Larry Cohen does his best Brian De Palma imitation with Special Effects, which is to say a poor one. Perhaps the only special thing about this minor effort is that, more than any other of the filmmaker’s works, the movie demonstrates he’s better at conceiving ideas than birthing them. This one’s certainly no Q; it’s a Zzzzz.

In her first role post-Ms. 45, Zoe Tamerlis plays Mary Jean, a naive, Oklahoma-to-Manhattan actress who cheats on her hick husband, Keefe (Brad Rijn, Smithereens) with a down-and-out film director she’s just met. He’s Neville (Talk Radio’s Eric Bogosian, speaking out of his mouth’s left side), who feeds her the line, “I think we should do a slow dissolve to the bedroom.” It works, and while writhing in the pink satin sheets, Neville strangles her to death.

Rather than become the prime suspect, Neville cannily deflects suspicion by making a movie about the murder, with the intent to pin the crime on the yokel spouse who agrees to play himself. Essaying the role of Mary Jean is her dead ringer, Elaine (also Tamerlis), a clothes sorter at the Salvation Army.

Sounds absurd, right? It should, for Special Effects is a messy bundle of story threads Cohen doesn’t bother to unravel before attempting to connect. If he had, I suspect the film would remain too ludicrous to swallow; Rijn and Tamerlis’ near-amateurish performances wouldn’t be remedied by even the sharpest script. With touches like Neville choking someone with 35mm film and asking, “Who made your head? Carlo Rambaldi?,” the movie must be intended as some industry-insider statement, but what the statement says is as mysterious as the entire premise is muddled.

Aside from a quick visual joke referencing Tootsie, Special Effects bears precious little of Cohen’s clever sensibilities. —Rod Lott

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Nick Dunn (John Bromfield, Revenge of the Creature) is the worst kind of used-car salesman: honest. His sales position at the Big John lot is eradicated after he lets a $700 MG sale collapse because he points out all its safety features, or lack thereof.

Dangling wads of cash, a flashy man named Markel (Ralph Clanton, 1950’s Cyrano de Bergerac) hires Dunn for one of his lots in a deal that seems to good to be true. That’s because, as Dunn is informed by a nosy detective (Dabbs Greer, Invasion of the Body Snatchers), it’s a “real cozy hot car racket” for stolen vehicles. Being a square-jawed, stand-up guy, Dunn quits … but then asks for the gig back when a hospitalization of his infant son for some vague malady forces him to change his tune.

Steered with no-nonsense efficiency by Western TV director Don McDougall, Hot Cars runs exactly one full hour, giving the story no time to idle. It’s a nice, tidy forgotten chunk of noir with a booming Les Baxter score and winning tough-guy dialogue, even for the dames: “I’ve got broad shoulders, Nick. I’ll even let you cry on one of them.”

That line is spoken by Markel’s mink-wrapped, big-bosomed, kept-blonde hussy (the hubba-hubba Scopitone fantasy girl Joi Lansing) who tests Nick’s loyalty to the wedding ring ’round his finger. And speaking of dangerous curves, the film famously ends with a thrilling fistfight-to-the-death on a moving roller coaster. —Rod Lott

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Part of Spain’s Films to Keep You Awake series, A Christmas Tale takes place in December 1985, and the year can’t be coincidental. That summer saw the release of the Steven Spielberg production The Goonies, which this film so closely resembles it’s like the unauthorized Spielbergian-tribute counterpart to J.J. Abrams’ official one in Super 8.

With virtually no apparent parental supervision, four tween boys and one girl ride bikes and hang out and watch VHS tapes. One day in the woods, they happen upon a deep pit, into which has fallen a grubby woman in a Santa Claus suit. Upon learning from the TV news that she’s the “extremely dangerous” bank robber Rebeca Expósito (Maru Valdivielso, Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt), they decide against helping the injured fugitive to safety, but for keeping her as their “secret pet.”

They even get a crash course in extortion, exploiting her hunger to learn the whereabouts of the millions she stole. An escape, however, is only a matter of time, and Rebeca’s shuffling, ax-dragging body chasing them through an abandoned amusement park reminds the kids of Zombie Invasion, a film-within-the-film (starring Beyond Re-Animator‘s luscious Elsa Pataky) whose rules of undead-killing they appropriate to get out of their particular pickle alive.

The only thing running more heavily through A Christmas Tale (aka Xmas Tale) than danger is nostalgia. These kids play Milton Bradley’s Simon, worship Star Wars, and rewind the crane-kick climax of The Karate Kid in amazement. That’s not to suggest the film doesn’t have balls; [REC] franchise director Paco Plaza appears all too happy to burst out the gore when it’s called for, and the ending leans more naughty than nice. —Rod Lott

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Upon reading that ice skater Samantha (Lynne Frederick, Phase IV) is set to marry a well-to-do businessman (John Leyton, The Great Escape), middle-aged Haskin (John Watson, Peeping Tom) packs a big ol’ knife, hops a train to London, rents a room at a men’s hostel, and intends to freak her out. He totally succeeds.

See, as Samantha explains, Haskin was not only her mum’s lover, but her killer — an act Sam witnessed when she was 7. Now she’s convinced Haskin wants to do the same to her, despite the illogic of it all: “But he’s mad! He doesn’t need a reason!” His harassment antics have her so jumpy that she turns fraidy-cat over the smallest things, from a fake spider in the soap dish to hearing her name in the grocery store where she buys her Weetabix or whatever it is the Brits eat for breakfast.

As bodies start to pile up around Sam, Schizo is at its Psycho-tic best. Director Pete Walker (House of Whipcord) stages some fairly gruesome-for-the-era murders, including a sledgehammer to the noggin and a knitting needle through the face — too bad they’re not delivered with suspense. Instead, they’re telegraphed; for example, he shows you there’s a knife-wielding killer hiding in the backseat well before the driver gets his throat slit. There’s just no surprise in store.

Until the twist ending, that is, which although an interesting turnaround, is a cheat. For all its promise and bloodshed, Schizo is a pedestrian, stalk-and-slash thriller too bloated for its own good. Once Walker throws in a psychic who goes all milky-eyed while chatting up the dead, you’re more than ready for a denouement. —Rod Lott

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The Black Hole beauty Yvette Mimieux stars as Hit Lady Angela de Vries, a blonde assassin-for-hire in this Aaron Spelling/Leonard Goldberg made-for-TV movie. Before the opening credits, she’s summarily dispatched of an oversexed cowboy with ease, but when her boss (Clu Gulager, The Return of the Living Dead) gives her another assignment, she starts wanting out of the game to enjoy life with Doug, her poor shutterbug boyfriend, played by Dack Rambo (Good Against Evil).

Angela is given a few days to kill union boss Baine (Joseph Campanella, Ben) and make it look like an accident. Knowing he likes Mozart — suh-weet insider info, no? — she manages to run into him at a concert, and he immediately begins wining and dining (and soon balling) her. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen the ol’ gas bag Campanella shaking his rump to disco music, and once you do, you’ll want said life to end right then and there.

If you think Angela starts to fall for her mark, congrats — you’ve obviously seen a Spelling/Goldberg production before. Hit Lady is nothing if not all about predictability; the most shocking thing about it is that it was written by Mimieux herself. Who knew she could write? Hell, who knew she could spell?

It ends with Doug being somewhat of an hired gun himself. His mark? Angela, of course, and it serves her right, the two-timing bitch. —Rod Lott

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