Black Dawn (2005)

If you've been rockin' with me and the Direct to Video Connoisseur for a little while now, you may have noticed I'm on a quest to find this one Seagal film I saw the end of on USA, where he throws a samurai sword from a second-story window and decapitates this old Chinese man. I actually think I may have found it now, and the film's on my Netflix queue, but I didn't know that when I rented this little gem.

Black Dawn has the Seagal-inator as Jonathan Cold, a former CIA agent who is an expert in martial arts and nuclear technology. He's gone missing for a while, but has resurfaced when he was hired by two That Guys to help in the sale of their nuclear technology to this Eastern European terrorist group. The kink in the deal comes when Seagal's former pupil, a hot chick, while working for the CIA, stumbles upon the deal, forcing Seagal to abandon his plans and save her. Now he's gotta retrieve the stuff before the baddies can blow up the world.



This is a pretty good deal. It's the kind of film you have in mind when you see a Seagal direct to video action flick on the shelves at your local video store. As always, he's a former something (in this case CIA), he's playing both ends against the middle, and he's only got one person he can trust. There are some great car chase scenes and explosions, and Seagal gives us some solid fight scenes. Probably most memorable for me came when the baddies were after Seagal and his woman, and he's escaping in a dump truck-like deal. He actually discharges the back part, leaving it in the middle of the road, so the bad guys can crash into, causing a ridiculous explosion. It was hilarious.

I've done a huge chunk of Seagal's DTV films on the blog, and I must say it's all relatively solid. It may be extremely cheesy and at times heavy handed, but it seldom takes itself too seriously, and Seagal usually puts in a decent showing. Another great attribute of his new work is his use of Ebonics. I'm not sure where he picked that up, maybe when he worked with Ja Rule or DMX, but for us bad action fans, it's hilarious. In 2008 he has one movie already out with Pistol Whipped, and another completed with Kill Switch. Having just turned 57 last April (and people said I was old turning 29 nine days before that!), it's great to see him still kicking around and turning out quality work. If you compare that to Harrison Ford, who is nine years older, and who looked silly in 2006's Firewall, forcing him to make the new film Indiana Jones and the Cash Grab, I can only hope Seagal either A, is still awesome when he's that old, or B, will bow out gracefully if he's not. Though, I'd go see an Under Siege 3 if it was made in 2017...



The two baddies that want Seagal's expertise in selling the nuclear technology to the Easter Europeans are major That Guys, one more so than the other. The first is the one Seagal breaks out of jail, and he's more of a soap opera That Guy, though he's done his turn on Renegade and whatnot. His younger brother, who's more of the real bad guy, has been in way more. He has almost one hundred credits of That Guy roles, appearing in everything from Pearl Harbor to Cold Case to The L Word. You'd know him the moment you saw him.

Matt Salinger's in this for one quick scene. You may remember him as the son of JD Salinger who played Captain America in the Albert Pyun adaptation of the Marvel comic. I didn't know he still worked, but there he was, and according to imdb, he's in the new Seagal flick Pistol Whipped. Good for him. Here, he sports a silly Russian accent. I'm not sure I get that. Why not have him dressed like Captain America while selling the nuclear technology? That's what I would've done.



I must confess, when I saw this again recently, I fell asleep for some of it. I'm not sure how much that matters, but there may have been something awesome in it that I missed. If you're reading this and have already seen the film, don't hesitate to post a comment if you think I'm leaving something out. That goes for all of the films I review here on the DTVC. I do my best to stay awake, but when the plot drags, as it did in this one at the end, the beer takes over and I doze off. That's why it's necessary to watch these bad films with other people, so they can keep you up with their constant jokes, and you can return the favor. I actually did do that for this one, but the person I was watching it with fell asleep too, so it didn't matter.

Rent this. It's what you want when you pick up a Seagal flick: silly character name, Ebonnics, explosions, solid fights, and hot chicks. Get your beer or Mountain Dew, plenty of chips and pizza, and a bunch of friends, and have a blast. This was definitely a fun time.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443450/

Ski School (1991)

There are movies, and then there are movies: the pinnacle of the art form, leaving an indelible impression on all who come in contact. For me, this film is that. I feel like there's hope in the world when a screenwriter, director, actors, and various crew can create something as pure and inspiring; when their vision comes to fruition in such a state of perfection that we as the viewer are left with nothing but our gaping jaws and the word "awesome" dangling upon our lips like lavender honey from a ten dollar jar.

Ski School is about a ski school with two rival ski instructors. Reid Janssens runs section one, and is the head ski instructor (for the purposes of a movie like this, he's the heel). Dave Marshak runs section 8, and he and his ski pals party all the time and don't take anything very seriously (he's the hero). Usually Reid's team wins the annual ski meet, but when he mistakenly sends ski prodigy John Roland to Marshak's crew, the balance of power shifts. At the same time, the head of the ski resort wants to sell, and he knows he'll have trouble doing that with Marshak and his boys partying all the time. Hilarity ensues as Marshak and crew fight back in an attempt to reclaim the mountain.



We watched this all the time in high school. It may sound like your run-of-the-mill bad sports comedy, but believe me, it ain't. Dave Marshak is probably the greatest hero in this type of film this side of Ty Webb. Janssens as the heel is almost too perfect, like he's a parody of the heel from the genre, which makes it all the easier to laugh when he's made to look bad. There's also tons of beer, and lots of scenes where people walk into a room and have a beer thrown to them, which was cool for us underage drinkers looking for role models. Plus, there is so much partying and funny pranks that when the two teams square off for the perfunctory end-of-the-movie showdown, it actually doesn't hurt.

Dave Marshak, played by Summer School's Dean Cameron, is the quintessential awesome head party guy for a movie like this. He's cut from the same cloth as an Otter from Animal House, and makes a Van Wilder look trite and clicheed. One of my favorite scenes with him comes after a woman in a bikini walks out of their dorm. "Does anyone have a problem with that?" he says in a pissed off voice. "Half-naked girls walking around at 9am? Last year they were completely naked by this time!" According to imdb, Marshak's name was originally supposed to be Marshall, but the director decided last minute that that was too ordinary. You can kinda tell that he dubbed all of the actors afterwards, because it looks weird when they say his name. I must say it was a great decision, though,because Dave Marshall doesn't have the same ring that Marshak does.



For the JAG fans out there, Patrick Labyorteaux, or Lt. Cmdr. Bud Roberts jr., is in this, as, of all things, a ladies man. He's still goofy as hell, he just seems to get tons of chicks. Then Marshak and his right-hand-man Fitz, hypnotize him into not wanting to have sex, and he spends the rest of the movie telling all these hot chicks that he's not interested. I never got the point of JAG, other than a bad show that me and my friends could make fun of. A navy lawyer getting into all these life-or-death situations just seemed odd to me. CBS has a habit of making hour-long dramas about weird things: a Texas Ranger who drives around in a pick-up beating the crap out of people, a Navy lawyer/action hero, a cantankerous navy forensics expert, and now I've seen advertised during football games a show called The Unit. They've actually gone as far as to make a crime drama about a penis?

Speaking of weird premises (premisi?) for TV shows, Darlene Vogel of Pacific Blue fame is in this as hot shot ski prodigy John Roland's love interest. At the end she's in one of the most unintentionally funny scenes. The guys in section 8 are barred from skiing in the finale because the bad guy has had them evicted from the ski school. They show up anyway with a bunch of beer, and everyone there except for Janssens and his cronies want them to compete. There's a chant going around of "Let them Ski! Let them ski!" For some reason the film makers decided when the shot was on Vogel, they would have her voice come to the forefront over the chanting. I think it may be dubbed as well. Anyway, she says in this hilarious, high pitched voice, completely out of rhythm with the background, "Let them ski! He he he he..." We had to rewind it and watch it a couple times.



One of the interesting things you'll see in the background are boxes of Miller Sharps beer, which is non-alcoholic. Considering this film came out in 1991, there was plenty of time before Alanis Morrisette released her hit "Ironic" to have seen it. Had she mentioned this film's inclusion of non-alcoholic beer in her song, she would've had at least one instance of irony. But she didn't, so instead she put out a song titled irony with no examples of irony in it. I guess that would be ironic, though, if the song's called irony, but nothing in it is about irony. Anyway, I'm totally digressing.

This is one of the rare cases where I have trouble in the confines of a blog describing just how good a movie is. You really have to see it to get the full effect. If you like to party, you'll love this. If getting drunk doesn't really appeal to you, though, I'd skip it. I'm personally at an age where I kinda don't do that stuff anymore, but this movie, for me, comes from a time when I did, and it's great to watch it now and reminisce.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102940/

Android (1982)

I don't remember when I first saw this. It's one of those that's always been around for me. I rented it recently from Netflix, and I think that's the first time I've seen it in at least ten years. There were things in it I noticed that I wouldn't have picked up on back then. I guess that's why it's always a good idea to re-watch these old classics.

Android takes place in the future or something on this desolate space station. Kinski plays a doctor doing research with his timid assistant Max. Three escaped convicts make it to the station, and Max lets them on board in an attempt to quell the monotony of his everyday life. Quickly the escapee realize Max is an android, and the doctor's a little off. The question is whether they can keep from stabbing each other in the back long enough to get off the ship and away from the Kinski-nator.

There are probably some sci-fi honks out there who think this is some kind of cinematic treasure, and for those cats, I feel very sorry for you. This really isn't very good: but it's plenty good to make fun of. As a classic, I'd put it more in the Zardoz category, as opposed to Blade Runner. When I was younger I think I knew how dumb this was, I just didn't make fun of it as much as I did now. Maybe I'm just better at mocking bad movies.



The set looked more like a health spa circa 1984, where maybe a guy in a headband and short shorts would be playing racquetball, and Crockett would interrupt his game to set up a fake coke deal. The guns looked like something out of the old Star Trek, which I actually think was pretty cool. The best might have been the "futuristic" water pitcher Kinski used when he was entertaining the one chick escapee. The thing was not an improvement on the water pitcher, but a step in the wrong direction. One of my favorite things in the bad sci-fi film: new designs for everyday devices that look cool but have no utilitarian function.

Klaus Kinski is probably the most difficult of the DTVC Hall of Famers to find movies to review. He passed away in 1991, way before the birth of DVDs, and actually as VHS was still coming into its own. Often I can only find his films if I pay too much for a video cassette on Amazon from a used seller, or if I'm lucky enough to strike gold plowing through a bargain bin at a Goodwill or something. That explains the unfortunately low number of his films reviewed here on the blog.



If you look at the imdb resume of a Rutger Hauer or a Gary Busey, doing five or six movies in one year sometimes, it's hard to imagine Kinski had he lived, even in what would've been his late 70s and early 80s, not putting out a similar work rate. He was willing to do any movie given A, the price was right, and B, he wasn't required to spend much time on the set shooting it. Without pioneers like Kinski, we probably wouldn't have the DTV market we do. The irony is that he's also probably one of the best actors in the history of moving pictures, considered by some to be the German Marlon Brando. As in all of his DTV movies, you can see that difference in his quality of acting versus his co-stars.

One element of this film I missed in my previous viewing was the seemingly ubiquitous Norbert Weisser. I think this is the first time he was in a movie I reviewed that wasn't directed by Albert Pyun. According to imdb, of his last three films, two were Pyun's, and the third was an indie flick with Christopher Walken, Josh Lucas, and Michael Caine, called Around the Bend. Might be worth checking out. Here in this film, I was disappointed, because he seemed cool, but was killed off by the asshole escapee in the group too easily. It was like he was better than the usual bit parts he does for Pyun, but the finish wasn't there. I guess I can't blame him for that.



The idea of the android has always been difficult for me to swallow. I think it's that the actors playing them usually overdo it (one of my fave actors Brent Spiner comes to mind, unfortunately). There's usually a lack of continuity too. Sometimes as androids they can't understand this or that, but then they can understand something else. Here, the kid couldn't grasp basic human interactions, but was somehow conniving enough to waylay the authorities coming to recapture the escapees. I just think the writers get lazy with these things, and make the androids as human as possible so they don't have to write in limitations that the actors have to adhere to.

This is worth putting in your Netflix queue. It's solid cheesy sci-fi that you'll find yourself and your friends laughing at. I also liked the Kinski factor, but that's just me. Seeing his head ripped off with bad special effects just made my night.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083557/

Gunmen (1994)

I first found out about this film when I saw it for sale at the local Christmas Tree Shop. It was my first trip there, and I must say, I wasn't all that impressed. For instance, they wanted $10 for this movie on DVD. Have they heard of Amazon? I can get it for half that, and that includes shipping. I guess if you're a mom looking to by knick-knacks for the house, the Christmas Tree Shop is where it's at; but for buying Christopher Lambert films, it sucks.

Gunmen has DTVC Hall of Famer Lambert as some conman-ish dude in a South American prison that US cop Mario Van Peebles breaks out. The deal is Lambert knows the town where his dead brother is hiding $400 million of crime lord Patrick Stewart's money, but Van Peebles knows what boat the brother hid it on. Now they've got to get to it ahead of Denis Leary, who Stewart sent to retrieve his missing fortune. That's pretty much it.



This is your run-of-the-mill buddy picture, and I'm guessing Lambert and Van Peebles needed to do this considering that same year Highlander III: The Final Dimension was released in theaters, and they were afraid we'd think they hated each other. There are some ridiculous parts, like where Lambert shoots Van Peebles in the leg to keep him from running, then Van Peebles returns the favor a few minutes later; yet the leg wounds seem pretty superfluous, like a Lundgren shot to the left arm. This also rips off a lot of Spaghetti Westerns, especially right off the bat when Lambert catches a bug in his mouth while in prison.

But it's a pretty fun romp for a bad action movie. There are tons of cameos: Kadeem Hardison, Dr. Dre and Ed Lover, Eric B. and Rakim, Kid Frost, Big Daddy Kane, and Sally Kirkland, to name a bunch. There isn't much of a plot, and it feels like when in doubt, they blow stuff up. Obviously you can't really take this seriously, but I think that makes it a good bad action film. Give me this over National Treasure any day.



Lambert is pretty good in this. He's supposed to be some kind of off-beat conman type, which is okay, I guess. I'd rather have him wielding a samurai sword, but I understand that must get boring, and he needs to branch out some. I will say this is probably the movie Albert Pyun should've made instead of Crazy Six, and I can only assume he didn't because this was already done. It's not like he hasn't worked with Lambert before, though!

I rented this from Netflix, and one of the interesting features they offer is a link to famous critic reviews of the film. It just so happens Roger Ebert did this one. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19940204/REVIEWS/402040302/1023
He absolutely killed it. One of the best things he had to say involved the name Cole. In his mind no movie has been made in the last twenty years or so with a character named Cole in it that was any good. The only movie off the top of my head other than this one (Van Peebles' character was Cole) that had a Cole in it was Days of Thunder, and as I recall that was equally stupid and awesome. Now I want to see how many movies have Coles in them out there and find out if his theory's correct.



Patrick Stewart's in this. I'm sure many of you out there know him from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I used to watch it because I had some friends who loved it, and two things surrounding Stewart's character puzzled me. First, he was obviously from England, yet they insisted he was from France. Do France and England trade countries in the future? I asked my friends that, and they thought the concept was hilarious. The second thing involved Stewart's prowess with the ladies versus Jonathan Frakes. How did he get so many chicks? I know there's the accent, but he was still old, and Frakes was still awesome. If you put their resumes side-by-side for the Pepsi Challenge, maybe Frakes scores with Troi, but I have to deduct points because A, Stewart had Dr. Crusher, and I thought she was hotter, and B, Troi did Warf. Frakes just can't follow a Klingon on a wet deck.

I'm digressing out of control here. Needless to say, this isn't worth paying ten bucks for, but it's definitely worth renting. There's plenty to mock, it doesn't seem to take itself that seriously, and it has some great people in it, not the least of which is DTVC Hall of Famer Christopher Lambert. If you see it at the video store and you're torn, give it a shot.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109959/

The Russian Specialist aka The Mechanik (2005)

When my friends and I first got wind of this it was listed on imdb as The Mechanik. Whenever we referred to it after that, we called it Mechanic with a "K", and the name has stuck. I recently purchased this along with Direct Action, Army of One (or The Joshua Tree) and a too sweet The Minion poster, using my economic stimulus check. You could say I'm stimulating the economy Dolph style.

The Russian Specialist has Dolph as a former Russian special forces dude in Afghanistan who lived in a small town and saw his wife and son murdered by Russian mobsters. He exacts his revenge and moves to LA to become a car mechanic, thinking he's killed everyone involved. He's wrong, and he's hired to rescue a girl kidnapped by that same thought to be dead mobster. So Dolph heads over and recruits a bunch of dudes to help him. They get the girl, then have to flee to the Finnish border. The mobsters catch up with them and the movie finishes with a showdown in another small Russian town. Does Dolph have it in him to save the day in yet another movie?



This is the second of Dolph's three directorial efforts so far, and it might be his best. I lean a little more toward Defender because it has Jerry Springer in it, but that's just me. It's definitely better than Missionary Man. One thing that gets me about this, though, is his constant use of fade-outs. It ruins the flow of an otherwise solid action flick for me. You'd think he'd watch the movie in the screening room and see how much better scenes progress when they just bounce from one to the next. And it wasn't that he was using the fade-outs to show a long lapse of time, he was throwing them in to get from baddies storming an apartment to them getting to the doorknob. I'm not saying I expect Lundgren to be Bergman or anything, just to understand that less is more with fancy editing and whatnot: let the action and his awesome screen presence speak for itself.

And on that score, Dolph the actor is in full effect. I think I represent a lot of people when I say it's always fun to see him play a Russian. Here he kicks tons off ass, and he's pure Dolph doing it. It's funny now with him as the director, because he's the one making the decision to put himself in the sleeveless car mechanic's jumpsuit with no shirt underneath. It's like it's classier and subtler than the Van Damme buttcheeks, but he's showing off just the same. I think because it's classier and subtler, we don't begrudge him it, but rather respect and admire it on some levels. If I look half that good when I'm fifty, I'll be doing all right.



This movie uses a plot device I'm not sure I can remember ever being used before: Finland as a safe-haven. I loved it. The whole concept of Finland has always been awesome to me, and was made even more so when Conan O'Brian discovered the woman running for president there looked like him. From Teemu Selanne, to Nokia phones, to reindeer, Finland has it all. Dolph came up with the story for this, so he must on some level feel the same way I do. I know Swedes are supposed to hate Norwegians, but I guess that hatred doesn't move East to Finland as well. Go Helsinki baby.

One last thing I that feel is important to point out: this is the second film Dolph's directed where he dispatches the lead baddie with a shotgun blast to the head at close range. He did the same in his next film, Missionary Man. In that one, we saw the blast from the side and watched the brain matter spew on the road. Here, the holds the bad guy's head under water in a shallow pond, and then shoots, sending a geyser of brain matter into the air. This is the kind of thing that shows me Dolph has amazing potential as a Direct to Video action director. We need less superfluous fade-outs, less grainy white footage (Missionary Man) and more head explosions and ass kicking. In both this and Missionary Man, he's got the latter down, now he's gotta put together the former. It's a shame Missionary was a step in the wrong direction.



If you haven't seen this and you're a Dolph fan, put it at the top of your priorities: it's pretty solid. If my only complaint is too many fade-outs (and there really are), you know the rest of it is top drawer, and it is. This will definitely be a part of my Dolph Fest '08. I'm not sure if you can put it in that class of perennial faves, like Showdown or Bridge of Dragons, but it's better than a lot of other Dolph films, and I think that's saying quite a bit.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435696/

The Shepherd: Border Patrol (2008)

This is Van Damme's latest release, and I threw it to the top of my Netflix queue so I could watch it and review it for the DTVC. I must say, I didn't have high hopes: I expected a Van Damme film about US border patrol to be as monolithic in dealing with the issue as Second in Command was about Russians and The Hard Corps was about African Americans living in the inner city.

The Shepherd has Van Damme as this cop from New Orleans (always a cop out for the out-of-place accent) who mysteriously shows up in this New Mexico border town with a pet rabbit to become a border patrol agent. While learning the ropes, he first beats up some people in a nearby bar who give him a hard time, then comes across these ex-Navy Seals who have taken their crack military training from fighting in Afghanistan and put it to use smuggling drugs from Mexico. Van Damme chases them back across the border, where he's captured by the Federales (sp?), then turned over to the Seals. It takes all his resourcefulness to escape and bring these dudes to justice.



Now, this is what I'm talking about. We saw flashes of it in Derailed and Wake of Death, but this time we got it full force: old school Van Damme-age. In the bar scene, he kicks a guy through the chair the guy's trying to hit him with, smashing it to pieces. The Navy Seals trying to smuggle the drugs use a bus that has a high-powered automatic assault weapon set on a turret at the top of it. How is that not awesome? This is how an action movie is supposed to be: kick ass first, worry about the plot later.

And where has this Van Damme been? I was getting worried that maybe his age had caught up with him. Not so here. This is extremely well choreographed, and looks like something from 1994 as opposed to 2008. Part of me is excited after this film to see what's next, but part of me is also frustrated, because he did do Second in Command and The Hard Corps and In Hell and Until Death. Come on dude, help us out here. I'm just glad he came through and gave one back to his fans.



There's another dude in this by the name of Scott Adkins. He plays the head baddie's right hand man, and he also is the most skilled in martial arts. He's pretty sweet here, and his final battle with Van Damme was good, but could've been better. My one complaint with the film was how prior to the fight, Van Damme narrowly avoids a concussion grenade or something, and is disoriented, like Bolo Yeung had thrown a crushed Alka Selzer tablet in his face. Why not have him and Adkins at 100%, and just do it? It was what we were waiting for for the whole movie, and I felt kind of cheated.

In terms of the subject matter, this film also did a great job. Instead of preaching about immigration issues, the film makers tried to put a human face on it, and then left it for us mull over. Then they blew shit up. The movie brought up Afghanistan as the forgotten war, and gave us the question of why Van Damme's character was hailed a hero, when the bad guys had risked their lives fighting for the US. Again, they just put it out there, left it to stew in our brains, then had Van Damme and Adkins kick the crap out of each other.



It's always interesting when I look these films up on imdb to see what kind of keywords people attribute to the film. For this one, I saw "Shirtless Male Bondage", which refers to the scene where the Seals have Van Damme, and they're hanging him upside-down, with no shirt on, and his hands tied behind his back, over a swimming pool charged with electricity. I chose the image for the blog because I thought Van Damme looked kind of like Robert Downey jr. upside-down like that, and I figured it'd be a funny thing to talk about. I never for a second considered I'd be posting eye candy for shirtless male bondage lovers. I guess we'll just call it my treat to you. You're welcome.

This movie far surpasses any of Van Damme's other DTV work. If you were having a Van Damme fest, where you're screening his more popular early 90s flicks like Bloodsport and Lionheart, you could throw this one in in the middle somewhere, and you'd be all right. This is the kind of thing bad action fans love, and you can't go wrong renting it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0827521/

Howling II... Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985)

The first time I saw this it was listed in the TV Guide as Howling IV. It was awesome, and it had Reb Brown and Christopher Lee. I told all my friends, and was surprised I didn't get more of a response. Then recently, the film was on Encore, listed properly. I and my buddy both TiVoed it and watched it from our respective houses, he first. The only thing he told me about it was how the credits showed the queen werewolf ripping off her top, revealing her boobs, and clips of people throughout the movie reacting to other things, but the film makers cutting it so it looked like they were reacting to the boobage. I of course gave him a ration of shit for not noticing the film had Reb Brown: and he called himself a MSTie!

Howling II... Your Sister is a Werewolf picks up where part one leaves off, at the funeral of a dead werewolf. Christopher Lee is a resident werewolf hunter, and he's there to make sure her body is disposed of properly so she won't come back to life. Reb Brown plays the woman's lover, and he and her sister want to make sure Lee doesn't defile the dead woman's corpse. When they see the truth, they join him on a trip to Romania to stop the rising of the werewolf queen. It's awesome.

As you can well imagine, after watching this recently, I know now that what I watched all those years back was not part IV, but this film, part II. And let me say, part II is too awesome for words. Christopher Lee rules, Reb Brown screams and does his whole Lump Beef Broth routine we know and love him for in Space Mutiny, there's this great punk-ish band, and some sweet werewolf sex. This movie does for the werewolf genre what Blade does for vampires... probably more.

Watching Christopher Lee in films like this demonstrates how poorly used he is by major directors like George Lucas and Peter Jackson in their feature films. We here at the DTVC love Jackson for his pre-Lord of the Rings work, so I think it's all the more disappointing that he didn't have the good sense to have Christopher Lee killing werewolves throughout Middle Earth. That would've kept me awake in the theater for the third movie. Lucas did a better job with Lee as Count Dukoo (sp?), only he wasted him for the first movie (I mean, if you're just gonna have that Darth Maul guy in for two scenes, make them at the beginning, kill him off, then have Lee for the rest of it. I guarantee more people would've liked Phantom Menace if it had had more Lee), then killed him off in the third. This movie got it. Just the scene where Lee was rocking awesome sunglasses alone was some of the best Lee ever. After everything he did something in this, I was doing the Tiger Woods "I just hit a birdie on 17 at Augusta" fist pump, because it rocked.

Speaking of Lee in this film, even though I loved him in it, he was of a different opinion. A friend of mine told me Lee worked with the director of the first Howling, and actually apologized for how bad part two was, and apologized for his having acted in it. That saddens my heart if it's true. I'll say it again, this is the best werewolf movie EVER, and it'd be a shame if one of the reasons it so good, Christopher Lee, doesn't recognize its sheer brilliance.

All you MSTies out there know where I'm going next: Reb Brown baby. It still saddens me that my buddy, who's seen Space Mutiny almost as many times as I have, didn't spot Reb in this gem. It's not like he's any different. His hair might be darker, but he has the trademark random screams that seem to get him nowhere. According to IMDb, he's only had a couple things released since his guest appearance on Hercules in 1995. But, in 2008, a movie called Sin-Jin Smyth is listed as being in post-production, and that one also has DTVC Hall of Famer Roddy Piper, and adult film star Jenna Jameson. Looking forward to that.

Another endearing trait of this movie is its 80s-ness. From the outfits, to the music, to the dialog, it's beautiful. Growing up in the 80s, it's hard to look back with my young eyes and watch that wave of coolness that was the 80s break. Maybe Nirvana killed it, or the Clinton Administration, or the end of the Cold War--whatever it was, it was too bad. It's sad now for me, not even in my 30s (29 if you're wondering), to have people in their teens and early twenties refer to Mr. Mister as "old" or "stupid" (okay, they were stupid... but a good stupid). Had things never changed, who knows where we'd be--I just know we'd be a lot better off. Taaaake, these broken wiiiings...

This movie has werewolf sex in it. It's interesting, because we know the trend in vampire flicks is this focus on seduction and eroticism, but werewolves are supposed to be too hairy pull that off. In the Jack Nicholson stinker Wolf, he gets it on with Michelle Pfeiffer, but more as a dude with some animal prowess, as opposed to a hairy wolf man. I think Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf was kind of the same idea. I have to say the latter two, as opposed to The Howling II, have the right idea: werewolves are gross when they have sex. Just too much hair and sweat going on.

You may not know it, but you need this film. You got to have it. Center a bad movie night around it if you haven't already. This is a classic, plain and simple. Even if you're not a horror buff, and dig the DTVC for the bad action reviews, don't pass on this bad boy: it's so worth it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089308/

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/