70's Kung-Fu Sequel

MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE-1977-This Taiwanese made hit was actually a sequel to star/writer/director Jimmy Wang Yu's ONE ARMED BOXER from 1972 and features one of the most memorable weapon of all time.

It turns out that the 2 Tibetan monks that Tien Lung (Wang Yu) killed in the finale of ONE ARMED BOXER were actually allies of a blind assassin (Kanf Chin) with very long eyebrows who now seeks vengeance on the One Armed Boxer (flashbacks are scenes from the first film). The boxer now runs a Kung-Fu school. The assassin decides the easiest way to get him is just to kill every one armed man he meets! The fights are excellent, especially Wang's one armed boxer tactics. The finale takes place in a coffin making shop where the boxer sets several traps for his adversary.

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Poor Paul!

AXE GIANT-THE WRATH OF PAUL BUNYAN-2013-This crazy horror tale has five young adult slacker assholes in a first offenders type boot camp run by a Sgt. Slaughter wannabe police sargeant named Hoke (Thomas Downey, also in HILLSIDE CANNIBALS) and a psychiarist (Kristina Kopf). Unfortunately the gang arrives just in time to be terrorized by an axe toting giant. Joe Estevez shows up as a crazy old guy who explains how in 1894 that some loggers (lead by Dan Haggerty) killed and ate Babe, the blue ox pet of Paul Bunyan. He killed all the loggers and then the townspeople threw him in a mine but he escaped and grew very big. Now he's angry because one of the group disturbed Babe's grave. A sheriff (Tim Lovelace) who's daughter is in the group shows up toward the end to help out but a group of redneck militia men save the day.

There's several be-headings and one woman is cut in half but the gory CGI SFX are pretty bad and the story, acting and direction are laughable most of the time. Could this have actually been a takeoff? Only director Gary Jones (MOSQUITO and CROCODILE 2) knows for sure.

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Hong Kong Craziness

FATAL FLYING GUILLOTINE-1979-Shen Mo Chao (Chan Sing) has spent years in solitude (after he "got sick through too much exercise"!) perfecting his "lightening strike". He also has a strange weapon, "the flying guillotine". Some guys with swords try to take it away and he kills them. After the credits his son Shen (Carter Wong) fights a bunch of monks. To get medicine for his sick mom he must face three trials. The third is to fight the master of the Shaolin monastary. Unfortunately he fails. The monks want Shen Sr. and his weapon on their side and send out a group of fighters (to No Return Valley) to find him. They don't fare too well. All but one is killed by Shen's crazy weapon. The son tries the 3rd trial again and wins (but he kind of cheated). They give him a book that will help mom, however on his way back he's attacked and thrown off a cliff into the water. He survives but a rainstorm also impedes his progress. Fortunately he makes it back in time to give mom the elixir that cures her but only for a few minutes. She dies anyway but not before telling Shen all about his evil father. After several other twists, plot holes and more characters entering the action, father and son battle it out in a crazy finale that ends very abruptly.

This has nothing to do with the better known MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE from 1975 (or it's sequel). Director Raymond Lui was also an actor and stuntman.

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Subway Horror

STAG NIGHT-2008-According to this nonsense 100,000 people go missing in NYC every year and no one looks for them. Maybe they are looking in the wrong place as this cannibal horror movie was filmed Sofia, Bulgaria!

Four blockheads having a bachelor party encounter 2 women on a subway. After one of the women maces one of the guys they are let off at an abandoned station. Most of them walk around endlessly and insult each other but two of them stay behind to have sex and the guy gets bitten by a homeless person. They all wind up being terrorized and killed by underground cannibal maniacs who cut up body parts and feed them to their dogs. There's dismemberment, be-headings, maulings, the usual CGI gore and enough shaky camera work to send anyone running for the Excedrin bottle.

The filmmakers obviously had no idea how the NYC subway system operates (or what it looks like) and this makes the story even more idiotic. It reminded me of the English '70's film DEATHLINE (aka RAW MEAT). This was the first movie directed by Peter A. Dowling. Warning: He's working on another!

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More Garbage

THE HAZING-2004-A college professor (Brad Dourif) uses a Necronomicon like type book to open a secret portal to a dark dimension. He has to kill a few people to achieve this. Some assholes on a Halloween scavenger hunt almost kill him (he was trying to kill them). They take him to a hospital. Later on they decide to have a party and get trapped in the house and menaced by Dourif's spirit. There's one fairly sick sex scene and as usual who really cares if these idiots live or die? One guy is killed and comes back to life and there's a beheading. Dourif is killed in the hospital but the three survivors must close the portal in a stupid ending. Also known as DEAD SCARED but it still sucks. The director Rolfe Kanefsky also made several titles in a new EMMANUELLE series.

Sleepy Hollow

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW-1999-Another imaginative, off center effort by Tim Burton. Unlike his two previous films (ED WOOD and MARS ATTACKS, which are both great) this one was a hit. It’s a bizarre reworking of the famous Washington Irving tale set in upstate NY.

In this update, Johnny Depp stars as Icabod Crane, a police medical examiner send to Sleepy Hollow by Judge Christopher Lee (in a great cameo) to investigate a series of gory beheadings. Christina Ricci provides the romantic interest. Suspicious townsfolk include Michael Gambon, Miranda Richardson, Jeffery Jones and Michael Gough. Christopher Walken (who kind of looks like an evil jack ‘o lantern anyway) plays the evil Hessian horseman responsible for some of the best beheadings ever seen on film. Also with Casper Van Dien (from STARSHIP TROOPERS) and Martin Landau (in a pre-credit cameo) as the first victim. 

The SFX and story are good but I had a little problem with Depp’s character who couldn’t seem to decide whether to be a hero (with nerves of steel who boldly performs autopsies) or a coward (who faints at the sight of blood!).

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