Hunt Club (2022)

This was covered on episode 232 of the DTVC Podcast, back on October 14, when Ty and I did our Mickey Rourke double feature, "Rourke to Oblivion," and with Casper Van Dien, I figured it needed a review on here too. In addition to us, Chad Cruise at Bulletproof has covered this as well.

Hunt Club features Mena Suvari as Cassandra, a mother whose daughter disappeared. After a chance meeting with Tessa (Maya Stojan), a woman with a specific set of skills, they track the daughter's last known location to party a bunch of rich men throw on a remote island on a lake in the woods. Cassandra infiltrates the party while Tessa sneaks onto the island by raft, and soon both discover that this "party" is a bunch of Men's Rights douchebags who keep women captive, then hunt them in a sick game. Among the hunters we have old timer Carter (Casper Van Dien), who is trying to break in his son Jackson (Will Peltz), Virgil (Mickey Rourke), and brothers Preston and Teddy (Jeremy and Jason London). These men all think they're just going to have another fun hunt, but once Cassandra connects up with Tessa, they'll make this a hunt those guys won't forget--because they'll be dead. (See what I did there?)

There were some fun aspects to this, but I think it fell victim to the classic "only enough material for an episode of a syndicated TV show" issue. If we had a syndicated TV series where Suvari and Stojan went around the country taking down criminal operations like this, this would be a perfect 42-minute episode. Instead, because this needs to be 87 minutes, there's this delay where Stojan is taking her time getting to the island and putting away her raft, while some of these young women are getting killed. And this is a pretty rough way to go, be held captive for weeks on end in some barn, and then die a violent death in the woods after some guys hunt you down. That's not a simple horror movie kids having sex in a parked car getting hacked up by Jason kind of kill, that's pretty dark stuff, and to have people dying while our heroes are taking their time getting their shit together is kind of off-putting. When Stojan and Suvari's characters decided to kick it in high gear, it delivers a bit more on what its premise promises, and we get some nice kills, which I appreciated. I liked what they were going for here, and I think in a lot of ways they were successful, I just wish there would've been some more urgency among the main characters while the other women were getting killed off.

I thought we'd start with our two leads, Mena Suvari and Maya Stojan, because I thought they were both great. We'd seen Suvari on the podcast before, back when Jamie and I did Don't Blink on episode 27, but this is her first time on the site. I really liked her interplay with Will Peltz, where she's playing the more mature woman and wrapping him around her finger, and I think they could've leaned into that more and had her not get caught by the baddies herself, but rather find the girls on her own and break them out--and it was almost like they had her get caught by them both to pad out that portion of the film, and to have an excuse to, as the Brits would say, "get her kit off," which for me the whole thing betrayed the character they were building with her. For Stojan, we've actually seen her before, when we did the indie screener for Case 346. Unlike Suvari's character, who has this nuance of the grieving mother, Stojan's is pure badass, but again, the story construct betrayed that badassness, because we're like "when is Stojan going to save these other women?" while she's putting her raft away and they're getting shot by crossbows and stepping in bear traps. Also unlike Suvari, where this kind or role seems more like a one-off, I feel like we could have a lot more Stojan-led DTV actioners, which I would love to watch if they ever got made.

The other two big names familiar to the DTVC are Casper Van Dien and Mickey Rourke, and both were a lot of fun as baddies. For Van Dien, this is his 10th film on the site, which feels low for him, but I think that's because he's someone where I see a bunch of stuff of his I want to review, but don't get around to it. By all accounts, he should be in the 30 Club by now, and he's not even close, so maybe I can try to make a better effort to fix that. Like in Most Dangerous Game, he's a great baddie, he knows the assignment, and he delivers every bit of it. Every time we see him though it's a reminder that we need to get more of his stuff up, and hopefully I'll do that in the future. Rourke on the other hand is exactly the modern Rourke you expect. He's just a good actor giving the movie what it wants when they get him on board and give him a few pages of script to do--or in this case maybe he has a little more. This is only his seventh film on the site, but unlike Van Dien where that number is low, for Rourke it feels a bit higher, and a big part of that is he's in a lot of movies with bigger names on the site like Dolph and Michael Jai White, and I imagine because of that we'll see him a lot more in the future too.

Do you remember on the Cave Dwellers episode of MST3K? Especially the part where Ator and the female lead are about to be sacrificed to the snake god along with one other guy they had with him and a bunch of fair maidens the long-haired John Saxon guy brought. His friend Thong sneaks in to rescue them, but by the time he gets to Ator all the fair maidens and the guy have been sacrificed, and at one point I think it's Joel who says "geez, Gomez is taking his sweet time," and then there's a joke about padding. The movie's saying these fair maidens don't matter, it's only important for Thong to save Ator. Another example of this is in American Ninja 4, where everyone's about to be burned at the stake, when Dudikoff shows up to rescue them, but, again, is taking his sweet time, and in the process, one of the soldiers is burned alive. This movie has the same kind of issue with the women being hunted and killed while Stojan is taking her time stashing her raft on the island. It doesn't do anything to help the movie, and if anything hurts the perception of our heroes. I know filmmakers all know a lot more about movie making than I do, but as a fan of films and someone who likes to watch them, my piece of advice is, watch Cave Dwellers, and then don't do anything they do in that movie, and you should be in good shape.

Finally, this was directed by Elizabeth Blake-Thomas, and even though it was written by two men (one of whom, David Lipper, also played one of the hunt club guys), I think her direction de-male gaze-ified it, so to speak. Recently Jon and I discussed a movie called Private Obsession for an upcoming podcast episode, where Shannon Whirry is held captive by the 90s equivalent of a Men's Rights douchebag, and most of the movie is her being mentally tortured and starved and whatnot, but then in the last five minutes she turns the tables on him, and there's this sense on filmmaker Lee Frost's part of "hey, see, I don't agree with this stuff because I had the guy get his comeuppance." Blake-Thomas for the most part divorces the movie from that concept, there isn't a tone of a guy filmmaker getting off on seeing a woman mistreated like this, but then thinking he's distancing himself from it by turning the tables at the end. I think that's why the part in the early middle where women are getting killed while Stojan is stashing her raft was so off-putting, because it betrayed the rest of what the movie was doing, at least for me. I think as this Manosphere concept grows, and people try to make sense of it with endless op-eds about why modern men are so disaffected, having voices that cut through that bullshit will be that much more important, and what I appreciated here was when Stojan's character finally joins the party it became the movie I was hoping it would be. When I was in undergrad, I wrote a paper about how the Taliban's restrictions on women were used to keep the overall population in Kabul under their thumb, and my professor told me "you didn't discuss at all how the women involved feel about this," and I think that's often what happens when we have these "commentaries" on toxic attitudes, whether it's chauvinistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc., people spend too much time on the people with the horrible attitudes, and less on how the people who are targets of that animosity feel; and this film, at least when it gets going, does a better job of that, and hopefully we'll see more of that in the future.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently stream this on Tubi here in the States. I think the runtime, the performances, and the way the story ultimately resolves itself is worth a watch, even if I think it would've worked better if we'd been able to see the heroes get after it sooner. And if you haven't yet, you can check out the Rourke to Oblivion podcast episode Ty and I did where we discuss this, number 232 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21220802

And check out my newest novel, Mark in Sales, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

The Most Dangerous Game (2023)

I first heard about this on a podcast I listen to, Knowledge Fight, which does a fantastic job making fun of and poking holes in Alex Jones's show. When they open their show, they do what they call their "bright spot," and one of them mentioned this, and that it had CT, one of my faves from The Real World. The fact that it had Casper Van Dien was great, and Ty from Comeuppance and I included it in a podcast episode, 126, "Casper Van Double Feature." In addition to us, Chris from Bulletproof has covered this one as well.

The Most Dangerous Game has Judd Nelson as a hunter going into Alaska to hunt bear, along with Bruce Dern, his son (CT), and another guy. Their ship blows up.Dern dies, and the other three end up stranded on an island, only to be found by Casper Van Dien and his large, mute, servant. After some back and forth in his lair, we find out Van Dien is a hunter too--of people! He kills Nelson and the other guy, and sends CT out to survive, along with a brother and sister duo he'd been keeping there for a few weeks. The thing is though, CT is a WWII vet, and he's more than up to the challenge of taking Van Dien down!

Maybe one of the biggest surprises of the year, this film was fun! And not only were Ty and I in agreement on that, according to his review Chris at Bulletproof enjoyed it as well. Yes, it was low budget, and yes, we've seen this story however many times before, but sometimes a simple story on a small budget is all you need. Van Dien was fantastic as a German-accented scene-chewing baddie who reveled in his baddie role; and CT, despite being a novice at this, was very solid as the hero. Then we had Nelson as CT's dad, which was a stretch based on ages, but Nelson is always fun; Tom Berenger plays a guy who's been surviving on the island that CT and the sister encounter, and with him playing that part, how could you not love him? And finally, Bruce Dern is there to pad out the opening, which, to me is a very creative form of padding--the Emmett-Furla-Oasis crew could take notes on that one! Free on Tubi, 95 minutes, simple story with enough intrigue and tension, and fun performances, what more do you need?

We love Casper Van Dien at the DTVC, and Ty is a big fan too, which was why we did the podcast episode featuring two of his films. I think this one gets to the heart of why we're big fans, because he plays this baddie with such aplomb, but yet he keeps him so bad that we never have the Destro Effect, we always want to see CT beat him. This movie doesn't work without that, and I think with someone new to acting like CT, Van Dien's able to do that heavy lifting so CT can be more low-key and not have to stretch himself too much. This is only Van Dien's 9th film on the site, which seems like a really low number, so I need to get more of his films up--though I'm not sure if I'll do the other one we did for the pod episode, Red Prophesies, because he and everyone else is dubbed in that! He has a ton of stuff out for me to review, so we can get that tag count up, and this film is a reminder of why we need to do that, because Van Dien is one of the greats.

Like many in my age group, I grew up on The Real World, from Eric Nies in New York, to what I have as one of the best seasons of a TV show ever, season two in LA, to Puck making a mess of things in San Francisco. I dreamed of being on the show back then, but as I got older, there was a part of me that knew I wasn't cool enough, and part of me that couldn't imagine being filmed all day like that. CT on the other hand, who is about my age, decided to sign up and audition, and look at him now. He was part of a series of guys from Eastern Massachusetts--or "Massholes" as we Mainers called them when they came to our beaches in the summer and clogged up our roads with their bad driving--I say that, but I have many relatives in Eastern Mass, as my grandfather was from Somerville, and his siblings and cousins populated areas like Malden, Saugus, Danvers, and Methuen. But anyway, CT was one in that series of these near-Bostonians, starting with David in Seattle--who I believe CT is related to or grew up near--brash, "r" dropping, ready to kick yah fuckin' ass if you get smaht with them, but out of those CT was the Boston-iest, starting with his season in Paris, where he pretended that he sent the flowers one of the ladies received from her friends, or telling Ace that his hair was "on fi-yah" when he spiked it up with gel, or just punching trust-fund American exchange students on the street. He was made for The Real World/Road Rules Challenge, one of the few Real Worlders who could handle the hardened Road Rules kids, and quickly became one of the show's stars, making him as big as luminaries like Puck in the history of the show. But the question is, can he act? He's working on it for sure, but that presence that makes him so much fun on The Challenge works as a fantastic counter to Van Dien's over-the-top baddie. He has one other film on Tubi that Ty and I will have to do at some point, but I'm also excited to see his career grow. I need more CT DTV films in my life--he's on fi-yah!

Unlike CT who's new to acting, Judd Nelson has been around for a while. What I didn't realize is we hadn't reviewed one of his films since we did The Day the Earth Stopped in 2010, and this is only his third film on the site, the other one being Steel. I'm not sure how that happened, I figured I'd have stumbled into something else like this where he had a smaller supporting role, but apparently not. He is 21 years older than CT, so he could possibly be his father, but could you imagine him playing Bender at 25 with a four-year-old CT at home? And I think it's that and St. Elmo's Fire that makes me think he's younger, when he's older than James Spader, and guys like Vincent D'Onofrio and Tom Sizemore. Like Van Dien, he does a great job of supporting CT as a new actor, even affecting a slight Mass accent, which sounds like it shouldn't be a stretch since he's a New Englander too, but he grew up more like James Spader, not quite going to school with JFK, Jr., but close, so he wouldn't have naturally had an accent like CT does. I think the bigger stretch is the goatee, but like Van Dien, though in perhaps a more subtle way, he was digging into playing a type in this to make the film more fun, and, again, I think this works more because of it. Hopefully it's not another 13 years before the next time we see him here.

Finally, this was killed in the IMDb reviews, but part of me wonders if that's a good thing? A lot of times low budget flicks like this get as many people associated with the project or friends and family of them to give it 10s, so when I see a bunch of 10s I get suspicious. This didn't do that, the same way that an Albert Pyun would never do something like that, and perhaps maybe that's a good sign. Sure, maybe with low budget flicks when you see bad reviews they're accurate, but more often than not, people who kill something like this on IMDb are expecting it to be something bigger than it is, and don't grade it on a curve to account for budget and other limitations it might have going in; but at the same time, people who can't let those bad reviews sit and need to get their friends and family to inflate the numbers are hurting their credibility just as much. I get it, if you put in an earnest effort to make something you think is solid, warts and all, seeing someone shit all over it has to be frustrating. Hopefully though there are enough people out there that get what you were going for, and those opinions matter more than someone who just wants to kill you on a movie website--which it sounds like we have here.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can get this on Tubi here in the States, and I think based on the number of other places that has it streaming for free, it's probably available outside the US. This is a fun DTV flick that will get you to the church on time.

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Star Raiders: The Adventures of Saber Raine (2017)

I saw this on Tubi, and with Casper Van Dien and Cynthia Rothrock on the tin, plus the great James Lew, I figured this could be a fun time. Of course, whenever I think something is just going to be a good time, if often isn't, isn't it? So here's to hoping that it is instead of it isn't.

Star Raiders: The Adventures of Saber Raine is an adventure as bold as the size of its title, starring Casper Van Dien as the eponymous hero--or at least the name at the end of the long title eponymous. He's a former decorated soldier from earth who is disgraced after he attacks his own ships to help an alien woman escape. Now a hired mercenary, he's helping a troop of soldiers from another planet rescue their prince and princess who were captured and taken to a far away land. Along the way, they encounter all manner of evil beings looking to trip them up, plus everything with the prince and princess and their captor isn't what it seems. The only constant is we know Casper Van Dien is the man, and he knows how to get stuff done. (And wasn't Cynthia Rothrock in this?)

The IMDb user reviews of this were pretty harsh, and I feel like this is earnest enough that it doesn't deserve that. For me, this would have been a fantastic syndicated TV show in the late 90s, and I would've watched it between Hercules and Beastmaster episodes. As a movie, I'm not so sure. I loved a lot of the costumes and the creations for the aliens, but then James Lew's as the baddie with half his head taken off looked gross to me, so it was like it took away from that. Casper Van Dien as the rogue hero was fantastic, but because we had so many characters, we lost him for periods, and he was really underpinning the whole thing--especially since we lost Lew with his half-head costume, and Rothrock was only in it at the very end. The other thing was, I think between Van Dien and the budget for the costumes and the alien make-up, the budget wasn't what you'd want in the special effects department, and that betrayed a lot of what this was going for--again, something in a late 90s syndicated TV show we'd forgive, but maybe not as much in a sci-fi flick from 2017.

Casper Van Dien has become a favorite here at the DTVC--in part because in the past he's retweeted, reposted, and replied to my social media posts about our reviews of his films, which is always appreciated. In the last film we saw him in Showdown in Manila, we talked about how his roguish good guy totally stole the show from the guy who was supposed to be the lead, Alexander Nevsky. Here he's not stealing the show from anyone here, he's meant to anchor the whole thing, and I think he does as great a job as he did in Showdown. We need to get more of his stuff up here, because whether the film works or not, he seems to always be great in it, which is all you can ask for.

Again, I think the problem is we lose him because we have a lot of intrigue going on on the baddie end of things, and that's where a James Lew without half his head missing could have really been the Yang to Van Dien's Yin--or would he be the Yin to Van Dien's Yang? A good baddie really makes it in films like this, and we've seen Lew on the DTVC do many great turns as the baddie, and from my experience he does a better job with the top half of his head intact. I also noticed that it's been almost a decade since we've seen him, so it's too bad that we actually don't get to see him here, meaning I need to find something else he's been in so we actually get a chance to see him again.

Cynthia Rothrock, the film's one Hall of Famer, is in this for a tiny bit at the very end. It's enough for her to get a tag, but when it comes to doing Rothrock films here at the DTVC, we won't count it as a Rothrock post, so we won't move some of the ones where she has a starring role further down the list because of it. I think the idea is this is supposed to be a series of films, and as such, she would come in and reprise this character in a bigger way later. Just because Rothrock's role was scant, that doesn't mean the female action talent in this was overall. We had Brit Laree as one of the soldiers from the prince and princess's plane working with Van Dient; Sarah N. Salazar as the princess; and then Holly Westwood as alien woman Van Dien saves who now works with him. All three of them were great and it would be cool to see what they do going forward in the DTV action sphere.

I'm going to use this last paragraph to talk about the exceedingly long name this film has. We always joke about the number of two-word titles in the DTV world, but now with social media and the different ways we chat about movies online, shorter titles help in a lot of ways. One, they're easier to remember--if this were either just "Star Raiders" or "Saber Raine," I would know exactly what it is to tell anyone else I'm chatting with about it; but two, when I need to post about this review on social media, I'm stuck writing this seven-word title on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. When I look at all the reviews I have lined up after this, even the sequels don't have as many words in the title. Just like I prefer an 88-minute movie or less, I like a nice small title too.

And with that, it's time to wrap this up. This isn't horrible, and I think the fact that it is an earnest effort helps. The other thing that helps is the great Casper Van Dien performance. Overall, it takes me back to those 90s syndicated TV shows I loved, but that may or may not work for you. The fact that it's free on Tubi also helps--the only thing you're out is your time.

For more information: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2039380

Showdown in Manila (2016)

Getting back into things after that long hiatus, I wanted to see what some of the Hall of Famers have been up to, and this one has three: Cynthia Rothrock, Don "The Dragon" Wilson, and Olivier Gruner.  In addition, it has DTVC favorites Casper Van Dien, Mark Dacascos, Tia Carrere, Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa, and Matthias Hues.  I couldn't not review this, right?

Showdown in Manila is about a cop, Alexander Nevsky, who gets his team killed when a bust goes bad.  He starts a PI firm with former LA cop Casper Van Dien, and gets a case dumped in his lap that may get him the revenge on the baddies, Cary Tagawa and Matthias Hues, who killed his team, when Tia Carrere hires them to find the same men who killed her husband, Mark Dacascos.  If Nevsky and Van Dien are going to pull this off, they'll need to call in some DTVC Hall of Famers.

This one was missing something, and I think the problem was there was too much shooting and too little anything else.  And it was that kind of shooting where you see one person firing a weapon in one shot, and then someone else in an entirely different shot getting hit.  The other thing is, when you have the names this had, you need more than just one Mark Dacascos fight and one Cynthia Rothrock fight for that to pay off.  I don't need Olivier Gruner and Don "The Dragon" Wilson to just fire weapons, anyone can do that, I need to see them take out a few guys at once with their martial arts.  I feel bad, because I think I'm judging the movie more on what it could have been as opposed to what it was based on the cast, but the trailer was selling me that too, and in my mind it just didn't quite deliver.

Another issue the film had was, it really was supposed to be Nevsky's, but Casper Van Dien was stealing every scene they were in together.  It made me want more of him, and the scenes that were Nevsky-focused had me waiting for when Van Dien would be back.  Then, as Van Dien is shining in every scene the way he was, I starting thinking "why isn't his character the one this is centered around?  He's more compelling."  That's a situation you never want to be in.  If you look at another "showdown" movie, Showdown in Little Tokyo, Brandon Lee was fantastic, but Dolph could carry it so well that they played off each other and the whole thing worked.  The other thing is I think Dolph had had more acting credits at that point than Brandon Lee, whereas Casper Van Dien has been around much more than Nevsky, and it showed in their scenes together.

Alexander Nevsky has made a few films over the past five years, and I think he could, with the right material, be one of those actors after Scott Adkins and Michael Jai White who could carry the torch after some of the old guard have retired--and to some extent, I think this movie was a bit of a passing of the torch with the names who were supporting him.  The problem Nevsky faces was staring at him in the person of Matthias Hues: the bad guy is usually the hulking Eastern European, and a lot of the stars working with him in this picture made their money taking down their share of Alexander Nevskys in their careers.  What that means is he's working uphill versus the high-octane martial arts of Adkins and White that make more sense to us as action fans.  I would add a Tony Jaa to that list.  I'm not saying I don't think Nevsky can have a career in DTV action, I personally would love to see him make it, I just think he needs the right material as he gets his feet under him, and I don't know that this film was it.

As we discussed, there are three DTVC Hall of Famers, and all three of them come in for the jungle scenes in the last half-hour or so.  Part of the reason why all three of them are Hall of Famers is we're used to them leading their own films--Gruner has 20 films on the DTVC, Rothrock 28, and Wilson 30.  You could also add Dacascos and his 16 films to that list, but seeing that he was also directing, his smaller role was more understandable.  The point I'm making is, adding headliners to this movie without giving them headliner roles I think brings us back to the idea that this film feels like it could have been more.  For example, Cynthia Rotherock had a good fight scene where she took out a bunch of henchmen, but that's the kind of scene an up-and-comer should get to show us what she's got, not someone who has helmed 5 DTV action franchises: China O'Brien, Rage and Honor, Martial Law, Lady Dragon, and Tiger Claws.  She's one of the biggest reasons why I got into DTV action, and to see her in this small role supporting Nevsky didn't feel right.  Same could be said of Don "The Dragon" Wilson and Olivier Gruner.  We may see more of this kind of thing going forward, where DTVC Hall of Famers take smaller supporting roles, and I don't know how we mitigate this issue of how much we're used to them being the lead, unless you only have them be baddies.  I'm not saying I need them in roles where they do a fight scene every 10-15 minutes--they've already done plenty of those for us, and plenty of great ones at that--, but I think you have to give the audience something they can really sink their teeth into so they leave feeling satisfied.

*****SPOILER ALERT*****SPOILER ALERT*****SPOILER ALERT*****
I wanted to discuss the very end of the movie, so if you don't want to know what happens, don't read this paragraph.  The way the film ends, the guys capture Tagawa, and take him back to Manila, where Matthias Hues has been lying in the trunk of their car.  They have the guys in handcuffs sitting in chairs in their office, when Tia Carrere's character comes in, and shoots them both in cold blood.  I don't want to get into the idea of victim's rights in real life, and whether or not a victim's family should have the right to get revenge like this.  Real life is one thing, but a movie is different, and it seems off when the heroes do it.  Again, this isn't real life, Mark Dacascos didn't really die, so in the construct of a movie, I think you have to have the baddie go for a gun or do something threatening to justify killing them.  They can't be restrained and defenseless, it just doesn't play well, at least to me.
*****END SPOILER*****END SPOILER*****END SPOILER*****

For me, I unfortunately can't fully recommend this.  It had its moments, but I feel like the bigger cast made me wish they had done more.  I like Nevsky, and think he could have a big future, but there were a lot of names that overshadowed him.  In fact, many of the big names made their careers in films where they defeated Nevsky-types, and I think that undermined what they were going for.  You can find this on Amazon Prime, so if you're a Prime subscriber, this won't cost you anything more.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4586626

500 MPH Storm (2013)

This one was suggested to me by Netflix Instant, and when I saw it had DTVC favorite Casper Van Dien, I figured I'd give it a go.  Not to mention it's from The Asylum, and their track record has been getting better recently.  Oh yeah, and it's under 90 minutes long, so even if it's not good, it's only 90 minutes, and on Instant.  How bad could it be, right?

500 MPH Storm has Casper Van Dien as a lantern-jawed, gray-stubbled scientist, called into action when the clean energy producing device he helped design is causing a mega storm.  Turns out his buddy, Michael Beach, accelerated the process of creating energy, which wasn't a good idea. The worst part: the storm and the device are feeding each other, and if they're not stopped, the result could be a 500 MPH hypercane!  Will Van Dien-- and his wife and son who are with him-- be able to save us from disaster?



I liked this.  It was a parody of the disaster film, both the old and the new.  Sometimes it was really obvious, like when Van Dien and his wife and son drove into a cargo container being blown at them by the wind, and they had to drive out of it.  The reactions were so over the top, yet so funny, that it was obvious what they were doing.  Most of the time though, the mockery was more meta, like they were making fun of the genre and its conventions, but were using them at the same time, so it wasn't like a total Spaceballs style spoof.  It wasn't all roses though.  A film like this requires a lot of momentum to keep a story like this going for 90 minutes, and it lost steam around the hour mark.  Even then though it had its moments that made it fun.  It's an interesting bad movie night call, because it is making fun of itself too, making it hard for us to make fun of it, but it provides enough funny moments that it works.  Maybe a drinking game would make it better for bad movie night.

None of this would've worked if Casper Van Dien hadn't played it right though.  He delivered his one-liners mocking the film the right way, hammed it up when the role called for it, and played it straight well too.  In the 90s he did these movies, and they were more serious, so it's great to see him come back now and have some fun with it.  Speaking of the 90s, there's this one scene where a storm survivor steals his truck, and he says "aw, come on!" in a way that was very LA 90s surfer dude, bringing me back to the roles I remember him in at that time.  It was really cool, whether it was intentional or not.



I did some homework, as any good blogger would, and found out on Wikipedia that a hypercane is an actual scientific concept.  It's hypothetical, the idea being that if a comet or asteroid hit the earth, and the ocean temperature reached over 120 degrees Fahrenheit, then a hypercane would result.  It's one explanation for the dinosaur extinction.  In the film, the water reaches that temperature when their energy generating device is activated.  I wonder how much they came to the Wikipedia page like I did when they wrote the film.  Not a bad deal if they did.

The Asylum seems to be getting better at this thing over time.  I can see how making movies like this can be hit or miss, but with each hit, I'm more willing to forgive the misses.  When I started this blog, it was the kind of thing they did, especially with the mockbuster names they had, that people would look at and say "Matt, you should do that one!"  500 MPH Storm is right there with 2-Headed Shark Attack and Titanic II as the kind of thing people think of when I tell them about my blog. What's great now is I'm getting more fun out of The Asylum's library when I have to watch them.



Finally, Sarah Lieving plays Van Dien's wife in the film (though she's listed way down at the bottom, below all the "balloon fiesta patrons" even).  I thought she was a little young to have a son as old as their son was-- even though he was much older than whatever age he was supposed to be playing anyway--, but when I went to check, I saw that she didn't list her age.  I've heard this is an issue for women working in the film industry, that they have their ages posted, and they lose potential work.  I was thinking here that that might be a bad thing though, because people will say "She's not old enough to be that kid's mom.  How old is she?", then see and go "yeah, see, I told you so", but this is only one role, and she has others I'm sure where not listing her age will be an asset.  It's too bad though.  Hopefully with more women in the industry, this kind of thing will be less of an issue over time.

Okay, let's wrap this up.  I found it to be pretty fun.  It does a great job mocking this kind of film, but not in a way that's too heavy handed.  Also Casper Van Dien did a great job leading the film, which was great to see.  As of this posting, it's available on Netflix Instant.  I'd give it a look.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2518848/

Shark Attack (1999)

This is yet another of the Stars Play 11. As you may or may not know, we did the third film in this series, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, complete with its famous line, and I've always wanted to go back and see where this saga begins. When I was notified that Netflix was dumping it from Watch Instantly in the Stars Play purge, I knew I needed to make it happen, especially for the Casper Van Dien factor.

Shark Attack takes place in South Africa, where a shark scientist colleague of Van Dien's is killed in a freak shark attack, prompting him to rush to the scene and see what he can do. Things go a little deeper than he expects though. The sharks are crazy, they're killing the local fishing trade--which helps local entrepreneur Ernie Hudson, who is buying up all the local businesses--but the shark's behavior is very un-shark-like. Van Dien's old shark studying buddy Bentley Mitchum, who has his own lab in the town, is suspiciously coy about all this, while Van Dien's dead buddy's sister looks like she'll make for a good love interest. Will CVD manage to solve this shark mystery and get the girl before the credits role at the 88 minute mark?

You know it. I liked this movie. I don't know how to describe it, because it isn't exactly a shark attack movie, despite its name. It has sharks, and sometimes they attack, but there's more Scooby Doo style mystery going on, with some B-movie action elements thrown in, and then the occasional foot dangling in the water what's gonna happen to it that we want from a shark flick. I don't know what you make of that, but in a weird way, it worked for me. Also liked Van Dien, Hudson, and Mitchum; plus Jennifer McShane, she who the great line in part 3 is directed at, plays Van Dien's love interest, so that made things even more fun. I guess that's how best to describe this, just a fun flick.

If I were the Made for TV Connoisseur, Casper Van Dien would be an inaugural member of our Hall of Fame. Looking at his IMDb bio, he has tons of TV movie credits--even this one is listed as a TV movie, but I made an exception because I can do that. You gotta like Van Dien in a role like this. He's like a combination of Fred from Scooby Doo, the hunky scientist type from the 50s monster movies, and your more common 90s action star, the third one being what you probably most expect from him after Starship Troopers, but the others working well too. Van Dien's usually pretty solid in whatever he's in, it's more a matter of how good he material is he has to work with, and I think here it was a lot of fun, and he was able to make it more fun.

Ernie Hudson, something of a villain in this. I know, you'd think in a movie called Shark Attack, it'd be the sharks, but no, it's him. He has this South African accent that he affects here and there rather inconsistently, which is good. If you're going to affect an accent, I always say do it halfway. I believe this is the first time we've seen Hudson as a villain here at the DTVC, which was a good change of pace from the supporting role as the hero's buddy that's more common. Also, I didn't know this, but he was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan. All Mitchell MST3K fans will get that reference.

Talk about your awkward situations--or maybe not--Casper Van Dien's ex wife's brother is Bentley Mitchum. According to IMDb, Van Dien and Mitchum's sister filed for divorce in 1997, and this was released in 1999, so you do the math. Were they shooting during the break-up? Was the on-screen tension between their characters the result of some real life tension? It's interesting, because I see these facts in the IMDb listings, and they're so antiseptic and matter-of-fact, that it takes a second to go "hey, in Bentley Mitchum's bio, it said he's the ex-brother in-law of Casper Van Dien. That's kind of pertinent to this review." Or as I said above, maybe it isn't.

Is that CVD hitting the climbing wall? Even though the scene is barely a second long, any climbing I see I have to get on here. I have to confess, I'm still very much a novice, and I don't have very much experience. But the way they were climbing, just going for any foot and hand-holds as opposed to hitting a fixed route and difficulty, that's something I could definitely do. It's always good to see some climbing in a movie, even it's only a small cameo.

If you can get this used on DVD or VHS, or if it airs on TV, I say go for it. It will satisfy your B-movie cravings, definitely a fun watch. Sometimes you see a movie like Shark Attack on the shelves or on your TV guide, and it looks like a good time, but then you watch it and it doesn't deliver. Well, this one delivers.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161970/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/

Born to Ride (2011)

I came across this on Watch Instantly, and thought the idea of a biker flick with Casper Van Dien, William Forsythe, Patrick Muldoon, and Branscombe Richmond sounded pretty good. On the other hand, I've seen enough of these movies to know that that combination could go horribly wrong-- in fact, there was probably a better chance that it'll go wrong--, but I figured I'd give it a shot and see how it goes.

Born to Ride has Van Dien as a guy who rides motorcycles with Patrick Muldoon, and as the two of them are setting out on a long trip, they see an older dude getting worked over by some muggers. The guy gets stabbed, and on his deathbed, he gives Van Dien a box of money and stuff to give to his daughter in South Bend, Indiana. At the same time, in Arizona, a couple guys hatch a scheme to blackmail a senator while he's taking a payoff from William Forsythe. Forsythe is pissed at this, and he hunts the two guys down, though not before they hide the tape in one of Muldoon's bags. Now Forsythe's goons-- including Branscombe Richmond-- are hot on their trail. Will our heroes survive?



I think I got what I deserved on this one. All the warning signs were there, but I went for it anyway, and I paid the price. Where to start. Maybe the fact that the cover makes this out to be an all out biker flick when it isn't. There's no counterculture going on here, no badassness, none of that cool stuff we want from a biker flick. On the other hand, there's no action, no suspense, no drama, nothing to grab onto as a viewer. I'm not sure what this was supposed to be, a feel good Hallmark Movie event, a celebration of getting out there and hitting the open road, a 90s-style suspense yarn-- it was too all over the place to tell. And by the end of the 90 minutes, I'm left wondering why this movie was made at all.

As you know, I try to be solutions oriented here at the DTVC. I'm not just going to tell you what's wrong, but when the retort "do you think you could do any better?" comes, I like to see if I can. I think one way would be to pare this thing down, keep the blackmail aspect, but have Van Dien and Muldoon have to rescue the blackmailers or something. Either that, or go The Savage Seven route, have Van Dien and Muldoon stop at a reservation, and find the people there fighting greedy developer William Forsythe and his baddies. In that case, you make Branscombe Richmond a good guy, maybe a tribal leader who gives Van Dien and Muldoon some direction in their lives, something to fight for beyond just driving around and not caring about the world. It may sound like an overdone plot, but at least it works.



The fact that this went bad wasn't the fault of the actors involved, foremost among them Casper Van Dien. The character was actually pretty cool, but wasted in this script. He doesn't even confront Forsythe and his baddies, he just finds the tape and calls the cops. Let this guy do something. He has two fights in 90 minutes. He spends more time overcome with emotion than doing anything biker film-like, which would be great if this were a Hallmark pictures original; but then, why is there the Forsythe/blackmail angle in this? Again, all over the place, and ultimately not getting anywhere.

The other names in this were pretty good too. Patrick Muldoon played a real LA biker with his surfer-dude way of talking. It was pretty funny, but at the same time he could mix it up in a fight too, he just unfortunately didn't get too many opportunities for that either. William Forsythe was equally underused as a villain, going from menacing at the beginning, to just another guy yelling into a cell phone and smashing a tennis racket in anger. He would've been fantastic as an evil land developer. Finally, Richmond was an ill-conceived straight man for an even more poorly conceived comic relief bumbling hatchetman in the form of Forsythe's brother in-law. Completely sautéed in wrong sauce, as was much of this movie.



One area that, from what I could tell, was this movie's raison d'etre, but, like most of the film, was barely fleshed out, was this idea of hopping on a bike and tearing up the open road. No schedule, no place to be, the only destination is where we end up. It does sound fantastic. It would be great to get a small Indian motorcycle and see what this country has to offer, and through a movie we're supposed to be able to live vicariously through actors who are living out the things we couldn't do. It's another place that this movie could've been better but wasn't. What if they canned the whole blackmail/chase scenario, and made the movie episodic, three or four smaller stories where Van Dien and Muldoon help out some people in need, three or four human interest pieces that show America's vast regional diversity.

Unfortunately, this movie didn't do that, and really, didn't do anything else either. I have to confess, I was even taken in by the cover, because I thought it was of a woman in black leather pants, but it turns out they're just dark blue jeans. It's a metaphor for the whole movie, we're going in expecting some biker black leather action, and all we get is some dark blue designer jeans on some motorcycles. Don't fall prey to this one, take a pass.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1721491/

Modern Vampires (1998)

After the disappointing Against the Dark, the Seagal vampire flick, DTVC reader RepoGenetic (who you'll find in the "Followers" section of the blog) suggested this film. It definitely has a star studded cast, with yet another Oscar winner in the late Rod Steiger.

Modern Vampires has Casper van Dien as a vampire rolling through Los Angeles to see what's going on. Count Dracula (Robert Pastorelli) is less than pleased with him because he had a chance to kill vampire killer Van Helsing (Steiger), but didn't do so. He's made things worse for himself by protecting a young vampire acting as a prostitute and killing men with impunity, because she's drawing too much attention to the activities of other vampires. Now Van Helsing's followed him out to LA, and he has a posse of Crips ready to aid him in his quest to kill all vampires. They're on a collision course to wackiness. This also has Kim Cattrall, Udo Kier, and Natasha Lyonne.



Wackiness is the key word here. Or off-beat might be a better one. This was very bloody, had lots of nude chicks, and tried to make it all as silly as possible. I think it worked a fair amount of the time. Comedians like Craig Ferguson and Robert Pastorelli didn't hurt. It was a tad ridiculous at points, and some of the jokes didn't work, but I think overall it was a pretty solid effort. Better than Against the Dark.

Casper van Dien was all right. This is the third film of his we've done, the other two being Cutaway, with Stephen Baldwin and Dennis Rodman; and the recently released Starship Troopers 3. I'm not sure what to do about future posts for him, because a lot of his films listed on imdb are said to be TV movies. Cutaway was listed as a TV movie, which made no sense, because I didn't remember it ever being on. Then I saw that this movie was supposedly a TV a movie too, and that makes even less sense, because it's filled with blood, nudity, and swearing. I looked into it further on imdb, and couldn't figure out in what country it was released on TV. Definitely not here. Brazil maybe? I looked it up on Wikipedia, and they say it's straight to video, so that's what we're going with.



It was great doing a Rod Steiger film. Obviously my site doesn't lend itself to classics like On the Waterfront or In the Heat of the Night (his role in the latter movie garnering him his Oscar win). He was pretty sweet in this movie, and although he had a bad fake accent, I liked his better than another Oscar winner, Ernest Borgnine, and his bad accent in the Brandon Lee hit Laser Mission. Steiger died in 2002, otherwise he would've celebrated his 84th birthday ten days ago. Another Aries, like me and Steven Seagal.

Craig Ferguson was funny in this, as you can imagine. I'd only seen him on the Late Late Show. When I was in LA back in 2001, Craig Kilborn did that show, and my buddy and I got free passes from some dude in front of Mann's Chinese Theater to be in the audience. What a weird experience. First, we were told if we were a "good" audience, we'd get a special gift, and what we got was a copy of the Gear magazine Kilborn had guest edited. Also, we were conditioned to laugh at anything that could possibly be construed as a joke, and that conditioning was handled by a self-styled stoner comedian. He was really unfunny, his pot jokes were what you might get from the dude in college who smoked like twice and thought he was a rebel, and in order to validate his on stonerness, he gave a special gift to the two real stoners in the audience. The three guests were Tyrese, whose performance had to be redone because his mike chord was unplugged; Jesse from Saved by the Bell, who was promoting he role in a Woody Allen flick; and Hector Elizondo. Perhaps the best was when my buddy and I got back to his mom's house in San Diego to watch ourselves, and we heard the audience noise filled in with an artificial laugh track.



One aspect of this movie that I believe was unintentionally funny was the disjointed dialog. People would respond to other people's words in really unnatural ways. Casper van Dien would say something innocuous, and the girl he was protecting would blow up at him. I'm wondering if the scriptwriter or director had ever had any experience with normal human conversations. Maybe that's just how people act out in LA. "I think we should go get a burger, what do you think?" "What? Take that back you fucking bastard!"

This isn't a bad movie. I'm not sure in terms of a monetary value how much one should spend on it. If you're into horror comedy, you should definitely stick it on your Netflix queue. Anyone else, I'd say watch it, but don't necessarily make a priority out of it. If you haven't seen The Circuit yet, you should probably do that first. If it's on a TV channel like HBO that shows films uncut, watch it there, but definitely not on Sci-Fi (Sy-Fy?), because an edited version would suck.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120805/

Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008)

I try my best here at the DTVC to review not only older movies that one might see in the bargain bin at a video store, but also the more recent DTV films that litter the New Release section. It can sometimes be a difficult task, because I only have the two posts a week, and there are so many great old ones out there that people want up, plus I have the Hall of Fame to consider, so before I know it, these new films are pushed to the bottom of my Netflix queue. Here was one that managed to fight it's way back to the top.

Starship Troopers 3: Marauder is a continuation of the series that started with the Paul Verhoeven 1997 classic. Casper Van Dien reprises his role as whoever, and in this one, he's brought up on charges by his former protege for sedition. Then he's spared the hangman's noose by this same protege when the dude needs him to save his girlfriend (played by the hot Vulcan from Enterprise) from a planet infested with bugs. With the girlfriend is the Sky Marshall, a rallying point in the war movement. His recent behavior has been rather suspect, which puts the girlfriend in even more danger. That's pretty much it: two hours of bugs, shooting, things not being what they seem, and very little substance, until Casper Van Dien steps in and saves the day.



The last 20 or 30 minutes of this film was pretty good. The problem, or course, is there's an hour and a half of boring movie to get through first, which hurts. When I hit the display button to see how far I am into a film, and it says "0:10:44", I know I'm in for it. And the frustrating thing was it didn't have to happen. I counted about 35 minutes of film that could've been cut that wouldn't have greatly affected the continuity. I can think of many great Bergman or Fellini films I've seen that were much shorter than this. I think DTV filmmakers forget their audience and get lost in what they're doing. Here's a reminder to any future DTV filmmakers who may commit the same mistake: you're not Bergman or Fellini, you're making a Direct to Video cash grab based on an established theatrical property. No one watching it cares about an intricate plot, we want explosions, gruesome deaths, and hot chicks or dudes. Cram as much into it in 88 minutes, and we'll be happy. If we want quality, we'll hit the Criterion Collection.

That's really too bad, because cut down to 88 minutes, this could've been a really fun movie-- the sequel to the original we thought part two was going to be. There were some really great themes that are relevant today with the current political climate that were worth exploring and leaving ambiguous for the viewer. The soldiers were portrayed as sympathetic, while the government was depicted as evil. This made it interesting, because we wanted to root for Casper Van Dien, but that meant we were rooting for the people in charge who were executing war protesters and manipulating the public.



I try my best while I review movies here to avoid discussing religion or politics, especially in a way that might make me come off as hopping on a soapbox or alienate potential readers. I want people to keep that in mind while I look at two issues regarding religiosity the film brought up, one intentional, and I think the other unintentional. I have the utmost respect for everyone's beliefs.

The first one was religion as inspiration versus something that can be manipulated by others to make people do what they want. The bugs take advantage of a spiritual reawakening to brainwash an influential person into working for them. This is juxtaposed with a girl who genuinely believes in God. She is a sympathetic figure whose faith is rewarded when she and the girlfriend are saved by Casper Van Dien in the face of an overwhelming bug swarm. As with everything else in the film, though, this juxtaposition is not cut and dry, and after, this same girl's faith is used by the government for propaganda purposes, and she's a willing participant as a leader in the religious movement. For a DTV cash grab, this discussion on religion was much more sophisticated and nuanced than I could've ever expected.



The second issue I think wasn't given to us on purpose, I just kind of pulled it out. In one scene, a guy who has a thing for the religious girl announces that he too has found God. We know he's only doing this to get with the girl, and a bug kills him not long after; but it raises an interesting point: would you convert in order to get a girl or a guy? This girl in the movie was pretty hot, so I'd consider it, you know. On the other hand, I feel like conversion is the wrong way-- it's like changing who you are to be like the other person. Then there's the other side of the coin: would you be enamored with someone that converted for you? In the movie she seemed to dig it, but I know when girls I find unattractive pretend to like things I do, I don't find them more attractive, it's almost more the reverse. It's still an interesting question, though.

I think the issues this movie brings up can't remove the fact that it's really long and really boring. Rent at your own peril. It's not like you and your friends can't discuss these things on your own after reading my post or reading the newspaper without losing almost two hours of your life to watching people act in front of a green screen.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844760/

Cutaway (2000)

When my buddy and I saw this in the video store we knew we had to have it. On the cover we saw Stephen Baldwin, Tom Berenger, and potential first ballot DTVC Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman, which made it a no brainer pick (note: there's a new cover with just Dennis Rodman's face, but all three names on it). We found out later Casper Van Dien is in it too. That makes four kinds of hot right there.

Early in the movie, we get the idea that Cutaway is a rip off of Point Break, replacing surfing with skydiving. We get over that, though, when we see Steven Baldwin's character undercover with this great beard. Unfortunately he dumps it, much to the viewer's chagrin.

If you understand the Point Break paradigm (used also in the hit Fast and the Furious), then you already know what's going to happen, and I won't waste my time telling you. The chick that Baldwin falls for is hot in a not-so-in-your-face kinda way, which is refreshing for a film like this. It also has Ron Silver as Baldwin's superior, the guy you hire when you can't decide on Al Pacino or Andy Garcia, and can't afford either anyway; and the kid from American Pie who did Tara Reid after the prom.

Of course, I dug the star power in this movie. Stephen Baldwin and Tom Berenger definitely don't mail it in. Neither do Casper Van Dien and Dennis Rodman, they're just not in it enough. I got what I expected from a direct to video rip-off of Point Break. Having the stars gives me, the viewer, a solid starting point from where I can launch jokes.

That being said, I was very disappointed with the lack of Dennis. He's billed as a top star, but he's not in it enough--no where near as much as his other two hits Simon Sez and Double Team. I own the film, of course, because it has Rodman, but only as a completest. If you're a Rodman guy, see it just so you've seen them all, but know the other two are better. I'd also be advised that this film is very montage heavy. I know you really can't show people preparing for a skydiving competition without montages, I just think it's important to note that they're there.

Overall, the star power makes this a worthy choice if you see it at the video store. My buddy and I spent new release money on it, and I eventually bought it for the same price three years later. It's probably worth a dollar or two to rent, or at the most $5 to buy. Definitely TiVo it if it's on a movie channel. You're looking at 100 solid minutes of making fun of Stephen Baldwin, which I think is a pretty good deal. I wouldn't include it in a Rodmanfest, though, unless you stick it in last, after the other two.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211792/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/