All posts by Rod Lott

Thriller

The Banker (1989)

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Prostitution’s a tough gig, even for Santa Monica’s finest. You might contract an STD or, per The Banker, a laser-guided crossbow arrow through the noggin. Even if the film didn’t reveal right away that titular man o’ finance Spaulding Osbourne is the killer, we’d know it because he lives in a warehouse, watches a wall of 16 television sets and keeps a Little Golden Book of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on his coffee table.

On the other hand, he has one redeeming quality: no love for cocaine bros in bolo ties.

Hunting Osbourne (Duncan Regehr, The Monster Squad’s Count Dracula) is police detective Sgt. Dan Jefferson (Robert Forster, Jackie Brown). It’s only a matter of time before Osbourne targets Jefferson’s ex-wife, TV reporter Sharon (Shanna Reed, TV’s Major Dad), who’s recently ditched segments promoting the Magic Sandcastle Jamboree for on-air editorials against the murderer.

Luckily for the good guys, Osbourne leaves a calling card at each homicide: a blood pattern on the wall that looks kinda like Wilson the volleyball from Cast Away. As Jefferson tells his lieutenant (Richard Roundtree, 1971’s Shaft), “We’re looking at one strange son of a bitch!”

William Webb’s directorial follow-up to the ho-hum Party Line, The Banker hums along nicely. It certainly helps going from Leif Garrett (who cameos here) to Forster. In a variation of his role in Alligator, Forster’s Dan is likely an alcoholic and lives in a treehouse. This allows Forster to give what he was so gifted at: a gruff, no-nonsense demeanor. Dana Augustine’s screenplay aids and abets with appropriate dialogue, including the concluding anti-quip, “I’m Dan, I’m a cop and you’re fucked!”

All in all, The Banker is the type of sleaze that’s polished just enough that you don’t feel a need to shower afterward. Who could’ve guessed that in 1989, Forster was less than a decade away from a career-reviving Academy Award nomination? Or that Roundtree would end the millennium returning as the iconic cat that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about? Or that former Playboy centerfold Teri Weigel and her Tupperware breasts were about to turn to porn? Or that Jeff Conaway could still run? —Rod Lott

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Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Generation X (1996)

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Until Blade righted the ship in 1998, a curse hovered over attempts at live-action film and TV adaptations of Marvel Comics. Case in point: Generation X, less-than-lukewarm Fox pilot movie of the teenage X-Men spin-off comic book, then just 2 years old. Although full of special effects and ably directed by the underrated Jack Sholder (The Hidden), Generation X tumbles laughably in its painfully transparent desire to connect with a hip, youthful audience.

Six teen mutants gather at Professor Xavier’s gifted school to learn how to rein in their powers, using them only for good. Looking like an emaciated version of MTV’s Puck, Refrax (Randall Slavin, Monster High) shoots lasers from his eyes, while Jubilee (Heather McComb, F.A.R.T. the Movie) shoots fireballs from her hands. Buff (Suzanne Davis, Fear Runs Silent) is blessed with the upper body of Fabio, while the others … hell, I don’t recall.

Under the tutelage of silver-wigged vixen Emma Frost (The Apple dancer Finola Hughes, who boosts her performance via push-up bras, which made flames shoot out my eyes), the high-school superheroes band together to battle the evil, mad scientist Tresh (Matt Frewer, Lawnmower Man 2: Jobe’s War).

Although the kids are extremely unappealing, Frewer is the film’s true liability. Aping Jim Carrey’s Riddler shtick to the unfunny T, Frewer is embarrassing. He gets one good joke out of the hundred he spews over the course of the film, and since it involves the ugliness of the hair of the stretchy-armed Skin (Agustin Rodriguez, Strange Days), it’s a joke the audience had written long before.

Equally banal is scripter Eric Blakeney’s insertion of pop-culture references in hopes of passing the show off as some cutting-edge, in-the-know, hip-and-with-it flick. When Emma and her Irish partner (Prom Night III’s Jeremy Ratchford, whose Banshee possesses a sonic-boom scream) present themselves to security as “Officers Hootie and Blowfish,” the line isn’t merely stupid, but expired upon airdate.

If this pilot is indicative of how the Generation X series was poised to go, good thing they quit while they were ahead. —Rod Lott

Comedy

To Catch a Yeti (1995)

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Corpulent rocker Meat Loaf (Wayne’s World) stars as Mr. Big Jake Grizzly in the Canada-lensed, kid-friendly comedy, To Catch a Yeti. Big Jake and his donut-dreaming sidekick, Blubber (Richard Howland, TV’s Lost Girl), attempt to catch a yeti. ’Tis a noble pursuit.

Eschewing the true definition of a yeti, the film gives us not an abominable snowman or a super-sized cryptid, but an abomination of a puppet: a furry, rat-tailed, buck-toothed gnome who giggles like a hyena that somehow survived being hit by a BFGoodrich tire.

Escaping Big Jake’s sweat-mitted clutches, this so-called yeti seeks refuge in the backpack of a hiker who unknowingly brings the little scamp home. The hiker sticks the thing in the fridge, feeds it frankfurters and calls him Hank. The scene in which Hank discovers toothpaste may be the most pornographic thing you will see outside of pornography.

Without fail, the man’s precocious daughter, Amy (Chantallese Kent), quickly loves Hank like she would any other mutated, decidedly unvaccinated creature brought home by her parents, so it’s only a matter of time before Big Jake and Blubber chase her and Hank all over town. Unfortunately, at film’s end, the yeti is released into the wild, not drawn and quartered. Given a scene depicting little Amy and Hank sharing a bed, I will not write off the possibility of the legacy sequel, To Birth a Yeti. —Rod Lott

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Horror

Skinamarink (2022)

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Judging by the viral noise on TikTok — a terrible way to live, IMHO — you’d expect the $15,000-funded Skinamarink to be the next Paranormal Activity. It’s not.

That’s not necessarily a negative. It all depends on the criterion being judged. To consider just the potential for word-of-mouth wildfire among the age groups reacting to its trailer on social media: Do you believe the average millennial or Gen Zer has the patience to sit through 100 minutes of an experimental film? Because that’s what Skinamarink is, one rung above pure abstraction. The majority of moviegoers of any generation don’t possess the palatability for something so mass audience-unfriendly; David Lynch’s Inland Empire finally can cede the title.

Again, not necessarily a negative. While clearly horror, the debut for Canadian filmmaker Kyle Edward Ball is the type of work that nearly defies criticism. Nothing about it operates by notions of convention, yet it represents a singular creative vision free of outside interference or concerns about commercial potential.

In 1995, two young siblings can’t locate their dad in the house. Stranger, the doors and windows — and even the commode — start to disappear; chairs sit on the ceiling. Thumps are heard, as is a disembodied, casually threatening voice. Sound scary? It should.

Through low angles, deliberate misframing and fuzzy imagery that simultaneously suggest surveillance footage and a pirate broadcast, Ball starts at a level of disorientation and builds trepidation from there. As the kids go about their mundane existence, no longer able to tell day from night, only the glow of the television — with its constant parade of public-domain cartoons — offers any comfort (not that “Cobweb Hotel” does). Jolts of terror disrupt that semblance of normalcy.

Ball’s lo-fi aesthetic extends to the sound, humming with the warm pop of vinyl. On its own, that aural element could offer womb-like comfort, but contributing to a whole, it helps make Skinamarink the closest approximation of a dream a feature has achieved. This is no catalog of jump scares; it’s art. —Rod Lott

Action

Santo vs. Doctor Death (1973)

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Mexico’s favorite son, the masked wrestler Santo (Santo), heads to Spain to compete in the world championship. Thanks to Interpol meddling, he’s forced to side-hustle as a secret agent to thwart the fine-art forgeries of Dr. Robert Mann (George Rigaud, Horror Express). Because Santo vs. Doctor Bob would make a terrible title, the Mexploitation film is called Santo vs. Doctor Death.

Assisting Santo is plainclothes Interpol Agent 9004, but you can call him Paul (Carlos Romero Marchent, Cut-Throats Nine). Soon, they learn Dr. Mann has more going on than copying precious masterworks; he’s also killing off precious models after he’s done growing tumors in their hot bods. (I promise that makes sense in context.)

This may be heresy to others’ eyes and ears, but I found Santo vs. Doctor Death to be in peak condition when it’s not wasting time in the wrestling ring, whereas seeing Santo slam a chair into an enemy’s face elicits a primal thrill. That’s because director and co-writer Rafael Romero Marchent (Sartana Kills Them All) keeps the 007-esque adventure zippy. In a standout scene, Santo and a henchman spar amid public urinals — more than four decades before Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill did so in Mission: Impossible — Fallout.

From unsolicited surgeries and acid baths to threats with a jar of scorpions, the proceedings play like expert pulp. Best representing that dime-mag aesthetic is a sequence in the booby-trapped bowels of Dr. Mann’s castle. It’s honestly a shame Doctor Death remains Rafael’s only Santo movie. Certainly, other opportunities existed, with this being one of eight Santo pics in ’73 alone. —Rod Lott

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