Horror

Revenge (1986)

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revengeFour years before Kevin Costner got Revenge, John Wayne’s second son got his. You wouldn’t know it from the title, but 1986’s Revenge is the sequel to the previous year’s Blood Cult, thought to be the first feature film made expressly for home video. Both chapters were shot on the cheap in Tulsa, Okla., by director Christopher Lewis, but rather commendably, he doesn’t settle for a simple rehash. Instead, he tries harder.

Whereas Blood Cult was an out-and-out slasher set partly at a sorority house, Revenge is a follow-up investigation of the murders two months later. Mike Hogan (Patrick Wayne, Beyond Atlantis) returns to town after his brother’s homicide by the sheriff’s daughter. His old farm neighbor, Gracie (Bennie Lee McGowan, reprising her stereotypical Okie-hick role in which “killed” is pronounced “kilt”), is pleased as punch at the reunion: “I ain’t seen you since you was knee-high to a grasshopper and sneakin’ in my watermelon patch!”

revenge1Herself a fresh widow thanks to that dadgurned there blood cult, Gracie joins Mike to take down them there sumsabitches. A few early scenes excepted, the slasher element is traded for a supernatural one à la Scanners, as members of the blood cult can choke a bitch and/or cause a cerebral hemorrhage without using any physical contact whatsoever. The switch in approach aids tremendously in letting Revenge stand on its own two feet.

That’s not the only change. Production values vastly increased (from Betacam to 16-mm film); they shelled out enough money to get Hollywood legend John Carradine in for a supporting role as an evil senator (redundant); and Lewis clearly exudes more confidence in moving the camera. Unlike the last time, Lewis penned the screenplay, resulting in humorous touches such as juxtaposing a girl’s leg being hacked outside against her friend slicing raw sausage for breakfast. For all the improvements, however, the pacing is slower and Revenge doesn’t taste as sweet. —Rod Lott

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Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Fortress 2: Re-Entry (2000)

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Fortress2A sequel to one of only three — maybe four, on the right day — good movies starring Christopher Lambert (and no, Highlander isn’t one of them), Fortress 2: Re-Entry really should be called Fortress 2: Re-Exit, right? After all, it’s the escape that’s the thing.

In the near future, giving birth is still a felony punishable by life sentences. John Henry Brennick (Lambert), having survived the first film, is now reunited with his family and living in the wilderness … until the bad guys find and arrest him.

Fortress21The futuristic prison fortress he’s taken to, however, looks totally unlike the sleek, state-of-the-art facility of the 1992 movie, presumably due to a low budget. Similarly, this sequel retains only a fraction of the original’s cleverness and wit — a trade-off I’d expect when you go from a director like Re-Animator’s Stuart Gordon to Geoff Murphy, the guy who helmed Young Guns II. Her Jackie Brown comeback apparently already over, Pam Grier has a senseless supporting role as the corporate owner of the prison.

The third act may be silly and convoluted, but there’s some decent airlock action, camera-equipped cockroaches and numerous shower scenes to compensate. Lambert hams it up as usual, although his voice hardly raises above a whisper. “Why’s he talk like that?” my wife asked.

“Because he’s French and he’s not a good actor,” I answered. I mean, the guy may have a grasp on the English language, but his palms are still greased with Vaseline. —Rod Lott

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Action

Invasion U.S.A. (1985)

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invasionusaTwelve True Facts about Invasion U.S.A.:

1. Inside Chuck Norris’ beard is another fist. This fist wrote the script for Invasion U.S.A.

2. In Invasion U.S.A., the USA is four square blocks of Miami.

3. Gristle Hardpecs plays a government-endorsed mercenary who collects information on his prey by driving around at night until he sees something.

4. Rostov, the lead bad guy played by professional heavy Richard Lynch (The Sword and the Sorcerer), is so terrified of Snap Kick-stache that he wakes up screaming. Lynch found motivation for his screams by remembering that he was filming Invasion U.S.A..

5. Groin Hardpull was in great physical pain during filming and had to wear a back brace, severely limiting his mobility. This is the only explanation for the movie’s marked lack of kicks and punches, instead relying solely on Groin’s charm and ability to hold a gun and point it at things.

6. The first time we see Mullet O’Smackdown, he’s bare-handedly wrangling an alligator. This is because great white sharks were out of season at the time.

invasionusa17. Many film directors pay homage to other directors in their films. When he started work on Invasion U.S.A., Joseph Zito (Red Scorpion) chose to pay homage to Albert Pyun.

8. Whiskers O’Houlihan’s mullet is of such rare quality, it originally was given top billing. Only union rules prevented this from happening.

9. There is a woman in Invasion U.S.A.. She serves no purpose.

10. Grimace Scabknuckle constantly walks around with his shirt unbuttoned and torso on display. This is a completely hetero thing to do.

11. Punch Facebeard’s plan to lure Lynch into the open results in many innocent people being killed. This is never remarked upon, because Facebeard is a hero.

12. Right now, somewhere in America, there is an NRA meeting showing Invasion U.S.A. as a documentary. —Corey Redekop

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Reading Material

Forgotten Horrors to the Nth Degree: Dispatches from a Collapsing Genre

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forgottennthOf the three collaborative volumes between Michael S. Price and John Wooley in the ongoing Forgotten Horrors series I’ve read thus far, Forgotten Horrors to the Nth Degree: Dispatches from a Collapsing Genre is the best.

It speaks directly to the film geek in me, saying, “Hey, read me, film geek.” It also is different from the others — Volume 6 just came out last month — in that instead of being a collection of reviews, it is a collection of columns that operate as both reviews and interviews. The contents are culled largely from the authors’ long-running, now-defunct, eponymous column in Fangoria magazine.

Roughly 40 films are examined in depth in such a manner, with Price-Wooley incorporating their opinions with the insights of at least one direct participant from the flick in question, no matter which side of the camera. The names include — but are by no means limited to — Donald Pleasence (Raw Meat), Rudy Ray Moore (Petey Wheatstraw), Ivan Reitman (Cannibal Girls), Chuck Connors (Tourist Trap), Marilyn Chambers (Rabid) and Jamie Lee Curtis (Terror Train).

Just about everyone seems thrilled to discuss the particular, peculiar CV entry in question, save for two examples: The Entity‘s Barbara Hershey and Barn of the Naked Dead director Alan Rudolph, who refuses to admit association with it, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Purposely, the pieces fall within the horror genre’s heyday, said by the authors to begin with H.G. Lewis’ invention of the gore picture with 1963’s Blood Feast and end with the shot-on-video Blood Cult, which changed everything in 1985 by being the first feature film expressly made for the home-video market.

Emblematic of its name, Nth Degree, the 304-page trade paperback ventures off its own beaten path to include plenty of extras, in the form of extended pieces on David F. Friedman, Larry Buchanan, Leo Fong and others. Comics great Stephen R. Bissette provides an “afterword” of capsule reviews of Vermont-set horror films, and hell, there’s even a multipage comic-book story that opens the volume.

My only complaints with the book are minor: an overuse of antiquated phrases such as “et. seq.” and an egregious use of some godawful Adobe Photoshop filter that noticeably mars so many of the photographs (thankfully, poster art escapes this mistreatment). Otherwise, Nth Degree is an infectious trip for the psychotronic-inclined; seat belts optional. —Rod Lott

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Action

Black Lightning (2009)

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blacklightningNot an obscure vehicle for the early African-American superhero of DC Comics, Black Lightning is an obscure movie about a vehicle — a super-powered car, and we would expect nothing less from producer Timur Bekmambetov, the Russian director of Wanted.

In Moscow, a poor, Peter Parker-esque student named Dima (Grigoriy Dobrygin) wishes he had the dough to snag some hot wheels so he could snag the hot girl (Ekaterina Vilkova) away from the rich classmate who downs Mentos like meth. The bad news is that the car his family gifts him for his birthday is a real clunker. The good news is that, thanks to crystals found in a soil sample from the moon or something (it doesn’t really matter), the car can fly.

blacklightning1It’s only during his job delivering flowers that Dima discovers this, when it suddenly goes all Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on him in order to avoid a collision. Soon, he learns how to operate it properly and becomes a crime fighter, using his rocket-boosted wheels to save a child from an apartment fire, thwart a purse thief and, hopefully, keep the greedy Kuptsov (Viktor Verzhbitskiy, Night Watch) from destroying the city with his diamond mining. We know Dima means business, because he dons a hoodie.

The more you defy gravity, the less impressive it becomes, which is to say that Black Lightning, like much of Bekmambetov’s filmography, doesn’t know when to quit. Initially, the film is a fun and spirited action-fantasy that can be enjoyed by young and old. By the time Chernaya Molniya (its Russkie title) passes the halfway point, the story has all but given up trying to keep from being overwhelmed by the effects — a valiant, but futile try.

Still, the ride is worth taking once. —Rod Lott

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