The Blog Has Eyes!

THE EYE (Jian gui)-2002-A young girl gets a cornea transplant and can see for the first time in her life. However, she finds that she sees a lot more than anyone else. Namely ghosts! Pretty horrifying ones at that. Her visions are the key to a mystery involving the former owner of her newly acquired sight and she must unravel it. Lead actress Angelica Lee won the Hong Kong film festival best actress award for her performance. It was followed by two sequels and a US remake. Nicely done Asian horror from Thailand.







MY LEFT EYE SEES GHOSTS-2002-After an obnoxious, uncaring woman (Sammi Cheung) is killed in a car accident she is brought back to life by a ghost named Ken. While in the hospital recovering, she has an eye operation. Soon after that Ken returns and she can see other ghosts too. It’s basically a lighthearted romantic comedy with some serious overtones. Co-director Johnny To made THE HEROIC TRIO and THE EXECUTIONERS.



BLOODLUST!-1961-This cheap rip-off of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME stars Wilton Graff as a mad hunter who kills with a crossbow and then makes statues out of his victims for his personal “museum”. Four young people (including future Mr. Brady Robert Reed) stumble upon his domain where they are held prisoner along with his wife (Lilyan Chauvin) and her lover (familiar TV actor Walter Brooke). Director Ralph Brooke (possibly Walter’s brother?) was second unit director on Jerry Warren’s MAN BEAST. It’s pretty stupid.

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Is It Really a Game?

QUINTET-(1979)-I just got back from "Dunkin' Donuts" where while enjoying a hazelnut coffee and a sesame bagel I spent the last half an hour trying to figure out just what the heck was going on in this movie! Recently deceased Paul Newman (in his only movie in '79) stars in it and the late Robert Altman (who seemed to have made an incredible amount of films in a very short time) co-wrote and directed it. It kind of seems like an Igmar Bergman Sci-Fi movie if Bergman made a Sci-Fi movie and didn't know what he was doing!

OK, so I know there is a kind of artsy cult build around this movie (and most of the director's other work) but I really don't get this at all! Altman did gather quite an international cast for this strangeness though including Bergman regular Bibi Andersson!

The setting is a future time during a new ice age or years after a cataclysm or maybe it's in Seberia! Newman plays Essex, a former seal hunter with a pregnant wife (French actress Brigette Fossy) who after years of wandering visits his brother. Places are divided into "sectors" and everyone plays a dice game called "Quintet". After the wife and bro are killed in an explosion, Essex takes on a new identity and goes to a sector where Fernando Rey as Grigor presides over the local game. Andersson is Grigor's wife Ambrosia and Vittorio Gassman is St. Christopher. David Langton (from UPSTAIRS,DOWNSTAIRS) is the paranoid Goldstar. Everybody talks a lot and a couple of characters die. The game Quintet may be more than just a game...

I think...This was also a weird time for Paul Newman. The next year he would make the Irwin Allen produced disaster (in more ways than one) film WHEN TIME RAN OUT and after that FORT APACHE:THE BRONX. His previous film had been SLAP SHOT in 1977.

I wonder if there was a Quintet board game promotion tied to the film?


"This all gonna make sense when you edit it, right Bob?"

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Three The Bad Way

DOUBLE TEAM-1997-This movie is terrible. Mickey Rourke is the villian and Dennis Rodman is a good guy! Jean Claude Van Damme of course is the actual star. He spends a lot of time holding his breath under water and kicks bad guys in the head. He really needs acting lessons though and his English is still atrocious. Rourke does his usual non-acting and looks like he's had bad plastic surgery. Rodman's dialogue contains a lot of basketball refrences but Kareem Abdul-Jabar was better in GAME OF DEATH. It's all pretty annoying despite the fact it was directed by Hark Tsui who made ONCE UOPN A TIME IN CHINA and PEKING OPERA BLUES! Well, it worked for John Woo! The one good fight takes place in a hotel room. Hark didn't learn his lesson though and directed Van Dumme in the even worst KNOCK OFF the next year. Fortunately he returned to Hong Kong later on and made TIME AND TIDE, ZU WARRIORS and BLACK MASK 2.



Director Paul Nicholas aka Lutz Schaarwhachter is responsible for such dreck as JULIE DARLING, CHAINED HEAT and NAKED CAGE. He also made the bizarre NIGHT OF THE ARCHER (1994) wherein a lot of bow and arrow shenanigans take place on an estate owned by sleazy Joseph Bologna and his frigid wife Barbara Carrera. At dinner they insult each other and while their daughter (Avital Dicker) goes head to head in a tournament with a greasy biker (Eric Roberts wannabe Jeff Griggs) being chased by two idiot gangsters. Sandahl Bergman shows up as a horse trainer and Bologna's character winds up dead. Who did it? Who cares? Every one in this shot in Germany dog is weird.........



By it's title alone BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER (2002) should speak volumes. Volumes of "stay away", "do not rent", "do not watch". The only people who should go ballistic are the poor unfortunate movie goers who got suckered into paying to see this trash that should have gone directly to video.

Antonio Banderas (looking like he's been up all night snorting coke with Melanie Griffith) plays some kind of ex-agent who whispers alot. Lucy Liu (obviously being groomed to be the new Karen Black) is another agent who kidnaps Banderas' son, kills about a hundred people and is suppose to evoke sympathy from the (hopefully very gullible) audience. Gregg Henry (who when he's seen in a silly fedora looks like he could play the lead if they ever decided to make a bio of that guy on The Quaker Oats Box) is another agent and "bad guy" but it's quite confusing when you like the villian (who can at least act) better than the supposed lead "good guys" (who are stiffs). There's lots of violent explosions and shootouts but movies like this give the term "action film" a bad name. The Tawianese director of this schlok also made a movie called FAH.

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Below Honor...

FIST OF HONOR-1992-I've noticed that for some reason I watch a shit load of bad movies. I don't understand it! Once when I had nothing to do I watched this thing called FIST OF HONOR starring everyone's favorite nobody Sam Jones, a former Playgirl centerfold who also had the great pleasure of playing Bo Derek's husband in the colossally bad hit 10. He plays Fist Sullivan, an ex-boxer strongman who works for crime boss Harry Guardino who's about to renege on his truce with a rival Don (portrayed by Abe Vigoda, TV's own lovable Fish) who is the nicer of the two thugs. Although he fights for the mob Fist says he doesn't like to hurt people. What about the audience? They're people too you know??? He has a fight with a big muscular black guy but mostly he beats up skinny white ones.

Anyway to make matters worse ex-football star Bubba Smith is a crooked cop! And there are dumb scenes like a football coach being gunned down right in front of his whole team! When Abe's character is killed Fist is framed for the murder (and 5 others). The unique acting talents of Nicolas Worth (from DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE) are put to good use as Don Guardino's right hand man who accidently kills Fist's wife (Joey House) who is also Guardino's mistress. The unappealing Jones gets revenge of course proving it pays to work for the right mob!

FOH was directed by former cinematographer Richard Pepin who with his PM Entertainment partner Joseph Merhi churned out nearly 100 martial arts action movies (many starring Don "The Dragon" Wilson). I think they've stopped though! Screenwriter Charles Kanganis later directed DENNIS THE MENACE STRIKES BACK.......



BEYOND SUSPICION-1994-BS (ha!) is a boring Canadian based action drama that has Jack Scalia (who was on the TV show POINTMAN at the time) as an obnoxious corrupt cop trying to find the murderer of his partner. Police Internal Affairs think he's responsible. Stephanie Kramer (who ten years before was a regular on TV's HUNTER) is a photojournalist who gets in the way but has a photo of the killer. Scalia roughs up muggers, sleeps with Kramer (who uses a body double) and contemplates suicide (but not enough). This stupid movie somehow ties everything together when Scalia kidnaps Kramer's daughter to get the photo because he's being blackmailed by his boss (William Davis from TV's THE X-FILES), who let him kill some gangsters (?) .

The director, Paul Ziller had worked on the HIGHLANDER TV series and also made PLEDGE NIGHT, BLOOD FIST lV: DIE TRYING and BACK IN ACTION (with Billy Blanks and Roddy Piper).

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One from Japan; One from the Philippines

GAPPA-THE TRIPHIBIAN MONSTER-(DAIKYOJU GAPPA)-Japan-1967-Combining plot elements from RODAN and GORGO, this Japanese production tells the story of the accidental discovery and capture of a prehistoric creature on a remote island by a group of scientist-ex-plorers. The characters agonize over their find and their personal lives. A woman reporter is chastised by a male scientist (“Go back to Tokyo and learn to cook”) and at the end she decides he’s right and quits her job and marries him! The monster is actually a baby and it’s parents come looking for it. They are very, very phony looking even by 60’s Japanese standards, which probably explains why director Haruyasu Noguchi never made another film! Star Tamio Kawaji was also in TOKYO DRIFTER.




FIRECRACKER-New World-1981- This funny, made in The Philippines martial arts action-er features Julian Kesner as an American martial arts instructor searching for her missing sister. The search leads her to an illegal fighting tournament where she meets Chuck (Darby Hinton), henchman to the drug-dealing owner Erik (screenwriter Ken Metcalfe). Gresner‘s style isn’t very impressive and sometimes she acts like she’s high but she has a couple of fights in her underwear (and high heels) and one topless! The funniest character is Grip, another gangster played by Vic Diaz. She also gets help from Pete, a big American bar owner, Rey, a pretty tough local guy and a police detective.

All the fights are pretty funny. The weirdest scene involves a pre-sex knife cutting off of jeans! Some of the music seems stolen from The B52’s “Planet Claire”!

Eventually, Kesner finds out Chucky boy was responsible for her sister’s death (“Hey, look, I’m sorry. What can I say?”) and kills him in a death match.

Director Ciro H. Santiago directed around 50 Philippines based exploitation films (most with the bald headed Diaz as a sadistic henchman) including VAMPIRE HOOKERS (1979) and many Road Warrior type rip-offs. Julian Kesner later worked for Fred Olen Ray and Gary Graver. Darby Hinton was later in "The Days Of Our Lives" soap opera and Andy Sidaris’ MALIBU EXPRESS.

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Nonsense vs. Stupidity

VAMPIRES VS. ZOMBIES- (2004)-Confused nonsense that has something to do with a flu like disease that turns people into flesh eating zombies (what an original concept!). There is also a storyline that has something to do with vampires. A guy and his daughter and an older man are on there way to some crypt to destroy someone named Carmilla who is in fact travelling with the daughter (?). Yeah, I was mixed up too..Brinke Stevens (the only member of the cast I knew) plays some kind of witch and there are dream sequences, lesbian scenes, bad SFX and a lot of talk...

The DVD also contained a short film by the same director (Vince D'Amato) called HEADS WILL ROLL (with much of the same cast including Stevens) which I had read was better than the feature. Well, you couldn't do much worse than this feature so I guess the short was ok...

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Quick crap!

I have a date this afternoon so I have to make this very fast. It's very hot here btw. Hope everyone is kool!

THE QUEEN OF THE DAMNED-(2002)-Yipes! This movie sucks! If the "film-makers" don't know anything about making horror movies they SHOULD NOT bother!! A chowderhead actor by the the name of Stuart Townsend (they could have done better with Peter) portrays Anne Rice's immortal vampire Lestat. Bad mistake! This guy (who later played Dorian Gray in THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN) is the worse...

The late Rap star Aaliyah isn't much better. Everything about this movie reeks! Phony heavy metal punk combined with vampirisim really doesn't make it.

Also with Marguerite Moreau, Vincent Perez (THE CROW 2), Claudia Black (TV's FARSCAPE), Bruce Spence, Lena Olin and Paul McGann.

DAY THE WORLD ENDED-2001-God awful remake of the classic Roger Corman 50's film. Actually it's not really a remake. It's just a piece of shit disguised as a movie using the same title. Randy Quaid and Nastassja Kinski star. They obviously needed beer money that week. Most of the cast talk while eating. One of several Cinemax "remakes" co-produced by AIP co-founder Samuel Z. Arkoff (who died in 2003). None of them are worth watching.....

DAWN OF THE DEAD-2004-Now this movie bites it! I was laughing at the pre-credit scenes but this is less like a DAWN OF THE DEAD remake than it is a "what a lot of stupid people did during Dawn of the Dead". As is typical with such nonsense there's a lot of talking, inane character emotions, screaming and arguing. Oh yeah, and there are some zombies in it. They run very fast, seem fairly strong but can't get a bite on most of the lead cast. Actually the running effect is very comical at points. It seems more influenced by 28 DAYS LATER than anything else. And I think it's in rather bad taste to feature the Jim Carroll song "People Who Died" during the annoying end credits. It was director Zack Snyder's first film. He later made the big hit 300 and the less than big hit WATCHMEN.

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