Brian Trenchard-Smith’s Stunt Rock is a love letter — perhaps accompanied by mixtape — to the movie stuntman. Particularly Australia’s own rough-and-tumble rogue Grant Page, who plays himself. As the film opens, he’s headed for Hollywood to ply his trade for the (fictional) TV series Undercover Girl starring Amsterdamned actress Monique van de Ven, who plays herself.
That’s as far as storytelling dare tread. Throughout, Grant just does his thing, which is to say he jumps on moving cars, hang glides, dune buggies, gets set on fire, dives from cliffs, scales buildings, spins a web any size and then mansplains how it all works to a pretty journalist (Margaret Gerard, aka Mrs. Trenchard-Smith) he wishes to woo into the sack.
The second word of Stunt Rock’s title comes into play because Grant’s cousin (Curtis Hyde) toils as the Prince of Darkness in real-life rock band Sorcery, whose gimmick is an onstage wizard performing feats of magic during concerts. One band member hides his face under sparkly hoods of various colors, while the drummer wears suspenders over a Perrier logo T-shirt. Imagine KISS meets D&D. Now divide your expectations tenfold.
Although a well-known package of Ozploitation madness, Stunt Rock is an utter drag whose pieces of insanity resist any glue. With way too many Sorcery numbers and clips from Grant’s greatest hits and misses (Gone in Sixty Seconds, Mad Dog Morgan and Trenchard-Smith’s own The Man from Hong Kong), the flick bears more padding than the men and women who do all that derring-do. —Rod Lott
Following the mysterious death of her sister, mushroom-haired journalist Keegan (Jo Ann Harris, Rape Squad) comes back to town to find answers. More questions arise, because a ski-masked murderer is on the loose, and he makes his decisions based on a literal roll of the dice for a monster-themed board game clearly colored by highlighters. Deadly Games, get it?
Upon meeting Keegan, the cop on the case (Sam Groom, Hanging by a Thread) investigates only how to crack open that reporter’s notebook, if you catch my drift. The cop is war buddies with the town loner (Steve Railsback, Turkey Shoot), who smokes cigarettes of Virginia Slims length despite severe asthma. So goes putting the pieces into place for this semi-slasher, kind of a Peyton Place take on masked-killer material. It doesn’t entirely work, but is interesting for toying with what was already a trite formula.
One of the game’s spaces reads, “Find harlot in pub.” I didn’t see one marked, “Drown Colleen Camp by tying her ankle to the swimming pool drain with a wire,” yet that happens. Keegan practically flirts with death by doing incredibly stupid things, like staying in her sister’s house alone overnight without bothering to repair the floor-to-ceiling window an intruder crashed through. At the very least, I’d Scotch-tape some cardboard or seams-ripped garbage bags before even so much thinking about taking a shower.
That may be the least annoying thing Keegan does. Harris’ performance screams “theater kid.” She’s constantly cracking jokes, talking to herself, muttering under her breath or basically never not flapping her gums. Combine Keegan’s inability to shut up with her high degree of self-absorption — her sister’s death seems to bother her so little, she doesn’t check in on her mother (June Lockhart, 1986’s Troll) until a day after rolling into town — and it’s utterly exhausting to watch.
When your Final Girl acts more unhinged than Railsback of all typecast people, that’s a problem! How much of Keegan’s oxygen-sucking, attention-whoring nonsense is Harris’ take or the work of neophyte writer/director Scott Mansfield, I know not. But Harris is so into it, I’m inclined to blame her.
What I can attribute to Mansfield (Imps*) are two truly impressive shots, both involving the eye, both worthy of a giallo, even if one is limited by effects available at the time and budget. Another memorable shot is Deadly Games’ final, for entirely other, perfectly bonkers reasons. —Rod Lott
Jojo Anwar’s Ghost in the Cell trafficks in all the tropes of the male prison pic: a tyrannical warden, solitary confinement, drug gangs, slop as food, the threat of shower rape and so on. Its market differentiator, however, is a malevolent spirit that tears, twists and turns its murder victims into grotesque death tableaux à la TV’s Hannibal.
Enlisting several of his Satan’s Slaves actors, Anwar focuses on fresh meat Dimas (Endy Arfian), a meek journalist wrongly convicted for the killing of his abusive boss. The actual culprit is the wraith, which follows Dimas behind bars and takes the corporeal form of its targets during slaughter (thereby distinguishing itself from Renny Harlin’s Prison). It’s like seeing double, except only one is covered in trypophobic skin. As the ghost makes its way from prisoner to prisoner, they shout themselves hoarse over this supernatural force.
Predictably, Ghost in the Cell excels in these sequences, from the initial skirmish to the reveal of the resulting macabre centerpiece, borrowing pieces of Riki-Oh’s operatic insanity in between. As the minutes tick by, the level of humor increases, and unfortunately, that’s where the Indonesian film misses.
Perhaps chalked up to a clash of cultures, the comedy is broader and even slapstickier than what this country’s accustomed to — a pube-laden bar of soap for a sight gag, sure; a full-on dance scene choreographed by an effeminate inmate, you can keep it. And when the dancing extends to a joyous cast-and-crew montage during the closing credits, you’ve effectively neutered all the bite that came before. —Rod Lott
Recently, I saw the award-winning stage adaptation of The Outsiders at Oklahoma City’s Civic Center Music Hall. I’m a fan of both the book and the movie — but not the panned 1990s TV show — but I didn’t expect to love the musical as much as I did.
But what I really identified with was the Oklahoma-based “movie” reality. Sure, I haven’t been involved in a “rumble” for some time, but The Outsiders reignites the classic S.E. Hinton world of the Greasers, Socs and other undesirables, and makes them cinematically real, theatrically dangerous and, more to the point, literately bold.
That being said, these filmic outliers (who might be considered the lesser spawn of Oklahoma/Arkansas/Texas white trash) and their criminal foibles started with The Outsiders, with Hinton adaptations of Rumble Fish and Tex at the top of the list.
Which brings me to 1985’s The Legend of Billie Jean, a Texas-based trailer park statement of class warfare where a vandalized dirt bike is the catalyst for a Corpus Christi-set act of justifiable retribution through teenage heroics, innocence lost and telling the world that, to be certain, “fair is fair.”
One summer’s day, teen siblings Billie Jean (Helen Slater) and Binx (Christian Slater) are having a lazy afternoon at the lake when a bunch of well-to-do bullies steal and vandalize his beloved scooter. When Billlie Jean wants restitution for the damaged bike, the bully’s dad, Mr. Pyatt (Richard Bradford), tries to rape her, which ultimately leads to Binx shooting the worn asshole.
With Mr. Pyatt claiming Binx tried to murder him, they go on the run with a fellow classmate (Martha Gehman), as well as the very whiny girl from TheSimpsons (Yeardley Smith). Looking for a place to lie low, they break into a U.S. senator’s house, with mask-maker son (Keith Gordon) falling in love with Billie Jean and agreeing to act as her hostage. Going back to Corpus, they take on an abusive father, have a simulated shoot-out with the cops, and and ditches Lisa Simpson when she gets her period because Billie Jean decided she has had enough.
It all cumulates with Binx getting mortally wounded and Mr. Pyatt’s roadside shop of Billie Jean merch gets vandalized, with every person taking up her cause, touting her trademarked “Fair is fair!” for the fairground(?) area, all while Pat Benatar’s hit “Invincible (Theme from The Legend of Billie Jean)” plays out as her effigy burns.
Sure, it’s not based on Hinton’s work, but the bare bones of a young adult novel is there … if there ever was one. Surely a Hinton novelization was put out during that year’s Scholastic Book Fair, right?
Either way, between destined-for-HBO fare like Supergirl, The Secret of My Success and mostly this, Helen Slater really turned my budding hormones in classist overdrive, with Billie Jean’s punk-rock redux making her a real relatable, impressive heroine and a tarnished sex symbol who still musses my hair with the dirty lake water.
Sure, it’s not a great movie, but it was one of favorites growing up in South and Central Texas, and a real turning point in my countercultural adolescence. It was a movie where, hey, all I had to do was pull out an oversized gun, rock a butch haircut and come up with a catchphrase to unite most of Texas in my cause. —Louis Fowler
Accurately, Doppelganger is not what it first seems — not an erotic thriller, that is. I mean, it is, but that’s not all it is. If you recognize the names of the KNB EFX Group founders in the opening titles, you’re given a big ol’ hint.
Playing against preppy type, George Newbern (Adventures in Babysitting) has zero game as socially awkward screenwriter Patrick Highsmith seeking a roomie to share his L.A. apartment. In walks Holly Gooding (Drew Barrymore, E.T. — heard of it?) to claim the space. Patrick’s so smitten with Holly, he can’t get enough of her … so you think having two of her around might be a plus!
Holly’s spitting image stalks Patrick around town, but this Hitchcocked double is also insatiably plunging knives into people. The first victim is a middle-aged rando played by Jaid Barrymore, Drew’s real-life mother. (Wish fulfillment much?)
Somehow, neither Patrick nor his live-wired writing partner (Leslie Hope, Bruiser) know what a “doppelganger” is. The very idea of an evil twin vexes these WGA wannabes. When she’s not trying to convince Patrick he’s in danger, Hope’s character rattles off hopelessly dopey dialogue like, “Watch your dick, pinhead!”
I can’t say how well Barrymore benefits from Doppelganger alone. But look at it as part of her haughty, naughty parade of the early ’90s (Poison Ivy, Sketch Artist and TV’s The Amy Fisher Story), and all makes sense. She worked hard to rehabilitate her rep as a coked-up child actor. Lest viewers hold any doubt and still think of her as a Firestarter (twisted Firestarter!), the opening credits play over her shrink (Dennis Christopher, Fade to Black) pawing her shirtless bod as she writhes in orgasmic glee.
Need more proof? Thrill as Barrymore dances seductively, knees Danny Trejo (Machete) in the nuts, slow-motion showers in orange-tinted blood and gets crucified on the bedroom wall. And it works.
As cut-rate (pun intended) De Palma, Doppelganger places stakes in the ground of camp and gradually grows campier, dragging your attention along with it. As incredulous as the plot gets and the level of hysterics the performances reach, you’re still ill-prepared for what writer/director Avi Nesher (Timebomb) cooked up for the climax. It’s an all-time howler I shan’t spoil. —Rod Lott
