Action

Blade (1998)

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bladeEight reasons why Blade is all 10 kinds of hot awesomesauce.

1. It was a mash-up before mash-ups were popular: Shaft plus Dracula plus any number of martial arts films. Without Blade, we’d never have had Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. You think about that.

2. It made a franchise out of a C-list comic-book character, giving us all hope that watchable Ghost Rider films might yet be possible.

3. It played absolutely to Wesley Snipes’ strengths. A shame he later became trapped behind the badass façade, but Blade reminds us of the talent hidden in all the crappy DVD movies since.

4. All due love to The Matrix, but Blade beat it to the leather-clad, sunglasses-wearing, martial arts ass-kicking genre by a good year.

5. It was a financial success, leading Marvel Comics to consider putting money and talent behind later films rather than going the Albert Pyun route (that’s a Captain America reference, the 1990 version, which firmly sits atop the pantheon of so-bad-it’s-really-bad films).

blade16. N’Bushe Wright, the female lead, should have been bigger after this. So good, perfect for the role.

7. It’s blessedly R-rated, giving us plenty of blood and severed limbs, and it was made early enough in the computer era to forgive it its FX faults, rather than condemn it for some unimpressive CGI blood (as contrast, see Blood: The Last Vampire for how bad CGI bloodletting can get, because there’s no other reason to watch it).

8. Stephen Dorff plays snarky suckhead quite well; Kris Kristofferson redefines the concept of “grizzled”; Udo Keir’s customary overacting plays perfectly in the setting; and Donal Logue finally came into his own as a fun-loving vampire.

9. Can I be the only one praying for a crossover with the current Marvel movie universe? Blade/Spider-Man? Blade/Wolverine? Blade/Thor? Please?

10. Blade led to Blade II, which finally gave director Guillermo del Toro a commercially successful display of his talents. Without Blade, no Blade II; without Blade II, no Hellboy or Pan’s Labyrinth. Therefore, without Blade, no reason to live. —Corey Redekop

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Horror

Evilspeak (1981)

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evilspeakPoor, picked-upon Pvt. Coopersmith unleashes some serious satanic comeuppance on his classmates in Evilspeak, a computer-aided variation on Brian De Palma’s classic Carrie. Orphaned after his parents’ death in an auto accident, Coopersmith (Clint Howard, Ice Cream Man) is the opposite of Big Man on Campus at the military academy where he is so despised by his soccer teammates that the coach actually insinuates they take him out so they could have a chance at winning a game for once.

A loser for life, Coopersmith finds salvation in the form of a dusty tome full of black-magic rituals he seeks to conduct in the comfort of his own dormitory basement. With the help of a personal computer one notch above the power of a Radio Shack TRS-80, he summons the vengeful spirit of Estaban (Richard Moll, aka Bull from TV’s Night Court), not to mention demonic, man-eating pigs. Oink!

evilspeak1The directorial debut of Hyenas‘ Eric Weston, Evilspeak moves surprisingly slow for an exploitation film, but Howard keeps its head above water. His nervous, gosh-oh-golly-gee-whiz demeanor hardly makes for a note-perfect performance, but he’s so believable as the used-and-abused nerd that an introverted viewer really will feel for the guy — both the character and the actor. Evilspeak‘s cult following seems to be a case of overstatement — after all, better possession pictures exist from the VHS era — but we’ll chalk its popularity up to the relatability of the social outcast/underdog. —Rod Lott

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Horror

Final Exam (1981)

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finalexamThe bad news: At March College, two students have been murdered, including the first-string quarterback. The good news: At rival Lanier College, a fraternity guy realizes, “We might be able to take them this year” in football. The bad news: The killer then makes his way to Lanier.

The worst news: Final Exam is a failed attempt at cashing in on the slasher wake in the wake of Halloween and Friday the 13th. Because the similar campus chiller Graduation Day already claimed the calendar name, writer/director Jimmy Huston (My Best Friend Is a Vampire) goes with an event bursting with double entendre. The wit ends with that title.

finalexam1Lanier is an institution of hair-helmeted young people, some of whose lives are cut short by the blade of a silent hulk (Timothy A. Raynor, putting in overtime as the film’s fight coordinator) with no apparent motive. To be consistent with that act of lazy storytelling, Huston gives his characters little semblance of characterization. Viewers will be unable to tell who the lead is, simply because none exists.

Although Final Exam may be the only slasher to depict an act of terrorism as a Greek-system prank, the movie redefines routine, standing at the head of the class only to be ridiculed as the worst of its kind. —Rod Lott

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Sci-Fi & Fantasy

I, Frankenstein (2014)

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ifrankensteinI, Frankenstein. This, garbage.

Based on a reasonably obscure comic book, I, Frankenstein feels more as if its true origins lie in the bleeps and blips of a video game. At one point among a seemingly endless number of fight scenes, our stitched-together hero makes a broad leap over a car and punches a gargoyle on his way down — a slow-motion move that sophomore director Stuart Beattie (better-known as the screenwriter of Collateral and 30 Days of Night) commits to pixels in a left-to-right pan. All that’s missing is a life/health counter at the screen’s fringes.

ifrankenstein1The classic Frankenstein story dreamt by Mary Shelley is dispensed within mere minutes in order to bring the mad doctor’s reanimated creation into the 21st steampunk century. Here named Adam, the handsomely scarred monster (Aaron Eckhart, The Dark Knight‘s Two-Face) joins the fight against Satan’s legion of demons, which conveniently number 666.

They snarl from behind Halloween masks; he finishes them off with the panache of a skilled martial artist. Those longing to see Frankenstein’s monster basically plopped into Kate Beckinsale’s part in the Underworld series — with which the film shares producers — may delight amid all the blue-tinted flash. But even that’s not likely, as I, Frankenstein is numbing, best summed up by the subtitle your Blu-ray player will repeat often if the feature is activated: “METAL CLANGING CONTINUES.”

Sadly, Eckhart in a Goodwill-donated robe is not the same as Beckinsale in black leather pants. Speaking of the ladies, Adam just wants to be built a mate. I, Bride of I, Frankenstein, anyone? Hope not. —Rod Lott

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Thriller

Grand Piano (2013)

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grandpianoGrand Piano is the best Brian De Palma work in this millennium. It just happens to be directed by Spain’s Eugenio Mira.

Virtuoso pianist Tom Selznick (Elijah Wood, 2012’s Maniac remake) has just begun tinkling the ivories at a classical concert when he notices a threatening note scrawled on his sheet music: Do what he’s told, or die. Because the message is written in red capital letters, Tom pays attention. Well, that, and because whoever left it has Tom’s fashion-model wife (Kerry Bishé, Red State) in his gun sights.

grandpiano1The culprit is Clem (John Cusack, The Raven), mostly heard and not seen. He communicates via earpiece, barking do-or-die orders at Tom throughout the event, including a demand to perform an über-difficult piece on which the pianist very publicly choked a few years prior. Mira gets Tom off the bench as the concert proceeds, which is ludicrous, yet Grand Piano embraces and thrives upon just that. As preposterous as it is pleasurable, the high-concept howler achieves an operatic quality of disbelief — all the better to ape De Palma’s swipes, split screens and stabbings. For fans of impossible suspense, it hits just the right note. —Rod Lott

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