Twenty years after beefy cop Richard Flynn (Steve Barkett, Bikini Drive-In) saves a baby from being sacrificed in a satanic ritual, the middle-aged man is no longer on the force. Now he’s a self-employed bounty hunter who takes weekly swordplay lessons from a female instructor he can’t help but sexually harass.

Then, because movie villains rise only like clockwork on round-numbered anniversaries, the cult leader, Arkham (Richard Harrison, Evil Spawn), resurfaces, either to drive a wedge between Flynn and his Hungry-Man dinner of Chipotle BBQ Sauced Boneless Chicken Wyngz, or to claim the now-grown child (Christopher Barkett, Steve’s real-life loin fruit). Although no longer beholden to the badge, Flynn and his bushy mustache protect the kid from Arkham and his army of ninjas, not to mention an eventual stop-motion monster cast in the Equinox mold. Like it or not, Flynn has found himself smack-dab in an Empire of the Dark.

In his second (and so far final) film as writer, director, producer, editor and lead (following 1982’s post-apoc The Aftermath), Barkett comes to the card table with a low budget and disproportionately high hopes. Ambition in making his bonkers fantasy a reality is not Barkett’s liability — talent is. Just because one can think it does not necessarily translate to doing it. Being visible, his work in front of the camera obviously demonstrates this theory best, beginning with his atypical action-star visage, more Ron Swanson than Indiana Jones. Donning denim jackets and lumpy-dumpy pants, Barkett appears to be a hero in the eyes of no one but himself and the regional manager of Hometown Buffet. Even more so, he wears a disconcerting amount of sweatpants throughout Empire’s two-hour reign.

Behind the camera, his style of editing boils down to the most editing. For example, how many establishing shots of a church are needed for the viewer to discern Flynn has arrived at a church? The reasonable answer, of course, is “one,” especially since you can allow that big, lowercase T outside to do the talking. Barkett’s answer, however, numbers four to six, even upon return visits! There is padding, and then there is ignorance. —Rod Lott

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James Stellar is Bigfoot, “The Eighth Wonder of the World,” as the opening credits of 1970’s Bigfoot state.

Meanwhile, you might state, “Who the hell is James Stellar?” And I already told you: He plays Bigfoot. Oh, you mean what other things might you have seen him in? Gotcha. And the answer is nothing. Per the IMDb, the man never appeared in a single movie or TV show before or since, and while I’m not necessarily saying you should take that as a sign, I’m not not necessarily saying you should take that as a sign, either.

All I took away from this sorry excuse of a sci-fi adventure is what is I already knew: Damn, Joi Lansing was hot! As pilot Joi Landis (lazy naming being a beacon of Bigfoot’s originality), the heaving leading lady of Hillbillys in a Haunted House is forced to evacuate her single-prop plane midair and parachutes her way to safety in a forest. Well, it’s safe until Bigfoot shows up to snag her and bind her to a pole, presumably for purposes of breeding. I can’t say I blame him.

Actually, there are several sasquatch hanging around, maybe even one per cast member. Director Robert F. Slatzer (The Hellcats) packs that cast with no one special, other than John Carradine (House of the Long Shadows) as a traveling store owner named Jasper, Doodles Weaver (Macon County Line) as a forest ranger, and two direct relatives of Robert Mitchum. In this fetid film’s case, more is less. —Rod Lott

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En route toward some much-needed R&R, the oil-and-vinegar brothers Josh (Wings Hauser, Vice Squad) and Mike (Lee Montgomery, Burnt Offerings) run afoul of a truckful of rednecks on the open road. The encounter ends with the sibs’ car in a ditch, effectively stranding the boys in this tiny town of Confederate flags, Royal Crown Cola and one alcoholic sheriff (Bo Hopkins, From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money).

Oh, and blue-faced ghouls whose bodies leak pus the color and consistency of baby diarrhea — can’t forget those!

Thanks to a toxic waste facility on the edge of town, various residents turn into zombies of some sort: the kind imbued with the touch of death. Their hands can melt glass and contact with human skin causes burns — or at least a little sizzle o’ steam, like the kind you may see while ironing.

Personally, if I’m asked to choose a story of a small town under siege that also happens to be directed by John “Bud” Cardos, I’m picking Kingdom of the Spiders each and every time. No offense, Mutant, but you rate a not-even-close second. The troubled and final Film Ventures production, Mutant (aka Night Shadows, a redundant title similar to saying Wet Water) works as passable time-filler without becoming anything special, although Cardos does have the balls to pull a Marion Crane near the 20-minute mark. More notable about Mutant is that, like a certain brand of feminine hygiene products, it has Wings. And the intensity of his performance is matched only by that of his Afro. —Rod Lott

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If only Officer Downe were a phony trailer wedged into Grindhouse’s midsection and went no further, it would be perfect. Instead, it is a full feature film — one that tries the soul before tearing it. The initial feature to be directed by clown-masked Slipknot founder Shawn Crahan, it exists from elements of RoboCop, Taxi Driver and a failed Adderall placebo, yet puts onscreen what neither Paul Verhoeven nor Martin Scorsese dared: a running “Orgasm Counter” — twice, in fact, just in case you don’t get your fill of this “joke” the first time it wears out its never-extended welcome.

Based on the same-named graphic novel — emphasis on “graphic” — Officer Downe puts Kim Coates (The Last Boy Scout) in the uniform of the LAPD cop who cannot be killed, at least not permanently. Armed with a custom .85 Magnum and a God-given bad attitude, Downe battles the devilish scourges of the City of Angels, from a group of gun-running nuns (including Drag Me to Hell’s Alison Lohman) and the animal-headed criminal organization dubbed the Fortune 500 to the martial-arts dynamo Zen Master Flash (Sona Eyambe, Wolf Warrior), whose speech is out of sync with his mouth movements — a wacky idea that died 31 years ago with Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment.

“Gun-runnin’ nuns? Are you fucking kidding me?” asks one apoplectic character, echoing my exact sentiments.

Faithfully adapted for the screen by Downe creator Joe Casey, the movie is a candy-colored mess that carelessly yet knowingly scatters flakes of its own detritus everywhere. Crahan’s crank-addled camera is not its problem; that dubious honor falls to a failure to justify its existence, and mind you, I would have accepted “just for fun” as an answer. But it’s not fun. Gleefully infantile and all too reliant on the word “fuck,” it reminded me of the witless comics that junior-high classmates and I would draw, exquisite corpse-style, in attempts to amuse ourselves on days of standardized testing: We knew they were terrible, but we had to do something while waiting quietly for the football players and/or woodshop students to struggle to finish each section. You, however? You have a choice of a million other flicks. Like Slipknot’s popular brand of nü-metal noise, I am sure Officer Downe has its place; I am more certain I reside nowhere near it. —Rod Lott

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Picture this (because you certainly don’t want to witness it for real): Two alien creatures who happen to be brothers crash-land on Earth. One of them, Nukie (rhymes with “dookie,” which is what he appears to be made of), lands safely in the jungles of Africa. The other one, Niko, is injured upon his arrival in Florida, whereupon he is snatched by evil NASA staffers who stick tubes up his nose and jab him with needles. As contrivance and convenience would have it, both aliens speak English, yet never move their mouths.

In his search for his sibling (who also looks like a bowel movement with eyes), Nukie inadvertently scares away rhinos, yet carries on conversations with baboons as snot drips out his nose. He also encounters twin native boys whose loincloths constantly expose their 8-year-old rumps. Glynis Johns (1962’s The Cabinet of Caligari) plays a nun in the village, while Turkey Shoot-er Steve Railsback is an astronaut in search of Nukie.

Co-directed by Sias Odendaal and Michael Pakleppa (Break Out: Rap in the Bronx), this international production is E.T. meets Sally Struthers’ ChildFund commercials. Given that animals talk and that its space-monkey star is a foam-rubber creation with facial paralysis, Nukie is aimed directly at the kids. Two words of warning to parents, however:
1. The scenes of Niko being subjected to shock therapy will frighten them.
2. Also, they will come to resent you with every fiber of their being years in advance. —Rod Lott

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