Tag: 2017 in Film

Shitty Movie Sundays: Larceny (2017)

Dolph Lundgren is a Shitty Movie Sundays All-Star. Hardly a year has gone by since the 1980s when he hasn’t starred or featured prominently in multiple b-action or sci-fi flicks. His most notable hiatus was 2020, when he was busy battling terminal cancer that was first diagnosed in 2015. The man is a worker, and the shitty movie fan’s experience is better for it. Oh, by the way, he’s cancer free as of 2023.

Larceny, a joint Mexican-American production from 2017, fits right into this difficult era in his oeuvre. He looks aged, is definitely slow, and has a hard time carrying an action scene. We at Missile Test were unaware of his health issues, attributing the decline in his athleticism to mere aging. Well, let us eat some crow. Any shit we’ve given him for mailing it in for the last nine years is unjustified. Anyway… Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Larceny (2017)”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Bushwick, or, Ridgewood

I can picture an evening, sometime back in 2015 or so, when filmmakers Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott could have been enjoying some drinks at Pearl’s on St. Nicholas in Bushwick, Brooklyn. They’ve been talking politics and batting ideas around for their next feature film and, in a moment of rampant creativity, one says to the other, “What if, like, there was a war…in this neighborhood…and we, like, filmed it right outside.”

I don’t know if that’s how it happened. The genesis of ideas is often random, with no causal event or logical trigger whatsoever. Maybe they weren’t in the neighborhood. Maybe they weren’t even in the city or the state. However the idea for this movie came about, Cary and Jon did indeed come up with a story about a war in Bushwick, and they made a movie about it. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Bushwick, or, Ridgewood”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Beyond the Trek, aka Teleios

This is something of a nothingburger movie. Originally titled Teleios, at some point after a few film festival showings and before it was released to DVD, the title was changed to Beyond the Trek to take advantage of the release of Star Trek Beyond. This flick even uses a title font similar to Star Trek’s, all to chase that sweet mockbuster cash. But, this isn’t a mockbuster. Rather, Beyond the Trek is a magnum opus from writer/director Ian Truitner. It’s a film with profound depth in its ideas, and about a nickel’s worth of budget to bring those ideas to fruition. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Beyond the Trek, aka Teleios”

October Horrorshow: Boar

I love a bloody, gory horror flick. Especially one with a monster that oozes and drips foul disgustingness. Not every day, mind you, but no October is complete without a film that makes a mess out of its cast.

Boar, the 2017 horror flick from Australia, did very well scratching that bizarre itch. My biggest criticism is that, although it delivered the nasty goods, it was kind of a bummer. A film where half the cast is brutally killed, a bummer? Who would have thought, right? But, if horror flicks weren’t a good time, for the most part, they wouldn’t be so prevalent and so profitable. Maybe we viewers are just diseased. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Boar”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Armed Response (2017)

Saban Films is a clearing house for crap. I have yet to see anything bearing the Haim Saban imprimatur that wasn’t total garbage. From distributing low-rent Japanese television imports Dragon Quest and Power Rangers decades ago, to spreading Dolph Lundgren films the world over, Saban continues its quest to bore viewers to death. Such is the case with Armed Response, whose production companies include WWE Studios. Sometimes, viewers can know what they’re in for before all the pretentious opening logos have flashed past. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Armed Response (2017)”

October Horrorshow: Derelict

Derelict movie posterThe abandoned South Fremantle Power Station outside of Perth, Western Australia, makes the old urbexer in me salivate. It’s a beautiful location on the outside, although inside it’s hollowed out and covered in sloppy graffiti. It was locations like this that made me get into urbex in the first place. The industrial giants of the past are true brick and stone monuments to the 20th century, and have since been subject to the ruthless cost-cutting of capitalism. It’s a set of architectural styles that will likely never appear again, as buildings and materials keep getting cheaper. Indeed, South Fremantle Power Station was closed in the 1980s, yet there it is, still standing, decades after all maintenance ceased. They built the place thirty years tougher than it needed to be, and counting.

Anyway, the South Fremantle Power Station provides the only location for the horror film Derelict, from 2017. Brothers Christian and James Broadhurst directed, from a screenplay penned by Christian. The film stars the other Broadhurst, James, along with Christopher Sansoni and Tristan Balz, as urban explorers Rowan, Andre, and Michael. Andre is the only one of the three who has any real experience with urbex, and he takes it very seriously, while Michael is portrayed as an annoying rookie, and Rowan as a mindless vandal. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Derelict”

October Horrorshow: Dead Trigger

Dead TriggerWhat a putrid mess. Dead Trigger, from 2017 but resting on a shelf until this year, is an adaptation of a video game. It’s not the worst video game adaptation I’ve ever seen (that title belt is, and very well always could be, held by House of the Dead), but, it is a properly awful movie. It’s a good thing for the shitty movie fan that this film stars Dolph Lundgren, who has been gracing productions like this for over 30 years. The man is a shitty movie legend — the Tom Brady of bottom feeding dreck.

Directing duties were split for this flick, between Mike Cuff and Scott Windhauser. According to the internet, so it must be true, this was due to creative conflicts. If Cuff left in a huff (heh-heh) because of creative conflicts, I have to wonder why he was so emotionally invested in this flick. He had to have known when he saw his budget, his sets, and his cast, that he wasn’t making the next Anaconda. Yet he chose to abandon this project out of artistic integrity? Come on, Mike. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Dead Trigger”

October Horrorshow: Ghost Stories

Adapting their own successful stage play, writers and directors Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson have crafted a ghost flick that is, at times, among the most frightening that has been made this decade, and at other times is a cataclysmic rush to an uneven finale.

From 2017, Ghost Stories is somewhat of an anthology film, but the three separate tales that make up the film are bound together by a wrapper story in such a way that it can be considered a single narrative, as well. Nyman plays Professor Phillip Goodman, the presenter of a British reality show that debunks psychics. In an early scene, viewers see Goodman expose a spirit medium as a fraud. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Ghost Stories”

October Horrorshow: The Cured

Should a filmmaker decide to make a zombie flick these days, they will have to contend with oversaturation and viewer weariness. The 21st century has been awash with zombie flicks. And should film not sate one’s desires to see the undead tear apart human flesh, there is the media juggernaut that is The Walking Dead, still lumbering along after fifteen years. That franchise has done more to make people tired of zombies than anything else. The degree of difficulty for a filmmaker to make something interesting in the zombie subgenre of horror, then, is very high. There are basically two options. One: come up with a new idea that shakes up the unwritten rules of zombies. Two: go conventional, but do it well. Both of those are easier said than done. The Cured, the 2017 zombie flick from writer/director David Freyne, tries to do a combination of both. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Cured”

October Horrorshow: The Ritual

A creepy cabin in some lonely woods. A small cast. A mysterious monster that stalks them. Most of us film fans have seen this movie many, many times. Such a broad outline has spawned hundreds of horror films over the years. Some are good, some are awful, and most are just mediocre. In that, these horror films are like every other film that features well-worn tropes. One can’t expect too much originality, which makes it all the better when something new is to be found. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Ritual”