Author: capcom

The Corpse Vanishes

Sixty-four minutes. That’s it. The Corpse Vanishes, one of five movies featuring Bela Lugosi in 1942, uses just sixty-four minutes to tell its story. That’s not unusual for the time, but there is a ruthless efficiency to this flick that many others lack. Director Wallace Fox made sure there was nary a wasted frame in this movie, even though he filmed the same opening twice.

A strange occurrence of serial criminality has descended on the city. Brides are dying at the altar, then men, posing as undertakers, take away the corpse, never to be seen again. The film opens at one of these weddings. The bride swoons, a doctor pronounces her dead, and the body is taken, Bela Lugosi’s leering face the only clue to her fate. Then, just minutes later, another wedding with the same outcome, only this one was attended by Patricia Hunter (Luana Walters), an intrepid reporter from the local paper. Continue reading “The Corpse Vanishes”

Moonbase

There is the nucleus of a good movie in Moonbase, the 1997 sci-fi thriller from director Paolo Mazzucato and screenwriters Brian DiMuccio and Dino Vendini. It doesn’t score high in the originality sweepstakes, but it is one of the vast breed of films that could be summarized as, “Die Hard on a…” In this case, it’s Die Hard on the moon. There is a band of bad guys with a charismatic leader who invade and occupy a confined space. They hold people hostage. There is one unlikely hero that can save the day. Well, at least, this flick teases the one hero. What viewers get is more of an ensemble effort, but that’s just a small detail. It’s the big stuff that dooms this flick. Continue reading “Moonbase”

Miami Connection

What an incredible shitty movie. I don’t mean incredibly shitty, although it is, but an incredible example of substandard cinema. It’s inept and outrageous in all the right spots. Behind it is yet another tale of filmmaking perseverance that laughs in the face of personal doubts and industry gatekeepers. It’s not a good movie, but it is entertaining, and that is the first purpose of film.

According to the internet, so it must be true, Korean immigrant and Orlando businessman Y.K. Kim, who owned a number of taekwondo studios in the area, appeared on a South Korean talkshow promoting a book on taekwondo. One of the viewers happened to be Woo-sang Park, a filmmaker with over a dozen credits. Park was inspired by Kim’s interview, contacted him, and convinced him to collaborate on a movie. Kim took to the project with gusto, working on the story, raising money using his business as collateral, working hard to try and get distribution, and, after Park moved on to other projects, directing reshoots. The result was Miami Connection. Continue reading “Miami Connection”

Omega Syndrome

We usually prefer our 1980s shitty action flicks to have come from Cannon or Action International Pictures. Those two companies have warmed up many a chilly night in the Missile Test compound. But, New World Pictures, Roger Corman’s behemoth, could be counted on to take a break from its regularly scheduled horror, sci-fi, and good movies, to churn out a suitable action stinker.

Today’s film is Omega Syndrome, which is obscure enough that it isn’t, as of this writing, on the list of New World Pictures’ films on their Wikipedia page. But, their logo is right there at the beginning of the movie. Continue reading “Omega Syndrome”

Electric Dragon 80,000V

Electric Dragon 80,000V movie posterHere at Missile Test, we love films with brevity. Keep it tight, don’t overstay one’s welcome, and try not to have multiple points after denouement when the credits could have begun to roll. We get it. Film is art, and artists have something to say. Cutting a film can feel like lopping limbs off of their own children. But there is little worse in film than having to sit through bloat. That won’t be a problem with Electric Dragon 80,000V, from Japanese filmmaker Gakuryu Ishii. This film clocks in at a brisk fifty-five minutes, and if a viewer can’t sit still for that long, it isn’t Ishii’s fault.

Dragon is one of those Japanese sci-fi flicks from the era (it was released in 2001) that relies on frenetic pace and cyberpunk visuals to tell the story. There is a story, but it’s peripheral to the visual dance of the movie.

Tadanobu Asano plays Dragon Eye Morrison, a young man whose violent tendencies were treated with electro-shock therapy, leaving him with superhuman abilities to throw electricity around. He finds inner peace by playing wild electric guitar, and spends his free time hunting down lost lizards in the back alleys and storm drains of urban Japan. This guy is the protagonist. Continue reading “Electric Dragon 80,000V”

Dark Descent

The first time I saw Dark Descent, the 2002 direct-to-video feature from writer/director Daniel Knauf, I thought it was one of the worst pieces of garbage I had ever seen. It was showing on the Sci-Fi Channel not too long after its release. By that time I had a long relationship with bad movies, but nothing like the scale and familiarity I have today. I remember a film with awful CGI, cheap and drab sets that would make Roger Corman blush, and a pace that was deathly slow. All this remains true, but in comparison to the bottomfeeders in the Shitty Movie Sundays Watchability Index, this flick is a gem. Continue reading “Dark Descent”

Phobe: The Xenophobic Experiments

Movies tell stories. No shit, right? But, besides the story told up on the screen, there is the story of how a movie gets made, and that story, hidden from the audience, can have its own elements of inspiration and perseverance. That’s the case with today’s flick, Phobe: The Xenophobic Experiments, filmmaker Erica Benedikty’s magnum opus from 1995.

Shot on videotape with a robust budget of 250 bucks Canadian, Phobe follows an interstellar cop or soldier-type who is hunting an escaped alien killing machine in and around the area of Niagara Falls, Ontario. Benedikty, a part-time employee of Cable 10, a local cable access channel, managed to convince her bosses to let her use the channel’s equipment and facilities to make a movie. She enlisted friends and family as cast and crew, convinced local businesses to let her shoot on their properties, and, over the course of a year, made her movie. Continue reading “Phobe: The Xenophobic Experiments”