Comedy

Natural Born Pranksters (2016)

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NBPrankstersFor being Natural Born Pranksters, “professional idiots” Rowan Atwood, Dennis Roady and Vitaly Zdorovetskiy could stand for more training. Strictly from the basis of this, their first feature, the collective exploits of the popular YouTube rogues are not quite in line with their videos’ phenomenal viewing numbers.

The bits that make up this movie exhibit a gangliness in pacing, editing and sometimes even execution. Most segments either go on too long or call it quits before a true punch line can stick the landing; a few aren’t funny in the least. By contrast, your appreciation for the Jackass crew’s big-screen shenanigans will undergo an exponential increase.

NBPranksters1In a guest appearance, Jackass alum Dave Englund is tapped to do what he does best: Defecate on camera for the sake of a joke. In this case, his fecal matter serves as the “paint” for an abstract work of art on canvas to be raffled at a hoity-toity gallery opening. While making viewers grateful that the Smell-O-Vision gimmick failed to catch fire, this piece emerges as one of Pranksters’ better and more memorable ones, given that the target of snobbery deserves a good-natured poke. (That does not always hold true, especially when an earlier prank takes aim at a someone who doesn’t deserve the cruelty: a brand-new dad, whose mind appears to vacillate — before Atwood et al. reveal it’s just a joke, brah — between processing the life-shattering news foisted upon him and contemplating immediate suicide.)

Falling into the pro-Pranksters category are harmless hidden-camera premises of a campsite alien abduction and a gore-soaked human cannonball stunt gone awry. Respectively, citizens scared to the point of pants-wetting and witnessing sick humor on a grand scale are two elements of which the movie could use more. Less-effective antics include a faked mid-massage boner, a faked liquor store robbery and a faked death by truck-through-porta-potty. As far as franchise prospects go, this is a deeply flawed fair start. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Horror

The Funhouse Massacre (2015)

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funhousemassacreSix crazed murderers enter a popular Halloween-night haunt. Next to no one exits. And that, ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages, is what we call The Funhouse Massacre.

Led by the charismatic cult leader Uncle Manny (Jere Burns, Otis) and his dead-sexy paramour, the Harley Quinn-styled Dollface (model Candice De Visser, making a memorable and assured screen debut), this very dirty half-dozen of Statesville Mental Hospital escapees is drawn to the bloody attraction because its various themed rooms depict the devious crimes that got them committed in the first place.

funhousemassacre1For example, Animal the Cannibal (E.E. Bell, Herbie Fully Loaded) is a chef who cooks with human ingredients; Dr. Suave (Sebastian Siegel, Risk for Honor) specializes in dentistry that flies in the face of the Hippocratic oath; the Taxidermist (Clint Howard, because duh) is “sew” good with skin, but we’re not talking animals; and Rocco the Clown (Mars Crain, Hancock) has a penchant for … well, as the old saying goes, if you can’t put a smile on their face, tear off the face.

Because the haunt is inspired by the loons’ infamous handiwork, they fit right in. A running joke of the film by Andy Palmer (Alien Strain) is that the crowds think them to be part of the plan. (Okay, so it’s not a good running joke.) It’s only after grisly slayings occur among their group that visitors take notice, that amusement is usurped by bemusement.

Funhouse’s flavoring? The 1980s — very, very ’80s. If you’re not going to be original, there are worse things from which to take inspiration. In his first feature as a screenwriter, The Hungover Games actor Ben Begley (who also fills the comic-relief role of the genre’s requisite bumbling deputy) clearly displays a soft spot for that era’s horror icons à la Freddy Krueger — not for nothing does Robert Englund cameo in the prologue — and in particular their more humor-driven misadventures, where the metaphorical stakes mattered little compared to the physical stakes … or any implement that was sharp, serrated and/or pointed. The balance between this Massacre’s light tone and heavy bloodletting works pretty well. Its effervescence just runs out of bubbles before Palmer and pals officially are done. —Rod Lott

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Action

Fists of Steel (1991)

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fistsofsteelImagine if Jean-Claude Van Damme made Bloodsport and then never got to topline another action film. You’ve just envisioned a sad world, I know, and yet that is the reality for world-champion boxer Carlos Palomino and his Fists of Steel. Having essayed the roles of Truck Driver, First Cuban and Bandit #1 in, respectively, Silent Night, Deadly Night III; It’s Alive III and Dance of the Dwarfs, the welterweight champ earned his shot at action-hero glory in the Stallone/Schwarzenegger era.

Written, produced and directed by Jerry Schafer (whose only other credit is 1970’s obscure hippie drama, Like It Is), the film plays directly to its hopeful star’s strengths, in that he plays a guy named Carlos. From a logo that belongs on a locker mirror won at the state fair to a theme song rivaling “You Got the Touch” in the department of he-men ballads, everything about Fists of Steel screams the 1980s. Although the indie was released in 1991, I suspect its delay represents a case of shelf-sitting while awaiting a buyer, because a portrait of President Ronald Reagan smiles from the wood-paneled wall of the single room serving as CIA headquarters.

fistsofsteel1The CIA needs an agent “outside the government” to bring down Shogi (Henry Silva, Above the Law), “an expert in three areas of terrorism: killing, kidnapping and ambush.” In fact, Shogi — who theme-dresses like a baseball player and a dentist when torturing victims — ordered the death of Carlos’ father via truck running over his head, thus making a revenge-salivating Carlos the agency’s ideal recruit.

The only problem is that Shogi is known to be in Hawaii, says Agent George (Sam Melville, Twice Dead), which may be problematic for Carlos in source utilization. Carlos asks George if Hawaii has any Mexican restaurants, to which George responds in the affirmative.

“Then I have sources,” says Carlos, a Vietnam vet who is capital-D down for undertaking the mission, and under the code name of Conquistador at that: “He’s gonna die slow. And mean. And hard.”

But shit won’t be easy; Shogi has a secret weapon in the hourglass form of a KGB honey (Marianne Marks, Russ Meyer’s Up!) whose Russian accent is so brick-thick, you half-anticipate hearing the phrase “moose and squirrel” emerge from her ruby-red mouth. Also working their way into the plot: an itching henchman named Itchy, a butt-ugly lounge singer, a round of bikini croquet and two twists I dare not spoil, even if the first is as obvious as Carlos’ mustache is bountiful.

The way Fists of Steel ends (read: abruptly, bordering on accidentally) leaves as many questions unanswered as it does near-split ribs from prolonged laughter. Although a talented fighter, Palomino is no actor — not that lack of thespian skills ever stopped Van Damme — and there would be no further adventures of Conquistador. But I would gladly pay to see them. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Kitchen Sink

Director’s Commentary: Terror of Frankenstein (2015)

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WTFDCterrorfrankNo matter the budget or number of cooks, film shoots are a bitch. Think of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo or Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Odds are you haven’t thought of 1977’s Terror of Frankenstein, but oh, how you should. The Swedish/Irish co-production proved to be a highly peculiar farrago, with one of the actors murdering several fellow cast members!

Now, decades later, all is revealed by director Gavin Merrill and screenwriter David Falks — always heard, never seen — through a DVD commentary track, of all things. To hear it is to witness a mind-boggling, historical record of an unfortunate nexus of cinema and crime, talent and tragedy.

DCterrorfrank1Except that it never happened; Director’s Commentary: Terror of Frankenstein is bogus. Given that premise, you can be forgiven if you assume the cheap-looking film at its center to be fake as well — otherwise, I’d be a hypocrite — but Terror of Frankenstein is the real deal, albeit rightfully obscure. The merry pranksters behind this put-on, director Tim Kirk and producer Rodney Ascher (collaborators on Ascher’s Room 237 documentary), have taken great pains to preserve the facade, including starting this meta project with the familiar FBI warning of home media, tracking issues and a shoddy menu our omniscient viewer navigates, taking a gander at the special features’ two-bit slideshow before selecting the filmmakers’ commentary.

From then on, speaking for the entirety are the opportunistic Merrill (Clu Gulager, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge) and irascible Falks (Zack Norman, Cadillac Man). At first, we’re in the dark that the ’77 Terror has a tortured backstory, but it doesn’t take long for their conversation to grow contentious, with an uncomfortable Falks blaming Merrill for the deaths, as well as exploiting them for financial gain. Even if Gulager and Norman can’t quite carry the illusion to total legitimacy, they hook you from the start and are a hoot to hear — especially Norman’s sour-puss portrayal of the guilt-stricken scribe. As information is doled out in small chunks, the story builds and builds toward a payoff that Kirk can’t help but fumble because of Commentary’s confining structure. However anticlimactic, Kirk’s unique experiment is as devious as Victor Frankenstein’s in the film within the film. —Rod Lott

Sci-Fi & Fantasy

R.O.T.O.R. (1987)

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rotorR.O.T.O.R. opens with a title card that in part reads, “Our objective was to build the perfect cop of the future … but, something went terribly wrong.” There is no establishing who “our” is, so one could choose to take it — and I do — as a half-hearted apology from the filmmakers for the movie, for something indeed did go terribly wrong: It was made.

Its poster art may be a blatant horizontal flip of Mad Max, but the sci-fi action motion pictures that R.O.T.O.R. would not exist without are RoboCop and The Terminator. Famously, RoboCop was set in Detroit, yet lensed in Dallas, and R.O.T.O.R. unspools in a way that suggest its makers saw “them Hollywood folk” shooting around Big D and thought, “Well, heckfire, I can do that!” Technically, they did; creatively, they didn’t.

The acronym of the title stands for Robotic Officer Tactical Operation Research — a legally in-the-clear way of saying “robot cop with a porn ’stache.” Heading up this division is police Capt. Barrett Coldyron (Richard Gesswein), a real shit-kicker type of Texan who lives on a farm and smashes the stereotype that robotics experts can’t look like the guy who runs the mechanical bull at establishments where patrons are encouraged to let their peanut shells fall to the floor. English does not appear to come easily to Coldyron, but that could be because Gesswein’s entire performance was dubbed by someone else.

rotor1What Coldyron (pronounced “cold iron”) and his team have assembled is not a finished model, but a flawed prototype that is accidentally jolted into action and unleashed upon the populace when the department’s jive-talkin’, sex-harrassin’ Indian janitor named Shoe Boogie (“Once you go red, you never get out of bed”) drops his switchblade comb into the educated white people’s fancy plug-in machines. A large-scale tragedy set in motion by a hair detangler — that’s a cinematic first, right? I’d like to credit the actor playing Shoe Boogie for his part in history, but he is (wisely) uncredited.

A quick aside: What the hell kind of name — for an Indian or anyone — is Shoe Boogie? R.O.T.O.R. scribe Budd Lewis (the Robert Z’Dar vehicle Dragonfight) appears to be handicapped in that arena, given other characters’ names of Houghtaling, Moulie, Mokie, Buglar, Grotes, Glorioso, Kipster and Statum. Are those Texans or elves and sorcerers from a fantasy epic I’m doomed to loathe?

rotor2Back to a project I already do: Rather than cure Dallas of its problem with rapists and robbers, the on-the-loose R.O.T.O.R. (played by three people, including Ticks stuntman Brad Overturf) contributes to it by murdering innocent civilians — “like a chainsaw set on frappé,” quips Coldyron. Luckily, R.O.T.O.R. has a Kryptonite: car horns!

Eventually, Coldyron gets an assist from scientist Dr. Steele (Jayne Smith, Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders), who resembles Tyne Daly as an American Gladiator. I hope I’m not spoiling anything by saying the last shot teases the steroidal-looking, skunk-mulleted Steele as the cyborg at the center of R.O.T.O.R. II. If you own lucky stars, thank them that a sequel never came into existence, because one feature outing from Cullen Blaine was pollution enough. For his single, ill-fated foray into live-action, the animation director brought the imagination, action and suspense from all those episodes of The Get Along Gang. In other words, it is S.H.I.T. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

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