Tag: Buddy Cop Flick

October Horrorshow: Zombie Cop

J.R. Bookwalter, Akron’s finest filmmaker, strikes again. Zombie Cop, his third feature, is something of a redheaded stepchild in his oeuvre. According to Bookwalter, he was in an unhappy place with his filmmaking at the time. He had been contracted to shoot six movies in seven months for distributor Cinema Home Video (prolific b-auteur David DeCoteau, owner of CHV, executive produced), and that experience left him so burnt out he almost left the business for good. It’s no wonder, then, that he has mixed feelings about Zombie Cop. The word ‘disowned’ appears here and there in the tubes, but that seems to be an exaggeration. He may not like the final product all that much, but his name is still on Zombie Cop, warts and all. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Zombie Cop”

Shitty Movie Sundays: No Escape No Return, or, Three Riggses and No Murtaughs

The early 1990s were very much a weird time. It was an extended hangover from our experience of the ’80s, and movies reflected that. As important as music was in redefining style, and giving the younger Gen-X slackers senseless purposelessness, there was still a fair amount of big hair and mullets out there alongside the flannels and unkempt coiffures. In shitty cinema, sharp suits, tight skirts, and cocaine were still the rage, while out in the real world, alternative rock had rediscovered heroin. Movies were playing a game of catch-up when it came to popular culture, resulting in some films looking like anachronisms.

1993 saw the release of No Escape No Return, a cheap buddy cop flick that takes all the well-worn clichés of the last decade-plus and stirs them into a shitty mush. Charles T. Kanganis handled writing and directing. More importantly, Joseph Merhi, a Shitty Movie Sundays Hall of Fame inductee, was one of the producers, adding this film to an impressive list of subpar accomplishments. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: No Escape No Return, or, Three Riggses and No Murtaughs”

Schwarzenegger Month: Red Heat

Most anyone who became aware of both self and American culture after the 1980s has heard of Arnold Schwarzenegger. They’ve probably seen at least one of his films, or maybe heard that he ran California and had terrible taste in SUVs. That’s not all these people would have in common. They would also all be collectively unaware that, once upon a time, Jim Belushi was famous. That’s right, Millennials and those from the generation-yet-to-be-adequately-named, once upon a time there was a mediocre actor and comedian who punched well above his weight, starring in such films as The Principal, Real Men, K-9, and Red Heat, all of which made money. Continue reading “Schwarzenegger Month: Red Heat”

October Horrorshow: Dead Heat (1988)

“These caps[sic] are on the biggest murder case of their lives...their own.”

So declares the DVD box art for the 1988 zombie action flick Dead Heat. When searching for a shitty movie to idly pass an evening, a typo on box art is a pretty fair indication a viewer has found a winner. Any movie called Dead Heat and starring Joe Piscopo doesn’t need any extra hint that it’s a special film, but the fact the producers didn’t care enough to release the flick with a simple bit of copy editing on the box is just icing on the cake. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Dead Heat (1988)”