Action Flick – Missile Test

The Bodyguard, aka Bodyguard Kiba

Once upon a time, Sonny Chiba starred in a film adaptation of Bodyguard Kiba, a popular manga by Ikki Kajiwara. Chiba played the titular Kiba, who offers his services to anyone willing to expose crime and corruption. Perhaps, with Kiba’s protection, his clients will live long enough to see justice done.

As happened quite frequently with movies and TV shows from overseas, an American distributor got ahold of the rights, and released a bastardized version here in the States. Bodyguard Kiba became The Bodyguard; the name of Kiba’s character was changed to ‘Sonny Chiba,’ so the flick now features Sonny Chiba playing Sonny Chiba; and ten minutes of new footage shot in Times Square, that has nothing to do with the rest of the film, was added at the beginning. Oh, and the film opens with a reading of Ezekiel 25:17, just like Jules Winnfield says it early in Pulp Fiction, misquote and all. (The more genre films from the 1970s I see, the more I see where Quentin Tarantino found his influence. In fact, it seems as if his entire career has been remaking the movies he saw in his adolescence, bringing a high sheen to exploitation cinema. But, that’s an article for another day.) Continue reading “The Bodyguard, aka Bodyguard Kiba”

Champagne and Bullets, aka GetEven, aka Road to Revenge

Vanity projects are a fact of Hollywood business. Occasionally a star gets enough juice that they force a studio to make the movie they want to do, on their terms. Just about every big star has a vanity project or two in their filmography. Sylvester Stallone used the power he gained after the success of Rocky to make Paradise Alley. Sean Connery convinced United Artists to back The Offence. John Travolta used up every ounce of his power and influence to make Battlefield Earth. Even Madonna got in on the act with the remake of Lina Wertmuller’s classic Swept Away. One thing readers should notice about these examples…they’re all bad movies. Continue reading “Champagne and Bullets, aka GetEven, aka Road to Revenge”

The Glove

As of this writing, former NFL All Pro defensive lineman Rosey Grier is still kicking at the ripe old age of 93. We’re football fans here at Missile Test, but we associate Rosey with his post-football days, when, among many other activities, he graced us with his presence on the silver screen, most notably in The Thing With Two Heads. In 1979’s The Glove, directed by Ross Hagen from a screenplay by Hugh Smith and Julian Roffman, Rosey plays Victor Hale, an ex-con who was beaten and abused by prison guards. After release, Hale seeks revenge. He suits up in prison riot gear, including a 5-pound steel glove, and hunts down his former custodians, beating them to death. Continue reading “The Glove”

Overkill (1987)

Overkill 1987 movie poster I’m going to do something that would make all the journalists in my family, living and dead, recoil. I’m going to quote Wikipedia. Of filmmaker Ulli Lommel, the unpaid army of contributors at Wikipedia sayeth:

[He] was a German actor and director, noted for his many collaborations with Rainier Werner Fassbinder and his association with the New German Cinema movement. Lommel spent time at The Factory and was a creative associate of Andy Warhol, with whom he made several films and works of art.

This guy was a high-falutin’ artist. At some point in the 1980s, though, Lommel threw off the shackles of fine art and dedicated himself to a career in shitty movies. Thus freed, he brought viewers a string of glorious cheese, including Overkill, from 1987, which he wrote (with David Scott Kroes), produced, and directed.

Overkill follows Los Angeles cop Mickey Delano, played by Steve Rally, whose main claim to fame is being a three-time Playgirl Magazine centerfold (there is even a brief scene where Delano, undercover, shakes it as a male stripper). Continue reading “Overkill (1987)”

Alien Private Eye

The 1980s are a difficult time to explain to people who weren’t there. For the 20th century, every decade had a distinctive look and feel, right up until the late ’90s when everything cultural started to have a whiff of nostalgia. One can look at only a few seconds of a film from the 20th century and be able to tell which decade it came from. Meanwhile, here in this rotten century, nothing seems to have changed since the early 2000s. Fashion, music, movies…there are new names, but a unique, stylistic identity to the times we live in has been lost.

Back to the ’80s. Then was the culmination of decades of change, and the overarching theme seemed to be garishness. Bright colors everywhere (except in the home, which remained stubbornly brown), music with strange sounding instruments, big hair, and, as today’s movie shows, outfits that are beginning to look as bizarre as powdered wigs and pantaloons.

From 1989 comes Alien Private Eye, written, produced, directed, and edited by Vik Rubenfeld. Shot in 1987, but stuck in a can until it obtained a VHS release, Alien Private Eye is another film rescued from the approaching abyss by Vinegar Syndrome, who cleaned it up and released a Blu-ray in 2022. And it’s good they did. Before they ran this flick through the ringer, the only way to watch it were degraded VHS transfers uploaded to the tubes, and those are barely watchable, with fuzzy picture and muddy sound. Continue reading “Alien Private Eye”

Killing American Style

Filmmaker Amir Shervan’s Samurai Cop wowed shitty movie audiences when it was rediscovered in the 2000s, so it made sense that the mutants would dig into his back catalogue to see what else he left behind. Shervan has thirty directing credits to his name, most from before he left his native Iran due to the Islamic revolution. He was in the wilderness, filmmaking-wise, for a bit, but came back in 1987 with Hollywood Cop, kicking off a string of five unforgettable b-flicks that culminated with Samurai Cop, before he left the business once again. One of those glorious remnants was Killing American Style, a home invasion action flick released in 1988. Continue reading “Killing American Style”

Eve of Destruction (1991)

According to the internet, so it must be true, actress Renée Soutendijk was a star in Europe and the Netherlands in the 1980s. Lithe, athletic, and, most importantly, young and blonde, Soutendijk racked up credit after credit, even playing Eva Braun once. When that mountain is climbed, it’s not uncommon for a star to set their sights on Hollywood. However, whatever dreams of Hollywood stardom or Oscar-winning praise were dancing in her head were shattered by the stark reality of the shitty movie. After this flick, she returned to Europe and never looked back.

Directed by Duncan Gibbins, who had directed many popular music videos, and written by Gibbins and Yale Udoff, Eve of Destruction follows Soutendijk in a dual role. She plays scientist Dr. Eve Simmons, head of a secret government project to develop humanoid robots indistinguishable from the real thing for use in espionage and on the battlefield. Her latest creation is Eve VIII, also played by Soutendijk, a model based on Dr. Simmons herself. It looks like her, talks like her, and has all of Simmons’ memories. Continue reading “Eve of Destruction (1991)”

Urban Warriors, or, The Worst Day at Work Ever

Urban Warriors movie poster If you, dear reader, are convinced that you’re watching something familiar during Urban Warriors, then congratulations. You are a connoisseur of 1980s Italian Mad Max ripoffs. Only someone with knowledge of this strange subgenre of film would recognize that Urban Warriors, the last film from director Giuseppe Vari, shares much footage with The Final Executioner, released three years earlier in 1984. This flick isn’t the only movie to recycle substantial amounts of footage from The Final Executioner. A couple of years later The Bronx Executioner did the same thing, only in a way that destroyed just about all narrative consistency. Urban Warriors has a plot that one can follow.

Brad, Maury, and Stan (Bruno Bilotta, Bjorn Hammer, and Maurice Poli) are doing computer technician stuff in an underground bunker. Right in the middle of the workday, World War 3 breaks out, spreading nuclear apocalypse over the entire world. The power in the bunker is knocked out, so the trio has to make their way to the surface. It takes them days to find a way out, and when they do reach the surface, Vari shows us the ravages of atomic warfare — a rocky yet pristine hillside, and a small office complex whose glass sides gleam in the sunlight. It’s about as low effort as one will ever see in a post-apocalyptic movie. Continue reading “Urban Warriors, or, The Worst Day at Work Ever”

Empire of the Dark

Empire of the Dark movie poster Aspiring auteur Steve Barkett made but two movies during his life, which is two more than most of us. The first, The Aftermath, from way back in 1982, was a passion project that took him years to complete. His followup from 1991, Empire of the Dark, saw Barkett inject the same energy and persistence he displayed in his first movie, and the same anachronistic tendencies.

He directed, he wrote, he starred, he edited, he performed his own stunts, and he, dream of dreams, cast his own son as his co-star. A filmmaker with deficiencies in storytelling ability, acting, physicality, and much else required to make a film, Barkett’s movies are a testament to his force of will. Barkett also drew influences from 1950’s sci-fi and monster flicks, and shot his films like something from the early ’70s. Makeup and latex mask effects swing from b-movie quality to off-the-rack Halloween store fare. Mannequins take bullets to the head with red corn syrupy splatter. Creature effects are a mix of amateur puppetry and stop motion, including what looks like repurposed action figures. At some point in his life, Barkett became interested in broadsword fighting, and incorporated this new skill into his movie. Whatever doubts he may have harbored while making his film, and all artists are plagued by doubts, he cast aside and plowed through. Add Barkett to one’s mental list of perseverance personified, all you aspiring filmmakers. He made shit, but it’s fun shit. Continue reading “Empire of the Dark”

Homicycle

I’m pretty sure Brett Kelly isn’t the best auteur from Ottawa, Ontario, but he’s certainly the most prolific. As of this writing, Kelly has directed thirty-nine features, with a smattering of shorts thrown in for good measure. Alas, this profligacy has not equalled quality, but that’s never been a concern at Shitty Movie Sundays.

Three Kelly-helmed pictures were released in the year 2014. According to IMDb, Homicycle is the best of them, with a 2.7 rating out of 10. Rotten Tomatoes doesn’t even have a rating. Yikes. So, what gives?

Homicycle is bottom feeding filmmaking. It’s the kind of flick that regional filmmakers crank out for a few thousand bucks and hopefully, maybe, find distribution with some garage-based company. In this case, Camp Motion Pictures here in the States. These films won’t make anyone involved rich, but they just might cover the mortgage until the next financial quarter, when it becomes time to make another. Continue reading “Homicycle”