, which, in addition to the names I mentioned above, also included Karen Sheperd and Gerald Okamura, the talent was there, and it came through at times. Most of the time though those great fights were obscured by editing choices. Sped-up film, awkward cuts, attempts at Hong Kong cinema that looked more like someone parodying it than paying homage to it. The story had issues as well, probably foremost among them, it felt like we were just spinning our wheels until Lew came back, which meant from the time he leaves us early on, until he comes back near the end, it all feels like padding in a way. Why not just have it be Lew the whole time? Is there a law that says you can only have Lew for limited screen time? Still, in celebrating the life of someone as great as Lew, someone who did a lot more supporting work or even cameos, to have something like this where he has a more robust part, and that movie being available on Tubi, makes it a good choice if you're looking for something to celebrate him, and maybe that's what counts most.

One of the things I discovered when I was looking for a film to review for this post, is I hadn't tagged all of Lew's stunt work yet, and when I did that, he ended up with 31 tags overall. That means automatic Hall of Fame entry, but I think that was a given this fall anyway, and it was something that was long overdue. For anyone who watched action films from the late 80s to the mid-90s and onward, Lew was a mainstay, probably more of a That Guy, but for us who watched a lot of these movies, we knew who he was and appreciated what he brought to the table. We weren't the only ones though, he won a Primetime Emmy for his work as stunt coordinator on the Luke Cage TV show, one of my favorite things the MCU has produced, so it was great to see he was given the honor for that; and later this year, Avengers: Endgame will be back in theaters, which he won an Actors Award for along with the rest of the stunt crew. So here's to you Mr. Lew, you were one of the greatest to ever do it, and will truly be missed.

Also missed is Richard Norton, who with this film enters the 30 Club, but we'll do another post later on down the road to fully celebrate that milestone. There were a few scenes where he and Lew fought, and it was hard to watch knowing they're both no longer with us. It's the reality though, that even something like this is thirty years old now, and if these guys were in their 40s then, they'd be in the 70s now, some even older than that, but at least we know that they created a lasting legacy that for the most part we can enjoy on some form of physical media, and in many cases on a free streamer like Tubi. So they may be gone, but not forgotten, and their work endures for us to enjoy, and hopefully for new generations to discover and enjoy too. And maybe this movie isn't the best of his, but he turns in a fun performance that at least enhances the proceedings, which is always good to see.

Kato Kaelin is back, and it's crazy seeing him 30 years later, because when this was made he was only a couple years removed from the OJ trial. As a result, having Kato Kaelin in your movie at that time could provide a boost, though looking at his career prior to the OJ trial, this was the kind of role he had been getting, so maybe he would've been in this film regardless, or may have even committed to it before the trial began. We also had Karen Sheperd, who had a smaller part but a couple nice fight scenes, so that was nice to see. I think there are six or seven DTV movies of hers out there that we haven't covered yet, so hopefully we'll get to those eventually. For a little IMDb-style trivia, both she and Kaelin have been in Cyborg sequels, Sheperd in part 2, Kaelin in part 3. (As an aside, why do people put trivia like that on IMDb trivia pages? I want nuggets about the film that I wouldn't know otherwise, not connections I could make on my own by cherry picking actors' filmographies!) Finally, we had Gerald Okamura in his 20th film on that site. I had no idea he had that many! I'm not sure if 30 Club is possible for him though, because I don't know if he has 10 more films for us to review. He's great here as the ancient master that helps Pellegrino learn his true potential.

Finally, I want to go back to Lew again, because beyond his martial arts and fight choreography work, one of his best contributions to the films we watched was as a henchman to a main baddie. It's a thankless role, you don't get to chew scenery like the main baddie, instead you may have very few lines, and have to generally play a jerk, and then take a beating from the hero in an applause moment. I think that was the most fitting reason to choose this movie, even if it wasn't as good as some of his others, because he was the one beating up henchmen here; and while I say it's a thankless position, for us that have seen a lot of these, when someone like a Lew appears over and over, we do start to appreciate what he's bringing to the table, and that's why we in the action fandom, especially the DTV action fandom, we were so sad to hear the news of Lew's passing. Maybe he didn't have what the kids call "main character energy," but he carved out a great career doing what he loved to do, and I don't know that it gets more main character in life than that.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this free on Tubi and Prime here in the States. Again, it's not exactly the best movie, but you get Lew in a leading role, which makes it a good option if you're watching something in his honor. One of the greatest to do it, he will be missed.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144930

Tropical Parasite (2026)

I've been meaning to review a Jared Masters film for a while now, especially since I've been seeing his Instagram posts and how much fun his movies look. Recently he sent me a link to the soundtrack to one of his films, and I mentioned how I've been meaning to review one of his movies, so he sent me some screener links, and here we are, looking at his most recent release.

Tropical Parasite has Masters as Leo Prawn, a treasure hunter pretending to be a marine biologist who is looking for buried treasure in the Andaman Sea off the coast of a Thailand that looks suspiciously like the Philippines. No matter, when Prawn's love interest (Ryza Mae) is felled by a mysterious parasite in the water near the beach they're relaxing at, he contracts it too, but soon realizes this isn't your garden variety flesh-eating bacteria, this may be a curse from the evil sea goddess Arisara (Althea Lacson), or it could be related to his new romance with mermaid Zun (Jassmin Roxas). Either way, Prawn thinks he's close to finding the treasure he's been hunting his whole life, the last thing he wants is for this mysterious illness to derail his plans now. Will he actually be successful, or will Arisara the sea goddess prevail?

This was totally absurdist in the best way possible, and I really enjoyed it. It felt like a spoof of a 50s exotic adventure film, only instead of repurposing other sets in Hollywood for shooting, Masters went to the Philippines and shot there, and used local actors in the process. His raspy voiceovers narrating the proceedings, at times keeping us up with what's happening, at others saying goofy non sequiturs that made me laugh out loud, were so perfect and made the film a lot of fun. There is one part of this that may be a sticking point for people though: he used generative AI for all of the mermaid sequences, plus this one foot chase that ended up destroying an entire neighborhood. In this absurdist context it worked better than it might in others, but depending on how people feel about AI it may be a turn off. For me the overall film was so much fun that I was okay with it. There's also a lot of nudity, which I think comes with the territory in his films, but I'm just putting it out there if you're in mixed company and looking to have a campy movie night. So far we're one-for-one with Masters's films, I can't wait to check out more!

With this being my first film of Masters's, I'm way behind on his stuff, but I can see from this one how he's developed a following over the past 15 years or so. It's definitely a "if you get it, you get it," kind of thing, but if you're inclined to enjoy a movie like this, you're really going to enjoy it, at least that's how it went for me. There's a lot of gross-out content to start, with the parasite attacking Ryza Mae's internal organs, all done through computer graphics, but for me it was Masters's Leo Prawn character on the phone in the scenes after, with the raspy voice that was absurd on its own, but then later he'd start throwing in these ridiculous lines that were exactly what I want from a film like this. On a more serious filmmaking note, the editing work by TJ Basara was top notch, and for all I know that could be Masters working under a different name, either could be equally plausible, but whoever it was who did the editing, great work.

The aspect of this film that may turn some viewers off is the use of generative AI to create some of the scenes. The way Masters uses it adds to the overall absurdist quality of the film, where it's almost like the more ridiculous the better, perhaps nowhere more true than the foot chase sequence that leads to an entire neighborhood destroyed and in flames. It's part and parcel with the rest of the cinematic anarchy we're witnessing. The problem though, even for people like me who appreciate the approach, is we've been inundated with so much AI slop that our brains are sensitive to it, meaning even in this context it can be off-putting. For example with the mermaids, all of that is AI-generated, and when you see things like the mermaid's fin breaking into two legs on one of her dives, it brings to mind fugazi videos and images trying to trick us into engagement. It reminded me of when Albert Pyun first put out Bulletface, and I mentioned in my review that his use of freeze frames made me think my computer was freezing or buffering, something he hadn't considered, but it shows how the ways we consume media on the whole can have unintended consequences for how we receive things in a movie we're watching. I think while the intention to use AI-generated content wasn't a bad one here, what we've been exposed to over the past four or five years unfortunately still creates a negative perception.

We're closing in on 1400 posts on the site, and I believe this is our first time seeing mermaids. I scanned through the Letterboxd archive, and didn't see anything, unless a movie had them and I just forgot. It kind of makes sense, what movies am I reviewing that would have mermaids in them, though maybe an Asylum mockumentary would've featured them or something. The ones here were AI-generated, which meant they looked like shiny topless women in mermaid costumes, so even beyond that "hallucination" that caused the mermaid's legs to split as she dove under the water, you could kind of see the outlines of their legs even when their mermaid torsos were intact. I guess AI-generated ones were cheaper than getting the costumes, plus the drowning hazards of having real women in outfits that restrict their legs while they're in the water is avoided. I had never considered any of this before, but I also couldn't think of how many times I'd thought about mermaids period. I saw the Disney cartoon as a kid, and in 6th grade I was King Crag in our middle school drama production of The Little Mermaid, and then I watched Passions from time-to-time when I was in college. But yeah, come to think of it, putting real mermaids in a movie could be more work than they're worth.

Finally, I had to spotlight some sea turtle content here. Part of that great editing included these shots of fish and other sea creatures, like turtles, swimming around and doing their sea creature things. The sea turtle is one of my favorite animals, and it sucks to think about how much difficulty they're going through between the warming oceans and the plastic straws we throw away that end up in their nostrils. I mean look at that one above, swimming around, doing their thing, with that fantastic look on their face. And the sea turtles aren't the only wildlife we get in this, we also have some nice stray cat content, which always works for me. Someone could make a movie that's just a series of cats and sea turtles living their lives and doing cat and sea turtle activities, 90 minutes of that would be an easy 10 out of 10 for me, so bits and pieces of it here and there in this movie definitely enhanced my overall viewing experience.

And with that, let's wrap this up. This was just released on DVD two days ago, so you can order it on Amazon. I think if you're a Masters fan, definitely pick it up; also if you've never heard of Masters but have a robust physical media collection, this would be a fun and interesting addition to it. I think if you're not familiar with his work though and have a limited budget, before you pull the trigger on buying the DVD, he has a bunch of other stuff on streamers like Tubi that you can watch first, see what you think of those, and then you'll know if the DVD is something you should buy too. If you like movies like this though, you'll really enjoy this one. Thank you to Jared for sending us the screener link, I can't wait to make my way through the rest of your films!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35071628

Active Stealth (1999)

Recently Will from Exploding Helicopter posted the exploding helicopter from this film on his Bluesky, and when I looked it up, I thought "how have I not covered this before?" It looks like something I should've done on the site 15 years ago, but somehow slipped through the cracks. In addition to us and Will, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Steve Q at Down Among the Z Movies, and Kenner at Movies in the Attic have covered this as well.

Active Stealth has Daniel Baldwin as a special forces kind of guy who thought his buddy was killed in a mission, only to find he's being held hostage by the drug cartel guy they tried to take down some time ago. Their commanding officer, Fred Williamson, sends Baldwin and his team (including Fred Olen Ray mainstays Tim Abell and Chick Vennera) down to get their friend out, and has them use a plane with the latest in active stealth technology as the means to get there. That's it, in and out, and the film is done in a cool 37 minutes--or is it? It's never that easy, and now it's a matter of who will make it with Baldwin back home to see their families, and who will have a dramatic death scene?

This is your classic IMDb 3.5 star rating complete with user reviews touting it as "the worst movie of all time," but for me who's been doing this for almost 1400 movies plus however many more on the podcast, I see something that's professionally made with a few fun moments. What does that mean for you though, because it may not be anywhere near the worst movie ever or as bad as 3.5 stars on IMDb, but is it worth the 100 minutes the movie's asking of you when you have so many options out there? Here are a few things that I would point to that may help you decide. First, Ray and company have a lot of fun touches that harken back to old post-WWII movies, the best of which might be Chick Vennera, who plays the Italian American stereotype so many of those movies had, and caps off his performance with a too sweet helicopter explosion. Or maybe it's the inclusion of another Fred, Fred Williamson, who doesn't do much beyond talk on the phone, but looks great doing it. Then there's Andrew Stevens, who's just there to wear a mustache and talk in military speak, but looks great doing it too. Or finally, Tim Abell, who's there to be the Southern stereotype to Chick Vennera's Italian American stereotype, and again, looks great doing it. The story meanders a bit, and has the holes in it you'd expect from something that was pumped out more because they had the sets available and could do it quick and on the cheap than anything, and I don't know that those touches above is enough to recommend it, but it had its moments for sure. Also, it'll up your percentage on Will's Films with Exploding Helicopters list on Letterboxd.

We're now at 17 directed movies for Fred Olen Ray, depending on whether or not you count Dinosaur Island as 1 or .5, and I count it as 1, but because of that I give the edge in ranking to Joseph Merhi, who's tied with him at 17 for second all-time after Albert Pyun's 44. This is classic Fred Olen Ray, the studio or whoever wanted a quick and dirty military movie that they could throw on video store shelves or cable channels could use for easy programming, he had the location and called a bunch of people he'd worked with before, and along with some bigger names to add to the tin, they made it happen. He's made a career of getting things done like this, across all genres, and here we have something that works more for our audience than Christmas in Palm Springs or Christmas in Vermont, but even with those his process is the same, he's good at pumping them out on the cheap. If we cut out the Christmas movies and the Lifetime movies, he still has enough actioners and Erotic Thrillers remaining to catch Pyun for most all time, it's more a matter of whether or not we'll be doing the site long enough. Next year we'll hit twenty years, so we'll know by 2047 if I kept things going and Ray finally caught him.

There were two other Hall of Famers in this, Fred Williamson and Cole S. McKay. For Williamson, this was a unique one, in that his character was captured at the beginning, and he's not the hero, or even portrayed as a badass who could be the hero. It really is his name and how cool he looks holding a phone, which I think works in a film like this. He's sitting at 33 films on the site, and looking at his bio, I'm not sure how many more we'll do in the near future. He has a couple he's directed that we still need to do, but it might be more things like this where there are other names involved, and he's more along for the ride, but it's possible that will be enough to get him into the 40 Club at some point. Speaking of DTVC clubs, Cole S. McKay is now at 69 (hey-oh!) films on the site. Our next PM film is going to be The Power Within, which will be the one that gets Art Camacho into the 60 Club, and which also has McKay on stunts, so that'll be his 70th film, but I think he needs something more prodigious for his 70 Club post, so one idea I had was Star Hunter, which he co-directed with Fred Olen Ray. It's possible in the meantime I'll review another movie he did stunts because he has so many of them!

Rounding out the rest of the cast and crew, we have a lot of names to get through. I guess we should start with the film's star, Daniel Baldwin, who felt a bit out of place with all of the Ray mainstays around him, but he's a Baldwin, so the name on the tin means more than whether he fits or not. DTVC favorite Tim Abell is back with his 16th film on the site. Is it possible he's putting together a Hall of Fame resume? Speaking of which, Andrew Stevens will be getting inducted this fall, as this is his 36th film overall between acting, directing, and producing, and I believe his 11th as an actor. Speaking of Erotic Thrillers, Shannon Whirry plays Baldwin's wife. I had never really looked at it before, but a few years before this it looks like she'd stopped doing Erotic Thrillers and was doing more stuff like this, or mainstream TV roles, which I think is okay, considering how many great Erotic Thrillers she made before this. Jim Wynorski was a producer on this, under the name "Noble Henry." When talking about great DTV directors, he's one that probably should have more on the site, but at least he gets another tag here. Finally, wrestling fans will appreciate Terry Funk, who was great as the baddie's righthand man. We've actually seen him two other times on the site, with Road House and Timestalkers. 

Finally, as we're talking about Fred Olen Ray and the DTVC director's tag list, I thought about a picture someone posted on Bluesky of Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg. In the comments another person asked has anyone had worked with all five of them, and the best me or anyone else could come up with was Tom Cruise, who's worked with all of them but George Lucas. That got me thinking about who a similar five would be for DTV directors. Definitely Albert Pyun, Fred Olen Ray, and Joseph Merhi, who I mentioned above. From there I think Sam Firstenberg has to be included too, so then it's a matter of who the fifth one is. I was between Jim Wynorski and Charles Band, but maybe we add both, and it could be like adding Jonathan Demme or Oliver Stone to that other five (and if we do Stone, that five out of six for Cruise). If that's our six, do we have a DTV Tom Cruise who's worked with four or five of them? I was having trouble finding someone who had worked with five, but Tim Thomerson has worked with all but Merhi and Firstenberg, and Dudikoff and Ice-T have worked with all but Merhi and Band--though Merhi produced an episode of LA Heat Ice-T did. I would not have thought Merhi would be the sticking point in a lot of these, because so many people did PM films, but it looks like the case. 

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this on Tubi here in the States. I don't know that it's something to seek out, but if you like the names involved, it might do in a pinch. Also, if you're like me and need to get your percentage up on Will's Films with an Exploding Helicopter list on Letterboxd, this will help there too.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211901

Alien Storm (2026)

This was a screener request from producer Sonny Mahal, and since I'd been meaning to catch a Mahal Empire film anyway, this seemed like a perfect opportunity. Then when I saw the runtime of 75 minutes, it seemed like an even more perfect opportunity--which is that even a thing? Once something's perfect it can't be more perfect, can it?

Alien Storm is about a global alien invasion where the aliens are using a fog to cover large urban areas and knock out electricity and communications, then swarm in and kill as many people as they can. When the fog hits Las Vegas, it does so as airline CEO Frank McConnely and his wife Ophelia (Robert Standley and Laura Mason) are hosting a bougie party at the mansion he probably bought through cutting his employees' wages and his stock buyback bonuses. Luckily, all that money he made off his employees from their labor allowed him to also build a bunker in his mansion, and buy a bunch of firearms to go with it. But will all this be enough when the aliens come marching in looking to kill everyone in their path?

On a recent Bulletproof Action podcast episode discussing the Dolph Lundgren classic Showdown in Little Tokyo, Ryan Campbell said something to the effect of "if your movie's only 75 minutes, it's automatically at least a 7 out of 10," and this film is no exception to that rule, it's definitely in that 7-8 out of 10 range, or a solid 4 out of 5 stars. The runtime isn't the only thing it has to hang its hat on, we also have great practical gore effects, fun performances by Tom Arnold and Kevin Sorbo in their short time on screen, and fantastic-looking aliens that really feel authentic. The one issue I had with it was I didn't find the two main characters, the CEO and his wife, all that likeable, but even with them the actors playing them, Robert Standley and Laura Mason, gave us some great moments--it's just, how much am I relating to a CEO and his wife with a bunch of guns ordering people around in their mansion and accompanying bunker? This brings me back to the runtime though, even if I don't like the main characters, I'm not with them long enough for them to really get under my skin, and in the meantime I can enjoy everything else that's working for me, and the next thing I know the credits are rolling and I can say I had a fun time. If you're looking for a fun watch that doesn't ask a lot of you, this is worth checking out.

Recently I watched Edward L. Cahn's Invasion of the Saucer Men, which plays out similarly to this, the only difference is our heroes were two teens who accidentally ran over an alien on their way back from their make-out spot, and spent the movie trying to get people to believe them. It's easier to relate to teens than bougie CEOs and their spouses I think. Even when the actors tried to infuse some humanity into their characters after their daughter dies, it's like "that's great that we see the CEO and his wife's humanity, but does he see his employees' humanity when he's removing them from a spreadsheet to inflate profits so he can get a better bonus from the board of directors?" Hey, bunkers and guns cost money, right? Thinking about leads that would've worked better, their kids Grace and Bernie (Molly Jean Edwards and William Delesk) are a great place to start, but this movie actually takes that in a different direction on us, which I can appreciate. Another possibility for me was Elley Ringo's reporter character, Jenna Fishel, who had a lot of main character potential, and I think could've carried the film. Imagine a situation where she's there in part to hook up with Tom Arnold, but also to investigate how McConnely's company is ripping off customers with various add-ons and upcharges, while firing workers who try to unionize, and suddenly she's stuck in this alien invasion scenario. Now we're all in and want to see how she manages.

One of the biggest criticisms of my reviews is that I appear to be obsessed with runtime, and that's fair, but I think this film shows how a shorter runtime can really help the overall enjoyment of it. Going back to Edward L. Cahn, most of his films in the 50s and 60s also ran between 65 and 75 minutes (for example, Invasion of the Saucer Men was a cool 69 minutes--hey oh!), and that made sense, because not only did it help the budget, but it was easier for theaters at that time to fit in multiple showings and turn over the screening rooms, thus making them more money; plus the growing TV market could fit those movies more easily into various time slots. Now it's more about the fact that we have so many options for entertainment--a kid in a small town in the 60s may have only had that local indie theater for entertainment, while today they have myriad options at their fingertips (and unfortunately that local movie theater probably went out of business as a result)--so we often need entertainment that doesn't ask a lot of our time. That's why people binge a lot of TV shows, maybe they spend hours in total doing it, but each 45-minute episode doesn't seem like that much on its own. And I think this can lead to a rising tide raises all ships effect, because if I see this at 75 minutes and have a good time, which I did, I'm going to look on IMDb and see what other movies the people involved have done, and may be more likely to pop back on Tubi and fire up another not long after. For aspiring young indie filmmakers out there, remember, less runtime is better.

There is a large, Herculean elephant in the room that we have to address, and I'm probably walking in it by addressing it, but let's do it anyway. Mr. Kevin Sorbo, Hercules himself, has a small role as the president, but does a great job. The movie uses this ingenious plot device to give us an info dump that fills us in on the movie's backstory, which Sorbo plays a great part in making work. Essentially, Sorbo's staff has been doing a horrible job keeping him informed, and now that the excrement is coming into violent contact with the air circulating device, they have to tell him everything they haven't been telling him, and we get to hear it. In the process, he reminds us of what a great straight man he was on Hercules as he's like "what the hell is wrong with you people?", which was a lot of fun for me to see, and made the whole thing work. In the past however many years he's become a right wing meme of himself, to the point that I almost wondered if he was posting things like "secure our boarders" [sic] just to give the left wing grift more content. Like you can see Keith Olbermann's people being like "what should we post about today?" "Let's get Sorbo to make another crazy uncle post." "Great idea!" The thing is, while I couldn't give a shit less about Olbermann, I'm a fan of Sorbo's work, and would love to see him in more stuff like this, and I don't think I'm alone in that. I'm not trying to do the "shut up and dribble" thing, if he feels that strongly about his beliefs and wants to Tweet about them or whatever, more power to him; and I don't even know if posting less of that kind of stuff would get him more roles, but maybe it's just a reminder to him that Hercules had a large, diverse fan base from myriad backgrounds who enjoyed the show because of him, not in spite of him, and I think if he catered less to a small segment of that fandom and more to all of us, I think he'd find that more of us than he thinks would come back and embrace his work again.

Finally, usually this paragraph is designated for a tangential fact about the movie that relates to something else in my life, but I wanted instead to discuss the movie more. I understand that practical effects are not always practical in the modern age, especially with tight budgets and tight shooting schedules, but I feel like this movie gives other filmmakers a great road map on how to make it work. Shooting guns, probably better to keep CGI, when you're working on a tight shooting schedule, it's one less danger to worry about. Probably can say the same thing about explosions. Gore effects though are a lot of fun when done practically, and while they may take a lot of time to put together, I think the payoff is much greater than the payoff you'd get by shooting real blank rounds versus CGI rounds. And then you have the aliens. Real people in real suits is so much more fun than ones created through CGIs. Maybe you use the CGIs to enhance them, but when the overall effect is done with a real suit, you can't compare it, it's like high-fructose corn syrup versus real cane sugar. Again, going back to runtime, if you cut it down from 95 minutes to 75 minutes, the money saved from fewer shooting days can go into creating a few real alien suits, and I think if you asked moviegoers which they prefer, 95 minutes and CGI aliens or 75 minutes and real alien suits, they'd choose the latter. 

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently you can get this as rent VOD on Amazon for $3.99. If you're looking for a fun time, and want to support indie films, this is a great option. Thank you to Sonny Mahal for sending this over to us, I really enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to checking our more Mahal Empire films!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt24070874