31 Nights of Terror 2015 #38 - Hocus Pocus (1993)

Hocus Pocus (1993)
Director: Kenny Ortega
Starring: Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy
Format: Cinema

Plot: After three centuries, three witch sisters are resurrected in Salem, Massachusetts on Halloween night, and it is up to two teenagers, a young girl and an immortal cat to put an end to the witches' reign of terror once and for all.

As a treat to my girlfriend, I arranged for us to travel to our nearest city for a one-off screening of Hocus Pocus, a favourite Halloween movie from her childhood. With my five-year-old son along, we made a family trip of it, taking in a 1pm matinee.

I'm sure everyone reading this is familiar with the movie. As a family-friendly Halloween flick it's pretty good, and my girlfriend and son both really enjoyed seeing it on the big screen.

TUNE IN JUNE: Time Trax (1993)

Note: Here on Shlock to the System, June is TUNE IN JUNE, which is really just an excuse for me to catch up on some TV series I've been meaning to watch for a while. But I will also be watching a number of TV movies, particularly ones from the hey-day of the TV movie, the 70s and 80s.

 
Time Trax (1993)
Director: Lewis Teague
Starring: Dale Midkiff, Mia Sara, Elizabeth Alexander, Michael Warren, Henry Darrow
Format: VHS

Plot: Captain Darien Lambert (Midkiff) is a police officer in the year 2193, in the elite fugitive retrieval unit. He learns that a prominent scientist has developed a time machine called Trax. For a large fee, he has been sending dangerous criminals back to the year 1993, where they are safe from capture. When Darien corners the scientist, he escapes into the past. Darien also travels to 1993, vowing to retrieve all fugitives and send them back for punishment. Armed with a computer that looks like a credit card, named SELMA (Alexander), and a high-tech laser weapon disguised as a remote car alarm.

This is the two-part pilot of a TV series that apparently lasted two seasons (although I've never seen it, or in fact heard of it before I bought this pilot/movie on VHS). But I quite enjoyed it, and will hopefully come across the series one day and be able to check it out (as far as I can tell it's only available as part of Warner's MOD program, and sells at ridiculous prices).

Because this is a pilot movie, a good portion of it is spent setting up the characters and scenario, which does drag out a bit, but the action really ramps up towards the end, with an exploding boat, a chase through a jungle and someone falling off a massive waterfall. And it's no coincidence that things improve overall once the setting shifts from 2193 to 1993, because the portion set in the future isn't very convincing, or interesting for that matter. The "fish out of water" stuff in 1993 is much more fun.

Dale Midkiff is a likeable enough leading man and he has good chemistry with his love interest, the always-beautiful Mia (FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF), who plays dual roles - a woman in the future who Lambert falls for, and her great-granddaughter in 1993. A year after this she would also star in another time travel story, Jean Claude Van Damme's TIMECOP. Another piece of trivia is that both Midkiff (PET SEMETARY) and director Teague (CUJO) had previously worked on Stephen King adaptions, althought not together.

The hologram companion, coupled with time travel, did make me think of QUANTUM LEAP, with it's similar construct, but Time Trax doesn't have the wry sense of humour of Dean Stockwell's Al.

In summary, if I'd caught this Time Trax pilot back in the day, I'd be tuning in to catch the series to see if it develops well. The concept is interesting and any excuse to look at Mia Sara on a regular basis, am I right?

The Chain (1996)

A scan of my VHS copy of The Chain

The Chain (1996)
Director: Luca Bercovici
Starring: Gary Busey, Victor Rivers, Jamie Rose, Rez Cortez
Format: VHS (Palace Home Video)

Two prisoners hate each other but must work together when they escape captivity, because they are joined at the wrist by a heavy metal chain. As a plot hook it's been done many times, most famously in Stanley Kramer's 1958 classic The Defiant Ones. In 1996 two movies were released with this premise. Fled, starring Laurence Fishburne and Stephen Baldwin, had a theatrical release and made quite a bit of money. The Chain, on the other hand, was shot in The Philippines on a small budget and probably went straight to video, forever consigned to obscurity.

Frank Morrissey (Busey) is an American cop obsessed with catching international gunrunner Carlos (Rivers, BLOOD IN BLOOD OUT). He travels to South America in pursuit of his taunting nemesis, but both end up being captured by soldiers  and thrown into a jungle prison. When they repeatedly try to kill each other, the two rivals are chained together (hence the name). An attack by rebel forces allows them to escape into the jungle, but the soldiers are hot on their trail and they're still chained together, forcing them to put their hatred aside and work together to survive.

If you're like me, you'll watch anything Gary Busey is in. Whether he's appearing in genuinely good movies (Point Break) or action movie escapism (Under Siege, Eye of the Tiger, Surviving the Game), Busey is always entertaining to watch. Is his unorthodox acting style the result of drug addictions or a head injury he supposedly suffered in 1988? Either way there's only one Gary Busey.

Here he's in good form. Not great, but good. There's also a couple of big battle scenes you'd expect from a Philippines production (it's funny that despite this movie being set in South America, the soldiers and rebels in said battle scenes are quite obviously Asian). On the down side, director Bercovici (who interestingly along with co-writer Jefery Levy shares the original Ghoulies movie in his film credits) is clueless about pacing an action movie and some of his camera work is distracting rather than innovative.

Also of note is a brief scene involving Philippino action flick regular Ken Metcalfe (WARRIORS OF THE APOCALYPSE, THE MUTHERS etc) in his second to last movie.

The Chain is by no means a good movie. It's not the worst thing out there, but I think most action fans will find it boring for the most part. If you want another chance to see the Buse-meister in action during his heyday (before he became a complete caricature of himself) check it out, but otherwise there are much better films worthy of your time. Especially disappointing because of its filming locale.

31 Nights of Terror #23 - Phantasm III (1994)

Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994)
Director: Don Coscarelli
Starring: Reggie Bannister, Michael Franklin, Bill Thornbury, Angus Scrimm
Format: VHS (Village Roadshow)

- Disclosure: I haven't seen Phantasm 2, and it's been at least 10 years since I last watched the original Phantasm.
- Nice recap of previous happenings to bring us up to speed. In a nutshell: The Tall Man won't die.
- Exploding midget head!
- Serious laugh out loud moment as Reggie shoots into a tree and several killer dwarves drop out dead.
- So apparently the character of Mike was played in part 2 by James LeGros (SOLAR WARRIORS). But Don Coscarelli had more control over this sequel so brought back Michael Franklin to play Mike, 15 years after the first movie.
- Deserted town. Cool.
- Haha, it's like an R-rated Home Alone.
- Gotta love the sphere kills. So different than anything else in horror movies.
- Rocky is one kickass chick.
- Reggie, trying to get into Rocky's pants: "You ever try vanilla?". Rocky: "Didn't I tell you, dairy products give me gas". Bah-dum-psh.
- I wonder if Coscarelli got a bulk-buy discount on laser-light machines, 'cause he sure likes using them.
- Well, that was an action-packed last half hour. Zombies, spheres, nunchucks... yep, it had it all.

Overall thoughts: "Seeing is easy, understanding takes a little more time." That is a line from Phantasm III and it pretty much sums up the movie. Don't try to apply any logic to this movie, because the stuff with the spheres, killer midgets and zombies doesn't make a lick of sense. But if you just watch it without trying to figure everything out, it's pretty damn fun. I'm sure there are Phantasm purists who don't appreciate the amount of humour, which does detract from the suspense and atmosphere that I remember the first movie had. But non-purists should enjoy it - Coscarelli throws martial arts fights, zombies and a "good" sphere into the mix with the usual Tall Man, sphere and killer dwarf action and it's never boring.

31 Nights of Terror #5 - Body Bags (1993)

Body Bags (1993)
Director: John Carpenter (2 segments), Tobe Hooper (1 segment)
Starring: John Carpenter, Robert Carradine, Stacey Keach, Mark Hamill
Format: VHS (Home Cinema Group)

- I had this one on my list to watch for this marathon, but had to bump it up to today after learning that actor Charles Napier had died. He features in one of the segments in this anthology.
- I've been wanting to see this for years. All I know is it's an anthology, was made for TV and is meant to have all sorts of horror movie cameos in it.
- So instead of The Cryptkeeper we get John Carpenter himself as The Coroner. Nice touch.
- Another nice touch: The first segment is set in Haddonfield.
- Alright, let's go horror actor/director spotting!
- Spotted in segment 1, The Gas Station: Directors Wes Craven and Sam Raimi, David Naughton (American Werewolf in London).
- Decapitated head humor, always funny.
- Segment 2 is void of horror guy cameos, but it does feature 80s singers Sheena Easton and Deborah Harry.
- Stacey Keach in a long hair wig is just creepy. Like seeing Fabio as an old man.
- Segment 3, there's Charles Napier, playing a baseball coach. RIP Charles.
- Mark Hamill and Twiggy as a married couple. Mr and Mrs Has Been!
- Roger Corman as a doctor. Nice! Ha, and his acting is terrible, exactly what you'd expect from one of his own low-budget movies.
- And Corman's doctor colleague is played by former b-movie leading man John Agar (Tarantula, Attack of the Puppet People etc).
- Hamill's actually pretty good in this.
- And the final cameo comes in the wrap-around conclusion, as director Tobe Hooper plays a morgue worker alongside Tom Arnold.

Overall thoughts:
I've read that this anthology was intended as a pilot for a TV series that didn't get picked up. I'm not sure why it didn't get picked up, because it's as good as most horror/scifi anthology TV series of the past 30 years. And no, that's not a compliment. Like its peers, Body Bags suffers from the restraints of TV censorship (sparse blood and guts) and weak source material.
The middle story, Hair, is the least conventional of the three, but is also the weakest. The opening story has good atmosphere, music and camerawork, the hallmarks of John Carpenter's career, while the third one, directed by Tobe Hooper, is from the predictable transplanted-body-part-is-evil line, and is only saved by a good acting performance by former Luke Skywalker Mark Hamill. The best stuff comes in the wrap-around, which is full of dark humour and a fun performance by Carpenter himself.
Final verdict? Not a complete waste of time but if you've seen most horror anthologies you know what to expect. If nothing else horror fans will have fun trying to spot all the director cameos.

July 14 - American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1993)

The cover of my VHS copy of American Cyborg: Steel Warrior

American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1993)
Director: Boaz Davidson
Format: VHS (Cannon)

Just one of many in a long line of low budget early 90s scifi actioners directly inspired by Terminator 2: Judgement Day, this clumsily-titled flick is an above average effort, filmed in Tel Aviv, Israel by Palestinian director Boaz Davidson.

It's one of two scifi movies Davidson helmed in the space of three years, the other one being the Michael Pare vehicle Lunar Cop (which I've previously reviewed). This one is a major improvement over that - my major gripe with Lunar Cop was its unfuturistic future sets, but here the sets are dark and dirty as they should be in a post-apocalyptic tale.

The male lead, Joe Lara, is also a big improvement on Pare. Lara's not going to win any acting awards, but he's believable as a brooding action hero.

After derivative opening narration that fills us in about mankind going sterile and cyborgs now ruling the roost, we meet Mary (Nicole Hansen). She's humankind's last hope, a pregnant female (although her creepy-as-hell fetus is out of her body and riding around in a plastic jar). She needs to get to the port of the ravaged city to catch a ride to Europe, but out to stop her is a cyborg (John Saint Ryan, DELTA FORCE 3).

To Mary's rescue comes street warrior Austin (Lara, STEEL FRONTIER) and together they battle their way through the city to get to the port, encountering various cyberpunk-esque characters along the way and battling the chasing cyborg. Naturally they fall in love in the process and there's a nice plot twist towards the end.

The acting is good for a movie with such a low budget (and missing any big name actors) and, as I previously mentioned, the post-apocalyptic cityscape sets are nicely done. The fight scenes are good enough, mainly consisting of gunfights and martial arts. My only real gripe is that the cyborg could have been more menacing - he just plain sucks at shooting people only a few feet away and struggles to beat a puny guy like Austin in hand-to-hand combat. He does have a nice spin kick though, something Arnie never had.

There's no gore to speak of and the closest we get to T&A is Hansen showing off some decent cleavage and pouring water over herself. This movie rates low on the unintentional humour front and there's not much in the way of cheesiness. It's just a solid low budget scifi actioner which did enough to keep me interested from start to finish.

Previews on my VHS: Stalin, The Bodyguard, Unforgiven, To The Death, Tommyknockers

July 6 - One Tough Bastard (1996)

The cover of my VHS copy of One Tough Bastard

One Tough Bastard (1996)
Director: Kurt Wimmer
Format: VHS (Video Box Office)

In the late 1980s, Brian "Boz" Bosworth and MC Hammer were seemingly on top of the world. College football standout Bosworth signed what at the time was the biggest rookie contract to play in the NFL, and Hammer was a successful rapper on the verge of superstardom via U Can't Touch This.

Fast forward a few years to 1996 and both men had fallen from grace in a big way. Bosworth's NFL career ended after three years where he was more famous for his off-the-field antics than his playing and Hammer's chart success didn't stretch beyond the initial buzz.

But hey, it's a good thing for us that it turned out that way, because otherwise they wouldn't have ended up acting together in this direct-to-video action revenge flick!

Also known by its TV-friendly title of One Man's Justice, this is director Kurt Wimmer's debut (he has since helmed two more movies, the latest being the 2006 Milla Jovovich vehicle Ultraviolet).

Boz - trading in his trademark spikey mullet for a more conventional do - is Sergeant John North, an army drill sergeant and hand-to-hand combat expert whose wife and daughter are murdered after stumbling on a shady arms deal. North discovers the man who murdered them, Marcus (Jeff Kober, ALIEN NATION) is working for crooked FBI agent Karl Savak (Bruce Payne), who in turn is working for crime kingpin Dexter Kane (Hammer!).

North naturally wants to mete out some good ol' revenge, while Savak and Kane want a stolen shipment of special guns. Also thrown into the mix is a young streetsmart kid (DeJuan Guy, CANDYMAN) who is running drugs for the gang, but who North takes under his wing. North ends up in jail but busts out, the bad guys double and then triple cross each other, and naturally everything leads to a final showdown between North and the men who killed his family.

The plot, acting and action in One Tough Bastard is all pretty good, but what really makes it fun is the hammy performance of Payne, sporting a nose ring and a blonde mullet (perhaps Boz's missing locks migrated to Payne's scalp) and half-whispering his lines with sarcastic evil.

While Bosworth isn't very good at emoting, he's an above-average action star and handles his role well enough, including the fight scenes. The supporting cast is good - Kober always makes a good sleazy bad guy and even Hammer is enjoyable with his curse-riddled performance (I always thought he left music to become a minister - I guess not). Look out for familiar character actor MC Gainey (CON AIR) in the briefest of on-screen appearances early in the movie, and Neal McDonough (WALKING TALL) in an early movie role.

There are better action movies out there but this one's worth seeing to witness Bruce Payne's performance. And hey, it's not every day you get to watch a movie starring both Brian Bosworth and MC Hammer, right?

Previews on my VHS: SFW, Money Train, Mute Witness, Chicken, Devil in a Blue Dress, Death Machine, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, Jumanji.

June 30 - Zipperface (1992)

The cover of my VHS copy of Zipperface

Zipperface (1992)
Director: Mansour Pourmand
Format: VHS (CBL)

This low-budget flick can't make its mind up whether it wants to be horror, action, romance or a cop flick. Ultimately it fails at all of them.

Mansour Pourmand wrote, directed and produced this, his only filmmaking credit, which stars a bunch of unknown actors and was shot on video on a low budget.

Dona Adams (making her first and only movie appearance) is Lisa Ryder, a go-getter female cop who is promoted to detective by a vote-hungry female mayor. That pisses off most of the male cops she works with, but she doesn't have time to worry about that, because there's a killer in a gimp mask knocking off hookers.

That's pretty much all there is to the plot. Lots of other characters are thrown into the mix - including Michael Walker (Jonathon Mandell), a photographer who Ryder falls in love with; Ryder's partner Harry Shine (David Clover, LOCH NESS MONSTER); and chauvanistic cop Scalia (Richard Vidan, SCARECROWS) - but they're mostly there to act as red herrings.

The acting is for the most part atrocious, with Adams the main culprit. It's not hard to see why this is her only credit. The few special effects are Z-grade (including a laughable decapitation effect). The music is a Richard Band-esque keyboard musical score by Jim Halfpenny (who went on to score such masterpieces as Little Bigfoot 2: The Journey Home). And the fact it's shot on video gives it that distracting TV movie look.

My main complaint is that for a movie about a killer in a gimp mask, it's just not sleazy enough. There are lots and lots of scantily-clad women but only Adams gets her kit off (for run-of-the-mill sex scenes) and everything else is just too PG-rated for a movie of this kind. Sleaze it up people!

There are some moments of unintentional humor, mainly from the dialogue (which features such great back-and-forth patter as "You like being a cop?", replied with "Yeah"), but they are few and far between. It's all a bit ho hum really and the only thing that'll probably keep you watching to the end is the mystery of who's behind the mask. Trust me, even that's a let down, so feel free to skip this one.

June 16 - Paul Kyriazi double feature

Paul Kyriazi's directorial output amounted to five movies in a 14-year period and none of them are easy to find. Luckily I happen to own two of them on VHS. It's Double Feature time!

The cover of my VHS copy of Death Machines

Death Machines (1976)
Director: Paul Kyriazi
Format: VHS (K-Tel)

I always know I'm onto a low-budget gem when I check IMDB and find that most of the actors in a movie have only a couple more credits to their name. That's the case with Death Machines, the debut effort from director Paul Kyriazi.

The Death Machines (who, according to the back of my VHS "are the ultimate exterminators") are three superhuman hitmen who use martial arts, guns and more to do the bidding of their evil mistress, a giant-haired Oriental dragon lady (played by Mari Honjo - check out http://www.marihonjo.com/ to read the real-life story of her disappearance). She's in turn taking orders from a shady guy who never shows his face, but that has no bearing on the plot.

The Death Machines are the imaginatively-named White Death Machine (Ron Marchini, NINJA WARRIORS), Asian Death Machine (Michael Chong, TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA) and Black Death Machine (Joshua Johnson, THE WEAPONS OF DEATH).

These three cool dudes, who are impervious to bullets, start off by knocking off the hitmen of a rival ganglord. They hurl one hitman off a roof, blow up the next one with a bazooka(!) and then take out a guy in a phone booth with a bulldozer(!).

Then they massacre a whole dojo full of ineffectua karate students, but one of the students survives, albeit minus one of his hands. This one-handed dude (John Lowe) vows revenge, accompanied by a hot nurse from the hospital he ended up in (played by some mystery, uncredited girl).

The rival crime kingpin, Mr Gioretti (Chuck Katzakian), joins forces with the dragon lady, who orders her Death Machines to kill our hero and his new love. How can a one-handed karate student possibly defeat three undead ninjas?

The plot is nonsensical and full of holes, but never predictable or boring. As a straight action movie there's not much to recommend about Death Machines, but as a cheesefest full of unintentional laughs, it's a goldmine.

The music and fashions are so cringingly 70s, especially Katzakian's super-snazzy suits. The fight scenes are mostly slow-paced and uninspiring, but how can you complain when weapons like bazookas and a bulldozer are thrown into the mix?

Cheesy highlights include:
- A hilarious scene in a police station where White Death Machine takes on a bunch of cops, who end up accidentally shooting each other instead of him.
- The Death Machines take out bikers in a restaurant with a knee-slapping country song playing.
- The lack of chemistry between our hero and his love interest. Their sex scene consists of a silhouetted kiss, then her lying in bed with a look of disgust on her face.

My only gripe is the lack of gore, but at least there's some brief nudity to add to the sleaze factor.

Death Machines is highly recommended for fans of cheesy 70s martial arts action flicks. It's fun from start to finish.

Previews on my VHS: Junkman, Alone in the Dark, The Raiders of Atlantis (aka Atlantis Interceptors, which I reviewed last month).

The cover of my VHS copy of Omega Cop

Omega Cop (1990)
Director: Paul Kyriazi
Format: VHS (Triumph)

Death Machines was Paul Kyriazi's first feature. This is his last (he's still alive according to IMDB, so I guess he could make a return to directing, but after an absence of 21 years that's pretty unlikely).

Omega Cop reunites Kyriazi with two of his stars from Death Machines - Ron Marchini, who played the White Death Machine, and Chuck Katzakian, who played crime boss Mr Gioretti. Marchini is the star, which marks a big change of pace from his silent Death Machines role.

Omega Cop starts with narration by Adam West(!) about the greenhouse effect. Sorry, but I've seen far too much Family Guy to take West seriously. His narration is meant to be heartfelt and scene-setting, but I keep expecting him to say something like "I love this job more than I love taffy ... and I'm a man who enjoys his taffy."

This movie is set in a world which has, in the words of ol' Mayor West, "gone to pot". Solar flares kill anyone who doesn't get undercover in time and drive others crazy if they're burnt. Huh? I'm no scientist but that seems to lack logic. Bah, who needs logic in a b-movie action flick, right?

Anyway, Marchini is John Travis, a cop who loses his three partners during a shoot out at a place where kidnapped women are being auctioned off. He escapes and saves one of the slave women (Meg Thayer, SATURDAY THE 14TH STRIKES BACK), then saves another chick (Jennifer Jostyn, HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES), the daughter of a trader who gets murdered by another gang of scumbags.

With two sassy chicks now in tow, Travis tries unsuccessfully to get back into police headquarters, but his boss (West) is worried they might be infected. So it's off to find the crime boss, Wraith (Katzakian).

But wait, first he has to go get his hat(!) from a group of baddies and... surprise, surprise, rescue another girl. Travis sure is the chivalrous type! He's captured by Wraith's gang, who for some reason take him alive. He escapes and re-unites with his harem of rescued babes, but predictably the baddies snatch up two of the chicks while he's away getting supplies.

So it's up to our knight in tight pants (with the other girl in tow) to do what he does best - rescue the girlies - and take down Wraith. After kicking ass on a few dozen baddies first, naturally.

With a movie like this, it's all about the action and there's a good amount of it here. Like in Death Machines, the fight scenes are wooden and slow, but there's enough punching, kicking, shooting and falling from high places to keep things interesting. That is, when Travis isn't running - there's way too much screen-time taken up with him chasing down people.

The original music by Cecil Ramirez and Ralph Stover (whose only other credits are two more Kyriazi flicks, including the sequel to this, KARATE COP), is hilariously bad and derivative. There's a Beach Boys rip off riff that plays during driving scenes (and the end credits), Leone-esque western music that cues during any kind of stand-off or showdown, the odd bit of Japanese flute to remind us that this is a martial arts flick, and other assorted generic synth music.

The acting is pretty damn bad, but bad enough to add to the cheese value. The worst perpetrator is Katzakian, who grumbles and mumbles while trying to act menacing, and Thayer is easy on the eyes but as wooden as a tree. Marchini's no leading man or action star, but he does a passable job. The best of the actors is Jostyn - it's easy to see why she's had the most successful career out of this cast.

Rugged 50s/60s leading man Stuart Whitman (NIGHT OF THE LEPUS) has a cameo as a doctor who finds out sunscreen isn't a bad thing. Adam West is only onscreen for a short time at the start and end. I'd say that's a shame, but as I mentioned earlier, Family Guy has reduced him to a caricature, so no real loss. Plus, he gets to go out with a bang.

And sorry lads, but there's no nudity here. For a movie about women slaves, it sure could have done with some gratuitous nekkidness. Travis doesn't get anything more than a peck on the cheek from any of his three damsels in distress. How's that for gratitude!

So, to summarise: Bad acting, bad music and action that makes up for its low quality with quantity = a cheesy good time!

Previews on my VHS: Four Weddings and a Funeral, We're Talking Serious Money, Philadelphia, Morning Glory, Warlock, Gunmen, Time Runner, Laser Mission, Wolf, All Tied Up.

June 11 - The Killing Grounds (1998)

The cover of my VHS copy of The Killing Grounds

The Killing Grounds (1998)
Director: Kurt Anderson
Format: VHS (Video Box Office)

It's always interesting to see an actor try to break away from an unwanted stereotype. Whether it's the "girl next door" doing something edgy (Katie Holmes in The Gift), the action hero trying comedy (Sly Stallone in Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot) or a comedian playing a dark character (Robin Williams in One Hour Photo) it can be refreshing or a train wreck, but almost always at least interesting.

I grew up watching Anthony Michael Hall during his brat pack heyday. When I watch John Hughes' 1980s teen comedies they bring forth a great deal of nostalgic feeling. To me, Hall will always be the geeky kid from those flicks - Rusty Griswald from National Lampoon's Vacation, The Geek from Sixteen Candles, Brian Johnson from The Breakfast Club and Gary Wallace from Weird Science.

I watched The Breakfast Club the other night with my wife and my sister. Tonight, while perusing my shelves of VHS, I spotted ol' AMH staring at me from the cover of The Killing Grounds, much older and brandishing a gun. An obvious attempt to break the geeky stereotype and one I had to view for myself.

I'm aware that Anthony Michael Hall has successfully broken his stereotype by headlining the successful TV show The Dead Zone in recent years. But The Killing Grounds came in the years between his John Hughes collaborations and The Dead Zone - how did he fare then in breaking free of the geek we all know and love?

The verdict is - pretty well. It helps that in The Killing Grounds he plays a bad guy. I've got to admit that surprised me. When I read the synopsis on the back of the VHS I was expecting AMH to be one of the hikers caught up in the situation, so to see him appear as a unscrupulous hitman was a pleasant surprise indeed.

Now, I should mention that there aren't actually any "good guys" in The Killing Grounds. Everyone is flawed in some way or another, making it hard to find a protagonist to latch onto.

The plot surrounds a swag of stolen gold which is being flown across the border into Mexico, but the plane crashes in mountains in the Southwest enroute. The gold is discovered by a group of hikers (Priscilla Barnes from DEVIL'S REJECTS, Charles Rocket and Rodney A Grant, both from DANCES WITH WOLVES and Cynthia Geary from NORTHERN EXPOSURE). They decide to split the loot, but are soon fighting it out with two baddies who come searching for it - played by Anthony Michael Hall and Courtney Gains (who played evil whippet Malachai in CHILDREN OF THE CORN), the latter rocking a sweet ginger mullet.

Whereas the hitmen are meant to be bad guys, the hikers aren't very sympathetic, thanks mainly to their petty squabbling and greedy backstabbing. Geary's character, an undercover cop, is the most likeable, but even she turns out to be a doublecrosser.

Likeability aside, each of the actors does a good job (Gains is both hammy and entertaining at the same time; Hall is more subdued; Rocket is sleazy as the womaniser) and director Kurt Anderson keeps the action moving at a fair clip. He also manages to mix in subtle humour and there's a nice ironic ending. This was his last directing gig though, so maybe his efforts weren't to somebody's liking.

At the end of the day this is a low-budget straight-to-video effort, and at times it plays out a bit like a TV movie, but it's worth seeing just to witness the 1980s' top geek playing a hitman.

June 8 - Cyber Tracker (1994)

The cover of my VHS copy of Cyber Tracker

Cyber Tracker (1994)
Director: Richard Pepin
Format: VHS (21 Century)

Early on in this movie a cybertracker (ie Terminator-ripoff) looks at a statue of some kind of robot in a bar and his internal scan flicks through several names - Gort, THX 1138 and T1000.

It's a shame that tongue-in-cheek humour doesn't continue for the rest of the movie, but regardless Cyber Tracker is a fun little scifi action flick.

Starring everyone's former kickboxing champion Don "the Dragon" Wilson, this movie was released the same year as another Wilson vessel, Bloodfist V: Human Target (see my recent review of that as part of Cormania 2011).

Set sometime in the future, Cyber Tracker has Wilson playing Eric Phillips, a bodyguard for corrupt Senator Robert Dilly (John Aprea, GODFATHER II). When he refuses to go along with Dilly's evil plans, Phillips is framed for murder and becomes a target for a series of cyber trackers (all played by Jim Maniaci), cyborg cops who hunt down and carry out death sentences on condemned criminals.

Along with the pre-requisite love interest, a reporter-turned-resistance fighter (Stacie Foster), Phillips has to survive being hunted by the cyber trackers while trying to bring down Dilly.

From what I've seen, futuristic scifi action b-movies from the 1980s and 90s tend to go one of two ways - over the top futuristic sets and costumes, or the bare minimum. Cyber Tracker is definitely the latter. You wouldn't know this was set in the future if it wasn't for the cyborgs and some little touches (like a talking computer that controls a house's functions).

But while the plate is virtually empty for the scifi fan, there's plenty of explosions, gunfights, fistfights and car chases to keep the action fan's belly full.

And fans of unintentional humour, you're in luck. From the corny, out-of-place Omenesque music that plays at several points, to terrible soap opera-like footage of Phillips and a former love and chuckle-inducing sped up running as a cyber tracker chases down a car, the laughs keep coming.

The supporting cast is mostly unremarkable, but noteworthy are Australian Richard Norton (ROAD HOUSE 2) as the snarling head of Dilly's security team and crater-faced Joseph Ruskin (SWORD AND THE SORCERER) as the boss of the cyborg company - the latter bringing some unintentional laughs during a nonsensical rant about the state of society.

Previews on my VHS: Housewife from Hell (complete with lots of naked boobies in the trailer), The Custodian.

June 6 - Project Shadowchaser

Not the cover of my VHS copy of Project Shadowchaser

Project Shadowchaser (1992)
Director: John Eyres
Format: VHS (Hoyts Home Video)

I'm sure most b-movie enthusiasts find themselves in this situation: You see a tagline like "Die Hard meets the Terminator" on the front cover of a movie and, knowing that it can't possibly live up to the either of those movies, decide you just have to watch it.

That exact tagline is on the cover of my VHS copy of Project Shadowchaser, and yes, I just had to watch it. Looking over the cast, I saw the names Martin Kove and Frank Zagarino, and the need to watch grew even greater! The Kobra Kai sensei and Argan from Barbarian Queen in the same movie? Sign me up!

Directed by John Eyres (who helmed the not-bad 2001 teeny horror flick RIPPER), Project Shadowchaser is set in the future, when a team of terrorists led by silver-haired cyborg Romulus (Zagarino) take over a hospital and hold the President's daughter (the weird-eyed Meg Foster, THEY LIVE) hostage. The FBI (led by Paul Koslo of ROBOT JOX) order the hospital's architect unfrozen from the jail he is in for murder, so they can get inside the building and free her.

The only problem is they unfreeze the wrong man, Desilva (Kove), who plays along with the mistake on a promise of a full pardon. When the team of agents sent in with him winds up dead, it's up to Desilva to try to beat the terrorists himself. He rescues the President's daughter, but rather than escape she chooses to stay and kick some terrorist butt with Desilva. Romulus proves to be virtually unbeatable, leading to a showdown between man (and woman) and machine.

Joss Ackland (Hans in MIGHTY DUCKS) also features as the scientist creator of Romulus.

Everything you need to know about Project Shadowchaser is in that tagline I mentioned at the start of this review. There's lots of crawling around a high-rise building attacking baddies ala Die Hard, and Romulus is clearly a Terminator rip off. Of course, Martin Kove isn't Bruce Willis and Frank Zagarino isn't Arnie, but Kove has barely enough charisma to pull it off and Zagarino is actually quite good as a cyborg. I was critical of his wooden acting in my review of Barbarian Queen, but here it's an asset.

There's nothing special about Project Shadowchaser - the special effects, camera work and fight scenes are okay if unspectacular. It rates poorly on the cheesyness scale, so don't expect any unintentional laughs. But hey, it's an okay way to spend an hour and a half.

Previews on my VHS: Strictly Ballroom, 1492, Stepfather 3, Prototype, Hangin' with the Homeboys, Bram Stoker's Dracula