Tag: Action Flick

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 posterIf 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 posterAspiring 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”

Cyberjack, aka Virtual Assassin

If there is any formula that has been beaten to death in action flicks, it is the “Die Hard in a…” film. Die Hard on a ship and its sequel, Die Hard on a train; Die Hard on a plane; Die Hard at the White House; Die Hard at a boarding school; Die Hard on a freakin’ bus. It’s such a reliable formula that sometimes an action flick can fall into all the Die Hard tropes as if by accident — like the filmmakers had something else in mind, but the lure of Die Hard was just too powerful to resist.

From 1995 comes Cyberjack, directed by Robert Lee from a script by Eric Poppen.

It’s the near future! A team of computer scientists, led by Dr. Phillip Royce and his daughter, Dr. Alex Royce (Duncan Fraser and Suki Kaiser), have created a new computer virus that acts as an anti-virus, and it lives in biological matter, and it may or may not have some kind of intelligence…it’s not all that clear. The details behind the virus are unimportant. In this movie’s world, the virus is a dangerous commodity that will have worldwide impact should it fall into the wrong hands. Continue reading “Cyberjack, aka Virtual Assassin”

Phoenix the Warrior, aka She-Wolves of the Wasteland

This movie has to be trash, right? One doesn’t go into a 1980’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi b-movie with a scantily-clad female cast and expect Shakespeare. In the days before the World Wide Web, a movie like this was about one thing and one thing only, and that was gratuitous nudity. It’s true. Movie watchers were shallow enough that for about three decades leading up to the widespread use of the internet, showcasing nudity was a core purpose of thousands upon thousands of substandard movies. Good for them!

Phoenix the Warrior is a little skimpy with the goods, though. Although the look and feel of this movie is lifted from Mad Max, in many ways this has more in common with a women in prison flick. Director and writer Robert Hayes (Dan Rotblatt shares writing credit) even managed to squeeze in a pseudo shower scene, but that’s about it. Hayes did the absolute worst thing he could do as the director of an exploitation flick: he relied on his skill as a filmmaker to see him through. Continue reading “Phoenix the Warrior, aka She-Wolves of the Wasteland”

Alienator

Prolific filmmaker Fred Olen Ray is a Shitty Movie Sundays All-Star. He’s on the list for his lifetime achievement in the art of b-movies. Sometimes pumping out half a dozen shitty movies in a year, Ray’s career is one worthy of study for the mutant connoisseur. But, had his career consisted of just this one movie, he would still have a place in this amateur reviewer’s heart.

Alienator, from 1990 (screenplay by Paul Garson), sounds just like what it is: an alien who is a terminator. The titular character is about all the relation this flick has to James Cameron’s classic, though. There is no time travel, there is no apocalyptic artificial intelligence, and there is no unborn savior of the future. What there is, is a large, unstoppable space bounty hunter, played by bodybuilder Teagan Clive, in a hair metal-perfect costume. Continue reading “Alienator”

Cocaine Wars

There are a lot of plot and characters to keep track of in Cocaine Wars, Héctor Olivera’s magnum opus from 1985, from a screenplay by Steven M. Krauzer. It takes place in the cutthroat world of the drug cartels in an unnamed South American country (filming was done in Argentina). There’s cartel boss Gonzalo Reyes (Federico Luppi). His rival, corrupt General Lujan (Rodolfo Ranni). A crusading politician, Marcelo Villalba (Juan Vitali). An expat American coca farmer, Bailey (Royal Dano). A World War II Nazi fugitive turned cartel wannabe, Klausmann (Ivan Grey). A reporter from the States, Janet Meade (Kathryn Witt). And, tying it all together is drug smuggling treetop flyer Cliff Adams (John ‘Bo Duke’ Schneider), who pisses off just about everyone in the movie at some point. Continue reading “Cocaine Wars”

Pharaoh’s War, aka Pharaoh’s Expedition, aka Pharaoh’s Campaign, aka Desert Strike, aka Hamlet Pheroun

An action flick starring Mike Tyson?! Sign me up! An action flick featuring Mike Tyson in a small supporting role, but he still kicks a little ass? Sure, I’m game for that, too.

Pharaoh’s War, one of the many loose translations of the film’s Arabic title, Hamlet Pheroun, is a straight Egyptian flick. There’s a good chance that it wasn’t ever meant to be seen in the West, but the inspired casting of Tyson, and strongman Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, most familiar to viewers as one of the actors who portrayed Grogor Clegane in Game of Thrones, opened up new possibilities for sales, so here we are.

Tyson appears early in the movie, as a good guy mercenary leading refugees out of a war torn city in Syria. But, he is intercepted by warlord Frank (Björnsson), who forces all the refugees to become his hostages. That’s an adequate setup for a shitty action flick, but it’s also the last we’ll see of Tyson for a bit. Continue reading “Pharaoh’s War, aka Pharaoh’s Expedition, aka Pharaoh’s Campaign, aka Desert Strike, aka Hamlet Pheroun”

Terminator II, aka Shocking Dark

There isn’t a successful Italian film director from the 20th century that doesn’t have at least one Hollywood ripoff in their filmography. It was practically de rigueur over there. But, no filmmaker did it with quite the shamelessness of Bruno Mattei, and none of his movies approached the level of outright thievery seen in Terminator II.

Trademark law is obviously looser in Italy. Over there, production companies can market and release a movie as a sequel to an unrelated production. This movie is not a sequel to The Terminator, James Cameron’s blockbuster from 1984. But it was marketed as such, down to a poster that evokes Arnold Scwarzenegger’s menacing, uncanny cyborg face. Everyone involved, including producer Franco Gaudenzi, knew how disingenuous it all was, because this flick wasn’t released in the United States until 2018, and then under the title Shocking Dark. Continue reading “Terminator II, aka Shocking Dark”