aka Gojira vs. Mosura, aka Godzilla vs. Mothra Directed by Takao Okawara Written by Kazuki Omori Starring: Tetsuya Bessho Satomi Kobayashi Takehiro MurataMegumi Odaka Kenpachiro Satsuma In gearing up for the U.S. release of Godzilla 2000 this August (please let it be shown in my area, please let it be shown in my area, please let it be shown in my area), my son and I are watching a string of the 1990s Godzillas, or…
Directed by Jim O’Connelly Written by William Bast (and Julian Moore, uncredited), based on the story “Valley in the Mist” by Willis H. O’Brien Starring James Franciscus Gila Golan Richard Carlson Produced by Charles H. Schneer There are some movies which encapsulate the entire plot in the premise. These movies are the closest thing there is to a guaranteed good movie: All the movie makers have to do is deliver the plot that the premise…
aka The Silent Flute Directed by Richard Moore Written by Stanley Mann and Stirling Silliphant, from a story conceived by Bruce Lee Starring David Carradine Christopher Lee Jeff Cooper Roddy McDowall It’s a hard movie to review, because I know I’m going to step on somebody’s toes. There’s tons of Zen philosophy in here — so much that the plot seems like a tiny bit of cookie dough trying to hold all the chocolate chips…
Directed by Gordon Hessler Written by James Booth Starring Sho Kosugi James Booth Donna Kei Benz Kane Kosugi Shane Kosugi There’s one majorly big difference between American ninja movies and Hong Kong ninja movies in the eighties. In Hong Kong, ninjas are the Japanese heavies being defeated by the heroic Chinese (jeez, get over it, will you? I mean, you don’t see Americans still making movies about the war against the Germans… oh wait, never…
aka Gli Sterminatori Dell’Anno 3000, aka Exterminators in the Year 3000 Directed by “Jules Harrison” (Giuliano Carnimeo) Written by Elisa Briganti, James A. Prich, and Dardano Sacchetti Starring Robert Jannuci Alicia Moro Luciano Pigozzi Luca Venantini Now, I can understand how movies like this get made. The Italian film industry is infamous for seizing on a semi-popular theme (zombies, Mad Max, what have you) and making poor ripoffs until they drive the subgenre into the…
Produced, written and directed by Roberto Roarke Starring Dan O’Meara Phil Novak Todd Edwards Part of the problem with judging movies is divorcing them from their context. It’s impossible, really, to judge Albert Pyun and John Carpenter on a level playing field, and the result is that you appreciate a better-than-average Pyun film more than a disappointing Carpenter film, even though the latter may be a better movie by any objective standards. It gets even…
aka Endgame – Bronx Lotta Finale Directed by “Steve Benson” (Joe D’Amato) Written by “Steve Benson and Luigi Montefiori” (Joe D’Amato and George Eastman) Starring Al Cliver “Moira Chen” (Laura Gemser) George Eastman Jack Davis Al Yamanouchi No, I don’t even try to defend it. But I enjoy this movie. I caught it on late night TV back in high school (for some reason one of the local channels broadcast almost continuous Italian sci-fi &…
aka E Tu Vivrai Nel Terrore – L’Aldilà, aka The Beyond, aka 7 Doors to Death Directed by “Lewis Fuller” (Lucio Fulci) Written by Dardano Sacchetti, Giorgio Mariuzzo, and Lucio Fulci Starring David Warbeck Catriona MacColl Sarah Keller Produced by Fabrizio De Angelis This is of course an alternate release of Lucio Fulci’s L’Aldila, aka The Beyond — and like so many alternate releases, it’s been chopped to some degree; the back of the box…
aka Le Avventure dell’Incredibile Ercole Written and directed by “Lewis Coates” (Luigi Cozzi) Starring Lou Ferrigno Milly Carlucci Sonia Viviani William Berger It’s ironic, in a really really sad way, that this movie has probably had some of the best exposure and distribution of any Italian-made movie in the post-spaghetti western era; I challenge you to find any Italian movie more readily found in the corner video store. Which, as I said, is sad, as…
Written and directed by Brett Piper Starring Georgia Hatzis Alexandra Boylan Ethan Krasnoo Samara Doucette Steven Bornstein After my positive reviews of The Return of Captain Sinbad and They Bite, Steven Williams and Brett Piper of Kinetic Image Co. Ltd. volunteered a screener of the new movie they just completed, Drainiac!, which will be distributed by Rounds Entertainment. I’m always delighted to see anything by Kinetic Image. These guys are true independents, making films that…
aka Digital Knights, aka Ragewar Directed by David Allen, Charles Band, John Carl Buechler, Steven Ford, Peter Manoogian, Ted Nicolaou, and Rosemarie Turko Written by Allen Actor Starring Jeffrey Byron Richard Moll Leslie Wing Blackie Lawless Produced by Charles Band The mid-eighties marked the advent of the “mosaic novel”. Not quite an anthology, not quite a standard novel, it usually featured a group of writers who each told a little bit of a story about…
Directed by Geoff Murphy Written by John Flock and Peter Doyle Starring Christopher Lambert Aiden Rea David Roberson Liz May Brice Beth Toussaint Produced by John Flock First, let me say that I love the original Fortress. Christopher Lambert is one of my guilty pleasures, and the other actors thrown in — Jeffrey Combs, Kurtwood Smith, and Loryn Locklin (aka “the perky mini-van lady”) — just sweeten the pot. Granted, it’s got a couple of…
Directed by Greydon Clark Written by Greydon Clark and Alvin L. Fast Starring John Ireland Yvonne De Carlo Jack Kruschen John Carradine Produced by Alvin L. Fast There are days when I rethink my position on artistic freedoms, when I think that (for instance) movie cameras should be as tightly controlled as semi-automatic handguns. These thoughts often surface after viewing the work of the legendary Greydon Clark. Approaching a level of quality comparable to that…
aka Almost Human Directed by Ken Wiederhorn Written by John Kent Harrison and Ken Wiederhorn Starring Brooke Adams Luke Halpin Peter Cushing John Carradine So as long as I had to drive clear to the far side of another county to find a copy of Satan’s Cheerleaders, I decided to make the trip worthwhile and picked up a copy of another flick that’s not too common in your local video store: Shock Waves, which I…
aka Q, the Winged Serpent Written, produced and directed by Larry Cohen Starring Michael Moriarty Candy Clark David Carradine Richard Roundtree Some films spring from a small germ of an idea, a single image. Writer/director Larry Cohen, according to interviews, once looked at the Chrysler Building and said, “That’d be the coolest place to have a nest.” And Q was born. Mysterious deaths are plaguing New York, all associated with altitude. A window wiper mysteriously…
Written and directed by David Mitchell Starring Roddy Piper Han Soo Ong Roddy Piper is a Seattle cop in a buddy movie with a straight-laced commander from Red China. The end. No, seriously; you know everything there is to know right there. The generic character of this movie is apparent right from the title — Last to Surrender is the kind of label that could be slapped on any mid-list action movie, starring Billy Blanks…
