Only in the 1970s — or at least the New World Pictures version of the 1970s — could you make absolute heroes out of a pair of cop-shooting, hostage-banging, dynamite-toting bank robbers the way that the drive-in favorite The Great Texas Dynamite Chase did, starring the breast-baring duo of Claudia Jennings and Jocelyn Jones.

Doing a good job of capturing small town Texas — or at least the California stand-in of it — complete with tumbleweeds blowing down the railroad tracks, bored Texan Ellie Jo (Jones, Tourist Trap) works in a bank that has a Confederate flag on the wall; when prison escapee Candy (Jennings, Sisters of Death) comes in, sticks of lit dynamite in hand, the two team up and head out on the road looking for money and men, not in that order.

And it’s a pretty good plan, too, taking them all across Texas’ various backroads, saloons and hotels. Eventually, they hook up with small-time thief Slim (Johnny Crawford); if you’ve ever wanted to see the co-star of The Rifleman making drunken love while a song called “Love Is Good to Me” plays over the quadraphonic stereo — and I know that fetish is out there — here’s your flick.

In a particularly downbeat ending, even though the gals make it to Mexico on horseback, just about everyone else receives massive shotgun blasts to the chest; to be honest, I was kind of hoping for some dynamite-handling gone wrong — nothing big, just a few blown off fingers here and there — but on an impossibly tight budget, I guess director Michael Pressman (Doctor Detroit) did the best he could.

However, with Jennings and Jones frequently nude — and both with a sexy look that reminds me of the white-trash moms I grew up around in Texas — it’s really not that difficult for The Great Texas Dynamite Chase to instead manifest a couple of explosions in your blue jeans. —Louis Fowler

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With a title that translates to Fearless Punks, the Mex Pistols of Intrepidos Punks are a down and dirty wrecking crew that roams the near future — possibly a day or two from now — of a small, south-of-the-border town, dedicated to causing mass anarquía wherever they go. ¡Ay, dios mío!

After the oft-repeated three-chord tune plays over the vandalized credits, led by the chain mail-masked monster Tarzan (El Fantasma), these satanic punks rob and rape any and everyone they come in the slightest contact with, to the point where a pair of powerfully mustached plainclothes cops decide suficiente es suficiente, especially when it disrupts their undercover mota operation, I think; to be fair, there were no subtitles to this Mexican flick and my Spanish is intermedio at best.

But, you know, the language barrier shouldn’t really make a difference because these choque rockeros de la ciudad speak that one language that truly matters in the future: pura violencia. With very little plot, the movie relies heavily on the punks cruising around on their impressively innovative motorcycles, killing men, women and possibly children wherever they go, always in new and inventive ways, no stuntmen required.

With a forward-thinking flamboyant costume design that probably scared the mierda out of many a punk-fearing abuela, Tarzan and his high-haired old lady, Fiera (La Princesa Lea), mercilessly fling throwing stars, chuck battle axes and wield other decidedly non-punk paraphernalia with appropriate ferocity; it all leads, of course, to their own deathly downfalls, along with most of their gang, by the two undercover cops who afterward have an on-screen steak dinner to celebrate their win.

Sadly, their job isn’t done yet: The punks somehow returned seven years later in the follow-up, La Venganza de los Punks. It’s a flick I own, purchasing it in an area flea market’s parking lot. When I went to play it, however, in a final middle finger to society, my machine wouldn’t read the disc. ¡Malditos gamberros! —Louis Fowler

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From the opening scenes featuring a middle-aged man with a machete cutting the throats of a few vatos playing a crooked game of dice, this Machete looks very much like a homegrown copy of that Machete, even if this was strangely filmed a few years earlier.

However, as soon as this Machete finds an adorable, Walter Keane-styled lad in need of a family getting beaten up by locals, it’s here where the film veers off into a somewhat violent tale of spiritual love as the possibly Heavenly Kid and a group of irreligious area thugs battle for the soul of Machete.

With a healthy appetite for tequila — Antigua Cruz, straight from the obtuse bottle — Machete, also known as Lukas, an ex-bodyguard for the president, wanders the desert, stopping by the small town of Purgatory — to hell with subtlety, I suppose — for reasons that are unclear and remain unclear. Either way, he causes trouble with the same three locals throughout the movie, swinging a flimsy machete around like a 5-year-old who’s just seen Conan the Barbarian.

Meanwhile, as a young girl and her “gypsy” mother are harassed by those same three locals, a gringo from Machete’s past — back in Vietnam, apparently — is looking for him, ready to take him back to Arizona, “dead or alive.” While they all impatiently come together for the climax, as the film tries to tie all the loose ends together at once, complete with Machete being shot to death.

Only he’s not. I think.

With guardian angels, familial intrigue and a white dude machete training montage in the desert, writer and star Pablo Esparza — who I do hope that I’m related to on my maternal side — does what he can on this zero-budget actioner, even if very little of it makes any sense which, of course, makes it incredibly entertaining.

At the very least, I hope they got a few bucks from the Antigua Cruz sponsorship. It’s in this flick so much, I’m surprised that bottle didn’t get a producer’s credit. —Louis Fowler

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If you’re anything like me — and I’m guessing you probably aren’t — you probably thought that The Parent Trap would have been a might better with Bolo Yeung as a Triad hitman who mercilessly shotgunned Hayley Mills’ parents to death in the film’s opening.

Double Impact gets you halfway there, albeit with double the Jean-Claude Van Dammes. Let’s get together, yeah yeah yeah!

Here, JCVD takes on the dual roles of Chad and Alex, somewhat different twins separated at birth and driven together by their love of smoking-hot blondes and, I guess, solving the murder of their parents while collecting the apparent royalties from the Hong Kong-mainland tunnel their dad completed before his death. But mostly smoking-hot blondes.

Between selling smuggled Mercedes on the high seas to busting up a clandestine Hong Kong drug operation, the brothers seem to be getting along until one of them gets way too drunk and imagines in his mind — and dramatized onscreen, thankfully — the other brother sexually satisfying a smoking-hot blonde, leading to some classic Van Damme-on-Van Damme action.

Still, after seeing a few Triads storm the beach the next morning, they decide to put their mutual dislike of each other aside and take on the nameless Chinese sentries, all to get to the snooty British businessman that, as snooty British businessmen are wont to do, put the hit on his parents for reason I still haven’t grasped.

With many instances of Bolo Yeung’s burly stockiness lurking about — and even a little bit of Cory Everson’s muscular thigh-crunching for equal opportunity — the screenplay, written by Van Damme and director Sheldon Lettich (Lionheart), is a highly nonsensical but ultimately fun kick to both of the gonads, preferably while in the patented Van Damme splits position.

For years, Van Damme has teased a sequel pitting Chad and Alex against the “South Central mob,” if such a thing exists, but those plans have yet to see the light of day. I guess those Tostitos commercials are the closest we’re ever going to come, which I’m okay with. —Louis Fowler

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In this life, there are many things that heroes shed but, apparently, tears are not one of them. At least that is the thesis statement behind John Woo’s 1986 testes-dropper, Heroes Shed No Tears, starring Eddy Ko (PTU) as the non-crying hero.

Actually, I feel like I should walk that back a few steps: Ko, as Chinese mercenary Chan, does cry a time or two but, to be fair, it is because for a few moments he believes the evil Thai colonel has set his small child on fire. I think that, if you were not to cry at something like that, you’re probably more of a sociopath than an actual hero, but I guess that’s just me.

Anyway, Chan is the leader of a group of Chinese commandos out to capture Gen. Samton, who’s running the drug trade in the Golden Triangle. Even though the capture is primarily a success, crossing the mountain range and getting to their contact into Vietnam is quite the bitch, especially with Chan’s kid and his aunt, a French reporter and a couple of soldiers with a hilarious gambling problem in tow.

With one violently cool set piece after another — how the evil Thai colonel loses his eye is worth the price of admission unless, you know, you’re an evil Thai colonel — this flick isn’t a predictor of future Woo flicks like The Killer or Hard Boiled, but instead absolute bloody proof that his ballistic ballets had been a staple of Hong Kong cinema for a while; it just took the rest of us world-cinema jerks to catch up to him.

Arguably one of the best action films in a decade that had nothing but, Heroes Shed No Tears is the overseas grindhouse version of the Rambo movies, with plenty of fighting for the guys, romance for the gals, and hardcore scenes of gambling addiction for the drunk uncles in the audience. —Louis Fowler

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