All posts by Rod Lott

Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976)

Jimmy Wang Yu’s Master of the Flying Guillotine begins with a monkey-owning blind old man learning that his two disciples have been killed by the One-Armed Boxer. This makes him mad, so he jumps out of his house — through the roof, mind you — burns it to the ground and grabs his flying guillotine, that blasted basket-and-blades contraption that tears heads clean from their bodies.

The blind man goes in search of each and every one-armed man he comes across, and then promptly beheads them. As a result, there’s an absurd amount of three-limbed fellas in this epic, which is simply one of the best martial-arts films ever.

Wang Yu, however, is the one the blind guy is, um, looking for. He’s a kung fu teacher who can walk on walls and ceilings. They almost meet up at a kung fu tournament where all sorts of miscreants battle each other to the death, including an Indian man with long, retractable arms like Reed Richards of The Fantastic Four!

When Wang Yu and the blind man do meet, it’s one helluva finale in a booby-trapped coffin shop. But the action is good ‘n’ plenty throughout all of Guillotine, including a fight on a flame-broiled floor where one poor sap is barefoot. There’s no shortage of flying fists, drunken monkey antics or rolling noggins in this killer flick — and with a Krautrock theme song, no less! —Rod Lott

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Paper Man (1971)

In Paper Man, a fat, suspenders-wearing college nerd who looks like the spawn of John Denver and Munchie accidentally receives a credit card sent to his address to someone named Henry Norman. With the help of four computer lab buddies — including a foxy Stefanie Powers — they create a whole identity for this Norman character, thus enabling them to use the credit card for a spending spree.

After getting Henry a driver’s license, a Social Security number and even a birth certificate, “Henry” starts to become all too real. After the gnome boy dies from an insulin overdose and the token Asian is cut in half by an elevator — the result of computer errors both — the survivors get their computer theory pal, Avery (a sleepy Dean Stockwell), to erase Henry from the computer, which is as outdated as Ms. Powers’ hairstyle. It’s one of those big honkin’ mainframes with lotsa blinking lights, spinning tape reels and a court-stenographer interface.

But Avery’s efforts fail and Henry keeps on killin’, with fingers pointing to Avery himself. Says the computer lab technician to the sheriff, “He’s a brilliant student, but he’s abnormally shy.” Replies the sheriff, “Y’know, if there’s one thing I don’t look forward to, it’s spending time with a brilliant student who’s abnormally shy.” Huh?

The entire story is built upon incredible gaps of logic, but for a ’70s CBS made-for-TV movie, that’s expected and welcome. It doesn’t live up to the promise set forth in the first half, but the time mostly flies. I recall seeing a Married … with Children episode that was just like this mistaken-credit-card madness — just minus the murder. —Rod Lott

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The Undertaker and His Pals (1966)

This goofy-as-hell cannibal comedy leads with a lamb to slaughter — namely, comely Sally Lamb — an innocent blonde murdered by the titular undertaker and his two pals, while the expression on her boyfriend’s nearby photo changes from smiling to horrified.

It’s just the latest in a string of senseless murders carried out by Shady Rest Funeral Parlor head Mr. Mort, who specializes in the $144.98 funeral, complete with Green Stamps, and shares half of each corpse with his friends who run the Greasy Spoon Café, where the day’s special is fresh from the kill — like, for instance, the “leg of Lamb.”

Looking for subtlety? It’s hiding somewhere with cleverness. So when clean-cut playboy detective Harry Glass stops by for a bite with curvy secretary Ms. Poultry … well, you just know tomorrow’s special will be breast of chicken.

And, of course, it is. The Undertaker and His Pals is very much an imitation of Herschell Gordon Lewis, and while it’s no work of art, neither is Lewis’ stuff. Nope, like the work of that Godfather of Gore, this even-lower-budget effort is just a fun mix of a little blood, a lot of bosomy dames and painful slapstick. At 63 minutes, it simply doesn’t have time to be dull. —Rod Lott

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The Accidental Spy (2001)

Equal parts Rush Hour and Rumble in the Bronx, Jackie Chan stars in The Accidental Spy as a mild-mannered fitness equipment salesman thrust into a world of espionage after he foils a bank robbery. He’s then recruited by an impressed government to play spy games involving drugs and chemical agents, and learns his dying father — whom he never knew — was quite the secret agent himself.

Like father, like son … except the son is Jackie Chan, so one can expect a heaping side of shenanigans with that derring-do. Therefore, there’s a great scene where Jackie escapes from the bad guys all while rigging their fortress to come tumbling down. This is one-upped by the climactic tanker-truck-on-fire set piece.

But the highlight has him running naked from a spa through a crowded outdoor market, trying to fight off a horde of pursuers while attempting to protect his modesty. The mix of humor and pathos isn’t always an easy one, as if the globetrotting Spy can’t decide which way it should lean. However minor in the grander scheme of Chan’s career, it’s still a solid homegrown effort that showcases his aging form ably. —Rod Lott

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Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines (2012)

Early into Wrong Turn 5 — the opening credits, to be exact — a great visual joke is delivered: The first two words of the title plop onscreen over a shot of leaf-covered forest grounds, but the numeral portion is represented by an open hand freshly chopped from the arm of a female jogger. If only writer/director Declan O’Brien (who also helmed the previous year’s Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings) had displayed more of that wit.

Instead, he settles right in to a rote tale of five college kids you won’t care about, much less be able to tell apart — until they’re torn apart, in which case knowing who’s who is made all the easier. They’re camping out at a West Virginia town hosting the annual Mountain Man Festival, a music fest that rivals Coachella, according to the TV news reporter on assignment in the small town’s obvious backlot set. Of course, they’ll never get there.

Wrong Turn 5 assumes you’ve seen every entry of the franchise — all but the 2003 original made expressly for home video — so it need not introduce you to its trio of inbred, mutilated hillbillies who feast on their human victims: Saw-Tooth, One-Eye and Three-Finger, so named for their individual deformities. (Cleft Palate, it appears, was too much of a line-crosser.) Well, I have seen the entire series, and just a smidge of catch-up each time would be appreciated. This installment throws a Pinhead into the mix: Hellraiser icon Doug Bradley, as the killers’ normal-looking father figure.

One can’t complain too much about its economy; this is, after all, a franchise that exists solely to showcase gruesome deaths. In that department, this fifth go-round offers two gloriously gory demises. The best involves one tow truck, two legs and three sledgehammers; the other, a guy buried up to his neck in a soccer field, and a big ol’ piece of farm equipment bearing rotating blades. O’Brien scores by choosing practical effects over computer-generated ones. —Rod Lott

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