Corbin Nash (2018)

This was recommended to us in August of 2020 on our Facebook page by one of our readers, Kevin Hazell, and it's a little embarrassing that I'm just now getting around to the review. I had planned to do it as part of a move to get more horror on the site overall, and if you look back to what I've reviewed over the past year, you can see how well that's gone--I've done just two horror films since October of 2020, Welcome to Willits and Zombeavers. In addition to us, our friends at Bulletproof Action have covered this as well, so you can head over there to see what they thought.

Corbin Nash has Dean Jagger as the film's eponymous hero, a NYC cop who finds out from an old family friend, Rutger Hauer, that his parents were vampire hunters who were killed out in LA. So Nash goes out there, gets work as an LAPD detective, and starts investigating a series of mysterious missing persons cases. He gets too close and finds himself caught and held prisoner in some kind of human kennel, where he's fed bad food and forced to fight for the enjoyment of a group of evil vampires, among them DTVC favorite Corey Feldman. Will he make it out alive? And if he does, can he stop these vampires?

 

This is one of those ones where I don't know where to go with it. It's much darker than I prefer my horror, especially with the idea of the evil vampire kennel. By the same token, I liked a lot of the performances, and I liked the action elements. Where does that leave us then? I don't know how to explain what I think is wrong with the film without spoiling it, so as you're reading, if you don't want to go any further, skip down to the next paragraph. The thing is, Nash never really figures out how to beat the vampires, he just gets turned into a vampire by them when they try to kill him, and now imbued with vampire powers, he's strong enough to take them out. It's like Justice League just waiting for Superman to come in and save the day. It would have been nice if, at the very least, he figured his own way out of the kennel. Ultimately though there was enough good in this that I could appreciate it, and maybe with a movie like this, that's not a bad deal.

Normally, we start with the film's Hall of Famer, but in this case, for me the standout was Corey Feldman. He played an evil, transgender vampire, and he completely immersed himself in that role. From the DTV angle, Feldman in that role would be enough of a novelty to make it worth watching, but the fact that he nailed it as well as he did was something else entirely. He elevates the movie beyond simply that DTV level, especially with all the other names in this to help prop it up. At the same time, as I was looking up his filmography on IMDb, I saw something called "Corey Feldman, feat Snoop Dogg: Go 4 It (Video Short)" for the same year Corbin Nash came out. What was this? I had no idea Corey Feldman had a music career, or that he performed this song on the Today show in 2016. Wonders never cease. In terms of what I think of the song? I suggest checking it out for yourself...

Now for our film's one Hall of Famer, Rutger Hauer. We last saw him in 2014, when we did the film Blood of Heroes, which I did as part of the Drunk on VHS podcast. He has a very small part here, only in the beginning, when he's introduced to our eponymous hero through another DTVC favorite, Bruce Davison, who also has smaller part. This was the last film released before Hauer left us in 2019, with the other films he shot before then released posthumously. In addition to them, we had Malcolm McDowell as the "Blind Prophet," whose character is exactly as his name says. He sits on a bench in LA, and the main character talks to him from time to time. All of these guys are as good as you'd want them to be, but there is a sense that, with Hauer and Davison we want more of them, and with McDowell we want more of a character than just the standard blind wise man. With DTV sometimes you take what you can get.

Getting back to the fact that this is only the third horror film I've done in the last year, I looked at some other major DTV genres to see how that compares to them. I've done four Sci-Fi films, two documentaries, and four comedies--of which, two were Welcome to Willits and Zombeavers, so that covers our two horror films, and also means this is the first non-comedy horror film I've done since I did the screener Coven of Evil in September of 2020. I want to say here that my plan is to do more horror in the future, but I said the same thing last year, and look how that turned out. When I first started the blog in 2007, horror was expected to be a big part of what we were doing, but I noticed early on that action films were the ones getting the most traction, and it wasn't so much that I leaned into that to get more people to the site, it was more like I'd get comments saying "oh, this was good but did you see X from this person?", and then I'd watch and review X, which led to more people commenting on X saying "have you seen Y yet?" or "I think Z was even better by them," so then I'd watch and review Y and Z too, and things grew from there. I also think the horror review ecosystem is much larger than the action film one, so my reviews of action films don't have the competition that the horror ones do. An interesting side note to this though: the 1991 horror film Mom is one of our most-read posts, and when I went to its IMDb page, I saw we were only one of 12 critic reviews listed, which is a common number for us when it comes to action movies, but rare for horror. 

 

Finally, this film also has Courtney Gaines in it. That's important, because it marks a reunion with his costar from The 'Burbs, Corey Feldman. Thinking back 36 years to when that movie came out, it made total sense that not only would it be in the theaters, but that it would be a box office hit. Nowadays, could you ever see a film like that making it to the theater? It would a Netflix original, with maybe a limited theatrical release, but beyond that, it would only exist on Netflix, and in order to see it, we'd have to shell out $13 or whatever a month, as opposed to what we did back then where someone bought it on VHS, and we always had it. Yes, you can get The 'Burbs on Blu-ray for $5, but what about the new movie out there like The 'Burbs that's looking to be made now? Netflix will gobble it up, add some big stars, and give it a social media campaign that makes us think everyone who's anyone is watching it, keep it on their streaming site until they decide they don't want it anymore, and then, long after the faux social media buzz has worn off, it disappears, and we barely remember it ever happened; as opposed to The 'Burbs, where people of a certain age all know and remember it.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream Corbin Nash on Tubi here in the US, which I think is a good deal. There were aspects of it I didn't like, and it's definitely on the darker side for me, but there were also some performances worth seeing, especially Feldman's.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2948160

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Bigfoot (2012)

Our friend Simon at Explosive Action mentioned this one to me after I'd reviewed another film from The Asylum.  He told me it had Bigfoot with Danny Bonaduce and Barry Williams, and I knew from there I was sold.  I put it in my Instant queue, but now Netflix is telling me they're about to dump it, so I better get to it now if I'm gonna, which means I guess I'm finally gonna.  Also, our friends at TarsTarkas.net looked at this one too, so you can go there to see what they had to say.

Bigfoot takes place in Deadwood, South Dakota, not far from Mt. Rushmore.  Local DJ and 80s pop idol Danny Bonaduce is planning a big 80s flashback concert, and his former co-80s pop idol Barry Williams is protesting his cutting down national forest lands to do it.  Williams is not the only one upset with this concert.  That's right, Bigfoot has something to say too, but he can only communicate through deadly violence.  Now we're at an impasse, because town mayor Howard Hessman wants the show to bring in tourism dollars, while acting sheriff Sherilyn Fenn and her co-sheriff Bruce Davison (who also directs) want to keep the people of the town safe.  Will they succeed?



This was a ton of fun.  It was definitely a send-up of 50s and 60s monster flicks, to the point that Bigfoot, though CG, moved like a Harryhausen creation.  And I loved that they evoked King Kong and North by Northwest at the end.  Bonaduce was great as the heel, and Williams was great as the equally egotistical environmentalist.  Bigfoot was a little heavy with the kills, and it was an interesting take to make him more like a King Kong than a Sasquatch, but, again, it played into the fun.  The Asylum got this one right.

The review at TarsTarkas.net mentioned that this felt like an unofficial sequel to Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, between the teen idols fighting, and the music cameo biting it.  In the former, we had 80s idols Tiffany and Debbie Gibson, plus Mickey Dolenz as the cameo; in this one we have 70s idols Bonaduce and Williams, plus Alice Cooper as the cameo.  If anything, it makes for a fun paradigm; but in both cases, they needed to make it work beyond the gimmick, from the writing to the idols playing their parts, and they did.  I think Mega Python is the better film, but together they'd make for a fantastic double feature.  Another interesting thing to consider is that Bonaduce and Williams, because they were so young as teen idols in the 70s, actually could've been pop stars in the 80s too.  Hell, they're both younger than Huey Lewis.



Okay all you Twin Peaks kids out there, I won't leave you hanging anymore.  Yes, this has Sherilyn Fenn in it.  The funny thing for us Gen X-ers is that we saw her on Twin Peaks and thought "hey, she was in Just One of the Guys", and now all the Millennials that were born in the 90s and just picked up Twin Peaks a few years ago see Just One of the Guys and think "hey, it's Audrey Horne!"  Anyway, it's 2012, and Fenn is playing neither of those characters, she's playing a no-nonsense cop from Oklahoma City who had to come home and fill in as sheriff after her father passed away.  She has no time for either Bonaduce or Williams, but when this Bigfoot situation arises, she's equal to the task.  I don't know how Twin Peaks fans will feel about seeing her in this, but I thought she was great.

We had a few other notable names here.  Howard Hessman, as I mentioned above, played the mayor.  Very different from the usual counter culture characters he plays.  Growing up, my parents watched reruns of WKRP in Cincinnati, and later I remember him having new shows on TV, both Head of the Class and The New WKRP in Cincinnati.  Another fun addition in this film.  Then we had Bruce Davison, who played both the other sheriff, and directed.  I loved how his character was like "we need to get out of here and leave this to the national guard", but Fenn is like "no, we need to take care of this", and he gives her the look that says "that means I'm dead."  I love that kind of awareness for a character like his.  Then we had Andre Royo as the hunter.  Instead of being killed by Bigfoot, he's killed by the national guard when he's trying to run from Bigfoot, I think a thinly veiled joke about the police's propensity to shoot first and ask questions later when a person of color is involved.  Stephanie Sarreal Park played Williams's girlfriend.  He had a de facto harem of younger women in his environmentalist collective, but she was the one that he was dating.  She doesn't have many more film roles to her credit, but she's good here as the earnest, yet naive young woman who believes in Williams's fight.  As I mentioned above, Alice Cooper has a small cameo before he's punted into the forest by Bigfoot.  We last saw him in Monster Dog singing about "Identity Crises".  Finally, there was a woman in Williams's harem who was killed off by Bigfoot early on, yet who comes back in subsequent scenes.  It was a funny send-up of low-budget films-- if it was a send up, that is.



Finally, Mt. Rushmore features prominently in this, especially at the end as it channels North by Northwest.  I've never been, never even been close to South Dakota.  Of course, this film wasn't shot close to it either, it was shot in Washington, but I digress.  It would be nice to go sometime though.  America is such a big country, and there are so many places I've never been to, and may never see.  That's why it's great that I have The Asylum to show them to me in their movies with a King Kong style CG Bigfoot scaling them.

Once this is dumped on Instant, DVD on Amazon is the only way to get it.  I wouldn't do it that way, it's probably better to keep an eye on SyFy for it, because this was one of those that SyFy snatched up and aired before it was released on DVD-- that DTV into Made for TV type of thing.  If you can set the DVR, that would be the way to go, because it's a lot of fun, and like Mt. Rushmore, worth seeing at least once.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1876261/

La Linea - The Line (2008)

Here is another in the Netflix Dump 8, though this one was slightly different, in that it wasn't a part of the initial dump, but came a week later.  It's one I'd been meaning to do for some time, because the cast is exceedingly prodigious, including DTVC Hall of Famer Gary Daniels, and favorites Ray Liotta, Andy Garcia, and Danny Trejo.  Let's see how it went.

La Linea is about a well-established drug trafficking line that carries drugs through Mexico and into the United States.  As you can imagine, all sorts of intrigue surrounds it, in this case specifically: a shift in the leadership in the cartel that controls it, complete with a power struggle between two parties that both feel entitled to that power; and the impending deal between the cartel and Afghan heroin dealers, which has tipped off the CIA, who isn't happy about this.  Tijuana is about to explode.



I think if this one has any problems, it's that it's trying to do too much in only 90 minutes, which often means that everything suffers.  We have some core storylines that the film tries to focus on, but it's hard to do.  Liotta, for instance, plays a hit man who has cancer, and at times we get into what he's going through, but at others we lose him, because we have to with everything else that's going on.  The same thing happens with Andy Garcia, who plays the original cartel leader, and Esai Morales, who Garcia is handing control over to.  You could almost make the whole movie about either storyline, or maybe even a longer movie that included both.  There was some decent action though, and some fun performances from a lot of great actors.  If you see it on cable sometime, and like the actors, I'd give it a look.

The film for the most part centers on Liotta and Garcia-- though again, we lose them at points, especially Garcia-- both of whom were good.  It's funny, I looked up the Goodfellas year for the Oscars, and Andy Garcia was up for best supporting actor for The Godfather III, which Joe Pesci won for Goodfellas.  I was wondering why Ray Liotta wasn't up for best actor in that film, but that year was pretty stacked for candidates.  The two never appear on-screen together until the very end, which in a way is too bad, because it would have been nice to see them together, but I liked them in two interweaving stories that only intersect in the denouement.  Again, the only issue was that neither could be delved into as well as I'd have liked.



Gary Daniels was the film's one Hall of Famer, but his role is rather scant.  This was a common thing for Daniels in the late 2000s, doing small roles in slightly better films with bigger casts, than bigger roles in lower budget films-- even though those are the ones we love.  I think for him though he enjoys rubbing shoulders with these big stars, and I can't be mad at him for taking that opportunity.  Still, what would one fight scene hurt?  One moment where we see him flex his martial arts muscles?

Rounding out the rest of this heavy duty cast: I mentioned above that we had Esai Morales as the new cartel boss.  He's always someone I enjoy watching, but I felt like his character was set up to fail here, which wasn't as much fun.  The great Armand Assante played a priest.  Always great to see him.  Speaking of the 1991 Oscars, Bruce Davison, who was also a best supporting actor nominee that year, was in this as a CIA agent.  Another great, Joe Morton, played another agent who worked separately from Davison.  I already mentioned Danny Trejo.  He was Morales's second in command.  Then we had Kevin Gage as Liotta's guy in Mexico who helps him out.  Pretty much as Kevin Cage as it gets.  And then, in a very small part at the beginning, Michael DeLorenzo.  Not sure why he's in this, but he's there and worth a mention.



Finally, Valerie Cruz had a great turn as a prostitute who takes Liotta in when he's injured and nurses him back to health.  We see this construct a lot in movies like this, but here it had the feeling that it might be something more, especially with the chemistry Liotta and Cruz had, but again, as with much of the film, it wasn't delved into enough, and as a result was just kind of there.  That was maybe the most disappointing, because this had the potential to be some of the best stuff in the film, an area where it could really make its money.

Because of the cast, this isn't a bad cable TV watch, or if it ends up back on Netflix Instant.  I wouldn't waste a DVD rental on it, let alone pay full price.  You can see these guys in other places in better films in that case.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1111918/

Titanic II (2010)

When I first heard about this one, I had to check it out. It was from The Asylum, so I knew it could be a real stinker, and they were more likely than not going to disappoint me, but the idea of Titanic II was just too irresistible to pass up.

Titanic II takes place 100 years after the ill-fated part I set sail. Shane Van Dyke plays a rich boy, filled to the gills with enough hubris to sink a tanker. The senator from X-Men, Bruce Davison, is some kind of scientist who, with a hot female scientist, realize that a huge tidal wave set off from a huge iceberg falling into the arctic due to Global Warming is aiming straight for the ship, and his daughter is a hopelessly inappropriately dressed medic working on the maiden voyage. Well, hubris, big ships, and tidal waves are a recipe for disaster-- plus, we wouldn't have a movie without it-- and it's up to Davison to mitigate the damage.



This one worked. I know, it's crazy, but The Asylum finally got it right, I mean really got it right. This was a perfect send-up of low-budget disaster and sci-fi movies of the 50s. Just replace nuclear disaster with Global Warming, and it fits. While everything was tongue-in-cheek, it was done without the obvious wink-wink nudge-nudge that ruins it for us. They weren't afraid of us not getting the joke, weren't afraid of us thinking they were serious about this, and because of that, it was perfect. The Asylum, making it work.

Bruce Davison really holds up his end of the bargain here. Just like Bruce Boxleitner in Transmorphers: Fall of Man, he played it straight, and he played it well. If you watch the gag reel that comes with it, you see how difficult that was for him. A lot of greenscreens, a lot of silly dialog, and if he overdoes it, acts like he's in on the joke, as opposed to acting like he wasn't, which was his job, again, he ruins the whole thing. Here's to you Bruce Davison, for what's it's worth, I think your character got a bum deal in X-Men.



This is directed by Transmorphers: Fall of Man star Shane Van Dyke. I didn't know this, but his dad, Barry Van Dyke, Dick Van Dyke's son, was the dude who played his son on Diagnosis Murder. Not only that, but Shane Van Dyke appeared on a bunch of episodes too. My mom loves that show. I looked on imdb, and it turns out he actually directed his dad and Greg Evigan in another Asylum flick, 6 Guns. We'll have to see what that's about. I should point out too that Van Dyke wrote Titanic II as well. A great job all around here. Maybe he was all The Asylum needed to make them work. Sorry C. Thomas Howell...

I brought up in the synopsis the inappropriately dressed medics on the ship. Both women, in tight, half-unbuttoned shirts, short skirts, and heels. Perfect for responding to any medical emergency. And all of this was carried off without a hint of irony, which made it fit with everything else that was going on. Not to mention they were both very hot, and there's no way we would've known that had they been dressed in more practical pants and shirts with safety shoes on. Exactly, if we want realism, we'll watch TLC. When we watch The Asylum, we want our medics looking sexy.



The ship was almost entirely done in CGIs. The ocean was almost entirely done in CGIs. The arctic was almost completely done in CGIs. Did it look like crap? Absolutely. Was it awesome? Absolutely. It just worked in that 1950s Attack of the Giant Gila Monster kind of way, and I think that, though that's often the approach when The Asylum goes the CGI route in a movie like this, it usually comes off as a bad send-up that's lazily paying homage, as opposed to apart of a whole concept in the spirit of the 1950s low-budget cheesefest. Shane Van Dyke found a way to make it work, so kudos to him.

If you're into the whole bad Sci-Fi (SyFy?) Pictures Original thing, this is as good as it gets. Strangely enough, it's the only one out of Shane Van Dyke's three films he's directed that's not available on Watch Instantly. It is on DVD though, so I'd check it out. It's a fun time, especially in a group.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1640571/