Jason Trost — The FP‘s writer, director and star (and probably caterer) — had an interesting idea for a follow-up: What if you mashed up Saw with superheroes? Well, you might get something like All Superheroes Must Die (also called Vs., a title I don’t like any better). Unfortunately, what you don’t get is a good movie.

Four superheroes (Charge, Cutthroat, Shadow and The Wall) wake up in a seemingly deserted town, stripped of their powers, and are forced to play a deadly game concocted by their arch-nemesis, Rickshaw. The game, one that they’re destined to lose, involves running from one building to another and overcoming various challenges with the lives of various innocent civilians on the line. If they refuse to play or try to leave, Rickshaw threatens to blow up the entire town.

Operating on a budget of what looks like a hundred dollars and change, Trost gives it an admirable go, but the movie becomes bogged down in too many plot holes (how did Rickshaw manage to capture them in the first place?), too many unanswered questions (their superpowers are never explained), too many eye-rolling scenes (the characters have a knack for heart-to-heart conversations while their time is clearly running out) and too many seams showing (in both their costumes and the “special effects,” as in explosions being shown by an off-camera stagehand tossing bits of wood and handfuls of dirt into frame).

That’s not to say that I hated everything about All Superheroes Must Die, like:
• There’s an interesting scene in which Charge (Trost) decides to sacrifice a few civilians for the sake of his teammates. 
• As Rickshaw, James Remar (48 Hrs.) has a terrific time chewing the scenery and showing that he can out-act the rest of the cast — and all while just sitting behind a desk. 
• Cutthroat’s hot sister somehow manages to look sexy while tied up and strapped to a bomb. —Slade Grayson

Buy it at Amazon.

I can understand why so many of the so few who saw Funny Games hated it. That means it made its point.

A shot-for-shot remake of his Austrian film a decade prior, writer/director Michael Haneke (Caché) serves up a brilliant deconstruction of the family-in-peril scenario we’ve seen time and time again. The difference here is that Haneke approaches it from a (mostly) realistic angle rather than a cinematic one: You’re going to get what you expected to see — violence — but not necessarily delivered the way you want it.

But you’ll get it nonetheless, and Haneke will rub your nose in the mess and, adding insult to injury, blast some ungodly John Zorn noise on the soundtrack.

Naomi Watts (Mulholland Dr.) and Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs) make up the well-to-do married couple whose coastal vacation home is invaded by the well-scrubbed psychopaths Paul (Michael Pitt, TV’s Boardwalk Empire) and Peter (Brady Corbet, Melancholia) posing as rich kids in tennis sweaters. The two break his kneecap, tie her up half-naked, and bet that they and their son (Devon Gearhart, Shorts) will be dead by morning. Let the Games begin!

Paul and Peter draw out their twisted little plan to where the family is agonized by the mere dread of the inevitable — and viewers by their lack of patience. When very bad things do happen, Haneke generally doesn’t let his camera catch them, so audiences decrying Funny Games for crossing a line leads me to believe that we have become a nation of pussies. It’s a challenging watch, sure, but one that is crafted with a clinical detachment, is acted splendidly (especially by Watts) and sticks with you. If you hate Paul and Peter so much — and you will — that you want to punch the screen, don’t blame the movie for doing its job. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Terror on the 40th Floor is really a scorned-lovers drama disguised as a disaster movie. TV’s Dynasty magnate John Forsythe stars in the terrible, made-for-the-tube The Towering Inferno knock-off as one of seven people trapped in an office high-rise after their Christmas party when some janitorial dolt below causes a raging fire, which he immediately tries to put out with one foot!

The occupants don’t even realize their dire situation until about halfway through, and then they each have individual flashbacks about Interpersonal Relationship Crap. Meanwhile, Joseph Campanella (Meteor) bites it while trying to escape down the elevator shaft and some woman goes bonkers and runs through a plate-glass window. And since NFLer Don Meredith is on board, you’ll want to as well. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Before he was the Bad Lieutenant, Harvey Keitel played another bad lieutenant in the Italian-made Corrupt (aka Bad Cop II, Copkiller, Order of Death and an easy paycheck) as Lt. Fred O’Connor.

He works in the narcotics division, where members of his team have been offed by a cop killer. When Leo Smith (John Lydon, aka Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten) shows up at his apartment and claims to be the culprit, O’Connor gets all Keitel on his ass, tying him up and holding him hostage in his bathroom.

Corrupt is one of those psychological cat-and-mouse games where the tables are continually (but not surprisingly) being turned. Unfortunately, when the fortunes shift from Keitel’s character to Lydon’s, the movie grows tiresome (not to mention confusing, as their interaction borders on a homosexual relationship, as does the one between Keitel and his secret live-in cop roomie).

As evil as his O’Connor becomes, it’s hard not to root for Keitel throughout the whole thing — namely because he’s not Lydon, who comes off as a snot-nosed, insufferable prick whose acting is annoying as his music (yeah, I said it). Speaking of music, Ennio Morricone’s score? Not among his best. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Oh, those Eyes of Laura Mars and the things they see! As played by Faye Dunaway, her Network Oscar still fairly fresh, Ms. Mars is a photographer by trade whose violent, sexual, trashy shots court an equal share of hype and hysteria, and best can be described as something you’d expect to see in the Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog, should the lingerie purveyor ever publish a catalog post-doomsday.

With a ridiculous amount of media attention showered on her book-release party — complete with live, televised footage from the red carpet — Laura’s big night is deflated by news of the mysterious murder of her book’s editor. It’s merely the first in a series of stabbings to come.

That Laura “sees” the homicides happening in her mind is problematic enough. (That Dunaway plays it like the proverbial deer in the headlights is another.) That the crimes are staged to match some of her photos is worse. Investigating is a police detective (Tommy Lee Jones in the unibrow-and-hair-helmet phase of his career) for whom she starts to fall, despite being a suspect.

As directed by Irvin Kershner (The Empire Strikes Back), the film is as expected: a workmanlike thriller sporting as much gloss as the pages of fashion mags that pay Laura’s utility bills. But as dreamt up and co-written by Halloween maestro John Carpenter, it’s a real disappointment. His made-for-TV movie of the same year, Someone’s Watching Me!, generates considerably more suspense at half the star wattage. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.