MAY-DE TO BE MOCKED - Angels Brigade (1979)

 Note: Throughout the month of May I will be watching Mockbusters, those low-budget movies which are made purely to cash in on a recent successful blockbuster. I call this May-de to be Mocked!  

Angels Brigade (1979)
Director: Greydon Clark
Starring: Robin Greer, Susan Kiger, Jack Palance, Peter Lawford
Format: Streaming (Youtube)

Plot: Meet six women and a teenage girl who never expected to risk their lives fighting for justice. A schoolteacher had seen one too many kids succumb to drugs. A Las Vegas entertainer learned her brother had been beaten by a drug pusher. A martial arts teacher knew how insidious drugs were among children. A top model knew that drugs were destroying her life. A stunt driver was in shock when her brother overdosed  on drugs. Add a nosy schoolgirl and a policewoman and you've got the Angels Brigade who strike back against the evil fat cats pushing drugs to kids.

AKA Seven from Heaven, Angels Revenge

In the late 1970s Charlie's Angels ruled the TV screen, with it's lightweight tales of three beautiful women fighting the bad guys and solving crime, all the while striking poses in bikinis and perfectly-coifered hair. Sensing a chance to cash in on this, B-grade actor-turned-director Greydon Clark took this concept to the big screen.

But we all know that taking a TV show to the movie screen you need to make everything bigger. Charlie's Angels had three bimbo crimefighters? Well, let's double that! And then add one more! Yep let's have seven girls! And those TV Angels don't really cover the demographics very well, they're too white. So let's add in an Asian girl (a martial arts expert, naturally) and a black girl (a take-no-nonsense sassy stunt driver). The others can be a cop, a pop star, a schoolteacher, a slutty model… hell, let's throw in the cop's little sister to cover the teenage girl demographic!

Once our seven girls are assembled (rather briskly one must add, let's not let plot get in the way of things here), they soon target an assortment of drug pusher baddies. The big boss is ex-Rat Packer Peter Lawford (so sozzled he has to sit for most of his scenes), and his head henchman is scene-stealing bad guy par-excellence Jack Palance. Add in an abundance of machine-gun-toting, generic bad guys, and we're good to go.

Let's face it, you don't watch this kind of movie for the plot, dialogue or acting. Which is just as well, because all three are frankly awful.

Nobody behaves in the least bit logically. Two of the Angels break into a baddie compound and are walking out in the open when two baddies turn a corner. What do the girls do to avoid detection? They stand perfectly still, right out in the open, in daylight. And it works!

The lines are soap opera-level and except for some good supporting performances (from seasoned character actors like Palance, Jim Backus, Neville Brand and Pat Buttram), all of the acting from the lead bimbos is so bad it's unintentionally humourous. The worst perpetrator is the late Jacqueline Cole, who plays the schoolteacher. Her acting is so bad I looked up the credits to find out who she was sleeping with to get her (prominent) role. Sure enough, she was married to director Clark. Enough said.

But as I said, plot, dialogue and acting aren't overly important here. What really saves this movie is that everything is so corny, over-the-top and, well, "70s", that it gives it a certain charm. The lead girls are all attractive and it helps that they get to kick butt, even busting out a souped-up van full of hidden weapons that's like something out of an episode of the A-Team.

In fact, that's probably the best comparison I can make - Angels Revenge feels a lot like an extra-long episode of a Stephen J. Cannell TV show. I never really saw Charlie's Angels so can't compare there, but I grew up on 80s TV and this feels as fun and harmless as anything from The A-Team, Knight Rider or Macgyver.

MAY-DE TO BE MOCKED - Princess of Mars (2009)

Note: Throughout the month of May I will be watching Mockbusters, those low-budget movies which are made purely to cash in on a recent successful blockbuster. I call this May-de to be Mocked!  

Princess of Mars (2009)
Director: Mark Atkins
Starring: Antonio Sabato jr, Traci Lords, Chacko Vadaketh
Format: AVI

Plot: A special ops sniper (Sabato jr) in Afghanistan is double-crossed and ends up close to death. His superiors use some scifi mumbo-jumbo to send him to a distant planet called Mars-something, where he becomes involved in the ongoing battle between humanoids (who control the machine making the planet liveable) and monster-looking sand people. He falls in love with the Princess of Mars (Lords) and fights to overcome her enemies.

This is a rare movie that cashes in on two blockbusters. It was originally marketed as "The classic story that inspired James Cameron's Avatar", and it then piggybacked on the 2012 release of John Carter, with which it shares an Edgar Rice Burroughs story as source material.

First an admission: I enjoy John Carter. I think it's a fun, pulp scifi movie that is unfairly maligned by many. With that out of the way, how did I enjoy this, another offering by The Asylum? The answer to that is, not very much.

The special effects are basic but passable and there's plenty of action to keep things ticking along (I particularly liked the fights with giant mutant spiders), but what really brings it all down is the acting. I wish I could say the acting is so bad that it makes this movie cheesy good fun, but I can't. It's not good, it's not bad, it's just there. And that's a problem when the whole story is built around a hero doing all sorts of swashbuckling, pulpy stuff. That hero needs to be charismatic, and soap star Antonio Sabato jr has all of the charisma of a desk lamp. Former porn star Traci Lords looks good for her age, but acting isn't her strong point - she just looks bored for most of the movie.




If you're bored and this is showing on TV or you've watched everything else on Netflix, maybe you might want to check this one out. Otherwise, it's definitely one you can skip.

We're only part-way through May, but I'm not sure if I can keep watching mockbusters produced by The Asylum. I need to find others, because watching Paranormal Entity and Princess of Mars on the same night has sapped the life out of me.

MAY-DE TO BE MOCKED - Paranormal Entity (2009)

 Note: Throughout the month of May I will be watching Mockbusters, those low-budget movies which are made purely to cash in on a recent successful blockbuster. I call this May-de to be Mocked! 

Paranormal Entity (2009)
Director: Shane Van Dyke
Starring: Erin Marie Hogan, Fia Perera, Norman Saleet, Shane Van Dyke
Format: AVI

Plot: A family is apparently being visited by the spirit of their dead dad/husband. But things start going bad, so they set up cameras throughout the house to find out exactly what's up.

Normally when I list the cast of a movie, I pick out the three or four main actors. But that list that you see above? That's the whole cast. Four people. Total. And one of them (Saleet) only shows up briefly towards the end and Van Dyke never shows his face.

So yeah, minimalist is the key word here. But when you're aping the Paranormal Activity phenomena, that's to be expected I guess. I couldn't find the budget for this movie (produced by mockbuster specialists The Asylum) but it can't have been any more than about $100,000. Four actors. One of those actors is the director/writer. No special effects. Shot on handicams in a house. Hell, maybe $100,000 is being generous. $50,000?

I should add that I'm an unashamed Found Footage apologist. I like found footage movies. Starting with Blair Witch Project (which blew me away when I first saw it), continuing through all the hundreds of imitators, I enjoy them.

So, the found footage gimmick isn't the reason I didn't enjoy this one very much. Whereas Paranormal Activity and its first sequel (parts 3 and 4 are best not mentioned) do a great job with a good, slow build, this mockbuster doesn't show that same patience. It tries to show things too early, and in doing so fails to build up any real suspense.

The acting is passable (Hogan is the standout as the sister/daughter/main victim). One major difference from Paranormal Activity is this movie doesn't shy away from nudity and swearing. I guess that's something.

The other major problem is that I watched this after already having seen the first 4 Paranormal Activity movies, and by now the whole concept has passed its used by date. I wouldn't say I disliked this movie - it kept me entertained for the most part - but it felt exactly like what it is, a low-budget imitation.

MAY-DE TO BE MOCKED - Hansel & Gretel (2013)

Note: Throughout the month of May I will be watching Mockbusters, those low-budget movies which are made purely to cash in on a recent successful blockbuster. I call this May-de to be Mocked! 

Hansel & Gretel (2013)
Director: Anthony C Ferrante
Starring: Dee Wallace, Stephanie Greco, Brent Lydic
Format: Streaming (Youtube)

Plot: A modern retelling of the classic tale has brother and sister Hansel (Lydic) and Gretel (Greco) being captured by an old woman (Wallace) who runs a bakery called The Gingerbread House and has tasty pies made with "special" meat.

After doing a bit of research, it appears the prize for most "mockbustered" movie in a calendar year goes to Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters in 2013. The big budget Jeremy Renner special effects actioner (which incidentally I liked well enough, even if it was a bit silly) spurned not one, not two, but three namesakes! There's Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft, Hansel & Gretel Get Baked (!) and this, the simplest-named of the three, produced on the quick by The Asylum.

I had been planning to watch this one earlier during the May-de to be Mocked marathon, but for the past week my Netflix has stopped working on my WDTV Live. I can still Netflix it on my laptop, but where's the fun in that? Luckily I discovered that some generous soul has uploaded this movie in full onto Youtube, which is how I finally checked it out.

Like most of The Asylum's work, there's no denying this was made in the hope that people would mistakenly pick this one up thinking it was big budget one. And reading some of the "reviews" on IMDB, the tactic seems to have worked, with several people complaining about renting this and being confused when Jeremy Renner didn't show up.

However, I'm pleased to say that this is a mockbuster in name only. It's nothing like Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. Whereas that one is based in medieval times and features a pair of wise-cracking brother and sister witch hunters taking on supercharged witches, this one is set in modern times and has little in the way of supernatural content. About the only similarity is the brother and sister are called Hansel and Gretel, and there's witches.

But, without wanting to give too much away, if you're expecting magical crones riding about on broomsticks here, you'll be disappointed. This is less a tale about supernatural magic and more of a mix of Motel Hell and Wrong Turn baked in a slasher pastry shell.

I think this might just be the first straight-up horror movie I've seen from The Asylum, without any scifi overtones and certainly no "monster". IMDB lists the budget as $135,000, a fifth of the budget of the last Asylum movie I reviewed, Alien vs Hunter. I guess cutting back on the number of washed up actors (here there's only genre veteran Dee Wallace) and not having to employ someone to make shitty CGI graphics really does save on the dough.

Speaking of Wallace (CUJO, THE HOWLING etc), she makes this movie what it is. Wallace channels her ET mom role as motherly Lillith in the early proceedings, before going full-on psycho in a performance she seems to be having a lot of fun with, spouting lines like "Be quiet or I'll cut your balls off and make you watch".

The rest of the acting isn't too bad, and the lighting and sets are better than what you usually see in one of this company's movies. Hell, most of the time while watching I actually forgot this was an Asylum movie. I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention the gore, which is pretty good and thankfully of the practical effect kind.

Is it a good movie? Well, no. But it kept me entertained from start to finish. The plot isn't anything too special, but keeps from being entirely predictable and throws in the odd spot of weirdness (scenes involving hallucinogenic candies and string that cuts like razor wire spring to mind).

Not that this is necessarily a glowing endorsement, but this is the best movie produced by The Asylum that I've seen so far. Check it out if you're looking to fill some time or are a big fan of Dee Wallace.

MAY-DE TO BE MOCKED: Alien vs Hunter (2007)

 Note: Throughout the month of May I will be watching Mockbusters, those low-budget movies which are made purely to cash in on a recent successful blockbuster. I call this May-de to be Mocked!

Alien vs Hunter (2007)
Director: Scott Harper
Starring: William Katt, Dedee Pfeiffer, Randy Mulkey
Format: DVD

Plot: A newspaper reporter is out running when a fireball crashes into the mountainside behind him. He soon discovers that it is an alien spaceship, and with several other residents of his small town, he's soon on the run from spider-like extra terrestrials. Adding to their troubles is the presence of a cyborg-like hunter, who hunts both the aliens and the humans.

Ah, The Asylum. The company whose production line of low budget movies led to the coining of the term "mockbuster", or at the very least made it popular. Snakes on a Plane was a hit? The Asylum offers Snakes on a Train! Transformers becomes Transmorphers, and I Am Legend gives rise to I Am Omega. Rinse and repeat.

Naturally the offerings of The Asylum were going to feature heavily in this month's theme, and first up is Alien vs Hunter, or AVH as it is known for short. I wasn't a fan of Alien vs Predator, so I didn't hold out much hope for this low-budget rip-off, and after watching it, hopeless is probably a good way to describe it.

One of the most fun things about The Asylum's canon is the way they drag washed-up stars out of obscurity and put them back on the screen. Here it's a moustachioed William Katt, who to anyone my age will always be Ralph Hinkley, the Greatest American Hero. And to horror fans he's Roger Cobb from 1986's House. The only other "name" on offer here is Dedee Pfeiffer, Michelle's little sister. That's marquee name value right there. Character actor Randy Mulkey plays a weapon-packed conspiracy theorist (this movie's equivalent of Tremors' Burt Gummer).

IMDB says this movie was made for $500,000 and it shows. The acting is just plain awful (Mulkey is about the only one who doesn't disgrace himself, while I kept hoping that Wittly Jourdan's annoying character would be killed so I wouldn't have to listen to any more of her whining). The special effects are ridiculous (especially the CGI work) and the low budget really shows in the filming locations, which are restricted to small rooms/tunnels and the woods.

With these kinds of movies the saving grace can be the cheese factor. Sadly it's in short supply here, with really only the design of the Hunter's suit standing out. This guy makes Omega-1 from the previously-reviewed Robowar look world class. It's like they put a guy in a suit of armour, then plonked a welding helmet on his head and a salad bowl on top of that. Don't be fooled by the DVD cover above, I'm not sure what movie the "hunter" on the right of the cover is from, but it sure isn't this one. The alien design is actually quite good - a mix of Alien and Predator on the top half and a spider's body on the lower half.

The bottom line is they could have had a lot more fun with this kind of material, but the script by David Michael Latt (SUPERCROC) is entirely predictable, director Scott Harper plays things way too seriously, and there's just not enough cheese. Hell, by half-way through I kept hoping against hope that William Katt would slide into his Greatest American Hero outfit and start flying about comically while trying to battle the alien and/or hunter. That would have made for a great movie. What we actually get? Not so much.

Entirely avoidable, even for fans of silly mockbusters.

MAY-DE TO BE MOCKED: Strike Commando (1987)

 Note: Throughout the month of May I will be watching Mockbusters, those low-budget movies which are made purely to cash in on a recent successful blockbuster. I call this May-de to be Mocked!

Strike Commando (1987)
Director: Bruno Mattei (as Vincent Dawn)
Starring: Reb Brown, Christopher Connelly, Alex Vitale
Format: Streaming (Youtube)

Plot: Michael Ransom (Reb Brown) and his crack Strike team are double-crossed while attacking a Viet Cong camp during the Vietnam War. He survives and while recovering in a Vietnamese village discovers that Russian soldiers have made their way into North Vietnam. With the help of the villagers he returns to the American forces, but is told to get proof of his claims. Heading back into the jungle he finds the villagers slaughtered by Russian henchman Jakoda, and becomes a one man killing machine in search of revenge, against Jakoda, as well as his double-crossing superior officer.

After watching (and thoroughly enjoying) Robowar, I was excited to find out that Bruno Mattei and Reb Brown had teamed up a year earlier for this, another b-grade mockbuster masterpiece!

Bruno had a lot of fun ripping off Predator in Robowar, and here he does the same for another 80s action classic, Rambo. So naturally we get a lot of kills using an over-sized hunting knife, and plenty of shots stolen straight from Stallone's big budget blockbuster, such as when Reb rises out of a river and blows away the bad guys with his massive machine gun.

The action is once again top notch, with a lot of cool explosions, machine gun fire, electrocutions, flamethrowers, martial arts fighting and the like. There are some WTF moments, like Vietnamese villagers who wear white face paint and chant "A-mer-i-can" over and over like some weird cult, and an attempt at giving Ransom a human side, as he bonds with a young Vietnamese villager. Also adding to the appeal of Strike Commando is the fact that Chris Connelly (RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS) plays the traitorous Col Radek.

Most of the cheese factor comes from Jakoda (Alex Vitale) who is one jacked up skinhead Commie. Is it acceptable to call someone a Commie? Or is that un-PC? It doesn't matter, because this movie doesn't care, as evidenced by a black American soldier telling a story about stealing watermelons in Alabama, or Reb calling a Vietnamese soldier "rice ball". But back to Jakoda, this guy is so damn hammy. He keeps calling Ransom "American-ski", which starts off sounding ridiculous but becomes hilarious through overuse, and by the time Jakoda screams it during not one but two final showdowns with Ransom, I was laughing my ass off.

Okay, what you really want to know is: Does Reb yell a lot? And the answer is: He most certainly does! Ol' yeller is in fine form here. You'll marvel as he yells "Ja-ko-da" over and over while furiously shooting up empty village huts. One of my favourite lines is when Ransom is surprised by a VC soldier jumping out of long grass. Ransom knocks him out while yelling "Jesus! Scared the shit out of me!" Hell, even the lines where he doesn't completely yell, Reb still sounds like he's in need of a laxative, stat.

I think I enjoyed Strike Commando a bit more than Robowar. The plot is definitely more interesting, the support cast is better and Jakoda makes for a better villain that whatever the hell that cyborg thing was in Robowar. They're both awesome movies, search them out!

MAY-DE TO BE MOCKED: Robowar (1988)

Note: Throughout the month of May I will be watching Mockbusters, those low-budget movies which are made purely to cash in on a recent successful blockbuster. I call this May-de to be Mocked!

Robowar (1988)
Director: Bruno Mattei (as Vincent Dawn)
Starring: Reb Brown, Catherine Hickland, Romano Puppo, Jim Gaines
Format: Streaming (YouTube)

Plot: A team of American commandos is sent into the Central American jungle to rescue hostages captured by guerrillas. But it turns out their real mission is to recover a top-secret cyborg fighting machine, Omega-1, who lurks in the jungle and hunts them one by one.

If the synopsis above isn't enough of a clue, let me make it clear that this is a complete rip off of the Arnie blockbuster Predator, just with a government-made cyborg replacing the alien hunter. We're talking about complete scenes ripped off by Italian filmmaker Bruno Mattei, with a mostly Italian cast, shot probably on the budget of a small buffet meal in the land of awesome 80s action, The Philippines!

The early proceedings are fairly run-of-the-mill jungle action, but once Omega-1 turns up, oh boy do things get silly. And awesome!

Omega-1 is a cross between the Predator and Robocop in concept, but he has a costume which looks like a low-budget Power Rangers villain (I realise Power Rangers is low budget enough, but this is even worse). Naturally they attempt to pull off something akin to the "computer-assisted POV" of both the Predator and Robocop, but it comes across extremely cheaply. And the inane robotic chatter of Omega-1 sounds like a cross between Twiki from the 70s show Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and 80s hit Max Headroom. Just bizarre. See if you can watch any of the scenes involving this so-called killing machine without laughing your ass off.

The acting is pretty bad across the board, but the standout is Reb Brown, who plays Murphy Black, the leader of the commandos. He's our pseudo-Arnie, only with acting that's more wooden than anything the Governator himself ever managed (I know, incredible right!), and with a hell of a lot of yelling. If you haven't seen Reb in action before, he just looooves to yell at the top of his lungs. Most of his lines are along the lines of "Come on, we have to move!" or "Get out of here" or just plain old "Arrrghhh!". Reb can portray any emotion, as long as it involves yelling at the top of his lungs.

This was my first time seeing Reb Brown in action. I knew the name from reading about the two Captain America TV movies in which he played Steve Rogers/Cap in the 80s, but after watching RoboWar I definitely need to see more of this guy! If he's like this in all of his movies, I've found another inductee for the Crappy Action Star Hall of Fame.

There's a twist in the ending, but really the plot isn't anything special. If you've seen Predator or any other jungle warfare movie you know what to expect. But don't let that put you off. This bad boy is action packed with gun battles and explosions, and the unintentionally-hilarious robot design and Reb Brown's over-the-top goofy acting make this an easy recommendation.