Bad Pack (1997)

We'd been looking to get some more Rowdy Roddy Piper up here, so when I found The Bad Pack, I figured why not. It also sports Ralph Moeller, Robert Davi, Marshall Teague, Sven-Ole Thorsen, Larry B. Scott (Revenge of the Nerds and Snake Eater II), and Brent Huff ( Strike Commando 2, and he also directed). Ensemble cast, Seven Samurai or Magnificent Seven remake, can't go wrong, right?

The Bad Pack is about a town in Texas near the Mexican border that is terrorized by a militia group run by the evil Marshall Teague (he might not be overtly saying he used to fuck guys like you in prison, but he's certainly thinking it.) A couple townspeople get bold and go looking in LA for a mercenary. They find Robert Davi, who's less than impressed, until Larry B. Scott, a CDM (Can Do Man-- though he often calls himself a "CDM Man", which I guess would make him a "Can Do Man Man") lets him know that there is tons of money at Teague's compound. So Davi rounds up his friends-- four of them-- who with Davi, Scott make a six-man army ready to hand that militia it's ass. Then they find Brent Huff on the side of the road, and that rounds out their seven.



I kind of liked this movie. Sure, it had some shortcomings, first and foremost among them, Vernon Wells is only in like 1 and 1/2 scenes (more on that later). It also was somewhat light on the action, but what action it had, it was pretty fun. Also, Davi, Piper, and pretty much everyone else did a great job. This really is DTV made for DTV fans. You get the great one-liners, the great explosions, the great baddie that you really want to root against, and the great heroes you want to root for. This one worked for me.

This is only post number 13 for Mr. Piper. Looking over his DTV oeuvre, there aren't many DTV films left that are really appropriate for this site. He doesn't have a huge role in this, and he plays a driver with a bum leg, so no body slams or sleeper holds. You're certainly not watching The Bad Pack expecting Tough and Deadly. You're probably wondering why, if his DTV output is so scant, he's a DTVC Hall of Famer? Most of ten or so DTV films where he's a main star are really great. Plus, he did They Live. Plus, he he's Rowdy Roddy Piper. Inaugural Hall of Famer, and well deserving of it.



Many of you know my taste in movies spans many genres and styles, and that includes a enormous love of Akira Kurosawa's films. We've seen some remakes of his other works in the past, in particular, Omega Doom and Desert Heat remaking Yojimbo. The plot of Seven Samurai also lends itself to remakes, and though this might be better classified as a remake of a remake, Magnificent Seven, the idea is roughly the same. I think this one did a pretty good job with the source material, which is probably why I enjoyed it so much.

You might be wondering about Robert Davi as the main hero. In the first diner scene, when he takes out a bunch of armed robbers, it doesn't look as great as it should. But Davi sells everything else, playing the stoic old warrior to the hilt, then really bringing it in his final fight with Teague, delivering one of the all-time best gun to the back of the head disarmament scenes. One issue I had, though, was in an earlier scene, he plays blackjack with Teague, and with twenty showing, he hits, drawing an ace. Later, when he kills Teague, he calls him a bad card player. In actuality, it was Davi who was the poor card player, because he hit on twenty.



Man, we got robbed on Vernon Wells. Only one scene, and he looks like John Goodman with a mullet. Seriously? What happened to Bennett? Why isn't anyone telling him to let off some steam? And am I the only one who noticed that he has an Australian accent? Why waste that? Sven-Ole Thorsen isn't supposed to have lines, and you gave him more lines and scenes than Wells. Bad move Brent Huff. Bad move.

I'm thinking VHS is the only route on this bad boy, depending on where you're living, though Amazon has a few DVD versions floating around on their website. If you find it, and don't have to spend a lot on it, it's a pretty fun time, and I'd say worth it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0147868/

Back in Action (1993)

I got this on VHS at the same time I picked up Tough and Deadly. I would've reviewed it sooner, but Mr. Kenner at Movies in the Attic insisted I fit in The King of the Kickboxers instead, so we did. Funny thing happened along the way: I think Back in Action might be the better movie...

Back in Action has DTVC Hall of Famer Rowdy Roddy Piper as a cop organizing a huge drug bust. Problem is, Billy Blanks's sister is dating one of the dealers, the dealer brings her along, and Blanks shows up to get her back. Well, he attacks one of the guards, the guy's gun goes off, and in the ensuing shootout Piper's partner is killed, and the main baddie thinks his dealer's girlfriend tipped off the cops. So the baddies want to kill the sister, Blanks wants to kill the baddies for wanting to kill her, and Piper doesn't know what to do with Blanks while he's trying to get revenge for his fallen partner.

Now this is what I'm talking about. Pure awesomeness. Constant action, great fights, and two stars who more than live up to their billing. It just doesn't get any better. First off, Piper was good as always, but the material really let him be him, which is all we ever want. Forget the plot, just let him go for it. Then Blanks comes in just to let you know, kicking ass and taking names. He and Piper have a knock down drag 'em out fight that made me think of They Live. I wouldn't say it's that good, but it was close. And finally, there was no lull. At most there was maybe ten minutes of down time between scenes. I'm not sure what is so hard for other movie makers out there to understand about this: just fucking go for it! We don't watch these films for plot, character development, etc., we watch them for the kick ass factor, and Back in Action certainly had it.

This might be Piper's best ever. Okay, second best after Hell Comes to Frog Town, and if you're counting They Live, it falls down to three, but it's a very solid three. I've never had a complaint with Piper's performance in any movie he's done. No one brings it like he does, period. What I usually take issue with is how Piper is used, whether the part isn't big enough, the character isn't cool enough, or the plot hinders us from getting the Piper we all want when we load one of his films into our VCR or DVD player. Back in Action fulfilled the promise the front of the box made when it listed Roddy Piper as one of its stars, and for that alone it was amazing.

This is three Billy Blanks films in row that ruled, and I'd say out of all of them, while this is the best movie, his best performance was in The King of the Kickboxers. That was one of the best baddies of all time. Here he flubbed some lines, sounded over rehearsed at moments, and his character was kind of weird the way he didn't respect his sister early in the film. Still, he kicked major ass, and he and Piper were great together again, even though they were more of a team in Tough and Deadly. We're going to definitely work on getting more of his films up, Talons of the Eagle next on the list.

Another thing that always makes a great film is a great baddie, and this one had it in Nigel Bennett. As far as I know, the only other film of his we've reviewed is Phase IV, which also had Dean Cain and Brian Bosworth. This guy works in the Julian Sands/Bruce Payne mold, which makes sense, because he's from England as well, Wolverhampton to be exact. He must be excited, because his Wolves look like they might stay up in the Premiership this season.

I do have one complaint, and maybe it's not so much a complaint as much as it's an observation, or an overall issue with action films. The two female leads are kidnapped by the main baddie and used as bait for Piper and Blanks. Classic scenario we're all familiar with. Also classic is when the baddies don't restrain either captives, allowing them to pick up weapons, etc., and kill the baddies holding them hostage. This was even more egregious here, because at one point they caught Piper and taped his wrists to the arm of the chair they had him in. It's ridiculous. Do these bad guys not understand why the police handcuff them when they're arrested? It's not because of tradition, or because it's just something they've always done. They do it so it's harder for the people they're holding captive to attack them and escape. Somehow we're supposed to believe criminal masterminds are completely unfamiliar with this concept?

Anyway, that's just me poking fun at the film, a film that otherwise was simply... awesome. If you haven't seen it, get it anyway you can. As far as I know VHS is the only way to go, which is too bad, because a movie like this belongs on DVD; though I kind of like it on VHS for the nostalgia factor. This is what you want when you go for a Piper film, and Blanks is just as good. An all around great flick.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109195/

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/

Tough and Deadly (1995)

Last week we kind of hit a patch of three straight stinkers, and I find it can be taxing on both me as the writer, and you as the reader, if there's too much negativity here at the DTVC, so I figured I'd go to the well and grab this Piper/Billy Blanks gem. I had seen it originally on TNT back in the late 90s, but that was over ten years ago, and as I've found in revisiting these things, sometimes they aren't as good as I remember or as good as I thought they were.

Tough and Deadly is about a former CIA operative, Billy Blanks, who is captured, drugged, then escapes, only to wake up in a hospital bed with amnesia. Roddy Piper, a PI and bounty hunter, sees this John Doe as a potential payday, so he takes him in. As both start to learn just who Blanks really is, and how deep the shit he's in really is, it's possible Piper may have bitten off more than he can chew-- except he's Piper.



So my memory let me down again... because this was way awesomer than I remembered it! Billy Blanks and Piper were great, the action never let up, I mean, what more could you ask for? Yes, maybe Billy Blanks' amnesia was a tad contrived, and it seemed like it was only for the convenience of the plot that he would regain memories, but do I care? Not when the fight scenes are great and constant. Remember rule number one: don't let the plot get in the way of the action. Well, they followed that rule with very tangible, positive results. My only complaint was I'd have liked to see more Richard Norton. He has like two scenes in the film, and he and Blanks could've had some better fight scenes.

All this talk of me trying to get all of Gary Daniels and Michael Dudikoff's DTV catalog reviewed up here, and I'd completely neglected Rowdy Roddy Piper, which is asinine on my part. I'm not sure anyone outside of Dolph Lundgren, the Babe Ruth of DTV action, has turned in more consistent performances than Piper. The one problem with sorting out his catalog that we don't see with a Daniels of Dudikoff, though, is from about 2000 on, Piper has a lot of movies under his belt, but not a lot of starring roles. The next one of his we'll do is Back in Action, another Billy Blanks collaboration.



Before we discuss Mr. Blanks, Tough and Deadly did have another DTVC Hall of Famer in it, one of our faves, Richard Norton. As I said above, he only has two scenes, both of them fights with Billy Blanks. I feel like a complete ass, because Norton celebrated his 60th birthday back in January, and I completely missed it. I've been doing this a lot lately, so I should probably mark on a calendar every important DTVC birthday. As far as I remember right now, we have Steven Seagal's 59th coming up on April 10th, and Roddy Piper's 46th on April 17th. I'm not sure what Norton's next film will be, because you never know where he'll turn up, but according to my Netflix queue, he's in the Dudikoff flick Strategic Command, so plan on that one coming soon.

Now for Billy Blanks. This is the first film of his we've reviewed here, which isn't as crazy as you'd think, just because he hasn't done that much. His martial arts skills are off the chain, so I have to assume his lack of roles might be his choice. Another thing to consider is there aren't really any African American martial arts stars in the 80s and early 90s. I think if you're Blanks, it's like you're either in a Blaxploitation throwback, or you're a sidekick, and I don't blame him for not wanting roles like that. You can just tell from this movie that the people involved weren't used to shooting an African American hero. His face was often obscured by shadows because the lighting was set for Piper's paler complexion. That's too bad, because Blanks' skill set would've made him a Hall of Famer if he had the roles. Let's hope Michael Jai White gets more opportunities like he did in Blood and Bone to be a great DTV action lead, and Wesley Snipes can come in and take over for Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme as another former big screen star turned DTV action lead.



Finally, Phil Morris is in this as the bad CIA agent. Seeing him as a baddie when we know how funny he can be in things like Seinfeld and Black Dynamite was very surreal. There was no tinge of him as Kramer's lawyer, or a tongue in cheek Black Panther licking a bullet. I've always liked things like this, watching great comedic actors play it straight. I didn't know he's also the Martian Manhunter on Smallville. I guess I wouldn't know that because I don't watch the show, but still. Also of note, he celebrated his 51st birthday yesterday, on April 4th.

You can get this on DVD (not on Netflix, but on Amazon), but I scooped it on VHS for the nostalgia factor. Either way you do it, it's a fun time. This is just some good ol' 1990s DTV action, and there's never anything wrong with that.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114706/

No Contest (1994)

I first got wind of this movie when I was looking up Rowdy Roddy Piper films on imdb. My friends and I are huge fans of his, and after Dead Tides, we were hungry for more. It wasn't an easy film to find, though, and I had to wait until I got Netflix to see it. Then it was pushed down on my queue, and when it finally made it to the top, it sat on the TV for a while before I finally watched it.

No Contest has Shannon Tweed as a martial arts film queen hosting a beauty pageant that is taken hostage by Andrew Dice Clay and his baddies, one of which is Rowdy Roddy Piper, and another of which is the guy from that Da Vinci's Inquest show. Anyway, Robert Davi was hired to protect Miss America in the pageant, and he helps Tweed make her way through the bad guys to try and save the girls.



This was what it was. I hate using that term, is what it is, but it's the only way to describe this picture. Bad Die Hard rip-off that might have been cooler with The Dice Man and Piper, but just wasn't. There were some nice explosions, but they weren't that nice. There was some weird thing going on where The Dice Man had the girls wear explosive wrist bands that would detonate if they were too far from something, and then the Da Vinci guy had one triggered to his heart that would go off if The Dice Man tried to kill him, but The Dice Man's computer nerd just reprogrammed it with some random keystrokes and it was set to his heart beat instead. Weird stupid stiff like that that just didn't do it for me.

Piper was a supporting character, so obviously he wasn't in it as much as one would've liked. Also, he was a baddie, so we knew he'd get the crap beaten out of him eventually. This wasn't the awesome baddies he's played on Highlander: The Series or Terminal Rush with Don "The Dragon" Wilson; this was a one-note baddie with no character whatsoever. His death scene was kind of cool, and he had a good fight scene with Shannon Tweed, but overall he was wasted here for my money. At the very least he could've put Tweed in a sleeper hold to give us fans of his something to get excited about.



The Dice Man. Credited here as "Andrew Clay". Really? You're gonna try the Rick Schroder approach to respectability? You're The Dice Man, damn it. "Jack and Jill go up the hill, both with a bucket of quarters...". He had some great Dice Man moments, though. His disguises were great. When he first gets on stage to take the contestants hostage, he talks about his handsome blue suit, which was pretty funny. He also had a great CGI death scene, where he fell into a green screen. It was like killing off a local weather man. Overall, considering he didn't have much to work with with this movie, he did a decent job. He just needs to cut it out with that "Andrew Clay" crap.

This is the third film I've done with Shannon Tweed in it, the other two being Of Unknown Origin with Peter Weller and Cannibal Women of the Avocado Jungle. This one was well after those two. I think if I was going to pick my favorite, it would be Cannibal Women, because Shannon Tweed seems to do funny really well. I think she wanted desperately to do it in this movie. The movie probably wasn't doing much for her, considering how crummy it was, and I think she wanted to sit with the audience and make fun of it too. As a fan of DTV films, she pops up quite a bit, so I'm surprised this is only the third film I've done of hers. I imagine this won't be the last, though.



Miss America was played by a Canadian woman named Polly Shannon. I bring it up, because she was also in Direct Action with Dolph Lundgren. At first I thought it weird that she'd play a high school girl in this movie, and then a rookie cop in the Lundgren flick, but then I realized the films were shot ten years apart. Sometimes I see so many of this things they exist in their own time: cops and action heroes and women all wearing roughly the same outfits, speaking the same lines; it's only the cell phone technology that changes... how I long for the days of the Zack Morris phone...

Skip this. No buts, just skip it. It's nothing special. Piper's not in it much, and his character's not that fun; The Dice Man and Shannon Tweed don't have much to work with; and there are plenty of better Die Hard rip-offs out there. I had a feeling this was going to be lame, I just needed to make sure for the Piper factor.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110675/

Sci-fighters (1996)

I first saw this on Sci-Fi while waiting for a friend to come by so we could catch the train down to Boston. I made it almost to the end, and had intended to watch it again in its entirety at another point. That was four years ago, and finally, through the magic of Netflix (it had to be sent all the way from Greensboro, SC!) I've been able to relive this bad boy. Not sure what I was missing.

Sci-fighters takes place in the future (2009, to be exact) in Boston, MA. Roddy Piper is some kind of special Black Shield cop who can do what he wants, and what he wants is to investigate a series of rapes that may or may not have been committed by a may or may not be dead Billy Drago. Even worse, these rape victims are getting sick and hatching aliens eggs from their stomachs. Bad deal. Now it's up to Piper and some hot doctor chick to stop Drago before he ends the world as we know it (or as they know it in their fictitious future).



This movie was rough. Not just because of my bias against Billy Drago. The people making the film had very little imagination for a Boston only thirteen years in the future for them. I remember Boston in 1996, and the only huge difference between then and now is Fenway Park. This movie had a creation of a Little Beirut section, had nasty cars, and cell phone technology actually became worse. That aside, there were some cool parts. Lots of gore and violence. Exploding women's stomachs with Alien rip-offs jumping out and latching onto people's faces. It was sillier than it was good.

Piper was weird in this. He had some good fights, but a lot of them stunk. My friends and I were in hysterics in one scene where he attacks these two cops guarding the bad guy. He looked like a little grumpy kid trying to fight with his dad. Only in this case these weak, unfocused attacks actually worked. That was particularly disappointing because I watched the film for Piper. I certainly didn't watch it for Drago.



It's so odd looking back to even a time as recent as 1996 to see how people thought that just that switch of the digits to 2000 would mark all these enormous changes in the world. One of the things this film had was a moon base. I was only 17 in 1996, and I knew we were much further off than 13 years from a moon base where the US could store its felons and make them do hard labor. It wasn't as bad as Fortress 2, where an untrained Christopher Lambert was doing work along with other prisoners outside the space station, but this was bad enough. How hard is it to simply push the fake date forward by fifty or a hundred years? It can't be any stupider than the alternative.

One interesting thing you'll note on your DVD. The word "fuck" was dubbed over. According to imdb, the director thought if he did this he could avoid an R rating-- despite all the violence and gore. He failed, so he was left with an R rated film with poor dubbing that looks like a bad TV adaptation. Anyway, I figured I'd bring it up so you'd know that you aren't watching an edited version of the film: it's supposed to be like that.



I don't know where to go with this. My friends and I got plenty of laughs, but at the same time, it was extremely dumb and boring in spots. The Piper factor was pretty poor, and when you add in Billy Drago, that's a rough combination for me. I can't say completely don't rent it, because my friends and I did have fun, just tread cautiously. Don't rent it at full price, how about that?

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117566/

Hell Comes to Frogtown (1987)

This is it. This is the big one. No blog on bad direct to video films is complete without this cinematic gem. It's like reviewing the best films of all time without putting in Casablanca, or the worst films of all time without putting in National Treasure. Well, I've finally got my shit together and here it is. The review, not my shit.

Hell Comes to Frogtown is an hour-and-a-half of pure awesome starring Rowdy Roddy Piper as Sam Hell, a fertile man captured by the women who rule the world in the post-apocalyptic future. His job is to go into Frogtown and free some women and impregnate them. To make sure he doesn't waste his seed on any frivolous sexual forays, the government has equipped him with a chastity belt that will explode if he tries to take it off. Frogtown is this reservation of mutant half human half frog people that smacks of Mos Eisley from the 1st Star Wars. Piper fights his way through them, saves the women, and takes them back across the border to do his patriotic duty.

This has to be one of the most amazing things ever committed to film. Piper was awesome, the frog people ruled, there were plenty of hot chicks, and even more random explosions. This was also intentionally funny, especially the stuff with Piper and the chastity belt. It may have taken a lot from Star Wars: not only the Mos Eisley feel, but also the desert and the sand people like dudes; and the jump from scene to scene was similar to the way Lucas did it, where a windshield wiper would seem to shoot across and reveal the next scene. Of course, Lucas didn't come up with that effect on his own, he took it from Kurosawa.

Piper used roles like this one to cement his place in the DTVC Hall of Fame. He plays this to the hilt, totally getting the tongue-in-cheek vibe. There's no one else who could've played this part. One of my favorite scenes he did was with this frog man who was trying to remove the chastity belt with a chainsaw. First Piper's telling him not to do it, because it might explode. But then the tracking device kicks in, causing him immense pain, so he screams for the guy to saw it off. The look on the frog's face is priceless. Any Piper fan who hasn't seen this isn't actually a Piper fan.

The premise of this is hilarious too. Reading the plot summary off my Netflix package to my friends, they thought it was a porn flick. The idea of a post-apocalyptic future where women rule and most men are sterile is cool to start with. Then throw in the frog people, and you're really cooking. The Piper is just the icing on the cake, and there's a sense that the people making the movie understand who he is, because he uses his patented wrestling moves to get through the frog people.

William Smith is in this as a bad guy, as he usually is. He plays an army dude who wants to kick Piper's ass, then later we find out he's also smuggling goods into Frogtown illegally, using his status in the army and position on the border. This guy is an awesome baddie, and his showdown with Piper at the end is classic. I don't want to give it away too much, but it's cool. Also, Sandahl Bergman plays Piper's love interest. You may remember her as Arnold's love interest in Conan the Barbarian, or as the baddie in Red Sonja.

If you haven't seen this yet, it's an absolute must. If you've already seen it, you may want to see it again. If you don't want to make the commitment to buy it, at least bump it to the top of your Netflix. You won't be disappointed. A definite cornerstone to a night of bad movie viewing.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093171/

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/

Immortal Combat (1994)

I actually picked this up thinking it was a Roddy Piper film I'd seen on TNT after Monday Night Nitro almost ten years ago. In turns out it wasn't, and I'm still not sure what that movie was. I need a bad movie journal like wine connoisseurs have to make notations on movies I've seen so I'll remember them in the future. It's funny, because I'm a big wine drinker too, and I often run into the same problem when I'm at a store trying to pick up a bottle. "Have I had this before? I think so... but was it that vintage...?" Then I buy it and it's not what I was looking for.

Immortal Combat has nothing to do with the classic arcade game Mortal Kombat, and was probably just an attempt to the boost sales of a bad DTV action film, because in 1994, Mortal Kombat was itas far as what kids 12-34 were doing. This movie is about two cops, DTVC Hall of Famer Rowdy Roddy Piper and famed action star Sonny Chiba, who try to bust some party or whatever. Their partner, some chick who was in the party undercover, is murdered by some psycho who may or may not have been shot to death, and Piper wants revenge. Chiba can't join him on the quest for revenge, because he hurt his arm in the bust. Anyway, Piper goes to a Pacific island in pursuit of the baddies at some dubious company's compound, and finds out they're making nearly immortal warriors out of deceased fighters, and plan on selling the technology to warring countries. It's up to Piper to take down the company, get revenge for his partner, save the girl reporter he's fallen in love with, and crack the case.



This wasn't too bad, but it wasn't too good either. Chiba's not in it too much, as they have him back in the States recuperating from injuries he got in the opening scenes. That's too bad, because he an Piper have some great on-screen chemistry when they're together. I could see going this route if this film was like movie three in a series of Piper/Chiba buddy pictures, but it isn't, this is a one-time deal, and it's a shame the film makers couldn't see the opportunity they had. One of Piper's best assets is his sense of humor, and Chiba's a great straight man. They'd've been Rush Hour before Rush Hour.

Speaking of Piper, he definitely delivers. The first scenes with him are he and another guy telling their superior about the bust-went-bad the night before. As he describes it, we see it first hand with his tongue-in-cheek voice-overs. It's classic Piper as he delivers beatings and is funny as he does it. Later, when he gets to the Island to pursue the baddies, he meets this cute yet spunky reporter who's on the same trail. In order to melt her cool exterior, he invites her to dance in the water with him. It's spontaneous from the standpoint of the film, and romantic in the sense of the commercial for the Hugh Grant movie, where that scene is shown to try and get us to see the movie, but just seems trite and cliched. It works way more in the Piper DTV action film than the Hugh Grant Romantic comedy. Piper's the man.



I dug Sonny Chiba in this bad boy, and as I said above, it was too bad he wasn't in it more. He's in the beginning, and does these great action scenes where he beats a bunch of guys with the flat side of a samurai sword. It's one of those things where you want more, but don't get it until the very end, when he dons some ninja gear and helps Piper invade the bad company's compound. I've always loved Sonny Chiba, from the time I saw him in the Street Fighter movies back when I was a kid. It was sweet seeing him recently in Tarentino's Kill Bill as Hattori Honzo. He's close to seventy now, putting him in that category with Billy Dee Williams and Fred Williamson as great actors who are getting up there a bit but still going strong. I hope more DTV guys, like maybe an Albert Pyun, get their hands on him and use him for good.

Tiny "Zeus" Lister is also in this, only instead of being a baddie he's a good guy. He wears this hilarious hat early on, and Piper spares no time in mocking it. Later, he's killed by the bad guys and turned into an immortal warrior, but the good in him won't allow him to kill Piper. I liked that. It's nice to see a guy like Lister shake his bad guy stripes for one film and let us like him for a ninety minutes or so. I wouldn't want it all the time, but once in a while is cool.



I couldn't figure out who the bad guy in this was. I first thought he was the henchman in Whatever It Takes or CIA Codename: Alexa. Then I thought he might be one of the guys Bernhardt beats the crap out of in Bloodsport III. In fact he's none of these, but rather, Malibu from the old hit American Gladiators. In this he's sweet, because for whatever reason, he's dubbed, and the person doing his voice bears no resemblance to what's going on in the film. He'll laugh when his character doesn't seem to be laughing, or yell when it doesn't call for it. Just another one of those great things that makes bad DTV so charming.

If you're a Piper fan, this is probably worth a go to rent or whatever. Don't spend too much on it. I spent $5 on mine because I thought it was another film, and I'm not disappointed per se, but I certainly wouldn't recommend everyone spending that much on it. Renting it's the best option.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110117/

Jungleground (1995)

I found this movie along with Terminal Rush down in Boston, and figured I'd get them both. I'd already seen it a while before, but vaguely remembered it. I could only recall that it had DTVC Hall of Famer Rowdy Roddy Piper and it was hot. I think that's an accurate description.

In Jungleground, our man Piper plays a street toughened police vice squad dude who works in a nasty area of a Canadian city called the Jungleground. While attending his homegirl's (Stargate: Atlantis' Torri Higginson) showcasing of her sculptures, the dude from DaVinci's Inquest, who's also a fed, calls him out to the Jungleground to do stuff. A drug sting goes bad, and Piper's captured and taken to Valhalla, a place run by the major Jungleground gang, the Ragnarocks, and their leader, Odin. Odin decides to send Piper out into the streets, followed by a group of his boys to hunt him. If he makes it to his girlfriend by dawn, she lives. If he doesn't, they both die. What do you think happens?



This is a Canadian movie, so when people apologize, they're "sourie", when they sell cocaine, they store it in "begs", and when a guy announces he's gay, he's "oot". Also, this is a who's-who of Canadian actors, meaning if you watch Stargate on Sci-Fi, you'll see a lot of people you know. I seldom watch the show, so I only recognized Torri Higginson, who's in all the Atlantis ones.

Piper is the bomb in this film. He shows off his too-sweet pecs. He gives baddies wrestling moves like suplexes and knees to the head. His running is hilarious. I'm not sure if the character is supposed to have injured his leg early on, but he has this half limp, which when coupled with his grimace and pumping clenched fists, makes for great rewinding material. This may not be his best role, but it's up there.

I liked Torri Higginson as Piper's homegirl. A lot of action films have these women for their heroes that are rather helpless, and when they suddenly become resourceful to help the hero win, it seems ridiculous. This chick is smart and down-to-Earth, and makes sense as the woman Piper's character would want to spend his time with. On the other hand, when she helps defend the apartment at the end of the movie with a machine gun, it's looks pretty dumb. I guess you can't have it all when you watch a bad action film made in Canada.



The action in this is pretty solid, bordering on silly. Piper's girl wielding a high powered weapon is just one of them. In another, Piper sneaks in on some baddies defending the bridge home, and as he grabs them one by one, it looks like one of those Three Stooges episodes set in a haunted house where a werewolf grabs everyone but Curly. Maybe that's what they were going for. This film has plenty of great explosions and hand-to-hand fighting, though, which is even better with Piper's wrestling skills.

There's one important note I must make. I bought a DVD copy of this released by Blast Films. My version had the last 5 to ten minutes clipped off. I was pretty annoyed. I'm not sure if all of them are like that, and the version of Terminal Rush I bought from them was fine, so I don't know. I'd just be careful buying one from them.

This film is worth spending money on. You won't be displeased renting it or buying it used. It's a solid $5 action movie, with Piper, crazy explosions, and plenty of Canadian accents to mock. It's 90 minutes of pure fun. How can you go wrong with that?

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110215/

Marked Man (1995)

Piper and Miles? Count me in. I scooped this on VHS from Amazon after I found out it existed. How can you not want to see a movie with two great DTVC Hall of Famers? I know I couldn't... not want to... I mean...

Marked Man has Piper as a dude who accidentally killed the drunk driver who ran over his fiancee. In jail, he witnesses a murder, is framed for it, and has to break out and clear his name. Miles is the baddie who set Piper up, and he wants to make sure he stays set up. Eventually, after a lot of chasing and fight scenes, Piper gets his hand on a video tape that exonerates him.

This movie is much better than Dead Tides in that it has way more Miles in it. It's worse than Tides because it doesn't have any Trevor Goddard in it. 6 of one, half a dozen of another, that's what I say. This movie is a level below Dead Tides in movie quality, closer more to Piper's hit Terminal Rush. It's not far off from the Bruce Penhall Spike variety, and if it didn't have Piper and Miles, it would've sucked ass.

In one scene, Piper stumbles on a dead guy in a house. In a strange turn of events, the mail man stumbles on Piper with the body. Now, I don't mean like the door was left open or the mail man heard a noise. He walked into the dead guy's house. Whose mail man does this? I hope mine doesn't. What's the mail man screening process like? How does a guy like this get a job in a government agency? Moreover, did one or more of the film makers have a mail man who acted like this? Anyway, due to the snooping mail man, which the movie seemed to be fine with, Piper was stuck defending himself from another frame-up job.

That was the over-arching problem with this movie. Too much repetition. Too many chase scenes that went too long. Too many fight scenes that were good for the first five minutes, but were eventually too long too. Every time someone was killed it was dumped on Piper. If I wasn't so excited to see him and Miles, this would've been too boring.

The Miles factor was great. I almost wished he would win. If Piper wasn't the good guy, I would have. I don't know how this guy doesn't get more work. Film makers don't have the foresight and vision to see how MST3K could have made his career, not hurt it. They should replace Will Smith with him for the next Bad Boys movie. That might actually make it good.

This movie is worth buying. You should be able to find it at a used video store for like a buck or two. It may be difficult to find to rent, because it's kind of obscure. That's too bad, believe me. If you like bad action, this is the movie for you. You got Piper, you got Miles, and you got a bad plot with a lot of bad action. Go for it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113776/

Terminal Rush (1995)

I found this film in Boston at the Virgin Megastore, along with another Piper treat, Jungleground. I was pretty excited, and my friends seemed like they were too, but they never really wanted to watch this. I think because it looks like it's a level below the DTV fare we usually watch, and closer to the 2am Spike TV Bruce Penhall vehicle level. But I soldiered on.

Terminal Rush follows the exploits of sheriff Don "The Dragon" Wilson as he infiltrates a hijacked Hoover Dam to save his father, who was taken hostage. The baddies are Michael Anderson Jr., who I know I've seen in other stuff; and DTVC Hall of Famer Rowdy Roddy Piper. Things aren't exactly what they seem, and the baddies are really after some chip that has the blue prints to a fighter jet on it (I think) and they use the Hoover Dam hijacking to divert attention and kill the power so they can steal the chip from the Air Force base.

This film is pretty Die Hard-y. I'm not sure that I mind that, though. Having D "the D" Dubs running around picking off grunts, knowing he's on a collision course to wackiness with Piper, is pretty cool. The set is similar to the Space Mutiny set, only it works in this case, because Wilson's running through the Hoover Dam, not a space ship.

The Piper factor wasn't bad. He wears this black paint across his eyes, like he's a raccoon ready to break into someone's trash cans more than he's a mercenary hijacking the Hoover Dam. It's pretty sweet. Because they split the baddie role into two people, Piper's not in it as much as he could be. I think I'm all right with that, though, because it works with the plot.

That brings me to another issue: why does Rowdy Roddy Piper drop the "Rowdy" from his name now that he acts and doesn't wrestle? Is he any less Rowdy in these action films? He definitely wasn't less Rowdy in They Live. He's plenty Rowdy enough fighting D "the D" Dubs in Terminal Rush. I just don't get it.

Wilson is a DTV mainstay, and probably deserves consideration in the DTVC Hall of Fame. I must admit here, I haven't seen much of his work. I remember him doing expert commentary on the UFCs, and he was great with that. He's a champion kickboxer, and maybe they'll consider using him in the Kickboxer movies, since Sasha Mitchell's character is dead, and Mark Dacascos doesn't do martial arts pictures anymore.

I may have paid $10 for this, because I saw it and was so excited to add to my Piper collection. That's probably a little too much. $5 is more in line with what this film's worth. Just the same, you'll get your dollar value for it. This is solid bad action that pulls no punches. The Piper factor's good, and D "the D" Dubs holds it down well enough. Give it a shot. If you don't spend too much, you won't be disappointed.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114649/

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/

Last to Surrender (1998)

When I found this, I thought I'd made a major score. My buddy and I were sifting through a used DVD section in a local grocery store, and this diamond in the rough surfaced through the mire of Princess Diaries and the Billy Madison movies. I felt like the man. Until two weeks later I saw twenty copies of it at the cheap section of BestBuy, and another twenty at Walmart, and so on and so forth.

Last to Surrender unfortunately has nothing to do with the Corey Hart classic "Never Surrender." Instead it's about a racist cop played by Roddy Piper whose partner is killed by Chinese mob boss The Tiger. Han Soo Ong plays the People's Republic of China police specialist who is sent to America to catch The Tiger, and who had a run-in with Piper as his partner was killed. They go to Burma (the film's makers didn't get the Myanmar memo) on a joint mission to take out the Tiger, and in the process have a metaphorical love affair that any Iranian filmmaker would be envious of. Also, Piper's character becomes less racist.

This movie was great. It was classic Piper, and he lives up to his DTVC Hall of Fame name. Han Soo Ong is as good as a good guy in this as he is a bad guy in Bloodsport II. Sure, the ground this film covers has been tread over millions of times (Lethal Weapon, Bad Boys, Rush Hour), but none of the previous films had Piper in them. In fact, Lethal Weapon with Piper and Glover, or Bad Boys with Piper and Lawrence, or even Rush Hour with Piper and Chan would all be instant classics. It's such a shame that movie makers can't have the genius and foresight the people who made this film had in pairing Piper with anybody.

I had a few complaints, though. Piper's character being a racist was annoying. He's extremely ignorant, and it's difficult to see him as a sympathetic figure that I root for when he acts like that. If he wasn't Piper, then all bets would have been off. Also, Ong is more the hero, and Piper more the sidekick, which I'm not a fan of. Piper found himself getting his ass kicked and needing Ong to save him like Kane's wussy son in Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. I think the idea was that Piper would lose some of his bigoted views if he saw the honor in Ong's heroism. But if they never had Piper be a racist, they wouldn't need him to learn that lesson.

Just the same, this was hilarious, and worth a look at. If you see it in a bargain bin like I did, scoop it up. There's really no reason why not. It's not exactly Piper's best role, but it's still Piper, and if you can get him on DVD for $5 or less, I can't see why you wouldn't want to.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167249/

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/

Cybercity aka The Shepherd (1999)

As a Freshman in college, I met a fellow DTVer in my Calc II class. He told me that he and his friends were huge Rowdy Roddy Piper fans, and had made it their goal to see all of his movies. I logged that goal in my mind as a valiant one, and one I hoped they succeeded in fulfilling.

Much later in life (six years, to be exact), I saw Cybercity in my local video store for sale. It had Piper and C. Thomas Howell, which was enough for me. How bad could it be, right?

The movie takes place in a dark, post-apocalyptic future, where Howell plays your run-of-the-mill guy-who-lost-his-family-so-now-he's-a-dick kind of guy. He's this brooding assassin working for religious leader Piper, and sent to kill another assassin for a rival religious leader. He can't go through with it, though, when he sees the assassin is hot and has a daughter. The two are now marked people, and everyone wants to kill them. I'd say that's about it.

The budget for this was pretty low, so the future looks hilarious. I dug it the most. Also, C. Thomas Howell is not on the top of my list of beefy action heroes. As such, he's really funny talking in gruff, breathy tones, and doing silly martial arts spin kicks and whatnot. My buddy made me rewind it, because I was off getting another plate of Chinese, and I missed Howell doing this spin kick where he had limp wrists. You just can't write that kind of humor.

As far as the Piper goes, there isn't much. I don't know this for a fact, but I'd almost bet that Piper was originally intended to play Howell's part, and someone else (not Howell) was supposed to play Piper's part as the religious leader. Either way, Piper was interesting as the religious cult leader, but not hot. Bruce Campbell pulled this off well, when he was offered the part of the hero on Assault on Dome 4, and instead took the villain's part. If Piper tried the Campbell switch, he failed miserably. If he didn't, then everyone making this picture was ten shades of wrong, which doesn't seem like that much of a stretch.

The final verdict: ouch! In answer to my question, it's that bad. Don't pay more than $5 for this, even if you must get it because it has Piper and Howell. Rent it only after you've seen everything else Piper's done first, and that includes his turn as Galen on Highlander: The Series. This thing is only a notch or two above Space Mutiny in terms of quality, and it's not anywhere near as much fun to watch.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159752/

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/

Dead Tides (1997)

My buddy bought this on VHS when he found out it had DTVC Hall of Famers Rowdy Roddy Piper and Miles O'Keefe in it. He brought it over one night before we were headed to Boston, and the whole next day this film was all we could talk about. It's that good.

Dead Tides has not only those two DTV legends, but also Tawny Kitaen and Trevor Goddard. Tawny is the chick from the Whitesnake video who danced on the cars, and Trevor Goddard is the guy who played Kano in Mortal Kombat with Lambert. If you include his work in Men of War with Dolph Lundgren, he's had the distinction of working with four DTVC Hall of Famers. Not too shabby.

 
The movie's about Piper, a yacht sailor, who's recruited by Kitaen for her drug dealer boyfriend to smuggle drugs into the country. Goddard is the Coast Guard guy who's sleeping with Piper's ex-wife. Miles plays the ATF guy who wants Piper's help in taking down the drug dealer. You've probably seen the rest of the movie in other drug dealer/double cross films, so I don't need to tell you what happens. Who cares anyway with that kind of stellar cast?

One of my favorite parts was early in the movie, when Goddard trashes Piper's boat and throws him in the water. Another great one is when he takes down the drug dealer's henchmen one at a time after the dealer screws up his execution of Piper. It's just good to see him in the movie.

It lacks a bit of Miles, and that's disheartening. Of course, in Marked Man we get plenty of Piper and Miles, so maybe I'm just being greedy... yeah, I'm just being greedy. What I'd really like is an off-beat cop drama with Piper and Miles as partners, only they dress like Rowdy the wrestler and Ator. A guy can dream, right?

I think you know where I'm going with this. Buy it, rent it, do whatever you can to see this. On the open market, you should be able to buy this used on VHS for no more than $5. I don't know if it's on DVD, but as far as I know it ain't. Either way, it's a solid deal. Just remember who you're getting: Miles, Rowdy, and even Kano. As Billy Ocean would say "Simply... awesome."

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161485/

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/