In the Italian film A Hyena in the Safe, various international criminals responsible for a massive diamond heist meet at their late boss’ castle to divvy up shares of the kitty. As ironclad insurance, the loot sits in a safe not only kept underwater, but requires six keys to open and, to prevent drilling, contains a layer of radioactive uranium.

Each crook has brought his or her key … but the arrogant addict Albert (Sandro Pizzochero, The Slasher … Is the Sex Maniac!) suddenly can’t find his. Smelling a put-on, the others even tear the clothes off Albert’s fiancée (Cristina Gaioni, Flesh for Frankenstein) to make sure she’s not hiding the metal key — you know, with all its sharp, jagged edges — in her supple lady parts.

The next morning, one of the gathered robbers dies. Was it suicide or murder? You can guess, because the corpses keep on comin’ until the pic more or less becomes And Then There Were Nessuno.

Cesare Canevari (The Gestapo’s Last Orgy) directs with an unusual level of panache. He gets away clean with a slew of wildly exaggerated shots in part because the script he and Alberto Penna wrote calls for such a treatment, what with the castle’s secret passages, hidden features and occasionally Bedazzled widow. She’s played by the lovely and lascivious Marie Luise Greisberger, who somehow has no other acting credits — a crime in itself.

With a Gian Piero Reverberi theme that sounds like Herb Alpert on an all-expense-paid vacation to Carnival, A Hyena in the Safe does something I’ve never seen another movie attempt: Let a shapeless yellow blob throb in the lower-left corner of the frame for two minutes until it morphs into the parting word “FINE.” If you wish to read “FINE” as English, just know the movie is much more than merely that. —Rod Lott

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Criminal mastermind Dr. Mabuse isn’t the only one who returns in, well, The Return of Dr. Mabuse. So does Gert Fröbe, Goldfinger himself, as Inspector Lohmann. Having to cancel a fishing trip he was looking forward to so much that he patted his wife’s prodigious rear, Lohmann investigates the murder of a man to keep incriminating evidence from coming to light.

It should surprise no one that Mabuse (Wolfgang Preiss, Mill of the Stone Women) is behind it all. The pro villain is also behind a new narcotic that, when injected, turns prisoners into hypno-slaves — all the better to overtake the local atomic power plant. If only Lohmann can stop him! It should surprise no one that Lohmann can, albeit with the assistance of an FBI agent (Lex Barker, after five swings as Tarzan) and a comely photographer (Daliah Lavi, 1965’s Ten Little Indians).

More fun than the previous film, Fritz Lang’s The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse, Harald Reinl’s mean franchise debut with Return boasts a bevy of exploitable elements, from rudimentary car chases to a runaway train. You might think the highlight of this lean and kinda Eurocrime pic is the blind man meeting his end between a brick wall and a truck grill, but you’d be wrong. That honor goes to the floozy who gets flambéd by a flamethrower — in front of the Bimbo Bar, no less! —Rod Lott

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As anyone who read ol’ muttonchops Isaac Asimov knows, precious little of his classic I, Robot collection made into the Will Smith sci-fi blockbuster of the same name. Anyone hoping for a semi-faithful adaptation should either keep waiting or hunt down Isaac Asimov’s Robots. Frankly, since the latter option is a “VCR Mystery Game,” you may be better off letting time idle. 

The Eastman Kodak production stars Stephen Rowe (Cyber-Tracker 2) as New York City ace police detective Elijah Baley, a head shorter than everyone else. He’s partnered with a walking, talking, trash can-looking robot named Sammy (Richard Levine, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2) to solve the attempted murder of a Spacertown roboticist (John Henry Cox, Bridge of Spies) in 24 hours or less.

As Baley stumbles upon vital clues to crack the case, he addresses the camera about evidence he’s submitting, prompting viewers to draw a card from the game’s deck. Or something like that. Watching the bush-league acting of Robots for its 45 minutes is rough enough; I can’t imagine having to play the accompanying game, too. What I can imagine is children so bored, they begged to go do homework instead.

One of Asimov’s celebrated Three Laws of Robotics is do no harm to humans, which the mere of existence of Isaac Asimov’s Robots contradicts. The drab whodunit looks as cheap as the video on which it was shot, seemingly made on Sesame Street sets. It plays like TV’s Alien Nation were retooled as a sitcom, but mistakenly beamed for broadcast minus a laugh track. —Rod Lott

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Driving one stormy night, university professor Cass Anderson (Minka Kelly, 2011’s The Roommate) passes a car on the roadside. Behind the wheel, a woman appears asleep, so Cass continues toward home. The next morning, she learns the woman was not only dead, but murdered!

Soon after, strange figures appear in and outside the mega mansion in which Cass and her husband (Dermot Mulroney, Scream IV) live. She receives mysterious phone calls ridden with static. Worse, she seems not to remember things that others in her immediate circle — like her best friend (Maggie Grace, The Hurricane Heist) — do. 

Guilt? Haunting? Something else? 

At its foundation, Blackwater Lane is built on the reliable structure of Gothic fiction: the hysterical woman with creaky mansion to match. This house, so big it practically has a moat, is in a remodeling phase (no word if that includes yellow wallpaper), so plastic tarps make the place feel anything but homey. Donning an array of cozy turtlenecks and high-thread nightgowns, Kelly wears the imperiled-wife role well. She’s a better actress than she’s given credit for. Now that she’s aged out of the ingenue phase of her career — you know, back when she was the stuff of lad mags like Stuff — perhaps others can see that. 

Although it’s based closely on The Breakdown, a 2017 novel by B.A. Paris, Blackwater Lane reminds me of other movies — specifically, of Psychosis, a Charisma Carpenter vehicle with similar themes, and generally, made-for-cable thrillers of the early ’90s. That latter group is not necessarily a bad thing when its members include Frank Darabont’s Buried Alive, Mick Garris’ Psycho IV: The Beginning, Tobe Hooper’s I’m Dangerous Tonight and Phedon Papamichael’s (who?) Sketch Artist — high-gloss pulp trash one and all, each watchable, of course. 

The major problem is this mystery from Jeff Celentano (1998’s Gunshy) is a half-hour too long for a solution not just so easily sussed out by Act 2’s dawn, but teased obliviously ad nauseam thereafter, underestimating viewers’ intelligence. On the page, its machinations likely aren’t the giveaways that the visual medium can’t help but highlight. Then again, I haven’t read the book. Maybe bromidic dialogue like “Well, it’s a mistake. She’s mistaken!” comes straight from the source? —Rod Lott

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If you weren’t alive and aware of your surroundings in the late 1970s, you can’t comprehend the level of popularity and pervasiveness the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen gripped on our culture. It’d be impressive for anyone, but it’s extraordinary for a dude who’d spent the previous 3,000 years as a pile of dust. 

Among the cashing-inners: NBC, broadcasting The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb, a horror-tinged, mystery-minded work of fiction somehow based on Barry Wynne’s nonfiction book. A dapper Robin Ellis (TV’s original Poldark) headlines the made-for-telly movie as real-life tomb raider Howard Carter, whose bowtie looms larger than the bottom half of his face. Carter endears himself at the start by asking a local boy his name and, apparently not liking all the consonants and weird accents, tells the kid dismissively, “I’ll just call you ‘Fishbait.’”

In the sands of Egypt, archeologist Carter and his crew unearth an artifact that warns of death for anyone who dares disturb the king’s sleep. Near immediately, “accidents” befall others: a scorpion attack, a snakebite, an earthquake, the snapping of a biddy’s parasol in two! Say, how do you expect that biplane with a skull-and-crossbones decal will fare? 

The “mystery” at play is whether is the harm — fatal or not — is proof of a true supernatural curse or the work of a corrupt dealer played by Raymond Burr (Godzilla 1985) in brownface and various color sashes. Only everybody watching knows for sure! 

Eva Marie Saint (North by Northwest) is on hand to lend Oscar-minted credibility to the project, but her role as Carter’s love interest is thankless. Somehow they also recruited the venerated Paul Scofield (Quiz Show) to deliver narration, which only adds to — rather than offsets — the telepic’s old-fashioned fussiness. —Rod Lott

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