The swinging ’60s have come to Missile Test, in the form of Italian/French production The 10th Victim. An absurdist bit of film whimsy from Italian director Elio Petri, The 10th Victim is notable for providing much of the inspiration for Mike Myers’s character Austin Powers. Indeed, one of the great gags in the first Austin Powers film, a bikini top that shoots bullets, was lifted from this film. Continue reading “Empty Balcony: The 10th Victim, aka La decima vittima”
Tag: Action Flick
Shitty Movie Sundays: Geostorm
What a putrid mess of a movie. Geostorm is an action thriller of grand scale, yet dumbed down in an attempt to give it mass appeal. It’s a film full of the promise of spectacle, without a viewer ever having to worry if any of it makes sense. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Geostorm”
Empty Balcony: War for the Planet of the Apes
This film is excruciatingly inane, and at the same time an achievement. It is a story of stark moral black and whites, the contrast so palpable that it could blind were one to stare at it for too long. It is an epic that will take up 140 minutes of a viewer’s time, but it is also a flat desert plain stretching to the horizon, the only hint of depth merely a mirage. Continue reading “Empty Balcony: War for the Planet of the Apes”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Strike Commando
Who wants to watch some bottom-feeding trash? I do! And we all should. Films like Strike Commando, the 1987 shitfest from Italian filmmaker Bruno Mattei, make serious film and art house fodder all the better. How would we be able to gauge excellence were it not for films like Strike Commando giving us a baseline of inferiority? Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Strike Commando”
Empty Balcony: Atomic Blonde
Atomic Blonde is an aggressive title for a movie. By that, I mean it’s the type of title that can make a viewer immediately prejudge a film. I’m guilty of that. My expectations going into this film were that, at best, it would be a mildly entertaining, yet brainless, action flick. I was hoping for a shitty film, but was prepared for a just a plain old bad one. But, just as one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, the same applies to film titles. Continue reading “Empty Balcony: Atomic Blonde”
Shitty Movie Sundays: The Beastmaster
Filmmaker Don Coscarelli is known to horror fans as the man behind the Phantasm film series. While that series has spanned decades, all cinematic auteurs like to try new things on occasion. Sometimes, when they do, the result is shitty gold.
The Beastmaster, from 1982, is Coscarelli’s homage to the Italian sword-and-sandal flick, and also an opportunity to feed on the leavings, remora-style, of the Conan films. In fact, Coscarelli and producer Paul Pepperman took a book about a Navajo soldier who talks to genetically altered animals on an alien planet, and turned it into a Conan ripoff. There are no Native Americans and no alien planet in this flick. Instead, we get Marc Singer, in what would have been his defining role were it not for V, as Dar, a hunky tribesman who is the long-lost son of a deposed king. After Dar’s village is attacked by a horde and everyone is killed, Dar sets off on a journey, to somewhere a little vague, with something of an idea about what he’s going to do when he gets there. Focus isn’t really Dar’s strongest characteristic — wearing as little clothing as possible without being pornography is. Also, he can talk to animals. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The Beastmaster”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Freejack
Freejack is one of those movies that potential viewers might remember. They will vaguely remember a time when Emilio Estevez was a leading man, and they might recall that he was in a movie once called Freejack. They probably won’t remember what the movie was about, but they could remember that Mick Jagger, yes, that Mick Jagger, had a role. But, us shitty movie fans, we happy not-so-few, remember this as an ambitious and silly sci-fi action flick. We also remember that not only did Mick Jagger have a prominent part — his gloriously shitty performance stole the film. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Freejack”
October Hammershow: The Satanic Rites of Dracula
Here we are. October 31st. Halloween. The end of the October Horrorshow. The final film in this look back at Hammer Film Productions is a departure from type. If there’s one thing I’ve picked up on from watching 31 Hammer films in a row, it’s that Hammer basically made the same film over and over and over again. That’s not negative criticism on my part. Hammer had a style, in the same way that a musician like John Lee Hooker had a style or an artist like Willem de Kooning had a style. Listen to an album or see a painting hanging on a wall and it becomes immediately clear who is responsible. Hammer films followed a theme. They developed over time into something that was very much their own. Towards the end, though, they began to switch things up in search of a new formula. Such is the case with today’s film. Continue reading “October Hammershow: The Satanic Rites of Dracula”
October Hammershow: Night Creatures, aka Captain Clegg
I feel like American audiences have been sold a false bill of goods with Night Creatures. The title implies quite a different movie than what we got. While today’s film was titled Night Creatures for the American market, its original title in the UK and elsewhere is Captain Clegg. That title isn’t exactly the best, either, as it makes the movie sound like something Disney would have cranked out for kids, and it’s not that.
From 1962, Night Creatures, directed by Peter Graham Scott from a screenplay by Anthony Hinds, is a departure for Hammer. By the time this film was made, Hammer was fully invested in making gothic horror, but Night Creatures is a thriller. It can be painted as a horror flick, however, which is why I feel there’s been a little misdirection involved in promoting it.
In 18th century England, a notorious pirate by the name of Captain Clegg was captured, hanged, and buried in a small coastal town. Ever since then, ghostly phantoms on horseback have plagued the marshes surrounding the town. Many in the town are terrified that such creatures lurk in the wilderness. Where did they come from? What is their purpose? Will anything be done about them? This film sets itself up as horror. But, it’s really about wily townspeople trying to hide their illegal activities from the government. Continue reading “October Hammershow: Night Creatures, aka Captain Clegg”
October Horrorshow: Jason X
It’s Friday the 13th! In October! Missile Test couldn’t possibly let the day go by without watching a Friday the 13th flick, and this one is a doozy. By 2001, the original Friday the 13th franchise was on its last legs. The producers, recognizing that the old formula had been ground into dust by overuse, decided to shake things up. And by shake things up, I mean they all contracted serious cases of the awfuckits and sent their franchise property into space. That’s right, no more summer camp and no more Crystal Lake. This film takes place in outer space…in the future. Hell yeah.
Jason X, from writer Todd Farmer and director James Isaac, is the tenth film in the Friday the 13th franchise. It’s the second to ditch the Friday the 13th moniker, after 1993’s Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. When a film franchise forgoes using its title — the most significant brand that it has — a viewer can tell that things haven’t been going so well lately. The Friday the 13th flicks were always moneymakers, but the return on investment had been going down with every film, and the franchise had earned an unsavory reputation for being cheap, exploitative schlock. Clearly the only thing to do was to double down. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Jason X”