The Drummer To The Rescue

 

 (wikipedia)

COMMAND PERFORMANCE-2009-Joe (director/co-writer Dolph Lundgren), an older pot smoking drummer in a Russian heavy metal band is doing a spliff in the bathroom when terrorists attack the special performance concert given for the Russian president and his daughters. They are all held hostage, along with a stuck-up US Britney Spears clone, by some loony revenge seeking guy. It's up to big Dolph to rescue the hostages. 

Typically violent derivative bs with no likable characters to care about. Bad acting too. Clement Von Franckenstein is an ambassador and Lundgren's real-life daughter has a role.

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Russia Legend

 

 (imdb)

THE SWORD AND THE DRAGON-1956-This tale is based on a legend. Ivan (Boris Andreyev), a man crippled since birth watches helplessly as the Tugars, a barbarian horde rape, pillage and burn. Some travelers give Ivan a magic elixir that restores him and he becomes a mighty warrior dedicating his life to defending his homeland and defeating the Tugars. After battling and capturing a wind demon and assembling a group of fighting friends, his pregnant wife is kidnapped. Tugar leader Kalin (Shukur Burkhanov) wants to make her his bride but she rebuffs him. 

Instead, he takes her son Little Falcon and raises him as a Tugar. Later Ivan and his son meet on the battlefield and Ivan shows his son what's going down. They join forces and have to battle a three headed dragon in the finale. 

The Russian color fantasy is based on poems about the knight Iiya Muromets. Roger Corman got a hold of it a few years after it was made and had it re-edited, changing some names and having news journalist Mike Wallace do some new narration and Paul Frees dub some voices. The director Aleksandr Ptushko also made another fantasy adventure around this time, THE DAY THE EARTH FROZE.

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Norris Is So Tough, He Makes Onions Cry!

 

 (wikipedia)

INVASION USA-1985-Soviet terrorist Rostov (Richard Lynch) wants revenge on retired CIA agent Matt Hunter (Chuck Norris; also one of the screenwriters). After failing to kill him at his home in the Everglades he plots the invasion of America. Hunter agrees to go after him. There's lots of violence and killing (families, teens at party, shoot out at a crowded mall) and ridiculous car chases. The invaders disguise themselves as police and soldiers to cause unrest. A woman reporter (Melissa Prophet) who's life Hunter saves several times isn't even grateful. Billy Drago has a small role as a coke dealer who's killed. 

Director Joseph Zito directed Norris in MISSING IN ACTION the same year and also made the horror movies THE PROWLER and FRIDAY THE 13TH:THE FINAL CHAPTER.

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You're In The Frankenarmy Now!

FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY-2013-Though a pretty terrible horror movie FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY may have done something no other movie could do. It makes the viewer feel sorry for Nazi Germany!

Sometime during World War 2 a group of stupid Russian soldiers are dispatch on mission to rescue captive Russian comrades. This event is also being filmed by another soldier on the orders of Joe Stalin himself. So of course this means more shaky found footage nonsense.

After acting like assholes the group arrives at the village to find it deserted except for many dead, mutilated and burnt bodies. Later they find a farmer who tells them about a doctor and after being tortured he agrees to lead them to their Russian POWs. But instead he takes them to some catacombs where they are attacked by incredibly strange creatures looking like a cross between HELLRAZOR'S Cenobites and Tim Burton's EDWARD SCISSORHANDS! Most of them have humanoid heads but razors and drills for hands. Nearly everyone is killed when the guy filming the whole thing reveals he is in fact a Russian captain and the mission about rescuing captive soldiers is false. Their real mission is to find the doctor and bring him back to Russia dead or alive. The 3 remaining soldiers eventually abandon the captain who after taking a taking a tour of the bloody goings on meets the mysterious doctor Viktor (Karel Roden; Rasputin in HELLBOY). He explains his mad methods and reveals that he is in fact descended from Dr. Frankenstein himself! He does brain operations on living subjects for the camera but seems ambivalent about joining up with Russia. When his experiment on one of the Russians doesn't seem to work he turns his sights on the captain but the Russian army begins bombing and the doctor decides to take off. However he is shot dead by Sasha (Luke Newbury) the only surviving trooper (who the rest of the company treated like shit) who takes the doctor's severed head and film camera back to Germany, leaving the captain's fate in the hands of his resurrected revengeful second in command (I guess the experiment did work)

The final scene shows a picture of Stalin and Sasha together.

Although this is suppose to take place during the 1940's the supposed found footage is very clear and in color (gee, like a real movie...). It's very bloody and some of the doctor's creations are weirdly imaginative but it's all very cartoonish and the finale almost seems like something out of MONTY PYTHON!

Director Richard Raaphorst made only short films before this. Let's hope he doesn't decide to do a sequel...like Dracula's Navy???

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Horror in Russia

THE ABANDONED-2006-A Russian born American film producer Marie Jones (Anastasia Hille) returns to her homeland to visit a farm she inherited. After being abandoned by her stupid guide she investigates what's left of the dilapidated house and seems to meet a zombie like version of herself. After nearly drowning she's rescued by a guy name Nikolai (Karel Roden from FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY). To show her gratitude she smacks him with a log. Later when he wakes up, he claims to be Marilyn's twin brother. They do some snooping around and find human remains then they encounter lookalike zombies. For a while Nikolai disappears but when Marilyn's escape attempt fails they meet up again and they get to see depraved drawn out scenes of their births and the death of their mother. 

This Spanish/Bulgarian/British confused, contrived junk just goes on forever and the finale features wild boars and vomiting.

According to some sources director Nacho Cerda' (from Spain) was suspected of being the director of the infamous “Alien Autopsy” footage because a short he made resembles it!

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Blair Witch Inspired

THE CHERNOBYL DIARIES-2012-Some American tourists in Russia try some "extreme tourism" by visiting an abandoned city near the infamous nuclear explosion area. Of course it's obvious they should'nt  go there so of course they do! They trust some stupid local named Uri to take them there even after the army forbids them entrance. Everything goes ok until Uri gets frightened and decides it's time to leave. The it starts: their van doesn't work when they want to leave, Yuri gets a gun and goes exploring, one guy (Pop singer Jesse McCarthey) goes with him and winds up getting gored in the leg, the van is attacked by dogs, then group flounders around in the dark trying to fix the wounded guy's leg. They find Yuri's remains and then are menaced by what turns out to be the escaped radiation scarred residents of the area. The direction is very good but the explanation and resolution of the BLAIR WITCH PROJECT inspired story are a letdown. Filmed in Serbia and Hungry. This was first (and so far only) film from director Brad Parker who before this was a digital artist on films like THE TIME MACHINE remake and an assistant director. One of the screenwriters Oren Peli wrote PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.

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