Mystery

Isaac Asimov’s Robots (1988)

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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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Action

El Mariachi Narcotraficante (1999)

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In the wake of Robert Rodriguez’s lo-fi sleeper El Mariachi and the bigger-budgeted hit Desperado, the Mexican movie industry was somewhat reinvigorated to make more films in a similar vein, with much cheaper effects, more exploitive set pieces and far bloodier product.

One of these forgotten flick is the mostly shoddy El Mariachi Narcotraficante (or The Drug-Trafficking Mariachi) in 1999. As to be expected, it’s really not that great, but better than a lot of straight-to-video dreck back in the day.

Over the pre-millennium Videonics title cards, a young man (the middle-aged Sebastian Ligarde) and his pretty pathetic mariachi band are trying to play for a shitty club owner who, in a fit of rage, unloads on him and makes a run for it.

The mariachi’s home life isn’t much better, as his wife is kind of a bitch and he dotes on his mom who, melodramatically, has heart problems as she cries on her bed. Man, does this guy need a change of scenery or what?

Meanwhile, a slick “narco” character makes an official drop, presumably over large quantities of drugs. Making a deal, they are ambushed by the husky, plainclothes cop (the husky, plainclothes Jorge Rey) over oil barrels with his .357, squibs-a-popping.

Eventually, the Narco and the Mariachi cross paths — apparently, they are old friends — and, in a torrent of bullets, they go on the run and combine forces. Initially, they are successful. But after the Narco is gunned down and his mom is kidnapped, the Mariachi goes on a mission with, of all weapons, simulated swordplay.

After all parties are summarily executed, the surviving Mariachi has a good time with laughs and love with his mom as a freeze frame ends the whole movie.

With these narco-set 1990-something crime films taking the place of the sexy comedies of the 1980s, the macho façade that most of the protagonists project are here — and more than erect, with their steel guns (and flaccid dialogue) taking up most of the screen.

Sure, the direction is more “push a button” than anything else, with the film’s moneymaking intentions right there on its mariachi-ed sleeve. To be fair, it tries to be something different than a typical narco film, even if it doesn’t work much of the time.

In other words, unlike like Rodriguez’s flicks, El Mariachi Narcotraficante was a bad action movie with entertainingly good intentions. So, that’s something, right? —Louis Fowler

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Kitchen Sink

Freaky Tales (2024)

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WTF

Clearly filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden didn’t work out all their 1980s love on Captain Marvel. The decade’s aesthetic — from green neon to VHS tracking fuzz — is all over Freaky Tales like an infection. No can of Bactine stands a chance against the interlocking foursome of stories set in ’87 Oakland, California. (But bookended by unapologetic Nazis and sports stars’ homes robbed mid-game, the movie could take place in ’25 Anywhere, America.)

A simple siege of a peaceful punk club by skinheads, the first story establishes Freaky’s darkly comic, heavily violent tone. The second concerns a different type of war: one of words in a rap battle between Too $hort (Symba) and two young ladies (Normani and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s Dominique Thorne) who might be set up to lose. This bit would be entirely incidental, if not for introducing the movie’s ultimate villain (Ben Mendelsohn, Ready Player One) as an ultimate piece of shit. 

Things pick up considerably in the third segment, fronted by Pedro Pascal (Wonder Woman 1984) as a freelance enforcer on what he promises to his pregnant wife is his last assignment … until suddenly, he’s willing to work overtime for vengeance. (Psst: Somewhere within those ellipses, a surprise A-list cameo awaits to delight.)

Tales reaches its cathartic crescendo in sharing the legend of NBA player Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis, Top Gun: Maverick). Although the former Golden State Warrior is a real athlete, the night depicted here sure isn’t as Floyd takes grisly, glorious revenge upon a house party of Confederate scumbags for misdeeds against his family. This bravura sequence not only feels like a kung-fu cousin to the thwarted Manson murders in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood …, but practically doubles as a bid for Ellis to front that long-gestating Blade reboot.

Befitting a Tarantino reference, Freaky Tales often plays like chunks from a weekend’s Blockbuster Video binge — say, oh, Repo Man, Heavy Metal, Wild Style and Game of Death — vomited back up in a fever dream. Scrappy and strange with infrequent bursts of energy, this mishmash tries throughout to reach the level of fun it continually teases, until achieving near-nirvana in that fourth and final chapter. —Rod Lott

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Reading Material

Art! Trash! Terror!: Adventures in Strange Cinema

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As a painful chapter in my life ended several years ago, I nonetheless found myself having four addresses in as many months. Among the casualties of that chaotic string of pinballing moves was Chris Alexander’s Blood Spattered Book. Although overpriced for a mere 104 poorly laid-out pages, the 2010 paperback offered enjoyable criticism of exploitation films from the horror and fantasy realms.

Luckily, a good chunk of its contents exists in the former Fangoria/current Delirium editor’s newest collection, Art! Trash! Terror!: Adventures in Strange Cinema. And this time, I don’t have to cart it around in a dangerously flimsy cardboard box, which is extra-wonderful because at 460 glossy pages, this book is heavy. And because it’s from Headpress, publisher of Alexander’s acclaimed Corman/Poe in 2023, we also don’t have to deal with ghastly design.

Worthy of its punctuation, Art! Trash! Terror! touts 25 interviews, including Werner Herzog, Joe Dante, Caroline Munro and, most welcome of all, Richard Benjamin. But the book’s main attraction is more than 100 movies reviewed at length, each examined with introspection, know-how and wit (and an overuse of “a marvel” and “full stop”). Flicks cover the gamut of cult, with titles such as The Vampire’s Night Orgy and Godmonster of Indian Flats rubbing elbows and other extremities with Abby and Psychomania, plus newer fare like The Love Witch or Alien: Covenant (not to mention 10 Twilight Zone episodes).

With the exception of 1975’s X-rated Helena, there’s no film here of which I wasn’t already aware. But don’t you dare let that register as a complaint. Alexander’s greatest skill as a writer is connecting his reviews to his personal life, most especially recalling the experience surrounding that initial viewing — whether quietly watching a verboten tape as parents slept or acquiring pneumonia by trekking across town in Arctic temps to catch a Hammer double feature. Given streaming’s everything-everywhere-all-at-once availability, such stories are becoming rarities deserving of record.

That could be why the author chose to fill the book strictly with only plaudits, no pans. The essays herein have convinced me to give several lambasted flicks a try, like 2020’s The Turning, the Dean R. Koontz adaptation Hideaway and even James Franco’s Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? remake for the Lifetime cable channel. In the rare cases I disagree (say, William Friedkin’s The Guardian), I appreciate Alexander’s passionate defense; were I to be prosecuted in court for my viewing tastes, I’d want him to represent me.

Among all these Adventures in Strange Cinema, only one recommendation strikes me as a bridge too far: “Night Patrol is probably the funniest movie ever made. You should see it.”

Nah. But you should read it. —Rod Lott

Get it at Headpress.

Horror

Uncle Sleazo’s Toxic and Terrifying TV Hour (2022) 

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In its seven-word title, Uncle Sleazo’s Toxic and Terrifying TV Hour promises a lot. It even overdelivers on that last word by running an extra 28 minutes. Still, it comes up short in the one word that counts most for a horror film: “terrifying.” It’s anything but that.

Now, what the title doesn’t signal is that portions of the pic are funny — better, even intentionally so. We’ll get there shortly.

Lucky Cerruti’s anthology comes positioned as a horror-hosted show à la Elvira. Armed with equally awful puns in “boils and ghouls” mold, the eponymous Uncle Sleazo (first-timer Jordan Hornstein, outfitted to be one foot too close to a schoolyard) intros three “movies.” These include a tiring werewolf tale in black and white, a one-note psychic romance and a sci-fi-tinged slice of body horror that, while slow, at least closes with a terrific gross-out visual.

All three segments share a core problem: They’re neither scary nor suspenseful; frankly, each exhibits weak plotting and dreadful pacing despite minimal running time. Serving as something of a saving grace, however, are the commercial breaks in between. This is where the jokes come in, from a cartoon about a Basket Case-esque vestigial twin to a musical with a talking, singing puke puppet.

Whether these inspired bits toss you a fake trailer for the movie Clown Cop or an ad for Dahmer’s Apartment Playset, the influence of Chris LaMartina’s WNUF Halloween Special on Cerruti (2020’s Freak) is apparent. I could go for a full feature of them. Now, whether these smatterings of humor belong sandwiched between stories we’re asked to accept at straight-face value depends on your tolerance for tonal whiplash.

To diminish their weaknesses, the three stories could stand to be more zippily paced, even if it brought Uncle Sleazo’s closer to that titular Hour. —Rod Lott

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