Tag: 1990 in Film

Shitty Movie Sundays: Legion of Iron

Legion of Iron 1990 movie posterThere isn’t much information hurtling around in the tubes about Legion of Iron. There isn’t even a trailer anywhere I can find. The closest is a two-minute long video of this flick’s final scene, posted in multiple places. According to IMDb, this movie did get an actual release near the time it was made, on video, but there’s nothing out there about current ownership or who licenses it for streaming. Of the 26 listed cast members, only 4 have headshots. This appears to be a film that was well on the road to being forgotten, saved from oblivion by the fact streaming companies need content, and lots of it.

From way back in 1990, Legion of Iron comes to us via producer/director Yakov Bentsvi, working from a screenplay by Ruben Gordon. The film tells the tale of high school couple Billy and Alison (Kevin T. Walsh and Camille Carrigan). Billy is the star football player at his school and Alison is the lead cheerleader. One night after a game the two head up into the hills overlooking Yuma, Arizona, for some teenaged necking. There, they are kidnapped by two creepy men dressed as police and whisked off to a secret, underground bunker in the desert. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Legion of Iron”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe

What did I just see? What did I just SEE?!

Well, I saw two leading men in an action film that had no business trying either to emote, or speak lines of dialogue. One was stiffer than a two-by-four, and the other had spent so long cutting promos in the WWF that any emotion other than anger came out sounding like a first read.

Sprung from the mind of writer, director, and producer Damian Lee, Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe stars Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura as the titular Abraxas. He’s a humanoid alien police officer who is part of an elite force of Finders who keep the peace in the universe. The Finders have been around for a long time, too, with Abraxas claiming to be over 11,000 years old. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe”

October Horrorshow: Shakma

Movies like Shakma are a dime a dozen. Cheap, throwaway horror flicks featuring vapid characters played by talent barely holding on to their careers in Hollywood, and maybe an aging star or two. The screenplay looks as if it was less than twenty pages long, sets are plain and repetitive, and what little gore there is must have been a strain on the miniscule budget. Everything about this movie screams cheapness and lack of effort. Everything, that is, except for one of the wildest creatures ever to appear in a horror flick.

In Shakma, from directors Hugh Parks and Tom Logan, filming a screenplay from Roger Engle, Typhoon the baboon plays the title character, a research monkey at some medical school, somewhere. Shakma has been injected with a serum that has turned him into a crazed killing machine, and that’s bad for a small group of med students and their professor, who have chosen that evening to lock up the medical school for a fun night of LARPing. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Shakma”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Martial Law (1990)

Chad McQueen is Sean ‘Martial Law’ Thompson, and Cynthia Rothrock is vice squad officer Billie Blake. They kick ass, take names, and cohabitate in Martial Law, the 1990 direct-to-video action flick from screenwriter Richard Brandes and director Steve Cohen.

Viewers may remember McQueen as the Kobra Kai with the dyed blond hair in the original Karate Kid. It turns out, the man wasn’t faking it. He has some karate skill, and turned it towards a fairly decent career in shitty movies. And, if one doesn’t know who Cynthia Rothrock is, one is still in the fledgling stage of shitty movie fandom. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Martial Law (1990)”

Attack of the Franchise Sequels: Child’s Play 2

After watching so many franchise horror sequels for this year’s Horrorshow, my low expectations for movie sequels have only been reinforced. Despite constant change in the movie industry over the last century, sequels are still treated by producers as mostly a moneymaking proposition, and not an artistic one. Hollywood is a business. We get that here at Missile Test. Not every sequel can be The Godfather Part II. Conversely, not every sequel that fails to live up to the original is as bad as Highlander II: The Quickening. Most, like Child’s Play 2, fall into a mediocre middle, an uncanny valley where a movie resembles what came before, but in a less convincing way. Continue reading “Attack of the Franchise Sequels: Child’s Play 2″

Attack of the Franchise Sequels: The Amityville Curse

We’ve seen a lot of franchise horror flicks here at Missile Test. We’ve seen horror franchises go from good to bad, as they are wont to do. We’ve seen creativity turn to shameless cash-grabbery, but we’ve never seen a horror franchise treated as poorly by its stewards as the Amityville franchise. Perhaps that’s because it has been through so many different hands. From George Lutz, to Samuel Z. Arkoff, to Dino De Laurentiis, to NBC, Image Organization and Vidmark, Amityville has always been in the hands of people who were just looking to make a quick buck. No thought has ever been given to continuity, and ongoing disputes with Lutz meant the word ‘Horror’ has only been in the original film’s title, and its 2005 remake. With this fifth movie the producers decided to go direct-to-video, acknowledging that there isn’t much else to offer viewers other than crap. Continue reading “Attack of the Franchise Sequels: The Amityville Curse”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Angel Town

What a gloriously stupid movie. Angel Town, the 1990 ass-kicker from director Eric Karson, has an incredible start. The film opens with a montage of the bad guy, Angel (Tony Valentine), driving through East L.A. with the theme song, written and performed by a band headed by the director’s brother, playing on top of it. Then there’s a big gang fight that ends in a shooting. And THEN, the main character, Jacques (Olivier Gruner), has sex on top of his father’s grave. I shit you not, that is how this movie begins. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Angel Town”

October Horrorshow: The Suckling, aka Sewage Baby

Despite having seen countless horror films, it’s still rare that I come across something vile. Well, maybe not all that rare. After all, Castle Freak is one of the films that made the cut for this year’s Horrorshow. Anyway! Just because a horror flick features vileness as a core element, does not mean that it is a bad flick. The rest of the film can speak to that. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Suckling, aka Sewage Baby”

Stallone Month: Rocky V

If Rocky IV is peak Rocky, then Rocky V is the story’s nadir. Whereas Rocky II was but pale imitation of the first film, Rocky V is caricature, its characters in many ways reduced to cartoon versions of those with which we have grown familiar. Mostly this is down to Sylvester Stallone. He was the one who ditched Rocky’s lovable lunkhead persona in the previous two films. But now he’s back, and poor. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Rocky V”

October Horrorshow: Class of 1999

It’s the future, 1999, and the inner cities of America’s once great metropolises have been overrun by youth gangs. Areas surrounding high schools have been declared free fire zones. Police and authorities do not enter. Violence and drugs are rampant. Citizens are warned that if they enter these areas, they do so at their own risk. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Class of 1999″