That Turbulence II: Fear of Flying star Craig Sheffer returns to the direct-to-video sequel as a different character isn’t the strangest aspect of Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal. It may not even make the top five.

After all, this final flight of the plane-crazy forced franchise is about a death-metal concert livestreamed from a Trans-Con Airlines 747 making its way from L.A. to Toronto. Somehow, the band’s members, fans and groupies make it through the metal detectors, what with all their chains, studs and labia piercings. Hosted by a Z Web TV personality vacuum-packed in black leather (former underage Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Monika Schnarre), the gig marks the farewell performance for the Marilyn Manson-esque Slade Craven (Spirit of the West frontman John Mann).

Why farewell? For starters, it appears that the satanic singer has hijacked the plane, killed the pilot and ordered a reroute to Eastern Kansas, “one of the unholiest places on earth” because it’s believed to be a direct portal to hell. So there’s that.

On the ground, an FBI computer expert (Body Snatchers’ Gabrielle Anwar) taps Nick Watts, a hacker she’s been chasing for years, to gain access to the Z Web TV feed so the authorities can strategize to avert disaster. Watts is played by the aforementioned Sheffer, demoted to supporting duties here, perhaps on account of an appearance — wispy mustache, spike-moussed hair and too much bandana — that suggests he came to set straight from auditioning for a made-for-cable biopic of Axl Rose.

If there’s one thing Hollywood depicts exceedingly well … um, it sure didn’t board before Turbulence 3 left the gate, and sure as Hades isn’t hacking! Nonetheless, Jorge Montesi, director of the immortal Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?, gives viewers scene after scene of Anwar and Sheffer sitting side by side, navigating programs and databases that conjure memories of HyperCard and MacDraw Pro. The two actors share no chemistry, which is odd considering they were a real-life item for several years, even having a child together.

While Joe Mantegna (The Godfather: Part III) hardly phones it in as an FBI agent, one can sense his pain every minute he’s onscreen, having gone from speaking the dialogue of Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet to that of camera operator Wade Ferley, whose lone screenplay Turbulence 3 is. Conversely, as a TCA co-pilot, Rutger Hauer (Wanted Dead or Alive) looks pleased as punch to literally sit and collect that check.

Because it features a lot of terrible music — the kind whose album art is ready-made for unauthorized reproductions on locker mirrors won at state fairs — Turbulence 3 can’t be as much fun as Turbulence II, even when accounting for the hilarious ending of a commercial airliner having to be landed by a shock rocker whose makeup screams Roger Corman’s The Crow overdue for a haircut. —Rod Lott

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A sequel in name only, Turbulence II: Fear of Flying fills a Trans-Con Airlines jet cabin with enrollees of a self-help course to conquer their phobia of the friendly skies. Their “final,” so to speak, is to take an actual flight instead of participating in a mere simulation. That the real voyage includes mass poisoning (via ice cubes) and a hijacking is entirely unplanned.

Because one of the students (Craig Sheffer, Nightbreed) survived a fiery plane crash years before, leading him to his current chosen profession of milquetoast aeronautical engineer, he’s de facto designated to become our unlikely hero. And because he’s a single dad, of course the cute passenger one row ahead (Jennifer Beals, Four Rooms) is destined to practically be engaged to him by the time the aircraft kisses the runway, even if she boarded with someone else at her side (Jeffrey Nordling, Tron: Legacy) — someone for whom she shuts down the Mile-High Club initiation process mid-coitus.

By definition, direct-to-video actioners are pretty derivative, and Turbulence II is no exception. In this case, however, clearly influenced by my beloved Airport franchise, that’s a good thing. Having worked for Roger Corman more than a dozen times, Rob Kerchner (Carnosaur III: Primal Species) delivers a story stripped clean of subplots for maximum efficiency, which director David Mackay (Black Point) welcomes while seemingly convincing himself this sweet new gig is Die Hard 2.

Third-billed Tom Berenger (Sniper) gets the somnambulant role of the air traffic controller who never leaves the tower, much less moves. An exception to the latter is the moment when a hostage comes crashing through the tower’s skylight after being thrown from the plane overhead. You’ve gotta give it up for the villain exhibiting such incredible aim and timing, in a sequence that does not do the same; in fact, when the falling man approaches the bottom of the frame for moment of impact, you can see him slow down! Turbulence II, you are cleared for landing in what remains of my heart. —Rod Lott

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Underwater photography is the true star of The Treasure of Jamaica Reef, a pleasingly tame action-adventure about San Diego professionals who quit their day jobs to go hunting for rumored sunken gold in the Caribbean. The guys are played by The Oscar’s Stephen Boyd, future MGM exec David Ladd and a Wolfman Jack-bearded Chuck Woolery, right before achieving fame on the tube as the host of a new game show called Wheel of Fortune. Rounding out the quartet is a feisty blonde named Zappy (Cheryl Ladd, then Stoppelmoor and three years from joining Charlie’s Angels).

First-time director Virginia L. Stone (Run If You Can) takes an A-to-Z, near-documentary approach on getting our heroes to the ocean — for example, showing them negotiating to buy an old truck shaped like a wine barrel. Along the way they meet surfer-dude teen Darby (Darby Hinton, Malibu Express), who aids them in a chase in which Zappy hangs onto the luggage rack of a thief’s speeding car, and teddy-bear boat captain Rosey Grier (Skyjacked), who does not.

By the time the team is piloting small-prop planes and surveying the ocean floor from the comfort of a glass-bottomed raft, it hit me: The Treasure of Jamaica Reef plays as if based on the Fisher-Price Adventure People toy line, perhaps from a 9-year-old’s thunked-up outline. It’s certainly that sexless, with Mrs. Ladd in not only an overly modest bikini, but the same bikini day to day to day. As her character’s name hints, Zappy is presented as more kid sister than sex object, with Stone’s camera more interested in what lies beneath sea level. Unlike most B movies, Reef’s underwater footage is neither muddy, stock nor faked, so at the very least, viewers can appreciate local flavor galore.

When Jaws busted blocks the next year, the producers presumably kicked themselves for not having sharks in their film. Wrangling Boyd back, they shot bookends that graft a new plot of a cursed treasure map, and added some gore, some sex and, most importantly, some sharks. The resulting waterlogged mess was rechristened Evil in the Deep. No word if, per the poster, anyone’s nerves were ripped to shreds, but the 2.0 ending is an absolute hoot. —Rod Lott

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I’ll gladly admit that I was a pretentious sixth-grader who regularly rented and fully enjoyed the films of Jim Jarmusch.

While much of his work over the past decade hasn’t held my attention for very long, flicks like Down by Law, Mystery Train and Night on Earth — which I actually had a poster of in my childhood room — kept me suitably enthralled, but it was his double shot of Dead Man and especially Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai where I felt he reached his apex as a filmmaker and, consequently, my zenith as a teenaged film snob.

Taking the cinematic concept of the samurai warrior’s code and placing it in the crime-filled streets of a nameless industrial city, Jarmusch directs a superbly cast Forest Whitaker as the titular Ghost Dog, a modern-day Mifune who is a silent hit man for Louie (John Tormey), the comically stereotyped gangster. (As a matter of fact, all the gangsters here are comically stereotyped.)

When Dog takes out a philandering goomba, a hit is placed on our hero. Using his samurai skills — with a gun instead of a sword, natch — he takes out these made men one by one and still has enough time to visit his best friend, a French ice cream man (Isaach De Bankolé) who doesn’t share the same language, but always seems to get what Dog is saying.

Like Dead Man, Ghost Dog is a bizarre blend of action and comedy. Back then, it was a strange genre for Jarmusch to take on, but in his broken way, he deftly pulls it off, mostly due to a calm Whitaker as the cold-as-steel modern samurai, one of the coolest characters to ever slash the screen, against mucked-up mafiosos led by Henry Silva, both men showcasing an ancient world on the verge of disappearing forever.

I should probably give special mention to the soundtrack, orchestrated by the RZA. I highly recommend the Japanese import, featuring the beautiful, beat-heavy instrumentals, plus a few unreleased Wu-Tang cuts. At least the pretentious 2000 version of me thought so. —Louis Fowler

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It took South Korea to rejuvenate the American zombie film with 2016’s Train to Busan. With writer/director Yeon Sang-ho returning for the sequel, Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula, lightning strikes twice — albeit at a notably lower voltage.

Necessity gives us a new protagonist in Jung-seok (Gang Dong-won, 2010’s Haunters), a former soldier. After suffering a whopping double tragedy in the prologue, the more reckless Jung-seok joins what certainly seems like a suicide mission to the titular site. There, among hordes of the hungry undead, he and his team are to retrieve an armored truck containing $20 million in the back — and a desecrated corpse in the driver’s seat.

That setup marks a unique and exciting spin on the heist film, but Peninsula is not really about a heist. The crime merely serves as the backing for the first act’s big set piece. The second act delves into a tri-generation family Jung-seok meets and has a guilt-ridden connection to; here, the story bounces between the unconventional family’s unity under immense pressure — some real Omega Man stuff — and Jung-seok’s own brother-in-law unwittingly ushered into a sort of zombie fight club (which is more engaging than the actual, terrible Zombie Fight Club).

Finally, as everything comes to a head, the film palpably sweats an Escape from New York musk — by no means a negative. More action-oriented than its predecessor, the hard-charging Peninsula is what a sequel should be: an extension of the original, rather than a repeat. (World War Z, take note!) In doing so, that means this second round of the Train to Busan franchise doesn’t yank on the heartstrings to deliver a devastating, memorable end, so if you have tissues at the ready, save them for your brow. —Rod Lott

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