All posts by Rod Lott

Horror

DarkWolf (2003)

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If I were in charge, I’d give DarkWolf the more appropriate title of An American Werewolf in Do-Rag, as Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees in several of the Friday the 13th sequels) plays his role as the horny-werewolf-disguised-as-human with a blue handkerchief tied around his thick noggin for the whole movie.

Hodder is the “DarkWolf” — a hybrid werewolf, explains an all-too-knowing policeman — who must mate with a chosen female in order to ensure the survival of its species. (Its acquisition of a capital W goes unexplained.) The chosen female is a blonde waitress (Samaire Armstrong, TV’s The O.C.) who has no idea of her fate, but soon learns when her “protector” — The Birds‘ Tippi Hedren as cinema’s most well-dressed homeless woman — is slain by the creature, as is the cop’s partner, airheaded Playboy Playmate Jaime Bergman.

Everyone in this straight-to-DVD pile of wolf poo is so unlikable, you wish the DarkWolf would kill them all, and then do himself in. But yet, DarkWolf feels the need to plod along on its grubby paws for an hour and a half, occasionally throwing in just enough gratuitous nudity to keep you from hitting “stop.”

The acting is atrocious, even for a straight-to-video movie of this kind, and the werewolf transformation scenes are downright embarrassing. Whenever it’s time for one of those, the movie turns into a poorly computer-animated cartoon! —Rod Lott

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Western

Viva! Django (1971)

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Roughly the 24th Django sequel, Viva! Django — alternately known as A Man Called Django and the confusing W! Django — puts Anthony Steffen (The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave) in the character’s saddle for his fifth and final ride. The title says it all.

Here, the drifter Django rolls into a town all but abandoned, save for morbidly obese saloon owner Paco (Donato Castellaneta) and his too-hot-for him wife, Lola (smoldering Esmeralda Barros, King of Kong Island), who works there as a, um, “feisty little filly.” Django tells Paco he’s looking for the four men behind the Four Leaf Clover Gang, who murdered his wife. Our cigar-chomping hero carries his smokes around in a music box that displays his dearly departed’s photo and, when opened, conveniently plays the film’s über-hummable Piero Umiliani theme.

After disguising himself as a friar and igniting much dynamite that sends hapless citizens through candy-glass windows, Django meets Four Leaf vet Carranza (Stelio Candelli, Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires). Django knows Carranza was the only one who had nothing to do with it, but demands his help to find the other three.

Simple plot, simple pleasures, gringo. Director Edoardo Mulargia (Tropic of Cancer) lightens the mood of the original with noticeable comedy upfront, but that doesn’t mean violence takes a backseat. Although not particularly bloody, the flick delivers plenty of gunshots, most of which hit their greasy targets. Not a single one is Django, of course; he’s too much of a badass, like when he uses a branch to rig a fake arm in his coat to make it look like he’s surrendering. Silly villains — Django surrenders to no one. —Rod Lott

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Action

Mirageman (2007)

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One of the best superhero movies you’re likely never to have seen hails from South America: Mirageman, one of a number of kick-ass collaborations between Chilean writer/director Ernesto Díaz Espinoza and star Marko Zaror, aka the Latin Dragon.

Here, Zaror plays Maco, the strong, silent type who lives alone and earns a meager living as a bouncer, and whose life is given purpose after thwarting a home robbery while out for a night run. One of the victims in that incident is foxy newscaster Carol V. (María Elena Swett), who later sings his praises on TV, but has no idea who he is, because Maco had donned the blue ski mask of the first criminal he foiled.

Setting up an email account, the superhero soon known as Mirageman becomes a public vigilante, but mocked by the media. His missions increase in severity, from sparring with a gang of breakdancers to rescuing a 6-year-old kidnapped by a pedophile network. Along the way, he (briefly) acquires a sidekick, Pseudo-Robin.

Realistic and original by comparison to Hollywood’s comics-spurred tentpoles, this scrappy, low-budget effort — shot partly catch-as-catch-can — soars on the sure hand of Espinoza’s vision, which comes infused with a dose of good-natured humor, and the broad shoulders of the instantly endearing Zaror, who’s an Expendables-worthy real deal. He speaks very little throughout, but lets his martial-arts expertise — and his homemade Spider-Man goggles — do the talking. —Rod Lott

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Sex

Secrets of Sex (1970)

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As far as I know, Secrets of Sex is the only film I know of — softcore or otherwise — to open with a quote from John Milton and be narrated by a mummy. (No wonder it’s alternately known as Bizarre.) Living 1,000 years wrapped in gauze is certain to give one quite the case of blue balls, so said mummy leads the viewer through several near-non-sequitur stories involving the ol’ slap-and-tickle.

An early sequence depicts the film’s female starlets in their underwear, being pelted with tomatoes, leading into the first tale, in which a woman photographs men in poses of medieval torture. Cutting into her lunch of steak has a voodoo-esque effect on the model she left strung up. Later, a man catches a comely cat burglar (Cathy Howard, School for Sex) pilfering his home, so naturally, he ends up rubbing lemon-cucumber soap all over her naked body in the shower. Moving to the bed, he stuffs a phone receiver down back of her panties so the other line can hear whatever it is one would hear from such awkward placement.

Perhaps the most amusing vignette is a spy spoof, in which one Col. X briefs his curvy Agent 28 (Maria Frost, School for Sex) to infiltrate a foreign embassy; seduction becomes a required part of the mission. Sandwiched within the segment is a spot-on parody of a silent comedy, a bedroom farce circa 1929. Elsewhere in Secrets, a man (Elliott Stein, one of the screenwriters) orders a hooker (Benny Hill girl Sue Bond) for some lizard-loving, and an elderly woman puts her past lovers’ souls — all 17 of them — into garden flowers.

The film ends with fireworks that score an orgy ever after. As if you couldn’t tell, Secrets of Sex is nonsensical, but nudity trumps lucidity in such a project, and this UK one actually possesses as much brains as beauty. The women are gorgeous and natural, and the proceedings told with so much humor that it reeks of being good-natured. Director Antony Balch (Horror Hospital) bathes it in such vibrant colors, it’s a practically a piece of Pop Art — with just as little meaning, but none of the pretension. —Rod Lott

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