In ’60s cinema, Italian superhero movies were 2 lire a dozen. However, only one is from the guy who would give cinema a naked Amazonian girl impaled anus-to-mouth on a spiked pole. Working under the Americanized moniker Roger Rockefeller, future Cannibal Holocaust chaos agent Ruggero Deodato wrote and directed Fenomenal and the Treasure of Tutankamen early in his career.

Mauro Parenti (Justine de Sade) stars as Guy Norton, bearded count by day, Parisian superhero by, well, day. Norton exhibits primo sartorial choices that go out the window when costumed as his crimefighting alter ego. As Fenomenal (Italian for “phenomenal,” if you haven’t guessed), he’s dressed all in black, save for his hands and belt buckle; capping the outfit are sensible shoes on his fleet feet and pantyhose over his head. Super powers are nil, but he can legibly write his name inside a briefcase to trick a thieving bandit.

Fresh from foiling a heroin ring at sea, Fenomenal is tasked with hunting for an ancient relic, the whereabouts of which are hidden in hieroglyphics on the mask of ol’ King Tut, currently on exhibition. Villainous Gregory Falco (Gordon Mitchell, White Fire) wants his hands on it. A woman named Mike (Enter the Devil’s Lucretia Love, Parenti’s soon-to-be spouse) wants her hands on Norton; she introduces herself as being the daughter of “the canned meat king.”

Because Bruno Nicolai’s score is seasoned with jaunty “ba-da-bah-bah-bah” ziggalybops, none of Treasure of Tutankamen is to be taken seriously — good to know since logic is negligible. People get double-crossed; take the pic’s word for it when you’re told. A Eurospy staple, fun is had with all kinds of transportation — cars, speedboats, yachts, helicopters, wheelchairs — but the best scene is something right out of the Matt Helm pictures: Fenomenal fights a fez-wearing goon in a ladies’ sauna. As towel-torsoed women run and scream, Feno dodges thrown chairs and punches.

Phenomenal? Hardly. But it’s passable, as long as you know it’s no second coming of Danger: Diabolik. —Rod Lott

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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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Covert operative-turned-family man Derek Leigh (Maxwell Caulfield) leads the good life. Having shunned busting drug cartels, he now spends his time on menial construction gigs, his dorky family and harvesting quite the porn-star mustache. But when Bandera (Trevor Goddard, 1995’s Mortal Kombat), a criminal he helped put behind bars, makes a prison break and slaughters his fam in payback, ol’ Derek again turns to kickin’ villain booty.

The style in which he does so, however, sets Prey of the Jaguar apart fron your standard, direct-to-video revenge thriller. Caulfield consults an Asian kung-fu master (John Fujioka, American Ninja) for training, purchases a crossbow and dart guns, and dons a homemade costume to become a superhero named — pause for dramatic effect — The Jaguar.

Hobbling along in plastic, smeared face paint and ViewMaster goggles, he looks like RoboCop costumed by TG&Y. Sharing a trait with Caulfield’s Grease 2 character, The Jaguar’s also a cool rider, scouting about town on a sleek black motorcycle, even though this film doesn’t have the budget to fill the Kawasaki Ninja with gas so we can see it move.

Caulfield gives an expertly poor performance as the unwitting, yet comfortably quick-quipping crimefighter. When Leigh informs his Remo Williams-esque mentor that (in so many words) his to-buy list will be much, much shorter this Christmas, he hugs a punching bag and collapses into unconvincing sobs. Then there’s the matter of the hard-to-swallow dialogue, too, like when Jag confronts his nemesis’ henchman:

Jaguar: “Tell Bandera he better learn to pray, because now he is!”
Henchie: “What?”
Jaguar: “Prey!”

Prey of the Jaguar trots out all the clichés; among them, the enemy who makes a bullseye in darts just as he vows to kill the hero, and the inevitable good-guy-saved-when-bad-guy-gets-shot-in-the-back-by-surprise-supporting-character climax. It also trots out the inexplicable, like a ponytailed Stacy Keach cameo or an ultra-secret government spy agency running reports on a dot-matrix printer.

In the hands of hack director David DeCoteau (Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama), Prey cannot be taken seriously, not even when it offs the protagonist’s wife and kid. The setup and credit sequence scream “syndicated TV movie,” while Caulfield jumping around (subbed in part by obvious stunt doubles with longer hair) like a Ritalin kid on Halloween is the nail in the credibility coffin.

Following other Z-level DTV heroes like Black Scorpion and The Demolitionist, this Jaguar is another dumb-fun example of why superhero movies are tough to tackle without tens of millions of dollars. —Rod Lott

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Remembering the incredible — and incredibly ridiculous — controversy surrounding the 1984 release of Silent Night, Deadly Night, I’m wondering if the nary-a-peep outcry over 2022’s Violent Night is a sign that society has progressed or become desensitized. (I don’t have the answer.)

After all, whereas Silent Night’s slasher was merely a psycho killer disguised in a Santa suit, Violent Night casts David Harbour (TV’s Stranger Things) as the jolly, real-deal Claus. Instead of an ax, he wields a mighty sledgehammer. And ice skate blades. And a stocking stuffed with billiard balls. And candy canes sucked down to sharp, lethal points. You’ll poke your eye out!

No matter the weapon, it’s all for a good reason: With equal parts Die Hard and Home Alone, Santa’s defending a mansion of über-wealthy people against bad guys seeking the contents of the safe on Dec. 24. The have-nots are led by John Leguizamo (John Wick 2), while the haves’ balls-of-steel matriarch is Beverly D’Angelo, no doubt cast to upend expectations of her most visible role as the perfect wife of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

The setup is almost incidental, and Tommy Wirkola (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters) directs accordingly. To the film’s credit, it does not take the first word of its title lightly; the punishment Santa doles out is gruesome and graphic. It’d be nihilistic if not for Violent Night also being a self-parody. Having a puking-drunk, public-urinating, F-bomb-dropping, skull-crushing Santa as a hero is no surefire audience-rouser, but with Harbour bringing the slovenly, beer-bellied elements of his Emmy-nommed Chief Hopper character to the table, his sardonic take works like a charm. —Rod Lott

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Dear Santa,

What I really want for Christmas is a new drone. One with a camera and that goes real real fast.

If you get me this drone, I will be very very happy. I will make a movie with it. It will be about an ambulance that gets taken by bank robbers and is chased all over Los Angeles by the police cars and helicopters. I might even call the movie Ambulance. Maybe I will get a big star like Jake Jillinhall Gillinhall Gillenhal G. to star in it. He’s good!

I could use the drone to do lots and lots of cool camera tricks. It could swoop down streets real real fast or hover over their heads. I might even want to use it like in normal shots where the people who make real movies wouldn’t use it. Maybe if I make those shots super duper quick like a split second, no one will know.

But mostly I just want to use the drone a lot! I really really want people to watch my movie and then say “Hey he got a new drone!”

So please please bring me that drone. I gave you half an Oreo.

Your friend,
Mikey Bay

—Rod Lott

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