All posts by Rod Lott

Martial Arts

Alien vs. Ninja (2010)

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And now for a title that tells you everything you need to know: There’s an alien. There’s ninja. They fight.

And now for everything you need to know: It blows.

It shouldn’t, because that’s one of those seemingly can’t-miss concepts, but leave it to Japan to drop the ball. It takes no time at all for the meteor bringing the titular alien to fall from space, but an agonizing 15 or 20 minutes or so for the alien to appear, and then an even more agonizing hour for the whole thing to end. The best part about the movie may be the first credit that greets you at the conclusion, telling us that Alien vs. Ninja was brought to us by Sushi Typhoon, whatever that is. All I know is that it was over, thank Buddha.

But to address what comes before: The alien does look a little H.G. Giger-esque, although it’s clearly just a guy in a rubber suit. They took no effort to slime it up, but did craft its head to make it resemble the creature from the real Alien franchise, if affected with Down syndrome, and given an alligator mouth and noggin holes from which its fetuses emerge. Its real selling point is that from its body bursts what I’m assuming is an elongated penis, which splits and, this being Asian, turns into tentacles.

Being shot on HD, it at times resembles a fan-made Mortal Kombat sequel, but with more wire work than the busiest of orthodontists’ offices. Is something like this really in need of broad comedy, like a feminine fat man or a ninja acting like a doofus that’s very nearly on the slapstick level of The Three Stooges? The likes of Infra-Man had scads more imagination at a fraction of the budget. —Rod Lott

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Thriller

Someone Behind the Door (1971)

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After so much post-Psycho typecasting, it’s downright refreshing to see Anthony Perkins playing someone nice and normal in Someone Behind the Door. In the obscure thriller, he’s a timid, crippled florist threatened by the — oh, who’m I kidding? I can’t pull one over on you! He’s so totally bonkers! Again!

Perkins is Dr. Laurence Jeffries, a brilliant brain surgeon whose latest patient is known to us only as “the stranger” (Charles Bronson). That’s because he’s a total amnesiac. Jeffries performs research on the stranger, but not the kind for which physicians are awarded massive grants. After assuring the stranger he’s not Victor Frankenstein, Jeffries invites him to his home, where he performs a “personality transplant.”

That’s the snazzy way of saying, “I’m going to make you think that my wife is really your wife, and then tell you that she’s been nailing some dude that isn’t me — er, you — and that you should do something about it, thereby letting me off the hook.” Oooooh, Mrs. Jeffries (Jill Ireland, of course), you are in troubbbbble!

With so few people in the cast and most of the film taking place in one spot, Someone has the feeling of a great — okay, a pretty good — stage play. It’s a game of psychological one-upsmanship in the style of Sleuth or Deathtrap, but a couple levels below in the brains department. Bronson proceeds past his acting ability’s comfort zone in the finale, but I’m sure as hell not going to tell him that. —Rod Lott

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Horror

Steel Trap (2007)

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In Japan, Steel Trap is titled Jigsaw: Tower of Death, which is appropriate, because this is nothing if not another Saw-inspired game of gore. Mind you, that’s not a complaint, even if its twist ending is telegraphed early on and executed poorly.

During a rockin’ New Year’s Eve party in an abandoned office building, seven really attractive people — including a celebrity chef and a couple of coke-snorters — are invited to the 27th floor for an invitation-only after-party. Food and drink are just the tip of the knife, too, as a clue informs them that this shindig is a treasure hunt — you know, just like those Nicolas Cage movies, but shorn of historical documents and replaced with viscera.

The table’s place settings sport not only the guests’ names, but unofficial titles like “Loser,” “Heartless” and “Two-Faced,” yet they don’t see anything wrong with that. The clues are given in nursery rhymes, yet they aren’t the least bit creeped out by them. The first one takes them to a disembodied pig’s head wearing a crown, yet they keep on going.

I won’t spoil the deaths; they’re kind of creative in that Final Destination sort of way, and that includes being utterly implausible. But realism isn’t what I ask of films like Steel Trap. Nor crisp dialogue, as this is not: “Signal blocked? What the hell’s that mean?” “It means somebody blocked the signal.” —Rod Lott

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